Sometimes a series of stimulating reviews prompts me to buy a book I would not normally think of reading.
One recent example is Beechcombings: The Narratives of Trees, by Richard Mabey (Chatto and Windus 2007). The book is what it says on the cover, an exploration of trees and woodlands with a particular focus on the beech tree.
Its resonance with the work and thinking of the Institute is remarkable.
Mabey notes that when faced with an ancient tree people generally ask “when was it planted?”; the notion that trees can “plant” themselves seemingly inconceivable.
He explores the importance of boundaries, quoting a Victorian writer G E Briscoe Eyre who wrote: “The slopes that connect the moorland with the timbered lowland partake of the vegetation of both, and form a debatable land (Mabey’s emphasis) between them, where descending tongues of heath interpenetrate the advancing wedges of rough woodland.”
That immediately prompted me to think about D W Winnicott’s concept of potential space.
Mabey also explores notions of beauty and complexity. He writes:”I’m fascinated by this apparent congruence between the judgement of aesthetic philosophers and the way scientists describe and categorise natural landscapes. Are there deeper roots to our emotional responses to the visual….? What resonances, for example, do ‘picturesque’ trees call up? …. Where did the notion that they were picturesquely beautiful emerge from? What deep-rooted associations do trees conjure up? Are they some kind of portal to understanding the deep relationship between wildness and time?”
One thing the reviews did not alert me to were a number of links links between beechcombing and psychodynamics.
Mabey notes that one famous botanist Sir Arthur Tansley devoted four years of his life to psychoanalysis. While another, George Peterken, was also interested in the work of Freud and discovered the following quote from his Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis:
“The creation of the mental domain of phantasy has a complete counterpart in the establishment of ‘reservations’ and ‘nature parks’ in places where the inroads of agriculture, traffic or industry threaten to change the original face of the earth into something unrecognisable. The reservation is to maintain the old condition of things which has been regretfully sacrificed to necessity everywhere else…The mental realm of phantasy is also such a reservation from the encroaches of reality.”
A fertile read.
Phil Swann
Monday 3 March 2008
Friday 1 February 2008
Mayoral mauling
Criticism of London Mayor Ken Livingston has once again raised questions about the case for directly elected mayors in UK local government.
The London Evening Standard has been running a long-standing campaign against Livingston. But the recent coverage has had an added piquancy because it was prompted by a television programme, for the Channel 4 Dispatches series, fronted by the political editor of the leftwing New Statesman Martin Bright.
The essence of the criticism was summed up by Livingston himself when he acknowledged in a BBC interview that the London mayoralty had in effect become a personal fiefdom.
In local government circles this contretemps has focussed attention on the mechanisms through which directly elected mayors are held to account. The Local Government Chronicle pointed to the way in which the New York City Council holds that city’s mayor to account as a potential model, compared with the supposedly toothless London Assembly.
Yet at the same time as the English media was indulging in a Ken-fest, The New York Times was running an expose of Rudi Giuliani’s record as mayor. Under the headline “In matters big and small, crossing Giuliani had price” the opening paragraph read: “Rudolph W Giuliani likens himself to a boxer who never takes a punch without swinging back. As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him.”
Does that sound familiar?
It may well be that these similarities say something about the personalities of the two mayors and about what it takes to successfully stand for election to high profile big city posts such as these.
But maybe the similarities should also prompt us to think more systemically about the culture of city government, the pressures that city leaders face, and the dynamics between them, the organisations they lead, the communities they serve and the political parties they are members of and oppose.
One thing is for sure: this is more than coincidence.
Phil Swann
The London Evening Standard has been running a long-standing campaign against Livingston. But the recent coverage has had an added piquancy because it was prompted by a television programme, for the Channel 4 Dispatches series, fronted by the political editor of the leftwing New Statesman Martin Bright.
The essence of the criticism was summed up by Livingston himself when he acknowledged in a BBC interview that the London mayoralty had in effect become a personal fiefdom.
In local government circles this contretemps has focussed attention on the mechanisms through which directly elected mayors are held to account. The Local Government Chronicle pointed to the way in which the New York City Council holds that city’s mayor to account as a potential model, compared with the supposedly toothless London Assembly.
Yet at the same time as the English media was indulging in a Ken-fest, The New York Times was running an expose of Rudi Giuliani’s record as mayor. Under the headline “In matters big and small, crossing Giuliani had price” the opening paragraph read: “Rudolph W Giuliani likens himself to a boxer who never takes a punch without swinging back. As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him.”
Does that sound familiar?
It may well be that these similarities say something about the personalities of the two mayors and about what it takes to successfully stand for election to high profile big city posts such as these.
But maybe the similarities should also prompt us to think more systemically about the culture of city government, the pressures that city leaders face, and the dynamics between them, the organisations they lead, the communities they serve and the political parties they are members of and oppose.
One thing is for sure: this is more than coincidence.
Phil Swann
Wednesday 23 January 2008
Telling stories
The Guardian’s recent series of booklets on the Greek myths was delightful. Definitely a set to keep.
The booklets prompted me to think about the role that stories can play in helping us to understand society, particularly stories with the depth of the Greek myths and many of Shakespeare’s plays.
The centrality of the tragedy of Oedipus in psychoanalytic thinking stands out. But I am also reminded of the way Mark Stein, an academic at Imperial College, uses the story of Cain and Abel in his work on envy and defences against anxiety.
Stories can also be useful in consultancy interventions, as a way of getting groups of people to talk about the issues they face. They can be used to elicit valuable insights.
The power of stories struck me while listening to the recent performance at the Barbican of Judith Weir’s The Vanishing Bridegroom. The first act, The Inheritance, is about the death of a man whose legacy is found to be missing. One of his sons must have stolen it, and the question is, which one?
A doctor pursues the question by telling a story of a woman, prevented from marrying her lover and made to marry a richer man. From the reactions to the story of the three sons it is clear who stole the inheritance.
Stories, the telling of them, interpretations of them and reactions to them can be very revealing.
Phil Swann
The booklets prompted me to think about the role that stories can play in helping us to understand society, particularly stories with the depth of the Greek myths and many of Shakespeare’s plays.
The centrality of the tragedy of Oedipus in psychoanalytic thinking stands out. But I am also reminded of the way Mark Stein, an academic at Imperial College, uses the story of Cain and Abel in his work on envy and defences against anxiety.
Stories can also be useful in consultancy interventions, as a way of getting groups of people to talk about the issues they face. They can be used to elicit valuable insights.
The power of stories struck me while listening to the recent performance at the Barbican of Judith Weir’s The Vanishing Bridegroom. The first act, The Inheritance, is about the death of a man whose legacy is found to be missing. One of his sons must have stolen it, and the question is, which one?
A doctor pursues the question by telling a story of a woman, prevented from marrying her lover and made to marry a richer man. From the reactions to the story of the three sons it is clear who stole the inheritance.
Stories, the telling of them, interpretations of them and reactions to them can be very revealing.
Phil Swann
Monday 3 December 2007
Enduring awards
The sense of déjà vu struck as soon as I crossed the threshold. Grosvenor House: the women in posh frocks and the men in DJs.
In a previous, local government, life I was a regular attender of awards ceremonies, sometimes even in the exalted status as a judge. Mercifully such things feature less in my life as director of the Institute. It can only have been withdrawal symptoms which led me to accept an invitation to the Time Higher Education Supplement’s awards ceremony.
For the first half hour it could have been a local government awards event; or, I suspect, a gathering of cutting edge kitchen designers or accountants. As a massive group hug these things probably do serve a useful purpose. They are certainly financially remunerative for the organisers. But as a way of disseminating good practice they are, I suspect, a faux diamond encrusted sledge hammer.
But this ceremony was different. Given the nature of its readership, local government always had to buy in a humorous host. Higher education has its own home grown jester in the inimitable Laurie Taylor. There was also a charity collection, suggesting that academics have more of a conscience than council officers.
But what struck me most was the work that was celebrated. Science and medicine dominated: the Birmingham University School of Medicine; a prediction of labour onset device (not political science I assure you); the measurement of gamma ray bursts; the development of new bone graft material.
There was an award for an intriguing piece of political history – Lloyd George and Churchil: rivals for greatness. And the establishment of a new Centre for Reasoning (at Kent University) was recognised.
But overall social science had a very low profile. I cannot decide whether that is because of a mature aversion to Grosvenor House, a lack of pride, a bias among the judges, or because it didn’t deserve any prizes.
Phil Swann
In a previous, local government, life I was a regular attender of awards ceremonies, sometimes even in the exalted status as a judge. Mercifully such things feature less in my life as director of the Institute. It can only have been withdrawal symptoms which led me to accept an invitation to the Time Higher Education Supplement’s awards ceremony.
For the first half hour it could have been a local government awards event; or, I suspect, a gathering of cutting edge kitchen designers or accountants. As a massive group hug these things probably do serve a useful purpose. They are certainly financially remunerative for the organisers. But as a way of disseminating good practice they are, I suspect, a faux diamond encrusted sledge hammer.
But this ceremony was different. Given the nature of its readership, local government always had to buy in a humorous host. Higher education has its own home grown jester in the inimitable Laurie Taylor. There was also a charity collection, suggesting that academics have more of a conscience than council officers.
But what struck me most was the work that was celebrated. Science and medicine dominated: the Birmingham University School of Medicine; a prediction of labour onset device (not political science I assure you); the measurement of gamma ray bursts; the development of new bone graft material.
There was an award for an intriguing piece of political history – Lloyd George and Churchil: rivals for greatness. And the establishment of a new Centre for Reasoning (at Kent University) was recognised.
But overall social science had a very low profile. I cannot decide whether that is because of a mature aversion to Grosvenor House, a lack of pride, a bias among the judges, or because it didn’t deserve any prizes.
Phil Swann
Monday 26 November 2007
The cost of neglecting the dynamics
Whatever further emerges about the chain of events that led to the loss of the financial records of 25 million citizens, one thing is clear. An important feature of the context in which this monumental failure occurred is the recent merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise to form HM Revenue and Customs.
Red top tabloid sensationalism and Daily Mail hectoring aside, it is evident that there is still unfinished business relating to the merger of these two land-standing and in their own ways august institutions. Unresolved inter-organisational dynamics will have played their part in creating the conditions in which the actions which led to loss of such sensitive material could have occured.
Organisational dynamics have also been identified as a critical factor behind the failure of Metronet, the organisation responsible for the maintenance and renewal of a large part of the London Underground.
Metronet is in effect a consortium. Its shareholders consist of Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, EDF Energy, and Thames Water. One senior player involved in this saga attributes the company’s collapse to the fact that it was never clear who was in charge – the consortium was a leaderless group.
Relations between organisations lie at the heart of the other continuing financial drama – Northern Rock. The clunkiness of the response to the bank’s financial meltdown highlighted serious weaknesses in the relationships between the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority.
A consortium is almost certainly necessary to tackle a job as big as the renewal of the tube. The decision to merge the revenue and customs may well have been a sound one. And the creation of the FSA may well prove to have been a good thing. But in all three cases insufficient attention has been paid to intra and inter-organisational dynamics.
The impetus to drive change rapidly is a powerful one. But the millions of people whose bank details have been lost, who fear for their savings or who rely on the tube to get to work may wish that more time had been taken to deal with underlying cultural and organisational issues.
Red top tabloid sensationalism and Daily Mail hectoring aside, it is evident that there is still unfinished business relating to the merger of these two land-standing and in their own ways august institutions. Unresolved inter-organisational dynamics will have played their part in creating the conditions in which the actions which led to loss of such sensitive material could have occured.
Organisational dynamics have also been identified as a critical factor behind the failure of Metronet, the organisation responsible for the maintenance and renewal of a large part of the London Underground.
Metronet is in effect a consortium. Its shareholders consist of Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, EDF Energy, and Thames Water. One senior player involved in this saga attributes the company’s collapse to the fact that it was never clear who was in charge – the consortium was a leaderless group.
Relations between organisations lie at the heart of the other continuing financial drama – Northern Rock. The clunkiness of the response to the bank’s financial meltdown highlighted serious weaknesses in the relationships between the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority.
A consortium is almost certainly necessary to tackle a job as big as the renewal of the tube. The decision to merge the revenue and customs may well have been a sound one. And the creation of the FSA may well prove to have been a good thing. But in all three cases insufficient attention has been paid to intra and inter-organisational dynamics.
The impetus to drive change rapidly is a powerful one. But the millions of people whose bank details have been lost, who fear for their savings or who rely on the tube to get to work may wish that more time had been taken to deal with underlying cultural and organisational issues.
Friday 26 October 2007
Playing with engagement?
A seminar with a group of neighbourhood managers on the same day that Prime Minister Gordon Brown returned to the subject of constitutional reform prompts some reflections on how we learn – or not - from policy initiatives in this country.
Neighbourhood Management Pathfinders are a government initiative, the first round of which are nearing the end of their Whitehall-funded pathfinder status. A major national evaluation of them is underway.
Director, Tavistock Institute
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