Learning from a fool: Searching for the ‘unmanaged’ context for radical learning

Abstract

Drawing on the existing theorizing of organizational learning from a radical perspective, this article attempts to problematize such notion of learning and position it within the existing organizational contexts informed by divergent types of rationality. The study scrutinizes these frameworks with a view to reflect on the potentiality for radical learning to occur within them. In this vein, the conceptual analysis of non-technical and non-marginal notions, namely, 'spirituality', 'luck' and 'wisdom', in different modes of rationality is conducted. This article demonstrates that since the conceptual inclusiveness is entailed by the specificity of sensemaking mechanisms, which these modes employ, the analysed notions can be approached as their litmus paper. The functionalist rationality types are found to be incommensurate with exigencies of the radical context for learning. In pursue of the conducive area for radical learning, the notions of unmanaged organization and the technology of foolishness provide the theoretical frame for the study, and their joint sensemaking context is discussed using examples. This unmanaged space driven by inclusive foolishness is recognized as one that enables the liminal sensemaking processes conducive for radical learning to occur.

Affective atmospheres of sensemaking and learning: Workplace meetings as aesthetic and anaesthetic

“…Further atmospheric analyses of sensemaking and learning might also explore aesthetic to anaesthetic transformations, or even those concerning specific (an)aesthetic to (an)aesthetic atmospheres. Organizational scholarship has long argued that learning consists of entangled tensions, transformations and oscillations between ordering (exploitative) and disordering (exploratory) practices (Clegg et al, 2005; March, 1991) and that these opposing practices correspond with respective ordering/disordering dimensions of sensemaking (Colville et al, 2016; Izak, 2015; Weick and Westley, 1999). To this end, recent empirical studies have proposed more or less purposeful strategies to order/disorder sensemaking, thus enabling learning (e.g.…”

Minding less: Exploring mindfulness and mindlessness in organizations through Skillful Means

“…In this sense, management learning is a continuous process that is limitless and contextually formed. This approach resembles what Izak (2015) describes as emergent and continuous learning established by different rationalities, "unfixed from a viewpoint of any given conceptual framework" (p. 99). Even calculative and results-driven managerial approaches are temporary, suggesting a more contemplative approach that embraces eventfulness of situations, temperance, sensitivity, and reflection rather than imposing fixed interpretations or predetermined outcomes (Brummans, 2014;Chia and Holt, 2008;Heidegger, 2006;Zundel, 2013).…”

A thousand CEOs

“…In this way, Deleuzian ontology acts as a 'middle term' (Deleuze, 2004: 72) in its own right. Desire, immanence, multiplicity, and embodiment are placed -via Deleuze -at the foundation of product development (Styhre and Sundgren, 2003), organizational creativity (Skö ld, 2012), marketing schemes and PR efforts (Sköld, 2013), emergent knowledge in e-business entrepreneurship (Steinberg, 2008(Steinberg, , 2006(Steinberg, , 2005, and learning in business school (Izak, 2015;Farquharson et al, 2014;Statler, 2014;Beyes and Michels, 2011). From a critical perspective, the linking of body and organization enables management scholars to naturalize and humanize the logic of capital by infusing accumulation with vitality.…”