Volume 11, Numbers 1-2

Feature

This issue of Reflections is a translation of a research report published by SoL France in 2010.

Publisher's Note - Volume 11, Numbers 1-2
Sherry Immediato

A Note from SoL France's President
Etienne Collignon

PART ONE: Report on the Action Research

SoL France’s Action Research Program
Irène Dupoux-Couturier, Béatrice Quasnik, Catherine Redelsperger, and Alain de Vulpian
In celebration of SoL France’s 10th anniversary, its board of directors launched an action research project to learn how member companies adapted to a changing environment during that decade. The researchers found an increasing number of change agents working quietly together to find a way out of the economic crisis by supporting the development of human qualities and capacities. These formal and informal leaders perceive emergent opportunities and imagine other forms of organization, management, motivation, markets, and production methods – a critical skill for ensuring a company’s vitality and prosperity in the years ahead. By supporting these change agents, the SoL France network has contributed to the evolution of some companies from a mechanistic logic toward an organic one.


PART TWO: Getting It into Perspective

Learning in Light of Evolving Social Practices in France
Catherine Redelsperger and Béatrice Quasnik
Changing societal norms and practices have influenced learning practices in organizations. This article highlights six interconnected dynamics that have had an effect on collective learning: the disappearance of barriers between professional and personal life; the acceptance of expressions of personality; a reevaluation of the concept of “collective”; the internet as a creator of interactions; people’s aspiration for more democracy; and sustainable development. These trends have caused profound shifts that stretch well beyond the world of work.

Toward a New Type of Systemic Leadership: An Awakening Awareness
Irène Dupoux-Couturier
SoL France’s action research project found strong evidence that a new type of leadership is emerging, able to adapt to the growing complexity of our systems and face the current economic crisis by relying on people, the essential resource of any organization. These emerging leaders are not dreamy idealists but “pragmatic humanists” from throughout the ranks. In this article, Irène Dupoux-Couturier makes the case that we have reached a tipping point in the development of a form of leadership capable of causing sustainable and efficient changes in the world. To be effective, modern leaders must transform not only their businesses but themselves as well.

Empathy, Socioperception, and Anticipation
Alain de Vulpian
Today, more and more people have highly developed “socioperception” skills that play an integral role in their professional lives; that is, they possess a deep systemic intuition of the condition and functioning of the social systems within which they operate. These individuals sense the most significant potential future directions and intuit opportunities for positive intervention. In this article, Alain de Vulpian looks at humankind’s intellectual and emotional evolution over the past several centuries and the factors that have led to a rise in a “new society of people” based on empathy and socioperceptive abilities.
Read Full Article