Abstract
The author’s experiences as a theory-based practitioner are described and the roles of user, adapter, and developer of theory/research explained. A few suggestive questions to stimulate thinking about what others might contribute in the future to the Practitioner Corner are listed.
I am pleased to be able to offer some ideas about the new Practitioner Corner. My aim is to present some perspectives on potential contributions others might make based on my experiences as a “theory-based practitioner.”
Being a Theory-Based Practitioner
How I think about being a theory-based practitioner has evolved over time and now includes three relationships between practice and theory. In all three the emphasis for me is from practice to theory rather than from theory to practice. Put another way, something in my experiences as a practitioner stimulated my search for specifically helpful theory. Those three relationships cast me as a User, Adapter, or Developer of theory to inform practice.
User of Theory
In the early years of my career, I was mainly a user of theory to help me understand and deal with what I was encountering. In my first career as a management analyst in a government agency of some 3,000 biological and physical scientists, I found my knowledge of organization theories, change theories, and public administration theories helped me understand agency dilemmas in ways others did not. So, for example, when my agency was confronted with government-wide mandates to down-size and reorganize I had helpful ways of thinking and doing that got me included on very high level initiatives with others far above my pay grade and experience at the time.
Possible contributions to the Practitioner Corner based on experiences as a User include the following:
What theory/research best helped me understand and address the situation(s) I was dealing with in practice? How, why, and what was I able to accomplish?
Given what I was dealing with, what theory/research did I wish existed? Why and how would it be presented?
Adapter of Theory
In later years, I continued to be a user of existing theory, but modified or extended the ideas based on my experiences in practice. One example is how I began to notice and then listen for the metaphors my clients were using to describe the changes they thought needed in their organizations. This led me to the ideas of Lakoff and Johnson, especially their theory of conceptual metaphors in the cognitive unconscious (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999). While those ideas were illuminating they did not address what to do other than notice that implicit metaphors might be framing experience. Based on my experiences in practice, however, I began to develop ideas about ways to help client systems recognize and reframe the hidden metaphors influencing their thinking and action. Over time these adaptations and extensions became a central aspect of my personal theories of practice (Marshak, 1993, 2006).
Possible contributions based on experiences as an Adapter include the following:
What theory/research was most helpful in addressing a specific situation(s) and why?
How did I modify or extend that theory/research to be more useful in practice?
What has been my experience with my adapted theory of practice, and how would I explain how to use it to others?
Developer of Theory
Through the years of using and adapting theories I would occasionally encounter situations that I could not find existing theory to explain. In some of those instances I went beyond what I would consider adapting or extending existing theory and developed new explanations to guide my thinking and doing. One example is the recent articulation with my colleague Gervase Bushe of Dialogic OD theory and practice based on our observations of how OD approaches based in social constructionism and the complexity sciences deviate from classical OD premises (Bushe & Marshak, 2009).
Possible contributions based on experiences as a Developer include the following:
What situation(s) did I experience in my practice for which I could not find existing theory/research and sought to develop my own explanation? What motivated me to do so and what did I learn from that?
What are my new ideas; how do they shape my practice; what difference do they make; how would others apply them?
Closing Caveats
These, of course, are not the only ways to think about theory-based practice or practice-based theory, for that matter. And, the questions, of course, are intended to be suggestive rather than definitive. I look forward to how others will contribute to this new feature in the future.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
