In the early 1980s, I spent four years as a Research Fellow in the Participation Research Unit of Manchester Business School. Over a three year period, I interviewed scores of senior executives, systems designers, clerks, journalists, engineers, process workers, mail-order "pickers" and middle managers on their experiences in LONG-TERM processes of participative systems change. During the 1970s, the idea of industrial and community "participation" had been all the rage. In that decade I had designed and implemented many warmly-welcomed but sadly SHORT-LIVED "participation exercises" for city councils and health authorities in the UK. What made LONG TERM PARTICIPATION possible in teh firms we were studying?
It was not until I had almost finished reviewing the transcripts of my research interviews that I realised that the research project was producing far more insights about LEADERSHIP than it was about PARTICIPATION, as such. That insight came from reading Paulo Freire's first book, "PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED". Freire states categorically that MONOLOGUES OPPRESS US and DIALOGUES LIBERATE US. The executives i interviewed were all committed to using open-ended dialogical processes of participation as a way of LIBERATING the potential of the people they led, to constantly improve the performance of the systems in their organisations.
In effect, the SUSTAINED application of processes of participation could not be separated from the circumstances, the history, the values of the people at managerial level of the firm.
This led to the conclusion that the concept of ‘Participation’ only takes on relevance and meaning when it is one of the essential practices that Liberating Leaders employ in order to improve operational effectiveness through processes of constant operational improvement of their human and technical systems.
Consequently, in discussing the many available Participative Methodologies elsewhere in this Forum - Charrettes, ORAKEL, Holistic Management, Open Space, Future Search, etc - it must be clear that these processes only have a long-term effect on the performance and culture of any kind of organsation, if they are part of the repertoire of leaders with a value system that places a high priority on liberating the system-improvement potential of every individual and group that they lead.
