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The Take Charge Approach to Leadership - Archive - O&M Connections Newsletter - Antioch University New England

Table of Contents	Spring 2006, Issue 1

Bill Griffith
Professor of
Interdisciplinary Studies

The Importance of Cognitive Development in Organizational Development and Knowledge Management

In the latter part of the 19th century, there was a managerial revolution enabled by then new office technologies. This revolution eventually gave birth to so-called “modern” managerial techniques and resulted in the engineering-based “scientific management” that dominated the bulk of the 20th century. Now, we are in the midst of another managerial revolution, precipitated by multiple changes and events, not the least of which are the Internet and the World Wide Web. Time and space have shrunk. Things are no longer “complicated”, i.e., intricately combined, but rather, “complex”, i.e., intricately interwoven and mutually dependent.

During the past five decades, we have experienced the computer revolution and then the information revolution. We have engaged in Deming’s and Juran’s Total Quality Management. We have used Champy’s and Hammer’s sledgehammer (pun intended) of reengineering to flatten management structures, reduce bureaucracy, and replace paper pushing with its sometimes more daunting electronic forms. Now we are told we are in the age of intellectual capital and knowledge management.

As executives, managers, entrepreneurs, and knowledge workers, we are being asked to build and change organizations in “Internet Time” - to compress and accelerate the change and development processes. This requires, among other attributes, commitment and determination, tolerance of risk, ambiguity, and uncertainty, creativity, self-reliance, and adaptability. There are more attributes but these alone constitute a challenging and ideal list.

This leads me to invite managers and researchers to attend to the individual information processor involved in managerial decision making, especially as it relates to organizational change and development. Historically, management education has addressed learning style, thinking style, personality style, or leadership style, as opposed to the sophistication with which managers organize their thinking. Of course, style and preference models are valuable, if applied appropriately, but are complements to, not substitutes for, models of cognitive development. Focus on the application of cognitive development models in an organizational context, for example, looking at the differences between concrete, logical thinking and systematic, abstract thinking, is, in my opinion, at an early stage of development. Rarely does the conversation turn to complex cognition and how to apply it to the interpretation of situations, to conflict management, and to decision making.

It is not, however, simply an issue of matching cognitive style to demand; rather, it is about the organization and sophistication of thought. It is not about preference. It is about form and process. It is not sufficient to simply be able to think in the abstract or be self-reflective or even to mediate between various meaning systems. The issue demands that one must be able to deal not only with paradox and the tension of opposites, but also the relativity and limits of meaning systems. In my view, we need to (1) make the case that managers, educators and researchers need to pay significant attention to the relevance of cognitive development in organizational contexts, (2) broaden the discussion in an attempt to address what such cognitive requirements might be, and, (3) provide an outline for a model that would assist managers in advancing their cognitive development in an attempt to create more successful organizational change and knowledge sharing.

As daunting as these challenges might seem, we cannot shrink from them. Rather, we need to ask what kind of developmental processes are required and what new stages of thinking we need to achieve in order to meet and master these challenges. Then we need to commit to engage in those processes and achieve those stages of development. How can we develop the qualitatively advanced thinking, the tolerance of risk and uncertainty, the self-sustaining and self-managing qualities, including the management of our focus and emotional states? How can we not? My sense is that our survival depends upon it.

For a full copy of the article which was published in the International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, July 2005, please contact Bill Griffith

Last Updated: 11/10/08