Action Research A Methodology for Change and Development

58 ACTION RESEARCH
issue that was mentioned by most people – ‘low-priced competitor products’
– then became the main focus for discussion. Altogether there were
four strategy sessions over a period of six weeks. Rutter’s role was to document
the discussion by drawing a cognitive map on a flip chart. This was
amended and elaborated during the session and later extended and refined
from a tape-recording of the session. He then circulated the revised map to
participants two days before the next session. In each case, the map was
then discussed and amended through discussion that acted as a process of
clarification moving towards shared understanding. As Rutter puts it, ‘the
intention was not to find an absolute truth but a strategic direction’.
Rutter brought to the sessions his own fund of specialist knowledge,
but rather than presenting to the group insights drawn from this knowledge,
he used it to guide his questioning. Adopting the techniques of active
listening, drawn from counselling theory, he used his questions to help the
managers ‘unravel confusing impressions and conflicting information’,
develop new scenarios and realistic agendas and both make choices and
commit to following them through. Through this process he helped them
to probe and understand strategic issues and expose and discuss their own
mindsets. Here his approach matches well with Argyris’ workshop approach
to uncovering tacit theories-in-use and defensive strategies discussed earlier,
as it does also with Bion’s early work on group therapy at the Tavistock
Institute (Bion 1946). Through this process the group was able to come to
a decision that took account of the current economic climate and market
situation and built directly on the company’s strengths, but that initially
had been unacceptable to at least one member; because it was a group decision
they all committed to it unanimously and it resulted in the company
securing a large contract from the Ministry of Defence within a very short
period of time.
This is a meticulously executed study in which Rutter makes it clear he
was aware of the seriousness of the situation for the group and the need to
ensure he did not provide poor advice or in any way make their situation
worse. He takes particular care to address three problems relating to facilitation
that he has come across in research literature: ensuring ownership by
participants rather than the researcher; giving adequate feed-back to enable
further reflection on the process; and avoiding researcher bias. To guard
against this last he used a colleague who had reservations about the
approach as a ‘supervisor’, discussing the cognitive maps with him after
each session and cross-checking his own understandings. Although his
research has resonances with that of Susman and Trist in terms of his
careful research design, his approach to knowledge construction is very different
from theirs. Like them he brings specialist knowledge to the situation
but, unlike them, he does not use it to give any advice but only to inform
his questioning. He also reaches no firm conclusions about the knowledge
outcomes from the study, saying indeed that he ‘learnt an important lesson