CSI: Conversational Storytelling Inquiry

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What is CSI?

Click to Watch: What has HorseSense At Work to do With Conversational Storytelling Inquiry, at home and in corporations?

David Boje and Grace Ann Rosile are developing a new methodology called Conversational Storytelling Inquiry (CSI) that combines storytelling, conversation, and inquiry to understand and analyze organizations. They argue that CSI, inspired by the Maori concept of "Braided Rivers," can be used to achieve a deeper understanding of complex issues and create a more collaborative environment within an organization. They also draw inspiration from Grace Ann Rosile’s "Horse Sense at Work" framework, which incorporates four tests based on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce. Finally, Boje and Rosile are proposing a new understanding of Triple-Loop learning that moves beyond hierarchical models and integrates quantum physics, indigenous knowledge systems, and the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM). They argue that their Ensemble Leadership Theory (ELT) provides a more effective approach to organizational change by emphasizing collective leadership and heterarchical structures. They have found success using ELT to address issues of modern-day slavery within corporate supply chains.Conversational Storytelling Inquiry (CSI) is a innovative methodology for exploring and analyzing Conversations through co-inquiry dialogue and collaborative storytelling. It emphasizes the co-creation of meaning through conversational storytelling. CSI suggests that these elements are crucial for fostering understanding and collaboration.Boje and Rosile recommend embracing the natural flow of conversation in organizations, recognizing the value of personal experience, and encouraging a dialogical approach, individuals can achieve a deeper understanding of complex topics.  CSI emphasizes the importance of active listening, self-reflexivity, and interdisciplinarity in achieving this goal. Boje and Rosile draw inspiration from the Maori concept of “Braided Rivers," highlighting the importance of weaving diverse stories and perspectives together to create a richer understanding of a topic.

Seven Principles of Conversational Storytelling Inquiry (CSI)

See Boje's short YouTube video on the 7 CSI Principles

The Influence of the Maori Concept of "Braided Rivers".
Boje and Rosile apply the influence of the Maori metaphor of "braided rivers" to CSI, emphasizing the interweaving of diverse stories and perspectives to create a richer, more nuanced understanding. Give  reciprocal "gift of story" as an inquirer. This avoids the potential for interrogation in traditional structured interviews. In Conversational Storytelling it highlights the importance of authentic sharing by gifting and the inclusion of counter-stories to foster genuine dialogue so you find common ground for disagreements.

How does Rosile's Horse Sense at Work (see webpage) help in CSI?

Grace Ann Rosile says, "I think of myself as someone who has been part of another world, the world of horses, and I want to bring back some of that, I am taking that and applying it in the world of management.  There are two ways that it applies. 

Principle 1: One way that it applies is this idea of theory.  What I learned when working with horses was a very concrete, physical kind of knowledge, and an appreciation for physical knowledge.  We all observe people who are at high levels in sports, people who train for years, but I didn’t have any understanding of what that meant, what it was like, what it feels like, what it means.  So, in this process I learned that I had no idea what it meant to have focus and attention.  I learned how to do that, physically, on a horse. 

Principle 2: Horses are People too! Another principle I want to talk about is the idea that--what we used to say is that horses are people too.  I think that working with horses is a very good image to use to understand management, because horses are thinking, responding beings. Has anybody read Jerzy Kozinski?  He wrote a book about polo players, about how other people play sports, but they are not also negotiating a horse and the relationship between horse and rider.  This is a real good example I think of why this is a really good “parallel situation.”  Stephen Linstead and I talked earlier about the word “metaphor.”  It’s not a metaphor.  It’s an active physical experience.  And this is why (??)...

In riding a horse, you have a very close physical relationship which you need to coordinate.  It is like dancing with a partner, but in dancing with a partner you still have psychology which is going on all the time.  Like Kurt Vonnegut said in the novel Galapagos, people ruined themselves because their brains were too big.  We didn’t know what to do with that big brain, so we got into trouble.  When you deal with a horse is it a much more clear-cut situation.  It’s probably more complex than you would imagine if you have not worked with them, but a lot of it is more simple.  So, the basic principle is that horses are people too.  They have feelings and reactions, and if you can see how to deal with a horse better--the interesting thing is the guy who was the model for the “Horse Whisperer,” he talks about the humane treatment of horses.  But it’s the same things we do to people, it’s a very parallel situation there, so he has been giving management seminars for corporations too now.  

Source:"Discourse from the Horse's Mouth" by Grace Ann Rosile, copyright 1999.  Transcript of Presentation at the Language and Organizational Change Conference May 15, 1999, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (press here to download Word file).

Grace Ann Rosile's Horse Sense at Work demonstrates four tests proposed by American Pragmatist philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce:

The four tests are part of Peirce's AID (Abduction-Induction-Deduction);  Abductions are educated guesses and some are intuitive hunches. Induction is about gathering more cases, to verify an Induction or a Deduction. Deductions are theories, and in storytelling conversations there are many theories, beliefs, opinions, that need the four tests of self-correcting induction.  For more see: Boje & Rosile (2020) How to use Conversational Storytelling Interviews for your Dissertation. Edward Elgar publishing.
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Four Tests of Conversational Storytelling Inquiry (CSI):
Start by viewing Short YouTube on 4 CSI Test with HorseSense Examples.
  Test One Self-Reflexivity: Engaging in critical self-reflection on your own internal conversations. This is abductive intuition, making educated guesses. It is the least expensive of the four tests to do.

 Click to Watch short YouTube of the Beat Horses to get them on Trailer
Horse Sense Example of Test One: "One quick story about the way people are taught to treat horses, when they are training horses.  Most people are in this new kind of enlightened mode, like most managers are these days.  But they still fall into traps.  They used to teach horses to get onto trailers using behavior modification principles.  You know, you make it less pleasant outside the trailer and you make it more pleasant on the trailer.  The horse needs to learn to get on the trailer because you want to go to shows and do all these things, and so you go through this whole rationale why this is necessary and important.  You might need to get them on the trailer to go to the vet.  However, I saw people use the idea, that if they don’t get on right away, then you have a whip behind them and you drive them forward.  Make it unpleasant back there.  So people do that a lot.  And sometimes that overcomes some fear.  But I learned from the Tellington-Jones people, that that does not work so well.   Something learned in fear still has fear associated with it.  So it gets forgotten, and also has lots of bad things also associated with it.  I saw people in my barn, try to get a horse on a trailer who wouldn’t go on.  But he had come there in that trailer.  So, they were determined to get him back on that trailer.  And they were beating this horse to get him on the trailer.  And I offered them my trailer, it was bigger, more open, easier for them to get on.  No, he got here on this trailer and that is how he is going to go back.  They continued to beat this horse, and I left.  I did not even have an empty stall to keep the horse in.  And I had all kinds of reason why I could not have done anything (about the beating).  In the meantime, one of my employees in the barn, burst into tears.  I gave her a hug and said, “What’s wrong?” and she said, “I can’t stand the way they are beating that horse.”  So I explained to her why I thought I couldn’t do anything more than I had already done.  She said “It’s not right!” and just walked away sobbing.  A little later I offered again to take the horse in my trailer.  Finally, they said OK.  He got right on, and I took him home.  When I got back, I found that the woman who was crying, quit.  And I thought, she just doesn’t understand.  Years later I thought, I was the one who did not understand.  It was my property.  I could have said “This is my barn.”  I mean, the horses in the barn, must have known what was going on.  So, I think, sometimes, in management, especially in situations dealing with ethics, people have all kinds of ways of justifying not doing anything, when there are these things are going on.  So, we see people being fired from their jobs. We see all kinds of things happen and people don’t do anything.  There was a man in my class one time, he refused to fire someone.  People would say wow, you’ll be the next one to be fired.  But nothing happened.  So, we create these cruel things, that describe our world and how to live in it.  This is the proper way to do it, this is how you teach people.  It is necessary, it is for the ultimate better good. So, one thing I want people to do is to look at these models, see what's going on here, and question some of it, of what is the usual way we do things." (press here to download Word file).

Test Two Refuting Your Own Theory: Actively seeking and considering other people's perspectives that challenge your pre-existing abductive assumptions and your own deductive theories. This is a bit more expensive test because you ahve to engage in conversations with people who challenge you, disagree, have different abductive beliefs, different deductive theory. But you are doing the work of induction, gather a cases that can refute.

Horse Sense Example of Test Two: "It’s kind of a long story and I don’t have time for the whole thing here.  But it turns out that we were working with a different coach.  We went through a series of situations where the horse was becoming more and more--what you would call bad.  Now I remember other times with my regular coach Jeannie, when he would buck and she would say, “He’s expressing himself!”  Well, it still feels like a buck.  (Laughter) But I learned the difference.  There is a difference, between when he is expressing himself and happy, versus “I don’t want to do this” and I say, “Sorry buddy, but we’re going to do it.”  So, he was bucking and carrying on, and he was becoming dangerous.  At one point I got off him.  And this other coach I was working with at the time, and when I was out of town, he rode him, and he got off.  And this guy prided himself on never getting off a horse.  And then he told me that the horse was dangerous, that I should get somebody else to work with him.  What was happening was, he didn’t get along with this horse too well.  In a couple of sessions, I was nearly in tears.  Looking back on this I realized that, how mentally upset I was, it had to transfer to the horse.  So, he (the horse) was reacting to other horses, and engaging in bad behaviors; this guy said, “stallion behaviors.”  It had nothing to do with him being a stallion.  You know my coach came back into town, just in the nick of time to save us both.  She saw us and she said “You’re right.  I thought you were exaggerating, but this horse is on the verge of being ruined.  You see, what is happening is, first of all he is running away from you.”  And I, I couldn’t quite get that.  But I realized that what was happening was, when he was bad, he is very athletic, he was leaping in the air, charging around.  It was scary.  To compensate for being scared, I used anger.  “I’m not going to be scared.  I am going to control this horse, make this horse do what I want him to do.”  Well, he saw my anger and he was terrified."  (press here to download Word file).

Test Three Interdisciplinarity: Approaching your conversational storytelling inquiry (CSI) from multiple disciplines and perspectives results in integrating insights from different fields. David Boje is from world of Conversational Storytelling, and he learns from Grace Ann Rosile, who is from the world of Horse Sense at Work. Test three is more expensive than the first two test, because you have to learn other diciplines. Here is an example of Grace Ann doing cross-species inquiry, learning her discipline from the horse's discipline, and from the disciplinary perspective of her German dressage trainer, Jeannie:

Horse Sense Example of Test Three: Imagine, I’m on his back, and a horse’s natural reaction to fear is to run.  So, he is running away from me.  Which again, just compounds the situation.  We were feeding off each other’s fear.  And I realized this horse, I saw when he was born.  He saw me before he saw his mother, when he came out of the sack.  And he was very tuned to me, and I was tuned to him. So, he felt my anger as terrifying.  I had to learn to understand that.  When I understood that, we corrected the situation in less than a week.  It went from, a horse that was potentially dangerous, and unrideable, to, I remember the night, Jeannie said “We’ll go back to what we always did, the same program, what we always worked on.”  And within a week, when we were working late one night in the indoor arena, she said “Which was the mare that he was reacting most to?”  You know, he was reacting to mares, and stallions get erections, and they can’t concentrate in that state.  They don’t know you’re there.  And that kept happening.  So, when she asked which mare he was most reacting to, I said “His sister, the one I weaned him with, the one he grew up with, Nahrissa.”  So, Jeannie went into the barn and brought her out on a lead line into the ring and told us to just keep working.  And she’s holding this horse on a lead line in the middle of the arena, and she says, “Go ahead, go around.”  I said (skeptically) “OK.”  And our normal way of walking is to drop the reins and let the horse walk.  People used to be real impressed, this stallion, and we would walk around with the reins completely loose.  Well, we did a little bit of work, and she said, “Go ahead, drop the reins.”  Then, “Come over here.”  So, I walked him over.  He took a lump of sugar she held in this (left) hand, and barely looked at the mare in this (right) hand, and he turned and walked off.  So, we went back to our work pattern after that." (press here to download Word file).  

 

Test Four Experimentation: Implementing ideas and testing them in real-world settings, embracing the D-PIE (Diagnose, Project, Implement, Evaluate) approach to organizational development &  change (ODC) is most expensive of the four tests. Interventions and Experiments take lots of resources.  However, using CSI, it is possible to do mini-interventions and mini-experiments in an unfolding conversation.  Here is an example from Grace Ann Rosile (in involves doing several tests):

Horse Sense Example of Test Four: "I had an example with my barn help.  I used to ask my MBA students “What is going wrong here?”  And they would say “What can you expect from minimum wage help?”  

 My philosophy was to give more than minimum wage to get better than minimum wage people.  But this guy kept breaking my forks, they were the good $20 pitchforks.  And mine lasted forever, but his was breaking, like, it seemed like every week.  And I’m replacing these forks.  And I said, “I’m not buying any more.”  So finally one day I said, “If I’m really assuming that he is an adult and responsible and all these things, using my Theory Y or whatever, what would I do here?” 

So, I went out (to the barn) and said “Gee, you know, Chris, I see these forks are breaking a lot.”  He said “Yeah, you know, I think these red ones are different from the black ones.”  They weren’t different, they were completely the same. He said, “I think they’ve been breaking more easily.”  Yeah, I knew they had been driving over them with tractors, and all this kind of stuff.  (Laughter) But I said “Gee, I don’t know.”  And we talked for a little bit like that.  And he said, “You know, the last time I bought my own (fork), when that last one broke.”  And I didn’t know that. 

So, we just left it at that.  (But) A fork didn’t break for the longest time, after that."  (press here to download Word file).

Takeaways from David Boje and Grace Ann Rosile’s use of the Four AID-Tests in doing CSI for ODC:
 
1.        Be assertive, but don’t use more assertiveness than necessary.
2.        Don’t get aggressive, or you will lose in a Difficult Conversation.
3.        Become the Braided River
4.        Practice CSI Difficult Conversations before attempting a real one.
5.        Use the AID tests to see if you are being effect.
6.        The goal of Together Listening and Together-Telling is Co-Inquiry
7.        Using Material Storytelling compliments Oral and Written Storytelling.

How does CSI assertiveness and Horse Sense make a difference for ODC?
David Boje and Grace Ann Rosile contend that the ‘Socio-Economic Approach to Management ‘(SEAM) is so extraordinarily effective in improving organizational performance in large part due to its collaborative strategies coupled with highly rigorous organizational research methods. Boje and Rosile view SEAM’s collaborative methods through our own lens of CSI.  Organizations are doing conversations in every department, and with suppliers, customers, and investors. Source: Rosile, G.A., & Boje, D. M. The Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) uses Ensemble Storytelling, Abduction-Induction-Deduction, and Self-Correcting Methods for Highly Rigorous, Effective, and Ethical Organizational Interventions Click Here to Download Word File.

Please note that SEAM intervenor/researchers may not use the same terms relating to storytelling as we authors use here (although SEAM does incorporate explicit discussion of Peirce’s AID model). However, regardless of terminology, we find the SEAM practices embody our cited conversational storytelling inquiry (CSI) principles:

1. Assertiveness, not aggression or weakness
            2. Clear intent of why you want to tell this  story
            3. Personal experience stories have primacy
            4. Silence to give space for self-reflectivity
            5. Give ’gift of story’ and exchange counter-story
            6. Use invitational rhetoric openness to listening to counter-stories
            7. Goal to get to co-inquiry of ‘Braided River’

Charles Saunders Peirce (1958, Volume 8, section 385) with his trio of Abduction, Induction, and Deduction (AID) phases of the research process. These AID phases are all employed in what Peirce (1958) describes as a “self-correcting” research methodology and what Popper (1963: 318) saw as “the trial and error of the scientific method, so we are in a continual process of arriving closer to the truth.” The final portion of this essay offers a summary and Conclusions, where we will explain how SEAM arrives “closer to the truth” (Larsen, Boje, & Bruun, 2021) using Conversational Storytelling Inquiry with AID and self-correcting methods.

SEAM considers abduction by avoiding a too-early diagnosis of problems. Instead, SEAM begins with a very open-ended and indirect questioning of a broad range of organizational members both laterally and horizontally (called the “hori-vert” process). One example of this abductive process is described in Rosile (2008). In this article, a case example of an actual use of the SEAM process is offered as an exemplary model and is the basis for an exercise on practicing open-ended interviews for needs assessment. The case example is based on an actual consultation where SEAM researcher-intervenors were asked to design an equipment-maintenance training program. However, the intervenors did not assume that the organization’s diagnosis of this training issue was to be accepted as the root of the organization’s problems. After a thorough SEAM analysis, the true root causes of the problems turned out not to be training-related. The true root causes subsequently were revealed and addressed by the SEAM consultants (Rosile 2008). By using non-directive open interviewing at the pre-diagnosis stage, the SEAM method thus incorporates abductive reasoning (including intuitive hunches) of a broad cross-section of organizational members.

 

Abductive, inductive, and deductive processes may occur at any time and in any sequence throughout the SEAM intervention, however, each has a particular phase in which it is most explicitly considered.

 

Thus while abductive reasoning occurs continuously through the SEAM process, it is most emphasized during the mirroring phase. Mirroring allows the organizational members and the researcher-intervenors together to reflect collectively on the meanings of the comments. Those comments constitute the “metascript” (Boje & Rosile, 2003) of verbatim field notes gathered during the extensive initial interviews.

 

After the mirroring process, the organization members and the intervenors together plan their actions. These plans are not called “solutions” as with many organization development and problem solving approaches. Instead, SEAM calls these action plans “project experiments.” It is at this phase that the organization tests its deductions.

 

The organization may deduce that certain process improvements have been correlated with improved efficiency in the past. This deduction might then be formulated as an inductive test, with more of a controlled “project experiment,” to document specific actions leading to measured improvements in efficiency and effectiveness. If the “project experiment” shows improvement in organizational performance, then the savings or profits are shared with those who designed and implemented the experiment through previously-agreed-upon calculations. As mentioned previously, this profit-sharing is an example of Ensemble Storytelling Political Economics.  Rosile, G.A., & Boje, D. M. The Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) uses Ensemble Storytelling, Abduction-Induction-Deduction, and Self-Correcting Methods for Highly Rigorous, Effective, and Ethical Organizational Interventions Click Here to Download Word File.

Using this lens, we find evidence of five (5) forms of Ensemble Storytelling.

We will use the five (5) aspects of Ensemble storytelling identified by Rosile (2016) and Rosile et al., (2021). The first three (3) are all aspects of “Together-Telling” and are 1) Ensemble Story Elicitation, 2) Ensemble Story Role-sharing, and 3) Ensemble Authorship. The fourth category is Collaborative Mediums including things like Theatrical Performances. The fifth and final aspect of Ensemble Storytelling is Ensemble Socio-Materiality and Political Economy. We turn now to the first of our 5 “together-telling” processes, Ensemble Story Elicitation.

 

Ensemble Storytelling Elicitation is key to understanding all Ensemble processes, as it emphasizes the role of listening. Good storytelling research elicits the stories of others and replaces interrogation with elicitation. Once a story is elicited, the story researcher attentively listens. In this previous sentence, we might equally well substitute the words “SEAM intervenor/researcher” for “story researcher.” SEAM intervenor/researchers are trained to take verbatim hand-written notes. This process shifts more of the narrative power to the interviewee and away from the interviewer.

 

This is in contrast to the interviewer who tapes the interviewee’s comments, while holding for themselves the power of the “record/off” switch, and while choosing how closely attention needs to be paid to the interviewee. Instead, the process of hand-written notes can be much more personal and respectful, and so very different in tenor from methods using printed questionnaires and even semi-structured interviews. The respect and deference conveyed by taking notes by hand puts the interviewee and the interviewer into a much more equal power relationship. This more egalitarian relationship lends itself to what we call “conversational” storytelling (Boje and Rosile, 2020) as opposed to the more hierarchical connotations of the interviewer-interviewee relationship.

 

Our second Ensemble Storytelling together-telling process is Ensemble Story Role-sharing. This refers to sharing the roles of storyteller and story listener. The SEAM consultants are not solely process consultants who never make recommendations. Instead, SEAM intervenor-researchers are both process consultants and expert consultants. Once they have completed their interviews, the SEAM practitioners promise to offer at least three (3) recommendations. This makes sense, based on their many years of experience using SEAM in so many companies. Further, this again balances the power between storyteller and story listener as the two trade roles at different points in the process. We consider this switching of roles to be role-sharing. We believe this sharing to be another aspect of a power-sharing “conversational” type of storytelling.

 

When power is shared in the storytelling process, there may be less call for “empowerment” strategies to replace the power possibly eroded by hierarchical, top-down interviewing processes.  

 

Ensemble Authorship is our third form of Ensemble Storytelling. In the mirror process, SEAM intervenor-researchers present direct quotes and themes emerging from the interviews, and they invite feedback. Participants may disagree with what is presented, but what is more usual is that people recognize that stories of the problems consist of their own exact verbatim quotes. Recognizing this, it becomes easier to come to common understandings of problems and to collaborate to design the “experiments” that can address these problems.

 

Ensemble Storytelling Collaborative Mediums and Theatrical Performances constitute our fourth type of Ensemble Storytelling. SEAM has strong underpinnings in theatrics. However, they do not engage in elaborate collaborative art and theatre processes to train and educate their membership like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) (Rosile et al., 2021). Instead, SEAM uses the direct verbatim quotes of the organization’s members to provide the “script” for their special version of organizational feedback. This organizational feedback, generically known as the “organizational mirror,” becomes the “mirror reality theatre” in SEAM. Extensive use of verbatim quotes yields a process we characterize as the collaborative together-telling of Ensemble Authorship.

 

Our fifth and final aspect of Ensemble Storytelling is Ensemble SocioMateriality and Political Economy. This feature is easily visible in the profit-sharing plans required to be a part of every organizational project “experiment.” Such profit sharing could not be token amounts but rather had to be at least a significant (10% portion) of the salary of each employee engaged in that project experiment.

Source: Rosile, G.A., & Boje, D. M. The Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) uses Ensemble Storytelling, Abduction-Induction-Deduction, and Self-Correcting Methods for Highly Rigorous, Effective, and Ethical Organizational Interventions Click Here to Download Word File.

How does CSI combined with SEAM resolve the 60-year old TRIPLE-LOOP Mystery?
Start by Watching a short YouTube Video on Triple Loop Mystery

Source: Boje, D. M. & Rosile, G. A. (2024).  The Triple Loop Mystery - Unraveling a 60-Year Quest in Organization Theory. Click here to download working paper PDF File.

How does CSI approach Triple-loop. 
1. We do not assume that it is fulfillment of Argyris and Schön approach to Single- and Double-loop, nor it is Deutero-Learning (which as reviewed is about the same as Double-loop.
2. We do not equate CSI-Triple Loop with Gregory Bateson’s Learning III.
3. Rather, our approach invokes Rosile, Boje, & Claw’s (2018) Ensemble Leadership.

In sum, Ensemble Leadership Theory (ELT) is not at all the same is prior attempts to theorize Triple-Loop, nor is it Bateson's Learning III. Rather we develop an indigenous approach to ELT. We deploy socioeconomic as an ODC approach, with cascading D-PIE teams (Diagnosis-Project, Implementation, Evaluation). Rather than moving the entire organization from Single-loop to Douple-loop, to Triple-loop and on to Ensemble, we have an approach that is multi-centered (heterarchy), respecting the three system loops of leadership, then networking them together for coordination, communication and cooperation with ELT.


See: Rosile, Grace Ann, David M Boje, and Carma M. Claw. "Ensemble leadership theory: Collectivist, relational, and heterarchical roots from indigenous contexts." Leadership 14.3 (2018): 307-328. Click Here to access the PDF.

Heterarchy means more than one organizing center in a complex organization.  Each organizing center, we call loops, and they have their own ways of conversational storytelling.   And the three loop are united and blance in a 'Heart of Care; (see the heart at the center of this diagram, of the interweaving three loops.

 Single-Loop Learning (Level 3 - Cybernetic System): This involves correcting errors without altering underlying values or policies. Analogy: a thermostat adjusting temperature. Focus: Doing things right.
Double-Loop Learning (Level 4 - Open System): This involves correcting errors by changing fundamental values and policies. Analogy: a thermostat questioning its set temperature. Focus: Doing the right things.
Triple-Loop: Boje and Rosile propose a new interpretation of Triple Loop learning, moving beyond a purely hierarchical model and integrating insights from three major disciplines:

1. Quantum Physics: Boje draws parallels between the quest for a unified theory in physics and the search for Triple Loop. He suggests that quantum principles, with their emphasis on interconnectedness and complexity, offer valuable insights.
2. Indigenous Knowledge Systems: Boje and Rosile incorporate indigenous perspectives, particularly the concept of "Ensemble Leadership", to emphasize collective, relational, and heterarchical approaches to leadership and organizational change.
3. Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM): They integrate SEAM, a scientific method utilizing Diagnosis, Project Planning, Implementation & Evaluation (D-PIE) teams to address dysfunctions and optimize human potential for improved economic performance.

But this is not enough to just have triple loop, it takes a very different and innovative leadership appraoch to sustain economic performance.  So, we bring you Ensemble Leadership to sustain and balance the Triple Loop in a Heart of Care approach.

Ensemble Leadership Theory  (ELT)


We see ensemble leadership theory (ELT) as starting from a different origin: the indigenous world-view. It provides an emphasis in the leadership context, which is largely missing in traditional leadership literature. First, the ensemble leadership theory casts leadership as a collective phenomenon, and privileges the collective rather than the individual. This moves away from the “hero” leadership views and instead, connects with the recent “relationality” and “shared” views of leadership, breaking new ground in collective leadership”  … “ensemble leadership theory assumes a social structure, which is decentered as well as multi-centered and nonhuman-centric. Fourth, the combination of dynamism and multi-centeredness yields a structure which storytelling scholars call “rhizomatic” and archeologists term “heterarchical” (Rosile, Boje, & Claw, 2018: 307).


See: Rosile, Grace Ann, David M Boje, and Carma M. Claw. "Ensemble leadership theory: Collectivist, relational, and heterarchical roots from indigenous contexts." Leadership 14.3 (2018): 307-328. Click Here to access the PDF.

The anthropological term ‘heterarchy’  in Ensemble Leadership Theory (ELT) includes (1) collectively co-created, (2) dynamic and fluid, (3) more egalitarian  than dispersed (within the person), distributed (shared among persons), or relational  (co-created in the relationships) approaches to leadership.

Ensemble Leadership Theory (ELT)  is not the repeating (cybernetic-control system doing error-correction) patterns of dispersed leadership, not the linear beginning-middle-end narrative emplotment( or cause-effect) of distributed leadership, nor the cyclical or spiral of change of the relational leadership framework.

Rather, Ensemble Leadership Theory (ELT) focus is between moving form downward to upward spiral economic performance, and navigating rhizomatic. Ensemble leadership means every follower is a potential leader.

ELT acknowledges not one hierarchy but many hierarchies, in a decentered system of heterarchies. Boje and Rosile’s CSI uses a ‘heart of care’ discourse as a way of networking together single-loop (command and control), double-loop (open systems, which is akin to Argyris & Schön double-loop).

Here is a short YouTube Video for you on CIW and how they are ending Modern Day Slavery?

However, for triple-loop we focus on a socioeconomic approach to management (Savall & Zardet, 2008; Savall, Péron, & Zardet, 2015).

We develop the socioeconomic approach to ODC, then follow up with our approach to ELT.

We (Rosile et al., 2021) have done field work to validate ELT on supply chains of some of the top US corporations.  The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) successfully combated modern-day slavery by transforming the ways that over a dozen major brands, including Taco Bell, Subway, and Wal-Mart, manage their supply chains with greater corporate social responsibility.

“The CIW history demonstrates that traditional bureaucratic hierarchical systems may be less effective than flatter, more diverse “heterarchical” systems. We term those dynamic heterarchical systems “Ensemble” (Rosile et al., 2018)” (Rosile et al., 2021: 378). This is the list of corporations doing this approach:

Source: Rosile, G. A., Boje, D. M., Herder, R. A., & Sanchez, M. (2021). The Coalition of Immokalee Workers uses ensemble storytelling processes to overcome enslavement in corporate supply chains. Business & Society, 60(2), 376-414.Click here for online PDF.

1. Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC)
2. McDonald's
3. 
Burger King

4. Whole Foods Market

5. Subway

6. Bon Appétit Management Co.
7. Compass Group
Aramark
Sodexo

8. Trader Joe’s

9. Chipotle Mexican Grill
10. Wal-Mart

11. The Fresh Market
USA Hold (Giant, Stop & Shop) Ben & Jerry’s

“

This ensemble approach employs conversational storytelling inquiry (CSI) processes, and it allows the CIW to animate a cross-field range of actors into a collective movement resulting in large-scale change” (Rosile et al., 2021: 377).

Next - see Ante-Seeds of Storytelling

SOURCES



Boje & Rosile (2020) How to use Conversational Storytelling Interviews for your Dissertation. Edward Elgar publishing.

 Boje, D. M. & Rosile, G. A. (2024).  The Triple Loop Mystery - Unraveling a 60-Year Quest in Organization Theory. Click here to download working paper PDF File.

Rosile, G. A., Boje, D. M., Herder, R. A., & Sanchez, M. (2021). The Coalition of Immokalee Workers uses ensemble storytelling processes to overcome enslavement in corporate supply chains. Business & Society, 60(2), 376-414.Click here for online PDF.

Rosile, Grace Ann, David M Boje, and Carma M. Claw. "Ensemble leadership theory: Collectivist, relational, and heterarchical roots from indigenous contexts." Leadership 14.3 (2018): 307-328. Click Here to access the PDF.

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