Gareth maintains a page at http://www.imaginiz.com/

Discussed at connections-20080226

• Graduate from the London School of Economics, became an accountant for 5 years working in public services in the UK
  • Then went to graduate school at University of Texas at Austin, learned about behavioral science
  • Then decided to become an academic, and got an appointment at Lancaster University in organization studies: a position unqualifed, got the job, because looking for a person with a knowledge of local government, financial skills and organization studies
  • Was completed untrained in the field, and had to discover the field by self
  • Learned as he went
  • Influenced by Chris Argyris and humanistic psychologies, came across Burns & Stalker the management of innovation, which characterized mechanistic and organic models
  • Turbulent then needed organic
  • Case studies with grounded research
  • Then picked up some systems thinking, and other aspects of organizational management
  • Pivotal point, when Gibson Burrell joined as a young lecturer at the university, working on his Ph.D.
  • Collaboration: Gibson Burrell brought sociology, and Gareth Morgan brought management, then wrote “Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis”, published 1979
  • This launched into the intersection of social philosophy and organization studies
  • Got interested in systems thinking as a foundation
  • Most of management wasn't based on systems thinking
  • Tavistock got drawn into the periphery
  • Was involved in trying to understand systems thinking, interpretive psychological approaches, Marxism: became a quasi-philosopher, as much as an untrained accountant could
  • Eric Trist read “Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis”, which drew Gareth into the Wharton program

• Then got involved in “Beyond Methods”, with 21 contributions, no systems thinkers except for Gerry Sussman
  • Gerry Sussman may have introduced Gareth to Eric Trist

• Then an book on organizational symbolism, and then wrote “Images of Organization”, which included a chapter on flex and transformation
  • Rounded out with Maruyama second cybernetics, Club of Rome, Marxian dialectic
  • 1986

• Moved to executive education, wrote “Imaginization” in 1993
  • The thesis of “Images of Organization”
  • Took the mode of metaphor into managerial styles, teamwork, organization consulting techniques
  • Tried to find new ways to create new theories of organizations, e.g. spider plant model as decentralized

• Got interested in managing change, now called emergent change programs (as opposed to planned change, Warren Bennis)
  • Developed the 15% approach to change
  • Interested in how small changes can lead to large effects
  • Led to complexity science
  • 1986, went more into complexity and emergence
  • Did a lot of work with VHA (Voluntary Hospital Association), which became known as the Plexus Institute
  • Kurt Lindberg, who has spent last years introducing complexity science into health care
  • They've brought people from Santa Fe Institute, e.g. John Holland, and management (Gareth) and practitioners (heads from hospitals)
  • Post-Action-Learning-Group, post York University, Gareth got aligned with them.

• 1997, birth of the Internet, Gareth has been writing for an Internet-based world
  • New Mindsets Project: set up as an action learning project
  • To get it going, had to spin off from university and start a separate company
  • Have done projects in university, health care: how to organize a self-oriented learning system