Wenger speaks with caution when he refers to the periphery of a community of practice (CoP). If you think about it, where is the periphery? Who in any well established community (not a newcomer) sits at the periphery? The newcomer isn’t really physically in the community as a newcomer and therefore cannot be positionally seen as being anywhere in it. I know, it is a moot point.

But communities of practice are tangible things. Complexity is a way of looking at learning systems (the term learning system refers to ANY system that is capable of adaptive, emergent behaviour).

While it is true that cultural change within a community is enhanced with support from management, it does not necessarily follow that transformation in some direction will not take place despite effort from management (to attempt to prevent it or divert it in some way).

Communities of practice, rather than forced work teams, have one special quality that likens them to complexity systems – that of permanence. One simple way to prove the permanence of any suspected CoP is to remove the guiding forces imposed by management.

Managers don’t like this idea, but if the working group is a CoP it will continue to develop along the lines that management envisaged. If it’s not, it will revert to some other culture, thereby indicating that it is really a forced work team not a CoP.

Ka kite
from Middle-earth

Great to hear from you again. I’m going to take the liberty of replying and commenting on your own post here, if that’s OK?

Thoughts on reading down your post are – Complex systems as you describe speak of Siemens and Downes on networks and connectivism. You note though that there is no centre and no edge and this is somewhat at odds with Wenger’s view of communities and induction into them. That said, at the recent HERDSA conference, Wenger did not press this point and seemed in acceptance of the idea that CoPs could be grown quickly and without a pre-defined body of knowledge. There would then be less of a periphery, less of a developmental and acceptance induction into the mores of the community.

In terms of change, although organisations have many people, they also consist of many systems, not all of them in equilibrium! Changes in one place will not always have concomitant changes elsewhere. If anything, I think I am the pessimist and cynic of the change conversation rather than being overly optimistic Nevertheless, I think that change can be managed. Many small changes can have an effect from the bottom up but it is also important to make the systemic changes that result in a culture of change and acceptance of that change. These need the support of the upper strata of an organisations’ management.

This is the second time this week I’ve seen this bell-curve pertaining to innovators-adopters etc. Britt Watwood’s recent post also featured it.

Enabling change is easy with things. It’s more difficult with people. Recently I’ve had opportunity to think about this phenomenon when considering some new learning I did earlier this year.

Alexander Graham Bell was a persistent Scot and a teacher. I put it down to his persistence as an entrepreneur that we have the phone systems we have today. Frankly, I think that they would still be around if Bell hadn’t brought it to the world. But we’d be much the poorer because of it for progress and development would not have moved the way it has.

While demonstrating his new invention to prospective developers, a business man said to Bell “an interesting toy but with no commercial value.” There are similar quotes of what was said of the aeroplane when it was first invented.

We certainly need Pollyannaism with this Nigel. But let’s not permit it to get in the way of what can be done practically to achieve the end goal.

It’s a dynamic system we are dealing with here. Although usually applied in Chemistry, Le Chatelier’s principle works for other dynamic systems like this one. It is similar to Newton’s mechanical principle: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But the latter pertains to static systems. Static systems can’t transform.

But as with any dynamic system, there is always the possibility that it can transform with persistent application of action that moves it in the desired way.

So what strategies would I use?

Persistence of actions leading to the desired situation.

Ka kite
from Middle-earth