Methodologies for practice research: approaches for professional doctorates

away from the machine metaphor. Both have reification at their heart. How many times do we hear ‘it’s not the people it’s the system’? More radical thinkers, including Stacey, are referenced without exploration. Stacey’s idea that organising is a complex responsive process of gesture and response through which power is mediated and negotiated is challenging but also hopeful. If organisational life is relational, conversational, then that must be the focus of our practice. Because the next conversation I have might make a difference. Faithful and thorough to the end, John offers us a potential future for OD by including a draft code of practice. If this is his way of passing the baton then he has done himself, and his colleagues, justice. I wonder what we will do with the baton?