With recent invitations to mentor graduate students, I’ve had to more strongly assert my identity as a scholar-practitioner. It’s now been over 10 years since I “graduated” from a career at IBM of 28 years. University students are often amused to discover that, besides having spent a lot of time around universities, I first entered a Ph.D. program in 1982. When I met my future spouse, I was a doctoral student. Many years later, I’m still a doctoral student.
My colleagues in the Systems Changes Learning Circle have surfaced an interest in humility. This reminds me that in spring 1982, I met with Edgar Schein in his office at the MIT Sloan School of Management. (In the end, I was #2 on a list of 1 for admission into the doctoral program on information systems research, so my life took a different path).
The ties from organization development back into systems theory surfaced in a 2021 interview with Ed Schein.
— begin transcript of Rainey and Schein (2021) —
[35:30 Chris Rainey] Ed, I’ve seen you speak quite a few times, now, about diagnosis versus intervention. Could you share more of your thoughts on this, because I found it very interesting.
[35:42 Ed Schein] Well, I think, the thing that we haven’t yet come to terms with, is a phrase that important philosopher by the name of [Sir Geoffrey] Vickers stated, is the human systems are different.… Read more (in a new tab)
With recent invitations to mentor graduate students, I’ve had to more strongly assert my identity as a scholar-practitioner. It’s now been over 10 years since I “graduated” from a career at IBM of 28 years. University students are often amused to discover that, besides having spent a lot of time around universities, I first entered a Ph.D. program in 1982. When I met my future spouse, I was a doctoral student. Many years later, I’m still a doctoral student.
My colleagues in the Systems Changes Learning Circle have surfaced an interest in humility. This reminds me that in spring 1982, I met with Edgar Schein in his office at the MIT Sloan School of Management. (In the end, I was #2 on a list of 1 for admission into the doctoral program on information systems research, so my life took a different path).
The ties from organization development back into systems theory surfaced in a 2021 interview with Ed Schein.
— begin transcript of Rainey and Schein (2021) —
[35:30 Chris Rainey] Ed, I’ve seen you speak quite a few times, now, about diagnosis versus intervention. Could you share more of your thoughts on this, because I found it very interesting.
[35:42 Ed Schein] Well, I think, the thing that we haven’t yet come to terms with, is a phrase that important philosopher by the name of [Sir Geoffrey] Vickers stated, is the human systems are different.… Read more (in a new tab)
