roymoggadmin
09-23-2008, 05:55 PM
Is critical consulting something for academics who sit in their offices trying to sound clever, or is it something all consultants can (and should) do?
What do we mean by the term 'critical' anyway?
I believe that all good research and consulting should be critical, of other research or theories, of itself, your chosen methodology etc. The difference with the Critical Paradigm approach often favoured by academics (some call this critical with a capital C), is the focus on power and domination, a desire to make public, distorted communications, hidden power relationships, and the ways in which society is constructed to make some things unquestioned, even unthinkable (literally not even coming to consciousness). There is usually a strong anti-managerialist air to the writings.
Ways to spot the Critical paradigm - when you are reading or when working with other consultants using this approach - is this desire to overcome unfairness and unequal power relations and allow conflicts to be brought out into the open, discussed and hopefully resolved. Whereas postmodernists tend to consider that fragmentation and relativism makes any reformation difficult, ‘Critical’ theorists will have an active political agenda. They will often take, for example, a Marxist position to try to expose power struggles, and/or power-knowledge relations originating from Neitzsche.
Although both approaches tend to use qualitative methods (e.g. interviews and observations rather than surveys), this is not exclusive, and furthermore, most good consultants mix paradigms anyway. The important thing is the way they analyse everything, and interpret the results, around the assumptions of managerialist attempts to destroy the collective.
An aspect sometimes shared by critical and postmodernists alike is deconstruction – although there is some debate about what the term means (see Wolfreys, 1998). However I think for our purposes it is sufficient to that it includes a tendency to challenge assumptions and identity constructions. That when looking at a ‘text’ you need to consider what appears to be inevitable, assumed, seemingly obvious and/or ‘natural’. Consider what is unquestioned in the 'text' or your findings, or not even allowed to be questioned. Derrida developed deconstruction as a technique, though would probably argue against it being a method as such.
Although the term is sometimes now used to refer to all forms of critique, the ‘taking apart’ is at a much deeper level with deconstructionist approaches, and indeed is often the main purpose of the work.
So what does this mean for us?
I believe it means not assuming that the management are always right, not agreeing to processes just because the people paying the bills say that is what they (think) they want, and taking time to reflect on what we are doing when we carry out a consultancy project.
By doing this, we stand a chance of truly helping all the stakeholders in our client organisation, and I believe can actually help the people paying for the consultancy far more than if we just do as they say (sorry guys, I have seen this a lot though I am sure you are not that type...http://www.bizface.co.uk/bizfaceforum/images/smilies/smile.gif
More later, and comments appreciated - what do you think?
kind regards
Stephanie
http://www.bizface.co.uk/bizfaceforum/managing-change-consulting-practice/16828-critical-consulting.html
What do we mean by the term 'critical' anyway?
I believe that all good research and consulting should be critical, of other research or theories, of itself, your chosen methodology etc. The difference with the Critical Paradigm approach often favoured by academics (some call this critical with a capital C), is the focus on power and domination, a desire to make public, distorted communications, hidden power relationships, and the ways in which society is constructed to make some things unquestioned, even unthinkable (literally not even coming to consciousness). There is usually a strong anti-managerialist air to the writings.
Ways to spot the Critical paradigm - when you are reading or when working with other consultants using this approach - is this desire to overcome unfairness and unequal power relations and allow conflicts to be brought out into the open, discussed and hopefully resolved. Whereas postmodernists tend to consider that fragmentation and relativism makes any reformation difficult, ‘Critical’ theorists will have an active political agenda. They will often take, for example, a Marxist position to try to expose power struggles, and/or power-knowledge relations originating from Neitzsche.
Although both approaches tend to use qualitative methods (e.g. interviews and observations rather than surveys), this is not exclusive, and furthermore, most good consultants mix paradigms anyway. The important thing is the way they analyse everything, and interpret the results, around the assumptions of managerialist attempts to destroy the collective.
An aspect sometimes shared by critical and postmodernists alike is deconstruction – although there is some debate about what the term means (see Wolfreys, 1998). However I think for our purposes it is sufficient to that it includes a tendency to challenge assumptions and identity constructions. That when looking at a ‘text’ you need to consider what appears to be inevitable, assumed, seemingly obvious and/or ‘natural’. Consider what is unquestioned in the 'text' or your findings, or not even allowed to be questioned. Derrida developed deconstruction as a technique, though would probably argue against it being a method as such.
Although the term is sometimes now used to refer to all forms of critique, the ‘taking apart’ is at a much deeper level with deconstructionist approaches, and indeed is often the main purpose of the work.
So what does this mean for us?
I believe it means not assuming that the management are always right, not agreeing to processes just because the people paying the bills say that is what they (think) they want, and taking time to reflect on what we are doing when we carry out a consultancy project.
By doing this, we stand a chance of truly helping all the stakeholders in our client organisation, and I believe can actually help the people paying for the consultancy far more than if we just do as they say (sorry guys, I have seen this a lot though I am sure you are not that type...http://www.bizface.co.uk/bizfaceforum/images/smilies/smile.gif
More later, and comments appreciated - what do you think?
kind regards
Stephanie
http://www.bizface.co.uk/bizfaceforum/managing-change-consulting-practice/16828-critical-consulting.html