by Steve Cavaleri

Vaill and Fearon – On Practice as a Way of Being

Over the past three decades, American managers have taken a puzzling left turn away from self-development, cognitive enrichment, and personal reflection in favor of relying on technology-mediated tools. More specifically, the prevailing technical knowledge management approaches and the currently popular business analytics tools appear to offer the promise of a short-cut around doing the conceptual heavy lifting so often associated with solving today’s complex problems. But are these promises of quick, effortless technology fixes sufficient to gain mastery over the challenges posed by today’s complex dynamic problems? As systems theorist, Peter Senge has observed, the easy way out always leads back in. By contrast, Vaill and Fearon provide a roadmap for those managers who wish to take the road less taken. This road leads to increasing one’s capacity for acting in a progressively more intelligent and effective manner over time.

This pattern of avoidance used by some managers to bypass problem complexity in favor of simplicity is not unique or unknown. Many management pioneers, such as Ackoff, Churchman, Forrester, Deming, and Checkland have observed this dysfunctional tendency of managers. Managers often unwittingly externalize the essence of the prevailing management methods to avoid dealing with the thorny conceptual challenges of dealing with improving performance in complex systems. This pattern inevitably leads managers into what systems theorists Nelson Repenning and John Sterman refer to as capability traps.

The need to become a reflective practitioner was first popularized in Donald Schon’s 1984 book, The Reflective Practitioner. Over the past 40 years, little of import has been written in this critical domain of the management profession. The darkness of this four-decade long period is now being illuminated with the long-awaited book, On Practice as a Way of Being, by the late Peter Vaill and David S. Fearon. This is a much-needed book to shed light on the conceptual underpinnings of the process of becoming a more reflective practitioner. Modern day managers are at risk of losing their soul and becoming automatons who are incapable of making deep dives into the reasons for their own thought and consequent action. The timing of the release of this book is critical at this juncture of the evolving management epistemology.

Vaill and Fearon make a quantum leap forward in framing the task of becoming a reflective practitioner away from it being a cognitive exercise and obligation toward a process-oriented view of becoming as a way of being. This reframing borrows the theme from Vaill’s previous book, Management as a Way of Being. In this most recent book, Vaill and Fearon observe “Practice is not random or casual behavior. It is not “on impulse.” It is mindful. Practice is, moreover, an intentional, gratifying way of being.” Rather than explicating this new reframed way at looking at the challenge of becoming a reflective practitioner, the authors pose a series of inquiries in the form of conjectures to set the table for a menu of critical topics on becoming a self-reflective practitioner.

Written in an engaging non-academic manner, this book challenges readers to explore their own thinking about managing their own practice of becoming a better manager and leader. This book is essential reading for any sophisticated manager who aspires to break out of the mechanical cultural mindset and become instrumental in recreating what it means to become a highly effective manager or leader. The authors continually challenge their readers to shift from being the object of some larger mechanical system to becoming a more authentic creative human being. Kudos to Vaill and Fearon for their courage in taking on this mission by offering an alternative way of becoming a more authentic manager in a way that provide aspiring managers with an antidote to the ills of the cultural status quo mindset. Repetitive generations of managers become seduced by the seeming simplicity of tools such as business analytics. For those managers and educators who wish to go beyond the limitations of such tools, there now exists an engaging and thoughtful guide for those wishing to embark on the journey down the other road. It is called, On Practice as a Way of Being.

by Don Dunoon

“On Practice as a Way of Being…” a vital resource

posted to ILA Intersections (International Leadership Association discussion board)

I’d like to flag a resource that I think would be of crucial importance to members in advancing leadership practice (and other practices) in a wide variety of settings. But first some context for my remarks.

Practice is a term that figures strongly in ILA’s depictions of itself. On its website, ILA describes itself as “The Global Network for Those Who Study, Teach and Practice Leadership”. Its mission is “Advancing Leadership Knowledge and Practice for a Better World”.

Yet, for me – as I’ve said in these pages before – there’s a question about how strongly leadership practice figures as an area for careful consideration within ILA.

As a quick exercise, I searched back through the discussions here looking for instances where the word practice appeared in a post’s title. Apart from a couple of references to things like “campus best practices” and “hiring practices”, as well as to a post of my own, I got as far back as October 2020 to find a post headlining leadership practice; one by Rian Satterwhite on “Patterns & Practices: Reflection on the ILA Leadership Education Academy Critical Conversations.”

In my experience, there’s a tendency to conflate leadership with leaders, and think about leadership practice as what leaders do, as well as such aspects as leaders’ qualities, skills, behaviours, and shortcomings. But practice in its own right tends not to get a lot of attention. And that’s where the resource I flagged above comes in.

“On Practice as a Way of Being: Peter Vaill’s Conjectures on Why Your Practice Matters” is an interactive digital book with 32 “conjectures” on practice by the late Peter Vaille with commentary and synthesis by David Fearon Sr, both having had long careers as organizational behavior professors.

This beautifully written book engages the reader in contemplating not just what practice means to them, or what is implied by being a practitioner, but in thinking about practice as something that can reverberate through their life, in both professional areas and more personal pursuits, and help shape how they ‘be’ in the world.

One area of application I see for the book is in the development of professionals in fields as diverse as school teaching, engineering, nursing, and accounting. Just as there’s commonly an emphasis on developing ‘leaders’ in such fields, perhaps the book will help nurture the development of teachers, engineers, and others who intentionally practice leadership as well as having a practice orientation in other areas of their lives.

Reading the conjectures has certainly sharpened my own awareness about how I think about practice in my own life, and in how I can bring greater intentionally and learning to activities I might previously have largely drifted along with.

More broadly, I sense that over time, this book could become a most important catalyst in helping rebalance deliberations in ILA away from the dominance of leader-centered narratives, towards a greater emphasis on the work – the practice – of leadership.

Highly commended!