Gareth Morgan
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Chapter 11. Imagination: A direction for the future
Organizations are many things at once!
--The complexity and sophistication of our thinking do not match the complexity and sophistication of the realities with which we have to deal.
This seems to be true in the world of organization as well as in social life more generally. The result is that our actions are often simplistic and at times downright harmful.
--Foster a kind of critical thinking that encourages us to understand and grasp the multiple meanings of situation and to confront and manage contradiction and paradox, rather than to pretend that they do not exist.
Elephantine way of understanding organizations: The uncertainty of our metaphors and understanding;
---The division between the different dimensions is in our minds rather than in the phenomenon.
---The very same aspects of organization can be many different things at the same time
Imagination: organization as a way of thinking
--Organizations are always shaped by underlying images and ideas; We organize as we imaginize.
---A creative process where new ideas and images can create new actions (An example: compression vs. tension in architecture)
--Imaginization through which people enact or “write” the character of organizational life.
