The Language of Change: Generativity in Dialogical Processes
Organizational Generativity: The Appreciative Inquiry Summit and a Scholarship of Transformation
ISBN: 9781848554887, eISBN: 978-1-78190-330-8
Publication date: 5 December 2013
Abstract
Organizing is mainly a conversational process in which people together construct an organizational reality out of a variety of different positions from a more general organizational discourse. Generative dialogue refers to the differences between those positions, to the hidden potential of the in-between, and to the effort of handling these differences meaningfully and productively. At split second bifurcation points in a dialogue, fear and expanding learning opportunities are in mutual competition. In this chapter, we propose seven levels of dialoguing, with increasing generative potential and increasing difficulty. We propose “The Language of Change” (a framework) as a sensitizing device to co-construct richer, more applicable, and more valuable approaches to complex, dynamic, and unique change processes. I will conclude with some key principles to increase the level of generative dialoguing and some examples from my own practice.
Citation
van den Nieuwenhof, R. (2013), "The Language of Change: Generativity in Dialogical Processes", Organizational Generativity: The Appreciative Inquiry Summit and a Scholarship of Transformation (Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 159-188. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1475-9152(2013)0000004006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited