RE-SOUNDING: introducing an alternative metaphor for organization change

Description

RE-SOUNDING: introducing an alternative metaphor for organization change

Authors: Rik Spann & Simon Martin
ISBN: 978-1-938552-80-9
© 2021 Taos Institute Publications

The challenges we encounter in our everyday world(s) require updated and sophisticated types of ‘conversation’, literally and in a wider sense. It’s not just about the content, it’s about the relationships, the interactions. Embodied sensemaking offers ideas; the worlds of music, art and design offer new sounds and vistas. An open exploration of the metaphors that shape the potentialities and limitations of our perspectives is a starting point for ‘re-sounding’ any ‘thing’, experience, phenomenon or style of relating, in order to set the stage for another type of being ‘in concert’.

Building on complexity science, social constructionism, insights and experiences from the worlds of music, art, dance and design, and the phenomenon of improvisation in all its subtleties, this book invites you into an exploration into what ‘shifting sound’ can do. How can musicological themes and variations like harmony, melody, rhythm, tone, resonance, or dissonance open up tangible options for collaborative action in the face of adaptive challenges and wicked problems? Spann & Martin offer a backstage view into their world and work.

Author Bios

Rik Spann is an organizational consultant, applied musicologist, artist and jazz musician. In his work he is interested in exploring what happens at the crossroads of various fields, including science, art, design, music, theatre, dance, film and beyond. He also loves to play with weird combinations, humor, paradox, everyday life, blue notes, and stuff that can’t be defined. He lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with a view of a canal, his sons and girlfriend in his heart, and a guitar in his hands.

Simon Martin is an organizational consultant, keen flugelhornist, and Partner at Metalogue Consulting (www.metalogue.co.uk). In his work he is particularly interested in the role language, metaphor, story and narrative play in shaping, perpetuating, or changing the way we think about and act into organizations and other social groups. When not doing this you might also find him in a kayak. He lives with his wife and two children between Oxford, UK and Görlitz, Eastern Germany.

Review

Beth Fisher-Yoshida, Columbia University, board member of CMMi, and co-author of the Taos Focus Book Communicating Possibilities: A Brief Introduction to the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), reviews Rik Spann and Simon Martin’s Resounding Organizations and calls it “a gift to the world”. Click here for the full review.