MONDAY, 22nd June 2009

ROLE CONVERSATIONS IN THE WORK PLACE

THE ORGANISATIONAL ROLE ANALYSIS APPROACH

June, 22nd from 09h00 to 17h00

What is Role Organisational Analysis?
Organisational Role Analysis (ORA) and Consultation involves aspects of coaching insofar as it aims to help people to improve their effectiveness at work. But it offers much more than coaching. Through a disciplined and focused method it helps clients to understand and develop the way they personally take up role, its authority, responsibilities, accountabilities and relationships. Distinctively, ORA examines role rather than personality by construing role as part of the wider organisational system. How the role and person are related to the system, and how role development influences the system is part of the analysis. The work is done collaboratively between client(s) and consultant where working hypotheses are developed about the role(s) under consideration and role holders extend their capacities in their work. Role is the place where the person and the system meet and overlap. Organisational Role Analysis and Consultation works in this space.

Role Conversations?
Role conversations are based on ORA and involve role explorations between two or more participants. A specific role is selected for the conversation which proceeds to explore:

The ‘role idea’ for each of the participants;
The ‘system-in-the-mind’ for each of the participants;
Experiences of being in the role for the role-holder;
Experiences of others who interact with that role;
Working hypotheses about the psychodynamics in the system where the role is located;
New ways of conceptualising the role and its system.

Role conversations can be used in many settings. For example, it can be used to explore roles within teams, as an alternative to traditional appraisal interviews and to explore problematic situations for groups and individuals. Individual managers, coaches and leaders with developed interpersonal and group facilitation skills can learn how to work in role conversations

Group and system dynamics?
Role Analysis as Coaching In-Depth requires an understanding of Group and Systems Dynamics.

When we move toward the system (the organization-in-the-mind/experience of the client) we can explore the system through the role and the role as a part of the system. How does the system look from this role? What does the system demand of this role? What does the system ‘put into’ this role through its structure and dynamics?
When we move toward the person we can explore how the role affects the person and what the person brings to the role. What thoughts, motives and emotions are generated by the role? What skills and capacities does the person bring from their training, personality and history? How do these shape the role?
When we look across all three we see the effects on the system (in its context) of how the person takes up and shapes and works with the authority of the role. We may also see how m dynamic system shapes the role and fills the person so that they experience issues that are in them but not of them.

The Workshop

Introduces you to the Role Conversation Method and links this to systems dynamics in the ‘here and now’ of experiential group work and to the use of role conversation in the workplace.
Provides opportunities for you to work with the method while supervised by experienced staff.
Gives a conceptual background to the method.
Through working with your own experience, it provides opportunities for you to learn about your own skills and capacities in using the method, while also learning from your mistakes in the workshop environment.

Who is it for?
This experiential workshop is for consultants, managers, teachers and others who:

Have some experience of working from a systems psychodynamic perspective and some knowledge of ORA;
find themselves in a role that includes coaching or advising others;
want to understand and explore work roles as they emerge in the context of the person who takes up the role, and the system where the role is taken.

What is involved in the workshop?

Seminar

The seminar introduces the conceptual foundations of Role Conversations within the ORA Method. Workshop staff will present the ideas and then discuss them with the participants.
These sessions introduce members to the ORA method and to role conversations. Often used by people working together or whose roles have some connection with each other, role conversations expand the role-holder’s idea about their own role and how it interacts with the ‘other’. The sessions take place in small groups who work with a facilitator. Members have the opportunity to study their own work roles and also to work with others using the ORA method. There will be opportunities to work in Spanish or English. Members will be required to do some pre-workshop preparation.
These sessions introduce members to the ORA method and to role conversations. Often used by people working together or whose roles have some connection with each other, role conversations expand the role-holder’s idea about their own role and how it interacts with the ‘other’. The sessions take place in small groups who work with a facilitator. Members have the opportunity to study their own work roles and also to work with others using the ORA method. There will be opportunities to work in Spanish or English. Members will be required to do some pre-workshop preparation.

Role Conversations Sessions

These sessions introduce members to the ORA method and to role conversations. Often used by people working together or whose roles have some connection with each other, role conversations expand the role holder’s idea about their own role and how it interacts with the ‘other’. The sessions take place in small groups who work with a facilitator. Members have the opportunity to study their own work roles and also to work with others using the ORA method. There will be opportunities to work in Spanish or English. Members will be required to do some pre-workshop preparation.

References

Newton, J., Long, S. and Sievers, B. (2006) Coaching in Depth: The organisational role analysis approach Karnac, London.

Long, S.D. and Carr, V. ‘Coaching through Role Dialogue: Action research with same-school pairs of principals & deputy principals’ http://www.cybertext.net.au/inet_s2wk4/support_papers/s22_26.htm

Conducted by Professor Susan Long of Creative Organisation Systems (COS) Melbourne Australia, Professor Eduardo, Acuna, University of Santiago, Chile and Dr Matias Sanfuentes Astaburuaga, Alberto Hurtado University, Chile.