Abstract
This book is different from most books published in the domain of change management. Instead of addressing techniques of managing and mastering change, Giovan Francesco Lanzara takes a reflective approach by focusing on the transient knowledge of the shifting practices during technology innovation. It is an ethnographic account of two long-term research projects of the author. The book is constructive in nature, filled with empirical evidences, insightful, and thought-provoking commentaries. After presenting two studies focusing on the processes of design and innovation in two very different settings, the author proposes the importance of shifting practices and transient knowledge. Particularly interesting to me is the dialectical tensions presented during the design and innovation when different professional fields had to work together and the questions to guide the conversation.
The book consists of four parts. The first part is titled “Studying innovation as a phenomenon” where the author lays out the groundwork of his research approach. First of all, it is made clear that innovation is more than material products or production processes; it involves the “whole systems of action and knowledge in a practice setting” (p. 13). While the author does not mention systems theory, it is evident that the author believes that innovation will impact the organization as a whole. During the process of design and implementation, an organization has to relinquish or redesign the old systems or processes while the new ones get established and organizational artifacts, practices, and cognitive frameworks get transformed. It is a paradox that there are always conservation forces that resist change while innovation demands the changes of long established rules, repertoires of capabilities and competencies. Expecting innovation to work within the old systems will stifle the potential impact of the innovation.
Innovation is a process of tinkering that is mixed with fragmentation, chaos, ambivalent, unpredictability, and even derailment. The author believes innovation is not a neat and linear process and “to be effective and get a hold of something, technical rigor must be sacrificed to practical relevance, and formal methods must give way to rules of thumb and locally improvised solutions” (p. 21). The author sentiment is supported by the following passage by Schön (1995): In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground overlooking a swamp. On the high ground, manageable problems lend themselves to solution through the application of research-based theory and technique. In the swampy lowland, messy, confusing problems defy technical solution. The irony of this situation is that the problems of the high ground tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or society at large, however great their technical interest may be, while in the swamp lie the problems of greatest human concern. The practitioner must choose. Shall he remain on the high ground where he can solve relatively unimportant problems according to prevailing standards of rigor, or shall he descend to the swamp of important problems and non-rigorous inquiry? (Schon, 1995: 28, as cited in the footnote p. 21)
Using the path in the woods as a metaphor, the author believes that a fixed selection of methods offers convenience but also limits our cognitive observation of the phenomena as a whole because we can only observe what is allowed by the method. However, without the method (the path), we may get lost in the woods. We need to know what to observe so we will get to our destination. Four observation approaches are discussed. The first method is online observation and tracking. The advantage is its embeddedness for observation and the ability to capture immediate information. The disadvantage is the possibility of missing the overall picture due to lack of access and researcher’s blind spot. The second method is using retrospective analysis and reconstruction. Personal perspectives influence the result of this method during the reconstruction and it may never truly reflect what have led to the particular outcome. The third method is using on-the-spot practical experiment to produce the effect the researcher is wishing to observe. Act as a maieutic but in a lab setting. The fourth method is reflective intervention, similar to cognitive interview, aiming to reveal the inner talks of the participants by adding a reflective dimension for sense making and knowledge creation. The author claims to have applied a combination of these methods in the studies presented in the book.
In particular, the author began with online observation, followed by looking back at past events, conducted occasion on-the-spot practical experiments, and engaged in reflective inquire throughout. To embed in the situation, the role of the researcher is to capture the reflective self and others (first-order and second-order inquiries) in the knowledge making process. Using continuous backtalk and conversations, the author develops his interpretation, meaning making, and knowledge formation over a long period of time. The author also pointed out the importance of recognizing the unremarkables: things, equipment, processes, knowledge, competencies, skills, underlining principles shared, and embedded in the work routines. The capability of recognizing the unremarkables may bring the findings to the next level. Finally, through prolonged interpretation, conversation, and reflection, the researcher comes to know what he knows and then theorizes the findings.
The second part of the book presents the first study on making music using a digital medium, a reflective inquiry into the design of a computer music system for music education. It appears to me that the detailed account of the research could be used as a guide or a reference for others to think through their innovative process, asking the right questions, and avoid blind spots, especially for first timers. The account of how a cross-disciplinary team works through their differences is vivid and insightful. Each member of the team learned or unlearned certain things to allow innovation to occur and to reveal tacit knowledge that each takes for granted and never explicitly communicated unless provoked. Innovation often involves cross-disciplinary efforts; hence, I believe the potency of this observation presented by the author is quite meaningful.
The author’s discussion on having people to go back to one particular event—the demo repeatedly for backtalk and second stories—is somewhat puzzling to me. Many subsequent actions have been taken after the demo and author believes innovation is not a one-time cooptation rather something that happens over time. There is no reason to put this much value in one single event because the stories captured afterward are merely reflections of what happened after sense making of all subsequent actions and events. I found the point about the institutional impact on the motivation of innovation very telling. How a university measures their faculty performance, especially junior faculty, will determine faculty interests and time spend on innovation.
The third part gives a detailed account of using video technology in judicial practices of the Italian court system. Again, I find the questions presented by the author during the process of inquiry to be of value. There are questions from the perspectives of the researcher, the innovator, and the user to help unveil past routines and processes and determine what must be disrupted or discontinued when establishing new routines and cognitive frameworks. An established process, the court system, has been around and perfected over a long period of time, trusted and believed to be dependable. The new system has to offer the same dependability and trustworthiness. When transition from old media (text based) to new media (video based), the newly established routine must be validated. Similar to a manufacturing process, when it is being automated, a new quality assurance program must also be put in place. The success of an innovation is depended on the process of implementation, hence, the importance of recognizing shifting practices and transient knowledge.
In the fourth part, the author theorizes the thematic findings of the studies. First of all, the author states that regardless of the field of practice, the phenomenology of innovation is the same. The principal question is when the innovation changes the basic medium (the rule of engagement), it interrupts the old routine and a new routine must be established and accepted to create a new reality. The complexity and difficulty of this process have been well discussed in change management literature. The aim of the author is to capture the intricacy of the change process through the discussion of transient knowledge represented by the shifting practices and the reflective stories.
Transient knowledge is the knowledge that is created in a process of design and innovation: some kind of transformative activity is carried out, and knowledge is subsequently obliterated, or further transformed, or transcended by the very same activity as the process unfolds. (p. 217)
Transient knowledge is different from tacit and explicit knowledge because it is transitional, acts as road marks, stages, items or objects that get named to make sense of the events along the way to reduce ambiguity and anxiety of the innovation. It may never get recorded as stable knowledge. Nonetheless, it is paramount in the process of sense making and coherence shaping of the innovation. We need transient knowledge to “make sense of the world when sense making becomes difficult because our preexisting framework is lost, unusable, or inappropriate to the situation” (p. 231). Without transient knowledge, nothing comes to fruition.
The idea of organization innovation as a kind of bricolage is both disturbing and comforting. It is disturbing because it contradicts the notion that change is a planned activity as projected by many change management scholars. It is comforting because the quality of bricolage being flexible, agile, and generative in nature. It uses objects that already exist and give them new arrangement and new meaning. It allows local accommodation without necessarily disrupting everything that is in place. It also may leave us in a state of intermediary and constant wonder of whether we have taken the best course of action.
The discussion of the inevitability of dross at the end of the book is interesting and timely considering the current climate in the United States. Innovation always leaves dross behind in both intangible and tangible forms. Tangible items, such as the old buildings in town centers, old manufacturing facilitates and industrial sites; intangible itesm such as outdated skills and competences, old processes and procedures; even people with obsolete skills. Simply promising to bring back the old businesses or old jobs is naïve because the world has since moved on. Artificial intelligence and robotics will enter our world in large droves; we must invest in innovation and employee development, establish new routines, master new competencies, and learn new cognitive frameworks.
The book is elegantly written; the discussions are informative and filled with sophisticated empirical accounts. However, parts of the book are repetitive and same concepts are recycled in multiple places. In addition, if the author has presented the research method used in the book within or in comparison with a prominent qualitative research paradigm, it would be helpful for readers to grasp, for example, the differences between feedback, backtalk, member checking, and conversation; the utility of transient construct (which exists often in temporary forms) verses the creation of durable knowledge (which often called principles, core values, theories, and processes). Moreover, the claimed comprehensive research method used in this book cannot be without limitations. As the author uses the research method to simplify the phenomena so it can be presented and studied in a manageable manner, it may not be able to reflect the complexity of the phenomena in its entirety.