A change manifesto
The righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. This is very significant because almost every problem confronting our society is a result of the fact that our public policy makers are doing the wrong things and are trying to do them righter.
Russell Ackoff
Jon at edufire expands on this for education calling on Peter Drucker's distinction on management (”doing things right”) and leadership (”doing the right things”).
Purposing becomes incredibly important under such guidance. In considering change and the integration of computer and communication technologies into a youth counselling centre, this moves the question from is this a good or bad thing, to what is our intent and how best do we get there.
With my doctoral studies, I'm looking at the relationship between how people think about change and what they do to enact it. My recall of my mess of data suggests glimmers of such thinking, am off to immerse myself in it further ...hopefully i wont drown...100s of pages, hours of audiofiles...
Does help to revisit the focus b4 i get too bogged down :)
Alisa-
ReplyDeleteSounds like an interesting dissertation topic.
In your desire to focus things as well as mention them here, how about a 1 paragraph overview of your work (Who or what will you research to learn what, and how and where will you do this?)?
Always nice to get some more new ideas . . .
Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey, i appreciate your interest, but rather than abbreviating further (today) here's a summation as accepted in my ethics application.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the relationship between how people think about change and what they do to enact it? This question is explored with reference to changing counselling practices where interpersonal interactions are increasingly mediated through
computer and communication technologies.
Actor-network theory (ANT) has been chosen as a methodology as it lends itself to describing new practices particularly where practices change quickly. ANT provides a means of telling technosocial stories of "how the social and the
technical mutually constitute each other". In this instance the sociotechnical story is about how counselling is both shaped by the technologies employed, as well as shaping those involved.
The technologies this research focuses on involves the integration of mobile phones for txt-counselling, Internet message board postings to a counselling website and email counselling. The site for this research is a youth counselling
organisation, Youthline Auckland Charitable Trust.
The method for eliciting technosocial stories includes journaling, interviews, non-participant observations, document and artefact analysis. In this study the research occurs over the course of twelve months. Articulating how people respond to change, and what people do to enact change,
supports reflexive practice. A better understanding of change may add to a deeper understanding of realities of practice, providing a picture of practice that can explain occurrences that may be relevant to others. Giving voice to the multiplicity of influences and complexity shaping practice, provides an opportunity for discerning that things could also have been different. In this way, the study contributes to a critical social stream through which counselling may be actively constructed rather than contained or constrained by default.