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THE TRANSFORMATION TEAM: AN ENABLING STRUCTURE FOR ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING IN ACTION
Author(s) -
Evans Scotney D.,
Kivell Natalie
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.21756
Subject(s) - transformative learning , knowledge management , organizational learning , action learning , organizational structure , action (physics) , psychology , organization development , reflective practice , face (sociological concept) , best practice , sociology , public relations , political science , computer science , pedagogy , cooperative learning , law , social science , physics , quantum mechanics , teaching method
The majority of work occurring in human service organizations (HSOs) today, is ameliorative in nature, leaving the original sources of problems in our communities or society unchanged. The current tendency is to unreflectively reproduce these ameliorative practices that at best are superficially addressing a problem, and at worst are perpetuating the issues our communities face. In this paper we bring in two key concepts from Organizational Theory to inform Community Psychology theory and practice: reflective practice and organizational learning. We demonstrate the necessity of critically reflective practice in HSOs to promote learning, critical consciousness and critical community practice, in order to create more transformative rather than ameliorative practices. Utilizing our learning from three case studies, we propose the use of a Transformation‐team (T‐team) model as an enabling structure for reflective practice and organizational learning. Outlining benefits as well as eight necessary conditions of a successful T‐team, we delve into the possibilities that such an organizational structure can offer our HSOs.