Complex Thought, Simple Talk

It is argued that to understand change in organizations better, we need to move away from a mechanistic imagery to embrace an ecological imagery, inspired by complexity thinking. An ecological imagery better reflects our common experience of change in organizations, especially if due attention is given to language. Drawing on Bakhtin and Wittgenstein, this chapter pays particular attention to dialogicality as a process of bringing about change from “within.” It describes the importance of moments of common reference created between interlocutors, which join individuals as co-participants in a situation and give their interactions a common orientation. Put simply, co-participants in a dialogue form both transitory understandings of where the discussion has got to so far and certain anticipations as to where it might go next. The change that may be brought about though re-orientation by simple, ordinary language is illustrated with a dialogue between a researcher and an IT manager.