This was the first of the CSML Network seminars. It took place on the 29th March, hosted by Coulter Electronics (though, in the end, 'Our Man at Coulter', Robin How was unable to attend!). The impetus for it was my sense of lacking a historical perspective on management development. My interests have tended toward the more innovative approaches (despite its venerable age, SML compared to most management development practice is still considered startlingly new by many) and I wanted to situate them more fully among the other activities and theories that have had their place within the field. Essentially, this was...

Some of you may already know that we have a long standing link in the USA with Roger Harrison, including the book that Graham Dawes is editing with Roger. A new link was agreed in March when Linda Honold of Empowerment Systems (of Wisconsin) visited Britain. Linda pioneered radical developments in 'self managed working' when she was at Johnsonville Foods. This company has been described...

In March, our Hungarian partner Magda Csath launched a radical new development programme for the Raba Company. The company is a 99 year-old business making trucks, motors, axles and other vehicle components. It is having to deal with the privatisation policies in Hungary as well as a highly competitive, global market within which it has to operate. This led the company to identify the need...

At the last meeting of the group that has been involved in forming the Centre's Network, we experimented with using an approach to 'dialogue' in order to further our understanding of 'self managing'. I have now developed this a bit under the label of 'Purposive Structured Dialogue' - not just to have a fancy label, but because I want to develop something different from the Bohm/Senge model of dialogue that is becoming popular. (Anyone wanting more information on the Bohm/Senge approach can get some ideas from Senge's 'The Fifth Discipline'). [member] Part of the interest in 'dialogue' has come from former set...