ABSTRACT
Advisers or change agents always enter and intervene in living dynamic processes. Accordingly, a critical competence is the ability to see and make sense of what is going on in and around a client organization. Organizational assessments are one way of doing this, but they often focus on predefined and rather standard elements of an organization. A different but complementary approach is what is called ‘reading situations’, that is, to try to discover the story and dynamics of an organization in a more open and creative way.
This chapter by Catherine Collingwood describes how to ‘read an organization’, with a special focus on understanding the less-visible dynamics that occur within civil society organizations and their contexts. This exploration reveals the limitations of conventional organizational assessment approaches, leading to the conclusion that these may be complemented by ‘readings’ to unravel the unique context and history of an organization. Finally, Collingwood considers what this approach may mean for practitioners wanting to apply it across different types of organizational settings.
