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Application of PCP in
organisations |
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PCP is principally used in the
Therapy and Health Care context. Over the last fifteen years, however,
a small group of practitioners have extended its use into the domain
of, mainly business, organisations. This entry summarises the eclectic
possibilities for applying PCP in organisations. Readers are also referred to
Jankowitz (1990) and Section Seven: ‘Understanding Organisations’, in
Fransella (2003) for further elaboration on this topic.
Summary of PCP applications
PCP is a very flexible psychology. One can see this by observing a
range of possible interventions in the life of a business organisation.
Below is a table of Organisation Development (O. D.) interventions,
ordered along a dimension ranging from a focus on a single individual
to that of the culture of large groups of people.
Table 1: Range of O. D.
interventions using PCP
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Individual
Organisation
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(a) Coaching and Counselling
(b) Training and
Development
(c) Interpersonal Relationships
(d) Group and Team Development
(e) Goal Setting
(f) Role Clarification
(g) Organisational Structure
(h) Management Processes
(i) Functional Processes
- Planning
- Marketing
- Customer
Service
- Human
Resources
(j)
Organisational Culture
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(a) Coaching and counselling
At this level one is closest to the well-developed use of PCP in
therapy. Coaching and Counselling are at opposite ends of a spectrum
of interventions with individuals in contexts that might be described
as ‘Opportunistic’ through Coaching and ‘Distress’ through Counselling.
(b) Training and development
An example could be training in Leadership skills. One way to do
this is to take a generic list of the attributes of a good leader in
the
particular context of the Business unit. Questions are used to elicit dichotomous constructs that
could be arrayed on a repertory grid.
Clients on a training workshop could be invited to rate themselves on
a number of elements on this grid, e.g.
‘myself as a leader now’, ‘A good leader in my Business’, and ‘how I
would
like to be as a leader in 12 months time’. The ratings could then
be pooled anonymously to reveal a pattern for the group to allow
individuals
to see the degree to which they shared experiences with their
colleagues.
Each client is then helped to find insights from the ratings and to
consider
actions whereby they could act on their own initiative through
experimentation
to reach the desired ratings over the time period agreed. Similarly
they
could be helped to figure out ways in which a change in the context of
their
jobs could be negotiated to facilitate the desired movement.
(c) Interpersonal relationships
An example could be a form of mediation between two persons perhaps as
a prelude to some form of team development in which they would
participate. One way to do this is to meet the individuals separately
to allow for
catharsis of the feelings associated with the breakdown of the
relationship.
Then one could elicit constructs to do with each client’s expectations
from the other and reciprocally their notion of what the other expects
of him or her. These expectations are then converted into dichotomous
constructs in conversation with each client to reveal what they wish to
achieve and to avoid. The couple is then brought together against the
background of
ground rules for a fair process, like e.g. separating the person from
the
problem, focussing on interests rather than on positions, and no
monopolies
on the truth or of being hurt (Fisher & Ury, 1991). Sometimes the
cathartic experience has to be continued through one or more meetings
with the facilitator inviting each person to achieve sociality
with the other by paraphrasing what the other has just said so that
each
one can get a sense of having been heard. The constructs based upon
expectations
of each other can then be tested with the two persons for clarity of
understanding and acceptance of the various terms can be negotiated.
(d) Group and team development
An example could be to design and facilitate a process that would serve
to improve the cohesion and functioning of intact work teams. This
could be based on generic aspects of intact groups, e.g. clear goals
and roles, and processes for dealing with the world outside the group
and with relationships inside the group (Schein, 1985).
(e) Goal setting
An example here would be to use PCP, as in the intervention in (d)
above, to elicit a group’s constructs of the demands made on them by
a network of stakeholders by treating the group as an ‘open system’
(Beckhard & Harris, 1977). Options that emerge from the process can
be tested using Implications grids and
their ranking in terms of effectiveness and viability using ‘Resistance to Change' grids (Hinkle,
1965).
(f) Role clarification
An example could be similar to the first part of the process outlined
in (d) above for using PCP in a Team Development intervention. In this
case the people involved need not be members of an intact work
team but persons in the same organisation that have some degree of
pooled
interdependence
(g) Organisation structure
Structure is an arrangement of roles used in organisations to focus power,
responsibility and accountability. Usually
when complaints are made about one or another structural feature, the
underlying cause is a problem of power or lack of it. Personal
construct psychology can be used to make explicit the construing of
personnel about a problem inherent in a particular structure. That may
be about inadequate decentralisation of decision-making, overly long
lines of communication,
inadequate personal discretion and autonomy. Moreover when allied to a
personal
construct understanding of resistance to change in those centres of
power
under threat, the process of change can be rendered less painful and
traumatic
for those concerned
(h) Management processes
Management processes such as meeting schedules, reporting
formats, and various policy guidelines for action can be
rationalised using PCP. Personal construct research focussed on a range
of management processes as elements can highlight areas of
dissatisfaction and mal-functioning. Feedback of the results of this
research can lead to changes that allow organisation members to
function more effectively with their time more
optimally focussed on the core mission, such as service to clients as
opposed
to meeting internal bureaucratic needs that are often wasteful of
effort.
(i) Functional processes
The possibilities here are as eclectic as the diversity of functions
found in modern organisations. The examples of planning, marketing,
customer service and human resources discussed in Brophy (2002) and
cited below offer a mere hint of the range of possible applications of
personal construct psychology.
(j) Organisation culture
An example could be when two organisations are merging and the
cultures of both are studied, using the methods pioneered by the Diagnostic
Research Unit of the PCP Centre in the 1980’s. This would
allow a comparison of the construing of common elements and of each of
the constituencies represented by groups in each organisation. During
feedback sessions the sense of difference and commonality could be
explored together with Kelly’s diagnostic constructs of anxiety, fear and threat to legitimise those feelings and to
facilitate sociality between the
proponents of both cultures. |
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References
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- Beckhard,
R. & Harris, D. (1977) Organisation Transitions: Managing
Complex Change, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley
- Brophy,
S., (2002) Organisation Development Interventions using
P.C.P. Paper presented to the 6th Bi-Annual conference of the
European personal construct Association at Florence, Italy 26th March.
- Fisher,
R. & Ury, W. (1991), Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement
Without Giving In, London: Penguin, 2nd
Edition
- Fransella,
F., (Ed.) (2003), International Handbook of Personal Construct
Psychology, London: John Wiley and Sons.
- Hinkle,D.,
(1965), The Change of Personal Constructs from the
Viewpoint of a
Theory of Construct Implications. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ohio
State University.
- Jankowitz,
D., (1990), Applications of Personal Construct Psychology in Business
Practice, in G.J. and R.A .Neimeyer (Eds.) Advances in Personal
Construct Psychology, Vol 1, (257-287).
- Schein,
E.H., (1985), Organisational Culture and Leadership, San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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Sean Brophy
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