The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry - Systemic Practice and Action Research

Introduction: The Practice of co-operative inquiry Peter Reason In Reason, P. (ed) (2002). Special Issue: The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 15(3).

In the Handbook of Action Research, Hilary Bradbury and I describe action research as a ‘family’ of participative, experiential and action oriented approaches to research (Reason & Bradbury, 2001a:xxiii). The different practices which make up this family sometimes overlap, sometimes emphasise different aspects of the action research movement. But they also share certain characteristics in common: … action research is a participatory, democratic process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes… It seeks to bring together action and reflection, theory and practice, in participation with others, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern to people, and more generally the flourishing of individual persons and their communities. (Reason & Bradbury, 2001b:1) Co-operative inquiry is one articulation of action research. The original proposal for experiential inquiry was put forward by John Heron in 1971 (Heron, 1971). This developed into a practice of co-operative inquiry as a methodology for a science of persons (Heron, 1996; Heron & Reason, 2001).

In co-operative inquiry, all those involved in the research endeavour are both co-researchers, whose thinking and decision-making contributes to generating ideas, designing and managing the project, and drawing conclusions from the experience; and also co-subjects, participating in the activity that is being researched. The arguments which support this approach—the participative worldview, the human person as agent, critical subjectivity, the political, epistemological ecological and spiritual dimensions of participation—are explored extensively elsewhere (Heron & Reason, 1997; Reason & Bradbury, 2001b); and we have described the methodology itself and the choices facing an inquiry group in considerable detail (Heron, 1996; Reason, forthcoming).

This issue of Systemic Practice and Action Research focuses on the practice of co-operative inquiry, and in particular on the choices and actions of those who initiate and facilitate co-operative inquiry groups. I have been struck how much the people who I talk to about co-operative inquiry want to hear stories: not just the theory and methodology, but the human stories about how it all works. They want to know how to initiate an inquiry group, how many people to include, how long the inquiry should go on for, how to locate an inquiry within an organization. In particular, they want to know about the personal qualities this kind of inquiry will demand, the attitudes and skills they will be required to manifest. Maybe the most frequent question people ask is about

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power and influence: If the inquiry is to be truly co-operative, does this mean that as initiator I cannot be influential?

The six papers in this issue address these concerns by providing accounts of how the authors—all of whom recently initiated and participated in cooperative inquiry projects—established and worked with inquiry groups. The majority of the contributors have close associations with the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice (CARPP) at the University of Bath, where we have developed our practices of co-operative inquiry over many years.

Kate McArdle recounts in some detail how she established an inquiry group, which is ongoing at the time of writing, of young women in management within a multinational corporation. Geoff Mead tells the story of inquiring collaboratively into leadership practices in Hertfordshire Constabulary. Marian Charles and Sara Glennie write about their just-completed inquiry with professionals engaged in child protection work. Mark Baldwin compares his experience in five inquiry groups he has facilitated with social work professionals. Penny Barrett, writing with Bev Taylor, reflects on the formal and informal aspects of her inquiry with midwives in an Australian hospital.

And Carlis Douglas explores the liberating possibilities of co-operative inquiry in her work with Black women. Following these papers Patricia Maguire, who has made significant contributions to practices of participatory action research, particularly emphasizing feminist dimensions of inquiry, offers a commentary from a political and feminist perspective.

The methodology of co-operative inquiry The reader unfamiliar with co-operative inquiry may require a brief methodological outline; further descriptions can be found in the references, on the CARPP website www.bath.ac.uk/management/carpp and on John Heron’s website www.human-inquiry.com.

Co-operative inquiry can be seen as cycling through four phases of reflection and action, drawing on a fourfold ‘extended’ epistemology: experiential knowing is through direct face-to-face encounter with a person, place or thing; it is knowing through empathy and resonance, that kind of in-depth knowing which is almost impossible to put into words; presentational knowing grows out of experiential knowing, and provides the first form of expression through story, drawing, sculpture, movement, dance, drawing on aesthetic imagery; propositional knowing draws on concepts and ideas; and practical knowing consummates the other forms of knowing in action in the world (Heron, 1996; Heron & Reason, 2001).

In Phase 1 a group of co-researchers come together to explore an agreed area of human activity. In this first phase they agree on the focus of their inquiry and develop together a set of questions or propositions they wish to explore. They agree to undertake some action, some practice, which will contribute to this exploration, and agree to a set of procedures by which they will observe and record their own and each other's experience. Phase 1 is primarily in the mode of propositional knowing, although it will also contain important elements of presentational knowing as group members use their Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

imagination in story, fantasy and graphics to help them articulate their interests and to focus on their purpose in the inquiry. Once the focal idea— what the inquiry is about—is agreed, Phase 1 will conclude with planning a method for exploring the idea in action, and with devising ways of gathering and recording data from this experience.

In Phase 2 the co-researchers now also become co-subjects: they engage in the actions agreed, observing and recording the process and outcomes of their own and each other's experience. In particular, they are careful to notice the subtleties of experience, to hold lightly the propositional frame from which they started so that they are able to notice how practice does and does not conform to their original ideas. This phase involves primarily practical knowledge: knowing how (and how not) to engage in appropriate action, to bracket off the starting idea, and to exercise relevant discrimination.

Phase 3 is in some ways the touchstone of the inquiry method. It is a stage in which the co-subjects become fully immersed in and engaged with their experience. They may develop a degree of openness to what is going on so free of preconceptions that they see it in a new way. They may deepen into the experience so that superficial understandings are elaborated and developed. Or they may be led away from the original ideas and proposals into new fields, unpredicted action and creative insights. It is also possible that they may get so involved in what they are doing that they lose the awareness that they are part of an inquiry group: there may be a practical crisis, they may become enthralled, they may simply forget. Phase 3 involves mainly experiential knowing, although it will be richer if new experience is expressed, when recorded, in creative presentational form through graphics, colour, sound, movement, drama, story, poetry, and so on.

In Phase 4, after an agreed period engaged in phases two and three, the coresearchers re-assemble to consider their original propositions and questions in the light of their experience. As a result they may modify, develop or reframe them; or reject them and pose new questions. They may choose, for the next cycle of action, to focus on the same or on different aspects of the overall inquiry. The group may also choose to amend or develop its inquiry procedures—forms of action, ways of gathering data—in the light of experience. Phase 4 is primarily the stage of propositional knowing, although presentational forms of knowing will form an important bridge with the experiential and practical phases.

In a more complete inquiry the cycle will be repeated several times. Ideas and discoveries tentatively reached in early phases can be checked and developed; investigation of one aspect of the inquiry can be related to exploration of other parts; new skills can be acquired and monitored, experiential competencies realized. The group itself may become more cohesive and self-critical, more skilled in its work and in the practices of inquiry. Ideally the inquiry is finished when the initial (and emergent) questions and concerns have been thoroughly addressed in practice, when there is a new congruence between the four kinds of knowing. It is of course rare for a group to complete an inquiry so fully. It should be noted that the actual Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

process is not as straightforward as the model suggests: there are usually mini-cycles within major cycles; some cycles will emphasise one phase more than others; and some practitioners have advocated a more emergent process of inquiry which is less structured into phases; nevertheless, the discipline of the research cycle is fundamental.

The cycling can really start at any point. It is usual for groups to get together formally at the propositional stage, often as the result of an invitation from an initiating facilitator. However, such a proposal is usually birthed in experiential knowing, at the moment that curiosity is aroused or incongruity noticed (Rowan, 1981, 2001). And the proposal to form an inquiry group, if it is to take flight, needs to be presented in such a way as to appeal to the experience of potential co-researchers.

In all forms of action research, the quality of inquiry practice lies far less in impersonal methodology, and far more in the emergence of a self-aware, critical community of inquiry nested within a community of practice. So while co-operative inquiry as method is based on cycles of action and reflection engaging four dimensions of an extended epistemology as described above, co-operative inquiry as human process depends on the development of healthy human interaction in a face-to-face group. The would-be initiator of a co-operative inquiry must have a willingness to engage with the complexities of these human processes as well as the logic of inquiry. This requires us to recollect our understanding of group processes. It is these human issues that the contributors to this issue primarily address themselves.

Reflecting on the accounts of inquiry As I read through the six accounts which follow, I notice how the facilitators and their inquiry groups hold together opposite tendencies as the inquiry emerges. Here are my reflections on some of these.

Ordinary and Special I am struck how co-operative inquiry is both very special and very ordinary.

The accounts show clearly how working in a group of people who trust each other, engaging together in cycles of action and reflection over time, supporting and challenging one other to look experience in the face and take risks in developing new forms of practice, is a very special experience.

Engaging in cycles of action and reflection can birth a high quality attention and bold experiments in practice which is the essence of inquiry. The accounts also show what an ordinary, everyday experience this is: people come together and share stories about their work; they drink tea and eat cake together; ordinary talk becomes inquiry, as Barrett puts it.

Legitimate and Different

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I also noticed the importance of establishing both legitimacy and difference within their hosting organization. The contributors give accounts of their negotiations with significant organizational gatekeepers for material and symbolic support, and to address an organizational issue which is seen as important. At the same time the inquiry group offers difference, is in some important sense countercultural: they provide a collaborative space within a hierarchical organization (Mead), young women’s voices within a traditional corporate structure (McArdle), the voices of practical experience in the face of government regulation (Baldwin), and so on. One might think that Douglas, whose inquiry with Black women takes place entirely outside formal organizations, offers an exception to this rule—but she too has to draw on her legitimacy as an inquiring member of her community and offer a space where difference can emerge.

Bounded and Open One key characteristic of co-operative inquiry is that the group, which is typically closed to new members for the duration of the inquiry, offers a safe space within which inquiry can flourish. The group is usually drawn together through a series of exploratory conversations and meetings, and at some point, which often has symbolic significance, the boundary is drawn with so that "now we know who ‘we’ are", as McArdle puts it, and members can engage in the processes of inclusion, control and influence which constitute group process (Reason, forthcoming). Charles and Glennie suggest that, "the inquiry offered a qualitatively different space".

Creating a boundary creates safe space but also a boundary issue: if some are ‘in’ then others are ‘out’ and the transition back across the boundary to share the learning with others needs to be managed carefully. As Mead tells in his account, the police leadership inquiry group offered a transformational space for its members, but, he adds, "we are still struggling to communicate the benefits of a collaborative approach to a wider police audience". Charles and Glennie from the beginning have to create a safe space for their inquiry group within the complex and pressured field of child protection. The midwives inquiry group that Barrett and Taylor write about appears particularly successful in making a space for themselves and establishing the Early Mothering Group as a recognized part of hospital practice; this may be because they were willing to open their group boundary at an appropriate point.

Power and Collaboration There is a line of creative tension between power and authority on the one hand, and collaboration on the other. The initiating facilitator exercises power and influence in order to create the space within which the group can develop and flourish; but this power must be used to facilitate collaboration—if it is held too long, or used to oppressively bolster the initiator’s position, it becomes degenerate. Douglas and Mead both realize that abdicating power does not lead to collaboration, that they need to be powerful leaders in their

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groups; and Douglas explores in some detail the dilemmas that this creates for her and provides a glimpse of her reflections on the leadership role.

All the contributors exercise power strongly: •

•

•

•

•

•

In the initial framing of the inquiry questions—they all have an agenda to pursue which has emerged in their prior personal inquiries or from organizational opportunities.

In creating and holding space for the inquiry process, working the formal organizational, informal networking and dialogue, and managing the ongoing affairs of the inquiry.

By working toward creating a culture of inquiry which differentiates the inquiry group from the rest of the organization—note how Mead uses the jumping mouse story, how McArdle re-organizes the furniture to make a space fit for conversation.

Through facilitation of the group process so that collaboration can emerge as quickly as possible—helping people feel comfortable, providing structures which clarify the task early on, and so on.

Through moment to moment facilitation of the group task. Baldwin refers to his use of ‘catalytic’ interventions to draw out themes, reflect back, summarize; and also confronting, ‘devil’s advocate’ interventions when he senses issues are being avoided. Charles and Glennie provide strong directive leadership when group energy flags, at the same time asking themselves if this is appropriate.

Through facilitating the emotional process of the group. As will be clear from all the accounts, but particularly highlighted by Douglas, the process of inquiry into significant life issues is emotionally challenging.

The Black women Douglas works with find that their learned strategies of surviving get in the way of their ability to participate with each other in the inquiry group and interfere with their capacities for thriving. The field of child protection where Charles and Glennie are working is "permeated by uncertainty and anxiety". One of Baldwin’s groups cannot get on with their inquiry task until they have confronted difficulties in their working relationships. And so on. The inquiry facilitator has to be prepared to deal with anger, frustration, fear and grief, especially as the inquiry deepens and the group experiences the challenges of their situation.

Yet this power is always in the service of creating a space for collaboration, the "genuine achievement of a sense of ‘us’", as Wadsworth has it (2001:420). While holding their power, the facilitator must also be willing and able to encourage participant initiatives, to step into the background when these occur, to become an ordinary group member; and yet be willing (but not too willing) to take the stage again when the situation requires it. They need to actively open their own leadership to inquiry and model the process of learning through inquiry for the group as a whole. This is what Torbert refers to as transformational leadership (Torbert, 1991:56): mutual, actively seeking challenge, essentially vulnerable. And lest all this seems to be too demanding, the facilitator must heed John Heron’s words:

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May I suggest to the reader who …starts to find the account of all these skills daunting and disheartening, that the discipline of engaging in a co-operative inquiry and its cyclic process is itself a means of developing them. Furthermore, while the description of them can appear immaculate, the occurrence of them is maculate, fractal, earthy, irregular and granular. We are all beginners. (Heron, 1996:115; see also Heron, 1999) In this introduction I have reflected on some of the issues I see raised by these six accounts. I am sure each reader will see learnings which apply particularly to their experience, and will find yet different lessons suggested by Pat Maguire in her commentary. We are, indeed, all beginners; and we can all learn.

With thanks to the contributors for writing these accounts and responding to my editorial demands, to the many participants in the inquiry groups, and to my colleagues and students with whom the adventure of inquiry continues.

Peter Reason Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice University of Bath July 2001 References Heron, J. (1971). Experience and Method: an inquiry into the concept of experiential research: Human Potential Research Project, University of Surrey.

Heron, J. (1996). Co-operative Inquiry: research into the human condition. London: Sage.

Heron, J. (1999). The Complete Facilitator's Handbook. London: Kogan Page Ltd. Heron, J., & Reason, P. (1997). A Participatory Inquiry Paradigm. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3), 274-294.

Heron, J., & Reason, P. (2001). The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry: Research With Rather Than On People. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice (pp. 179-188). London: Sage Publications.

Reason, P. (forthcoming). Doing Co-operative Inquiry. In J. Smith (Ed.), Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

Methods. London: Sage Publications. See http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mnspwr/Papers/JonathanSmith.htm Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2001a). Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice (Vol. Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice). London: Sage Publications.

Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (2001b). Inquiry and Participation in Search of a World Worthy of Human Aspiration. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. Londond: Sage Publications.

Rowan, J. (1981). A Dialectical Paradigm for Research. In P. Reason & J. Rowan (Eds.), Human Inquiry (pp. 93-112).

Chichester: Wiley.

Rowan, J. (2001). The Humanistic Approach to Action Research. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. London: Sage.

Torbert, W. R. (1991). The Power of Balance: Transforming Self, Society, and Scientific Inquiry. Newbury Park: Sage.

Wadsworth, Y. (2001). The Mirror, the Magnifying Glass, the Compass and the Map - Facilitating Participatory Action Research. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), The Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice (pp. 420432). London: Sage PUblications.

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Establishing a co-operative inquiry group; the perspective of a ‘first-time’ inquirer Kate Louise McArdle In Reason, P. (ed) (2002). Special Issue: The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 15(3).

Abstract This paper gives a detailed account of the activities I engaged in when establishing a co-operative inquiry (CI) group of twelve young women managers. I feel this ‘beginning’ stage is not (well) documented. I acutely felt the ‘gap’ this left in my understanding of how inquiries of this nature emerge and the shape they take, when setting out to inquire in this way for the first time. I believe voice and language are key throughout this early stage and here I evidence the choices I made in relation to both of these. Reflecting on these choices enabled me to understand my developing focus on process as well as the many ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ questions which emerge at this early stage; an understanding which I believe is central to enriching both our ‘experience of’ and our ‘talking about’ our practice as inquirers.

Key words: Co-operative inquiry, facilitation, young women managers, voice.

Introduction I’m 25 years old. I’m a woman. And this is my story of making a space for my PhD inquiry in a large multi-national organisation (referred to as XYZ). I believe this ‘getting started’ phase is not only worthy of, but also in need of focussed attention.

This need is due to accounts of CI seeming to jump from ‘getting access’, to ‘what we did’ – even John Heron’s seminal text jumps from a theoretical discussion of CI as method, to issues the caller of the inquiry should consider at the ‘launch meeting’, (Heron, J. 1996). We need to fill the gaps in our reporting of ‘establishing the group’ to enable us to be more choice-full in our decisions in this key phase.

I therefore detail each of my key stages in establishing a CI group of ‘young women in management’ (those who joined XYZ following graduation and who have been in the company for no more than 3 years). I begin in August 2000, with getting access to XYZ. I then cover two sponsor meetings, raising awareness of my research inside XYZ and two introductory sessions. I then draw to a close in January 2001 when the CI group was formed. I inquire into the decision of two women not to join the inquiry group and discuss the energy which shapes my process. Throughout, I reflect on the choices I made and I pay attention to why I noticed what I noticed. Language and voice are central to my discussion.

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Making a proposal "I was aware that (co-operative inquiry) could evoke anxiety with its lack of structure, excitement with its open-endedness, and uncertainty with its unpredictability regarding specifically desired outcomes." (Traylen, 1994).

In August 2000, I sent research proposals, my CV and covering letter to several multinational organisations requesting access for my PhD research (young women in management – a CI). The way these documents were presented was an important choice-point. I used plain, as opposed to headed paper. I introduced myself, as opposed to including a letter my male supervisor had offered to write. Headed paper felt too much like one organisation speaking to another, and a letter from my supervisor sounded as though a professional man in one organisation was speaking, on behalf of a woman, to another (probably) professional man in another organisation.

I was determined from the very beginning that my voice would not be lost. I needed a company to work with for my research and I felt as though I was taking a risk by not using the obvious power bases I had available to me. I felt as though they were more likely to be interested if I had done so. But I also knew this was my research and I felt a very strong need to own it.

So, I opted for my own voice, giving brief, bullet-pointed descriptions of; •

•

The need for this inquiry; very little is understood about the experiences of young women in management and very few attempts have been made to link feminist inquiry with action research.

CI process: I outlined the core principles of action and reflection, collaboration and different ways of knowing. I also suggested how this would work in terms of time frame (meeting for half a day, once every four weeks, for ten months).

I followed this with a lengthy discussion of ‘benefits which may fall from the study’, for both the company and for the individuals involved. I devoted the majority of the proposal to these benefits as two years previously I had run some research at XYZ as part of my undergraduate degree course. This had shaped my understanding of where they attached value and placed importance - the focus was clearly on outcomes, not process. As I was approaching similar companies, I considered, they may all have a similar focus. I honoured my voice by not tying the inquiry down to a particular focus whilst also giving XYZ something to imagine it tied to - a feeling for what inquiry of this nature can achieve.

I had to balance a desire for access with the risk of being ‘too honest’ and risking my proposal being rejected. I did not want my voice to disintegrate into being "a noise, saying what is expected, speaking to the organisational creed" (Martin, as quoted by Maguire, 2000) but I also did not want to encourage the anxiety Traylen (1994, above) speaks of. I was struck at how silenced I felt in presenting myself on paper, how un-included I would be in the decision of whether to meet. The proposals were posted and I waited. It was the end of August.

Getting Access

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XYZ invited me to a meeting on September 7th at Head Office (HO). I was excited and relieved at the same time. I was aware from the previous work I had done with XYZ, that my proposed inquiry was not a process they were familiar with. They typically ran one-day workshops, focussed on answers to assumed questions. This inquiry would begin through self-selection and spend time exploring what the questions were. I had framed the inquiry as an invitation to explore the experience of being a young woman in XYZ. I noticed how keen I was to establish this difference.

At the meeting on September 7th, I met my now senior sponsor. Jon is male, aged about 38 and is in the second highest of five management levels. I had decided that we ought not to try to fit each other. The inquiry had to be ‘bought into’ on my terms – its shape had to stay intact. I felt it was right not to make the process or the outcomes sound concrete – I had to let him know he was buying into uncertainty.

The meeting mainly focussed on Jon. He gave me a lot of background on XYZ and his views on the current workshops they run. I made notes as he spoke, particularly on the current workshop structures. I then fed back on what I saw as the value in these structures and then discussed the value in working with a CI structure and how this could work better or differently. Many positive comments were made throughout our three-hour meeting. The opportunity to hear ‘the unheard story, from the inside’ caused considerable interest and excitement.

I was invited back two weeks later to meet with Jon and Anna. Jon is Anna’s boss.

Anna is about 2 years older than me and had just been given responsibility for promoting women’s interests at the HO site. The meeting focussed more on me and my feelings about what we may be able to do together. The two areas I had to defend the most were; the duration of the inquiry and the invitation to ‘explore experience’ as opposed to exploring a fixed topic. I was determined that neither of these elements would change. It felt good not to be silent or malleable. I left the meeting with two sponsors (senior; Jon and junior; Anna). I promised to set up the group and run the inquiry. They promised full access and a sizeable budget. I did not promise to generate any bulky reports or guarantee any outcomes. Getting access so quickly and what I felt was on my terms felt fantastic.

Jon requested I compile a document to ‘sell’ Bath University ‘higher up the chain’ to indicate that he had made a ‘good choice in a partner institution’. My voice had won access for my PhD inquiry. I was now happy to let the organisations ‘talk’. I entered tables of statistics and quotations about the standing of the university onto several sheets of headed paper. This was one of the early indications of the type of information XYZ value. The document was well received.

First contact At the end of October I took part in a day celebrating ‘diversity’ within XYZ. I was given half of a stand promoting women’s interests. I covered it with bright yellow posters asking questions such as; ‘What is it like to be a twenty-something woman in XYZ?’ ‘Does gender matter?’ I littered the entire floor with bright orange flyers, which asked the same questions, gave the date of an introductory session and my contact details. I was expected to remain on the stand, but I had little interest in being interrogated or speaking to people who were not in the age bracket of my inquiry. I Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

needed to use my voice in the right kind of conversations. I wondered around talking to people who looked as if they were in my ‘target audience’. We sat on couches, drank coffee, shared stories about my research and their work and exchanged contact details. I spoke to about thirty young women and left the session with nine registered to attend the introductory session in December. I felt bolstered by their interest. My research began to feel real and important to the people who mattered.

An Invitation Anna promised that ‘someone in technology’ would compile an email list of all the eligible women in XYZ in the south of England, so I could invite them to an introductory session on December 8th. The whole of November passed by and no email list appeared. This taught me a valuable lesson. A combination of working outside an organisation and being young and inexperienced placed me along way down the priority list. I respected this (I didn’t expect to be top of the list), lived with how it made me feel (frustrated and unimportant) and managed it (I offered my help and gently asked where the email list was). I then had to scare my self by telling Anna that time was getting so tight that I had to have the list. I travelled to HO and compiled a list of 180 eligible women in one afternoon.

Speaking with power from what I experienced as an un-powerful position wasn’t easy. I wanted to keep Anna on ‘my side’, but I needed to balance this with making her realise that I wouldn’t let my inquiry schedule slide. Defending my inquiry is important to me. Not personalising the issues is sometimes difficult - it would have been very easy to blame Anna here, and part of me did for a while. But I also realised my inquiry was just one small thing in her life, not the one huge thing it was in mine.

The invitation email was sent only one week before the introductory session on December 8th , which was far from ideal. However, twenty-six registered to attend and I was overjoyed. I emailed my research proposal and pre-reading; ‘One page introduction to co-operative inquiry’, (http://zeus.sirt.pisa.it/icci/cionepag.htm), and ‘A layperson’s guide to co-operative inquiry’, (http://www.voyager.co.nz/~jheron/cishortg.htm). I adapted the text to increase its accessibility, for example; "In Phase 4…the co-researchers re-assemble to share the experiential data" became "After 4 weeks have passed, we’ll reassemble to share the experiential data". I wanted to speak through the literature and speaking of ‘we’ rather than ‘the co-researchers’ had a sense of ‘we could do this together, you and me’. I expected that most would not have time to read it.

Meeting each other The introductory session on December 8th was scheduled for two hours – the first hour was for discussion, the second for a buffet lunch to encourage informal discussion and ‘meeting’. Timing is important, in terms both of how long sessions last and getting people to attend in the first place. Perhaps this is different for inquirers who work within the organisation where the inquiry will be held – they may have status, power and friends. For someone outside of the organisation, a short ‘taster session’ is less commitment for everyone involved. My experience suggests that a free lunch and a couple of hours out of the office is more ‘do-able’ than the half-day session theory may suggest we aim for (Heron, 1996).

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I had several goals for the session; 1.

2.

3.

4.

Model how we could work together (structures and processes) Make space to meet each other Discuss basic methodology and the research proposal Share our feeling about why this could be interesting

I had no desire to structure formal plans of work. I wanted everyone to get a feel for how working together might be – to enable them to consider whether it might be for them.

I arrived to find a beautiful conference room filled with large wooden tables arranged in a square, on top of which at regularly spaced intervals, were a mixture of minerals waters, glasses arranged in diamond shapes and small dishes of mints on paper doilies. The side table was laden with the hardware involved in serving tea (eleven different varieties), coffee and biscuits.

I wanted a circle of chairs. I phoned Facilities to remove the tables. Two big men in overalls arrived and called Catering to come and move the mints and water. A woman arrived, dressed in a black and white uniform with a bow around her neck and an apron around her waist. I helped her move the water and the mints. She rearranged my random depositings into diamond shapes, with all the labels pointing in the same direction. The men removed the tables and put the chairs back in a square. Then they all left and I was alone again. I wheeled the huge plush chairs into a circle and wondered what the women would think when they arrived. Would they be as bemused by what I had created, as I had been by what I’d seen when I’d arrived?

The meeting was scheduled for 11am and people started to arrive at about five minutes to. I ensured I welcomed everyone as they arrived. I saw them noticing the circle of chairs and the ‘no tables’. The structure seemed symbolic of the unnormalness of what I was going to propose we join each other in doing and it helped me to communicate this non-verbally.

Very few people knew each other. I felt we were ‘together’ for the first time. I decided to start the session just after five-past eleven, when about half of those expected had arrived. I had to listen to two voices. One said I should wait until everyone had arrived so we could ‘start properly’, the other, that I didn’t want people to think that my timings were open to neglect, now or in the future. I let the group know what I was going to do and why and enlisted their help in moving all of the spare chairs out of the circle. We all pulled our chairs in closer together and we began.

I opened by saying hello and welcoming everyone to the session. I didn’t thank them.

I wanted to establish an ‘us’, not to suggest indebtedness. I stated briefly that I was excited about the session and what may happen, then suggested we do a round of the circle to ‘warm our voices up’ – saying hello and letting each other know why we were here. Again, I was trying to pay attention to voice. I wanted everyone to feel that they were part of what was happening and valued in their contribution to it, very early on. Throughout the ‘round’ the remaining people who’d signed up for the session arrived and space was made for them

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The reasons for ‘being here’ were varied, for example; ‘curiosity’ ‘to network’, ‘there’s nothing like this in XYZ for women’, ‘sounds exciting’, ‘I have things I need to talk about’. I noticed myself liking the open-mindedness of many of the responses.

They sounded very similar. I reflected back on the email invitation. Had something I’d said, or the way I’d said it, been heard positively by a particular type of woman?

I noticed who differed from the ‘open-mindedness’ of the majority of the group in their response. This difference was marked by the structured-ness of their expectations. Jane persisted in directing questions to and asking for responses from only me, focussing on ‘what is the business benefit of this work?’ I heard what she said, and I imagined around what she wasn’t actually saying. I heard ‘I need to know the end result so I can feel safe in being here’. I felt I was stuck. She wanted to hear the ‘benefit’, before she could get involved in the discussion most of the group were having. But I felt that it was only through discussion that the group could come to understand how this space could be ‘useful’ to them and therefore to XYZ. I responded with several ‘business benefits’ and shared my ideas on using this space creatively together to help understand this more. Even so, Jane continued to focus on me and I wondered why. She wasn’t asking questions in an ‘interested’ way. I felt as though she wanted to compete with me. Each of her interventions seemed to sap the energy from the group - the animated chatter would cease, faces would become more serious, bodies would sit back in their chairs. There was no desire to be involved in responding to her questions, even when I openly invited such involvement.

A large part of the role I planned to take was to help the noticing of process, but I chose not to raise my questions around what was happening with the group. I felt that further engaging them in noticing this would take us off track and it was not how I wanted them to remember our first time together. I felt that I had tried hard to engage with the questions asked of me and to help Jane involve, and be involved with, the group. She seemed to not be making any steps to meet me. I lost my desire to engage with her. And it felt okay. Paying attention to her voice meant silencing a lot of others. And I felt that those with energy should be able to wallow in it for a while, undisturbed.

This wallowing took the form of losing themselves storytelling and listening. They seemed to be enjoying the unstructured nature of the process, finding commonalities through their stories and beginning to see whom they liked and enjoyed being with.

They were energetically involved with each other – they were animated, leaning towards each other, asking questions and putting forward ideas.

Throughout our discussion I asked methodological questions, such as; ‘This is how CI works theoretically. How do you see this way of working being useful to you?’, ‘How are we using this space now?, How does that feel for you?’. I tried to do this softly. I had no desire to ‘indoctrinate’ anyone on the methodology (Heron, 1996), but rather to help them to see, through the process we were engaged in, how I thought this way of working made sense.

I shared my thoughts about how some questions/challenges opened our space/us up, and how some shut it/us down. I commented on what I heard us saying and what effect I saw that having, with no explicit judgement. I asked everyone to think about Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

their choices in relation to working in a collaborative way. We discussed the type of questions we were asking and I introduced the idea of appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider et al 2000) as up to this point questions had been predominantly negative. The notion of ‘the questions we ask as being fateful’ (Ludema et al, 2000) was eagerly picked up by the group.

At the end of the session I suggested we meet five days later on December 13th, to keep our motivation going over the Christmas holiday. This seemed to make sense to everyone and twenty-six identical palm-tops rapidly clattered into action. The enthusiasm to meet again made me feel really good. I felt ‘this matters’. I felt like something worthwhile was going to happen.

Lunch was served. Some people grabbed food and drifted off. The rest of us formed two, small, circularly seated groups and chatted whilst we ate. I switched groups between courses. I had (what now seem bizarre) thoughts of one group feeling I wasn’t interested in them if I spent the whole of lunch with the other group, and of each group perhaps feeling that they needed to accommodate me as a ‘non-XYZ person’ if I stayed with them for the entire time. Having been ‘facilitated’ before myself, I knew I had felt good when the facilitator had come to say ‘hi’, but like I was ‘still working’ when they were there. I based my actions on these remembered feelings and just hoped I did okay. I knew was still a facilitator at this point, despite my plans for this to change over time to one of co-inquirer/facilitator.

People began to disperse. Some said thanks and commented on looking forward to the next session, others said bye, some just disappeared. As I got ready to leave, I felt I knew whom I would be seeing again. This feeling came from seeing their different levels of attention when we were together. Some eyes had sparkled. Some eyes drifted. Some bodies physically positioned themselves away from me. Unless you see some eyes sparkle in the group I believe you ought to stop what you’re doing and suggest that everyone else does too. Notice the non-sparkling. If you feel you can, inquire into it. Despite asking questions, during our session, such as ‘how are we all doing with this?’ or ‘is this making sense?’ and regardless of the response of gently nodding heads from the non-sparklers, I knew they were not with me.

The following five days, in the build up to the next session, was when I first began to build relationships with the potential group members. I emailed everyone with some thoughts on the first session, some thoughts about the second and invited comment. I attached the same readings as previously and reminded those who had not read them that doing so would ensure that ‘we will all be at the same place in our understanding’. I emailed again the day before the second session with reminders of timing and venue and said I looked forward to seeing them again. And I did. Fourteen people had confirmed their attendance to the second session.

Meeting again The session was another half-day, 8.30am – 12.00pm with lunch and sixteen of us met. Again, the chairs were in a circle and we each took a turn to speak, this time saying hello and ‘anything else we wanted to share with everyone’, at my suggestion.

This invitation was well responded to. We went around the group and three hangovers

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were confessed to, due to a department Christmas party the night before. We shared some laughter and all used our voices.

We spent the first hour in the large group exploring their ‘important themes’ such as; gender and power, role models, expectations upon ‘joining’ XYZ and working practices. I helped with ‘noticing’ of process and methodological input. After an hour of discussion I suggested we move into four small groups so we could capture the themes and the small groups continued in the animated fashion of the larger one. They disseminated the themes and added issues surrounding them.

Before the process of feeding back to the large group began, I asked several questions; ‘Why are we feeding back? What are your and our responsibilities as you feedback?’ The initial response was blank faces and silence. The eventual discussion raised some apparently fundamental, though as yet unvoiced hopes, for example; "When I feed back I’d like people to give me all of their attention and really listen".

Through this voicing I heard a very clear rationale of what our responsibilities as ‘listeners’ were and as a result, felt more responsible for ‘listening well’. I felt our process was being paid attention to purposefully. We were giving meaning in a meaningful way. The groups fed back around the above themes, not only stating them but also why they were important, which involved the relating of experiences.

We ended with an agreement that the time until the January 30th session would be an ‘exploratory’ cycle, rather than taking one if the themes discussed and working solely with that. We talked about ‘today’s session as being an ‘awareness-raising’ one and the coming six weeks as time to mull over, digest and notice more awarely. I encouraged an already present sense of not wanting to rush the process. I believe in order for our questions to be meaningful, we have to give ourselves time to find them and give them space to grow.

The relationship between our process and time was becoming clearer to the group.

They were there, inside the room, working with the process and each other, seeing from the inside that ‘this takes time’. I juxtaposed this understanding with Anna’s, my junior sponsor. She continually wanted to talk about goals and end benefits with me and I continually explained that we needed time. Anna however was on the outside; she didn’t have the felt experience to help her understand what I said but I felt she had to appreciate and respect the process needs. I decided I should re-explain the process we’d agreed with each other in September.

A new year The year began with twelve women confirming their attendance at the January 30th session and two deciding not to join the group. I inquired into the ‘not joining’ and learnt a lot about these decisions and my self as an inquirer; Helen emailed me to say that she would ‘not be joining the group due to my workload and new projects I’m about to take on’. The group had not yet detailed the business benefits of the inquiry, something Helen had really wanted to do. She had not given this as a reason and I wondered why. Was she politely opting out as opposed to saying what she really felt? Whatever her reason, I wondered how she felt about not joining the group. I emailed her with my thoughts. I invited her to respond, but also said that I Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

would fully understand her not doing so. I wished her well and thanked her for her involvement. I received no reply.

I felt like I had done the right thing. I had inquired in a positive way, into something which interested me. I had not ‘forced’ a response. And not getting one felt okay. I’d not learnt anything additional about Helen’s reasoning for not joining, but I had learnt that I could actively engage in wanting to learn from such moments, which was valuable in itself.

A week later Gemma emailed to say that she ‘would not be taking part’. She gave no reason. I chose to persist in wanting to learn about ‘deciding not to join’, so I emailed her. I said I would ‘really appreciate a response’. I suggested that by replying with her story of how she experienced the group, we may both learn something of how/why needs are met/not met in groups and what the high/low points were. I said I looked forward to hearing from her. I voiced an expectation that she would reply. I remembered how the voicing of expectations had effected the way we all listened in the feedback session, how powerful it had been but how gentle it had seemed at the time. I hoped I achieved the same here.

Gemma responded three days later. Her email reminded me of the contrast between the culture of XYZ and the space we were beginning to create in the group. Below is an extract from her message.

"Half a day every month represents 2.5% of my time and I have a maximum of 5% of my time to dedicate to 'people/organisation projects'. I have now taken the decision to use that 5% to develop my training skills (to become a trainer) and my recruiting skills."

Email correspondence, January 26th, 2001 I felt effective in pursuing the issue and learning from it. Judi Marshall’s concept of knowing when to persist and when to desist is key here, (Marshall, J. 1999). It helped me to think safely around what I was doing both in pushing for a response and in not chasing one. The notion of persisting helped me to see that sometimes when issues are important to us, we need not let them pass.

As we are It is the end of January 2001. The group has now ‘closed’. We decided that whilst people may opt out, no one new can join at this stage. This is for several reasons, not least that we need to progress and build on learning, as opposed to continually revisiting the basics. We are beginning to get to know each other and we have a sense of wanting to protect this, to let relationships build.

This ‘closing’ involved emails being sent to others who’d been interested in being involved, but who hadn’t attend so far. I told them that the group didn’t have space for them now, thanked them for their interest and offered to keep in touch with our progress and perhaps involve them in later stages. Three have welcomed this offer.

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So, we are a group of twelve, with several others on the fringes. Now we know ‘who’ we are, we have a name; ‘YoWiM’ (Young Women in Management). We range in age from 22 to 26 years, with 2 PhD’s, 1 PhD in progress and 9 Batchelors. We are 2 Asian, 9 English, 1 Indian, 1 Scottish and we’re spread between 2 XYZ sites, 5 XYZ functions and Bath University. We are using co-operative inquiry to help us explore how young women work within XYZ and what their experience is. I’m exploring how I can inquire in a collaborative manner. We’re co–authoring a document to track ‘our practice in our group’, in order that we may share our perceptions and learn from the practices that work best for us. Out time together is tape-recorded and transcribed.

Extracts, which I have been asked to select, are shared between us. We’ll be working together until October 2001. We’re excited about what we’re doing.

Reflections on process – the beginning is important until after the end As earlier stated, my purpose in writing is to relate ‘the beginning’ and to share my story of the choices I made. My account, up to this point, was written during this period of ‘doing’ – September to January 2001. It is now June and I was wondering what remains important? I share the longevity of certain processes here because they reinforce my belief that the ‘beginning’ fundamentally shapes what follows - how we embed our inquiry shapes the way we operate across the personal/organisational boundary. Most are related to ‘energy’, as the energy involved in my practice can sometimes seem immense and it can be unclear ‘where my energy goes’. Naming these processes means I can attribute value to them and keep them open to change rather than becoming stuck in ‘feeling tired’ or ‘wondering why I spend time doing certain things’. The fact that my energy is so dispersed (expended on many different people and processes) yet so focussed (only used in the service of my inquiry and its participants) makes Wadsworth’s idea of the facilitator as ‘energy worker’ very relevant for me (Wadsworth, 2000). The constant noticing of energies personal and organisational and my response to them remains important to date and three areas seem worthy of noting in detail.

Firstly, my inquiry process has caused me to pay attention to a variety of (often uncomfortable) feelings and biases which I had previously chosen to silence. I continue to learn how to share these feelings with a carefully screened audience – people who I trust, who I can speak with honestly and be heard. Peter, Judi, Sandy and my CARPP5 tutor group deserve my unreserved thanks. Enabling my ‘other voices’ be heard helps me to respect my own energies in this process – something I believe is key. Getting the process of ‘being able to speak and being listened to’ underway at the very beginning has enabled the voicing of this to naturally be part of what I do and how I take care of myself. It also seems to let those with whom I talk inquire safely with me as they know that doing so is okay – we seem to have a mutual expectation that there is nothing we can’t ask about. Which is wonderful.

The second element is also related to taking care of myself but also our group. My ‘natural rhythms’ dictate that I am much ‘better’ at being attentive to process in the morning, so the group at XYZ runs from 9a.m. until 12.30p.m. I like to have a quiet, un-rushed hour and half when I arrive on site at XYZ. I use the first hour to set up the room with; visual stimulus - posters, pictures we’ve drawn, flip charted ideas for ‘today’s session’; recording kit; and art kit. Spare time to deal with any unforeseen issues, like not having enough chairs and problems with recording kit (that do appear Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

out of nowhere!) is also good. The last half an hour is time to breakfast, calmly think and prepare myself to focus on ‘us’. Part of noticing these rhythms, ‘when I’m better at this’, is about not wanting things to slip past me. I think this is tangled up with a notion of wanting to ‘do this right’. I’m coming to understand that a lot probably does slip past me, but this isn’t all ‘bad’. Doing research with people means doing research as a person. And we can’t see everything.

The third element spreads a little wider – it’s about taking care of how I naturally value relationship, how I want XYZ to see me, and how the relationship between the two affects the space in which the inquiry is placed. The focus here is therefore on people ‘outside’ of the group. I choose to spend time with them face to face – creating relationships which would otherwise not exist, except for perhaps via email. I book meeting rooms at XYZ by meeting with the ‘facilities’ staff. I flip through my senior sponsor’s photographs of his daughter and I inquire how she is. I discuss menus with the catering staff and ask them what they think is best. I spend a lot of time talking to a lot of people as I believe our inquiry can be supported in a lot of ways – often intangible ones. The kind of relationship building detailed above would, from what I have understood of XYZ, be seen from an organisational perspective as unimportant and unnecessary - something it’s members would not be encouraged to do or valued in doing. Building these relationships feels neither unimportant nor unnecessary and it spreads outwards the valuing of inquiry-in-relationship held in our group.

The beginning My aim here has been to tell my story of what happened at ‘the beginning’ and how it felt for me. It is here with all of its muddle. Perhaps you would do things very differently. Perhaps there are things we would do the same way. This is not important.

The point for me here is that we need to share our stories of the beginning. I have said that voice is central for me. Therefore I should ‘speak my inquiry out’. Not silence it.

I welcome conversation on this paper and related issues and look forward to the stories.

References Cooperrider, D.L., Sorensen, Jr. P.F., Whitney, D., and Yaeger, T.F. (eds), (2000), Appreciative Inquiry; Rethinking Human Organization Towards a Positive Theory of Change, Stipes Publishing, Illinois.

Heron, J., 1996, Co-operative Inquiry, Sage Publications, London.

Lather, P. (1991). Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy with/in the Postmodern, Routlege, New York, (p. 150).

Ludema, J. D., D.L.Cooperrider and F.J.Barrett (2000). Appreciative Inquiry: the Power of the Unconditional Positive Question. In Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (eds), Handbook of Action Research, Sage Publications, London, pp. 189-199 Marshall, J., 1999, Living Life as Inquiry, Systemic Practice and Action Research. 12 (2), 155-171.

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Maguire, P., (2000). Uneven Ground: Feminisms and Action Research. In Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (eds), Handbook of Action Research, Sage Publications, London, pp. 59-69.

Traylen, H., (1994). Confronting Hidden Agendas: Co-operative Inquiry with Health Visitors. In Reason, P., (ed), Participation in Human Inquiry, Sage Publications, London.

Wadsworth, Y. (2000). The Mirror, the Magnifying Glass, the Compass and the Map: Facilitating Participatory Action Research. In Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (eds), Handbook of Action Research, Sage Publications, London, pp. 420-432 http://zeus.sirt.pisa.it/icci/cionepag.htm http://www.voyager.co.nz/~jheron/cishortg.htm The names of the company and the individuals named in this inquiry have been changed, the former due to legal permission being awaited, the latter by choice of the inquiry group.

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Developing Ourselves as Police Leaders: How can we inquire collaboratively in a hierarchical organization?

Geoff Mead

In Reason, P. (ed) (2002). Special Issue: The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 15(3).

Abstract: This paper gives a practical account of a recent eighteen-month long action inquiry project, in which the author facilitated (and co-inquired with) a mixed group of police managers with the intention of improving our own leadership practices. Six phases of the inquiry are identified; doing the groundwork, getting the group together, creating a safe environment, sustaining the inquiry, accounting for the learning, and bridging the gaps. It is argued that such forms of collaborative inquiry are particularly well suited to addressing the uniquely complex phenomenon of leadership, and some tangible benefits for members of the project and for the organization as a whole are identified. Particular attention is paid to the politics and practicalities of doing collaborative inquiry in an overtly hierarchical organization, concluding that action inquiry must be crafted to its particular circumstances and context to realise its considerable potential to help us improve both individual practice and organizational performance.

Key Words: Action inquiry, police, leadership development.

Introduction "Improving the quality of leadership is a crucial issue for the police service. Learning about theories of leadership is not enough. What really matters is for each of us to understand and improve our own unique practice as leaders."

This was the challenge taken up by a mixed group of police managers (including the author) in the Hertfordshire Constabulary in an eighteen month long action inquiry – Developing Ourselves as Leaders. For most participants, the results have been positive, exciting and tangible (though hard to quantify).

However, we also found that doing collaborative inquiry in the police context had particular problems – not least that of creating a safe learning environment in an overtly hierarchical organization in which neither the democratic and emergent processes of collaborative inquiry nor the kind of transformative learning claimed by some members of the Action Inquiry Group (AIG) sit comfortably.

This paper will examine some of these difficulties and our attempts to overcome them – hopefully in a way that will prove useful to readers contemplating or actually doing collaborative inquiry in an organizational Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

setting. I shall say something about the rationale behind choosing an action inquiry approach before considering some of the politics and practicalities of the Developing Ourselves as Leaders project in more detail. Finally, some tentative conclusions will be offered on the basis of this experience.

Why Action Inquiry?

As an educator and senior police manager, I have long been interested in the challenges inherent in police leadership and leadership development (see, for example (Mead 1988; Mead 1990; Mead 1995). By 1998, I had come to the view that all methods of leadership development are based on assumptions (usually implicit) about the nature of leadership. Warren Bennis, one of the most respected and enduring commentators on the subject, described it as the most studied and least understood phenomenon in social science (Bennis 1989). In fact, though common usage sometimes requires it, the word "leadership" has little meaning in the abstract. We might even say that it only acquires meaning in action – "leading" as opposed to "leadership."

My assumptions about leadership reflect this basic epistemological position. I take it that leadership is an active process, not an abstract quality. Leadership is not the prerogative of the few but is distributed throughout the organization: exercised day-to-day by many at all levels. Nor is it a zero-sum game in which the more I lead, the more you follow. Rather, it is a complex and often paradoxical practice, uniquely exercised by each of us in particular circumstances, which we can develop and improve over time.

It therefore follows that effective methods of leadership development must be able to support a multiplicity of individual inquiries whilst holding a common focus (in this case, that of developing ourselves as leaders). They will benefit from diversity of membership – particularly in relation to ethnic origin, gender, level and area of responsibility, police and support staff. Because practice changes over time, it requires an iterative process not a one-off event. And because practice is multi-dimensional it is essential to work holistically across all four domains – experiential, imaginal, propositional and practical (Heron 1992; Heron 1996).

Thus, when I wanted to offer a leadership development programme to the Hertfordshire Constabulary as part of my PhD research, some form of collaborative action inquiry capable of encompassing all these dimensions and domains seemed to be called for. Drawing on writer-practitioners such as Donald Schon (Schon 1983), Mike Pedler (Pedler 1981), William Torbert (Torbert 1991; Torbert 2001), John Heron (Heron 1992; Heron 1996), Peter Reason (Reason and Rowan 1981; Reason 1988; Reason 1994; Reason and Bradbury 2001) and Jack Whitehead (Whitehead 1993), I adopted the nomenclature of Action Inquiry to describe what I envisaged: practitioners coming together as a community of inquiry, encouraging and challenging each other as they engaged in real-time, real-life development over several cycles of action and reflection with the process of the group designed co-operatively to meet emerging themes and interests. I hoped too that the term Action

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Inquiry would be sufficiently understandable and intriguing to attract potential co-inquirers.

Politics and practicalities As Coghlan and Brannick (Coghlan and Brannick 2001) observe: While doing any research in an organization is very political, doing research in and on your own organization is particularly so… Indeed it might [even] be considered subversive (p64)

Although my experience of doing research was limited, I had got my fingers burned often enough as a senior police manager to be very aware of organizational sensitivities and of the need to avoid activating its "immune response" to the action inquiry project. In the event, political dynamics moved into the foreground on several occasions. Rather than cluster them together, I prefer to consider them in the particular contexts in which they arose.

In hindsight, I can identify six main phases of the action inquiry – outlined in Table 1. In this section, I will follow them in rough chronological order, highlighting the politics and practicalities of doing the Developing Ourselves as Leaders project.

Insert Table 1 about here

Doing the groundwork The process of seeking sponsorship and support for the project began in late 1997, about a year before the AIG was initiated, when Peter Sharpe (then Chief Constable of the Hertfordshire Constabulary) agreed to support my application for a Bramshill Fellowship. I wanted to obtain a fellowship for two reasons: because it represented a commitment to fund my studies and, even more important, because it would give my research some official recognition and legitimacy. We were both keen to ensure that I would provide some "return" for this investment in my development and my plan included a proposal to conduct some form of collaborative action research (at that time, in the area of men and masculinities) in the Hertfordshire Constabulary.

The Chief Constable’s endorsement of my Bramshill Fellowship sanctioned the project in principle and proved invaluable when I began to sound out other potential supporters during the summer of 1998. By this time I was outside the organisation, seconded to National Police Training, and I was anxious to "test the waters" back in Hertfordshire. Over the course of several weeks I had long conversations with several erstwhile colleagues who I felt would be openminded and sympathetic, whose judgement I trusted and who I knew to be influential "opinion-formers" in the organisation. They were happy to lend their personal support to a collaborative inquiry process (indeed, two of them subsequently joined the group) but encouraged me to reconsider my intended Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

focus on men and masculinities – which they saw as too narrow, confrontative and exclusive.

Their views tended to confirm my own doubts about the readiness of other members of the organisation to tackle this issue "head on." It occurred to me that a more creative approach would be to invite men and women into a space that, by its very nature (i.e. community, collaboration and diminished sense of hierarchy) would challenge deep-seated notions of hegemonic masculinity. Gender issues, including masculinity, might emerge naturally in such a group if they were really as significant in the organisation as I imagined them to be.

So I reformulated my proposal to cover a more general inquiry into leadership practice among men and women across the organisation – Developing Ourselves as Leaders – and subsequently put it to the Training Manager and Head of Human Resources on that basis. They were both quite excited by the idea and willing to support it, provided it was offered as a complementary development activity clearly outside the scope of the existing structures for management development. This degree of "distancing" from mainstream training activity was understandable and probably quite helpful in differentiating it in the minds of potential co-inquirers.

Even as a senior "insider", getting high level support for the action inquiry project required persistent and delicate negotiations. Powerful players needed to be convinced of the potential benefits of this approach and reassured that, though challenging, it did not represent a fundamental threat to the organisation. In managing the micro-politics of these interactions, I found it helpful to present myself as a "tempered radical" (Meyerson and Scully 1995), as someone authentically committed to the mission and goals of the organisation who is also seeking to bring about radical change in some aspects of the way it does business. This ambivalence – this state of living contradiction – is a powerful spur to action but, as I have written about elsewhere can also be an uncomfortable and uneasy position to occupy.

It no doubt helped that I was also able to call on my track record as director of other successful management and leadership development programmes to establish my credibility and competence in the field. Despite these credentials, doing the groundwork was a slow and painstaking business – but absolutely essential to securing the levels of access and support it would take to get the project "off the ground."

Getting the group together

By October 1998 we were ready to launch the group. Working closely with Roger Barrett the Force Development Manager, a letter of invitation was drafted, refined and sent out to over three hundred middle and senior managers throughout the Hertfordshire Constabulary. We wanted to offer the chance of participating to as wide a range of people as possible without being overwhelmed by potential participants. So, after much debate, we set eligibility criteria based on rank or grade. Although setting an arbitrary cut-off, Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

these grounds had some logic and were defensible in terms of existing organisational practice.

Between fifty and sixty people responded to the letter by coming to one of the briefing sessions, some of them familiar faces, some new to me – men and women, police officers and civilian support staff of many ranks and grades. To the non-police reader this may not seem particularly noteworthy but such heterogeneity is still comparatively rare in police management and leadership development programmes. The briefings were designed to help people make a positive decision to opt in to the action inquiry or to decide, without any stigma, that it was not for them. The underlying principle was that of voluntary, informed self-selection. I spoke a little about the rationale for offering this opportunity to focus on leadership and said something about the participative and democratic ethos of action inquiry. I talked about the possibility of transformative learning and asked people to decide if they wanted to take part using their head (Do you have enough information? Does it make sense for you to do it?), heart (Are you intrigued, curious, drawn? Does it feel right for you to do it?), and will (Are you able and willing to meet the commitment? Do you really want to do it?).

I then told the story of Jumping Mouse – a wonderful Native American tale of journeying, sacrifice and transformation (Storm 1972). It is a long story – twenty minutes or so – and telling it felt like a risky thing to do. The possibility of ridicule was high. Nevertheless, I had been talking in a fairly conventional way about a radically different way of learning and I wanted to be more congruent. It was a defining moment. As I looked at the audience I saw some eyes glaze over whilst others began to sparkle with interest – choices were being made. We closed the session with questions and a general discussion and everyone was given a short paper reiterating the main points of the briefing and a reply slip with which to notify their decision within three weeks.

Sixteen people confirmed their intention to take part and we arranged a preliminary meeting in mid February 1999 to resolve any outstanding issues and to set up the inquiry group. Not everyone could make the meeting (a consistent and seemingly inevitable feature of organisational life) but there were enough of us to share some hopes and expectations and to arrange a series of meetings over the coming year beginning with a two-day residential event in April to kick start the inquiry process.

By staging the process of self-selection (invitation, briefing, written reply, preliminary meeting), and with a bit of good luck, we had managed to recruit a manageable number of committed people. It also turned out that the final group was well mixed in terms of police officers (8) and civilian support staff (8), and in terms of men (10) and women (6). There was also a wide spread of police ranks and civilian support staff grades from many different specialties and locations. We could not have asked for a more promising start.

Creating a safe environment

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This issue was always present to some degree, and was figural in the early stages of group formation and, again, towards the end when we considered how to feed back our learning to the organisation and beyond. It featured strongly at our inaugural residential event in April 1999. Twelve of us came together at the Police Staff College, Bramshill from Friday lunchtime to Saturday teatime (a fair blend, we thought, of work and personal time). As we moved through the weekend, three main issues about the safety of the learning environment arose.

1. Within the group – how did group members want to behave towards each other and be treated?

2. My role as facilitator – how would I offer leadership and to what extent would I participate as a co-inquirer?

3. Outside the group – what were the appropriate boundaries with the organisation and how could they be maintained?

We addressed the first issue in several ways; sharing our hopes, fears and life stories in a series of creative exercises, gradually deepening trust and empathy by taking small risks, allaying some of our concerns by building relationships and getting to know each other. We also spent some time midway through the process generating ground-rules for the group, such as: • • • • • •

Confidentiality – we own our own stories Feedback – challenge with respect Listening – allow others to speak uninterrupted Honesty – tell it like it is Pro-activity – take responsibility for our own learning Process – flexible, fun and realistic

The list is neither surprising nor startlingly original. What matters is that these agreements were generated organically by the group on the basis of shared experience. We knew what they meant for us and we never needed to refer to them again.

I found the second issue – my role in the group – a particularly knotty one at first. Clearly I had initiated and convened the group. I was the only person with prior knowledge and experience of collaborative inquiry and, as if this was not enough, I also held the most senior rank/grade. Concerned that these factors might distort the group dynamics and make it impossible to establish peer-relationships, I had played down my role at our preliminary meeting in February, stepping out of the limelight for fear of dominating the group.

Unfortunately it left the stage bare so that our meeting was stilted and confusing. It was "good enough" not to put too many people off (though three of them did drop out afterwards) but we could so easily have fallen at this first hurdle. I debriefed the experience with Roger and consciously decided to play a more active role (though still rather tentatively) on the residential event in April.

Two things occurred that weekend that shaped my subsequent role in the group. On Saturday morning, two members of the group challenged me to Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

stop "playing small" and encouraged me, in the words of Nelson Mandela, to allow myself to be "brilliant, talented and fabulous", to "let your own light shine". They made it very clear that they did not need me to stand aside for them to be powerful too. It was a lesson I hope never to forget. Thank you Judy and Carol.

On Saturday afternoon, as we coached each other in formulating our individual inquiry questions, I offered: "How can I lead (in) this process of Action Inquiry with authenticity, integrity and joy?" By making my leadership within the group an object of inquiry, any taboos or awkwardness around it seemed to fall away and I continued to lead wholeheartedly (if sometimes inexpertly) for the remainder of the project. The fact that I had so publicly committed myself as a co-inquirer did much, I believe, to reduce the distortion of hierarchical power in the group. I was personally powerful but not because of my rank.

The third issue – that of the relationship of the group with the wider organisation – also manifested in several ways. Although all members of the group had identified themselves as exercising leadership in the organisation, and all were committed to working in its best interests, for some there were also strong feelings of alienation – a concern that "I can’t be me" in the workplace and an equally strong desire to "be me" in the AIG. There was a feeling of unease and a fear of making oneself vulnerable by stepping outside cultural norms.

Some members of the group were actually in hierarchical working relationships (there were three boss-subordinate dyads/triads in the group).

Could they deal openly and honestly with each other in the group – and what effect would that have on their outside relationships? For the most part, the "confidentiality contract" and sensitive mutual exploration of these edges defused potential problems – though one member did withdraw from the group because he felt that his presence was inhibiting a more junior colleague. As the group became more established there were few, if any, signs of reticence or reservations about these outside working relationships.

The issues of authenticity and alienation, however, continued to be a puzzle.

Why should we (for I shared some of these feelings) be so concerned about the tensions and contradictions between our personal and professional personas? Why were we so driven to explore them? What underlay our intuitive sense that finding some resolution of these dilemmas was crucial to improving our effectiveness as leaders? Paradoxically, it seems that some of the very qualities and activities that are required to achieve high standards of organisational performance – originality, creativity, co-operation and relationship-building – are not highly valued in a "command and control" culture.

At the time, Roger Harrison’s notions of organisational alignment and attunement helped me make sense of this phenomenon. Alignment refers to the focusing of individual effort and will on organisational objectives, attunement to promoting healthy relationships and quality of life within the Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

organisation. He argues (Harrison 1983) that a healthy, effective organisation will find a balance between these two dimensions. Perhaps, in a highly aligned organisation, the AIG was providing much-needed opportunities for attunement. The supportive behaviour that was so apparent among group members would suggest that this was so. Indeed, as one reader of an earlier draft of this article suggested, perhaps the most radical (and useful) thing we did was simply to create a space within the organisation in which we could "be ourselves."

More recently, I have found support for this suggestion in Jurgen Habermas’s notion of "communicative spaces": …in which people come together to explore problems and issues, always holding open the question of whether they will commit themselves to the authentic and binding work of mutual understanding and consensus (Kemmis 2001:100)

It is this, says Habermas, which makes communicative action and the healing of the system-lifeworld split possible. It might also help to explain how the strong personal focus in the Action Inquiry Group contributed to some very tangible organisational benefits.

Sustaining the inquiry Of course, every collaborative inquiry will follow its own unique path but a number of practical issues arose in sustaining ours, which may be of interest.

The first, to which I have already alluded, was the difficulty of getting everyone to meetings. We held five interim meetings, six to eight weeks apart with an extended review of our learning at a second residential event in January 2000. We never had a "full house" and no one (not even me) managed to get to all the sessions so we could not afford to be too rigid about what constituted membership of the group. A few dropped out never to return, one person "joined" halfway through and some stayed on the fringe. Nevertheless, there was an identifiable core of ten who remained deeply involved throughout. Work pressures often impinged on meeting times despite prearranging the dates of meetings for the whole year – and without such advance planning it is doubtful whether any of the meetings would have been sufficiently well-attended to be worthwhile.

At the residential event in April, each member of the AIG formulated his or her own individual inquiry question under the umbrella: "How can I improve the way I exercise leadership in the Hertfordshire Constabulary?" The focus on our own practice informed each subsequent cycle of action and reflection. As individual inquiries gathered momentum, I found that it took a considerable amount of energy and attention to hold the whole process together. Although we shared the tasks of arranging venues and of "rounding people up" for meetings, a good deal of the work came my way – from negotiating a budget to cover our costs for the year, to writing innumerable letters keeping members in touch with developments and making sure that those who could not get to particular meetings were kept in the picture.

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

We found that the simple act of sharing our stories, telling each other how we had been getting on with our inquiries, was enormously powerful – both to deepen the relationships between us and as a way of holding ourselves and each other to account. We quickly got into the habit of tape-recording our sessions and sending copies of relevant sections of the tapes to individuals to aid further reflection. Most sessions began with an extended "check in" of this sort and then followed whatever themes emerged. On one occasion, following a "spin-off" meeting arranged by several women members of the group, this lead to a fascinating exploration of gender and leadership. We learned to trust the process of action inquiry and that, in an organisational setting at least, it needs to be sustained by careful cultivation and lots of energy.

Accounting for the learning Although much of the time we concentrated on supporting each other in our individual inquiries, we were also curious to see what common themes were emerging. This desire seemed to arise quite naturally after about six months and we agreed that each of us would write about what we were learning about our own leadership practice as a result of our inquiries and circulate it within the group. In the event, nine papers were produced, which we took to our meeting in October 1999. We discussed each paper in turn, checking for clarification, offering feedback to the author and noting our own reaction. A few days later, Roger and I met to listen to the tape recording from which we distilled what seemed to be key statements and themes, which in turn were circulated to the group for comment and consideration. Our "mid-term paper" proved to be an extremely useful exercise both in terms of getting a feel for where the group had got to and of providing a mirror to individual members.

Insert Figure 1 about here

Our paths then diverged once more until we came together for an extended review of our learning at the second residential event in January 2000. (See Figure 1 for an illustration of the patterns of convergence and divergence during the inquiry) Again, we met from Friday lunchtime until Saturday teatime at Bramshill – eight of us – collaboratively designing the process on the basis of some questions and principles we had decided previously. We used three different activities to provide accounts of our learning. First, we all brought objects symbolising what we had learned about ourselves as leaders. Each of us, in turn, displayed the object on a central table and spoke about what it meant. The "presentations" were recorded on videotape and the objects gathered together for the weekend to represent and hold the energy of the group.

Second, we each made a brief statement in response to the question: "How has your practice as a leader changed and improved through the AIG process?" and were then interviewed by a colleague in a "goldfish bowl" setting so that other members of the group could also listen and respond. The

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

interviews were sympathetic but challenging – friends acting as enemies (and as friends). These were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed.

Third, we spent some time making visual representations – pictures and collages – responding to the question: "What has the story of the AIG looked like for me?" These were then displayed round the room and we took it in turns to speak about our images, using the video camera once more to record the event. The material from all three activities was later copied, transcribed and fed back as a record of the learning and as a stimulus to further action.

We closed the meeting by reviewing what we wanted to share about our learning with others, who we wanted to share it with, and how we could make it safe to do so. As in the early stages of the inquiry, strong concerns were expressed about how "the organisation" would react to what we had been doing. By this time, however, we had come to believe that it was possible to bridge the gaps – provided we were politically "savvy" going about it, for example: • • • • • • •

Challenge but do not confront or criticise Choose the right audiences (15% is enough) Continue to respect individual confidences Seek the new Chief Constable’s seal of approval Use the learning to add value to existing programmes Maintain contact with each other for mutual support Be content to sow seeds – don’t try to do it all at once

Finally each of us made public commitments to take specific actions to begin the process of communicating our learning to others in our own organisation, and beyond to other researchers and practitioners.

Bridging the gaps From the organisation’s point of view, the most immediate benefits of the inquiry are to be found in the improved leadership practices of its members though, of course, there are so many variables in human behaviour that, whilst one can ascribe these benefits to the AIG, one cannot "prove" the connection. In police-speak, we may have reasonable grounds to suspect, but we cannot prove the case beyond all reasonable doubt. Fortunately, there is considerable room for manoeuvre between these two standards – perhaps we could be satisfied with "on the balance of probabilities"?

Although I have expressed it rather flippantly, what we discovered, as soon as we began to try to communicate what we had been doing, were some significant epistemological gaps, major differences in our understandings of what constitutes useful and valid knowledge. Guy Claxton (Claxton 1997) speaks about a propensity to believe that people have only learned something if they can codify and reproduce it (which may go some way towards explaining the current fashion for leadership competency frameworks and the like). But that would be to oversimplify the matter – what we met, as we

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

sought to communicate our learning, was not hostility but a mixture of interest, pragmatism and scepticism.

I personally briefed our new Chief Constable, in May 2000. He expressed considerable enthusiasm about promoting "leadership" in the Constabulary and urged me to speak with the Head of Human Resources to make practical arrangements for bringing the benefits of the research back into the organisation. I did so in June and we agreed, in principle, that I would advise and "shadow" an in-house facilitator if another action inquiry group was formed. To date this has not happened but I have become more closely involved in some other leadership development initiatives in Hertfordshire.

Seeking a wider audience, with three other members of the AIG, I offered a workshop on Developing Ourselves as Leaders at the high-profile 2000 ACPO Research Conference. We expected about fifteen participants but found that there was a huge interest in the workshop – over forty delegates came to our session – where we described the process of the AIG, presented some of our individual and collective learning, and made ourselves available for small group discussions. We had some lively debates. Delegates were not unsympathetic but most were somewhat sceptical. Typical of their comments were: "I can see that you are all very enthusiastic and believe that you have learned a lot, but can you prove it?" "How have you evaluated the impact of the course [sic] on organisational effectiveness?" "Yes, I believe you but I’d never be able to sell it back in force without some sort of evaluation."

This was a blow – what better evidence of the effectiveness of the process could there be than us four living examples presenting our learning to the conference? If these delegates, broadly representative of the U.K. police service were not convinced, what chance did we have of persuading others of the value of our approach? But these arguments also pointed the way to how we might begin to bridge some of the gaps. On the advice of one delegate, I approached the Home Office Research Unit with the suggestion that they might fund an independent evaluation of the impact of the AIG. I am happy to say that, after some delay, they agreed that this would be a useful strand of their overall research programme and, at the time of writing (March 2001) the evaluation is actually taking place.

One stipulation of the invitation to tender was that the research should be conducted in a way that is congruent with our own collaborative methodology and contributes to our further learning. As a result, the researcher will be presenting the provisional findings to the AIG for discussion and feedback as part of the analysis. The independent evaluation is a high-risk strategy, and one could argue that no external examination could ever capture the richness of our experience, but if its findings tend to confirm our claims of improved leadership practice, we may be at least halfway across the bridge.

An even more ambitious attempt to influence public policy was sending a short case study on the AIG to the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit as a contribution to their research and still-awaited report on Public Service Leadership. Within a couple of weeks I found myself sitting round a Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

Whitehall table with members of the "Prime Minister’s Leadership Project" team. There was some interest in our work and a shortened version of the case study (which I never saw) was included in early drafts of the report (which I also never saw). Although it was dropped from later drafts "on grounds of space", the Cabinet Office has, in recent weeks, accepted a proposal to deliver the Learning Set element of their new Public Service Leadership Scheme through facilitated Action Inquiry Groups which I will oversee for the next three years. Our work in the Developing Ourselves as Leaders project has provided the foundation from which we can extend the focus on leadership practice and the improvement of service delivery across the public sector.

Conclusions Did we manage to inquire collaboratively? I think the answer is a qualified "Yes". There is ample evidence in the transcripts of our meetings and in the accounts of our learning to substantiate the claim that, at the individual level, we created and took opportunities for transformational learning: learning that was grounded in our day-to-day practice as we variously engaged with the demands of delivering a high quality service in the complex environment of contemporary policing.

The emerging findings of the independent evaluation confirms these claims, suggesting that members of the AIG have been assessed by colleagues as having become calmer, better able to work under pressure and more strategic in their outlook. Nearly all members of the Action Inquiry Group described the process as worthwhile and rewarding. Here are some of their comments recorded at our penultimate meeting: "Now I have really got some sense of direction as you can see in this picture…"

"I need a helping hand sometimes to get to where I want to go… that’s when I come to the group" "We shared our inquiries and from that came the learning and the feedback" "The thing about this has been the honesty… in these sessions we have said when we disagree and why we disagree with somebody" "It is about light and focus and being able to find your way through the dark"

In case this is beginning to sound like yet another "victory narrative" of action research (MacLure 1996), I should point out that it did not work for everyone.

Several members of the group "dropped out" – generally pleading lack of time though one said she was bringing "too much emotional baggage" to the group and that her continued presence might interfere with other people’s learning.

Although I think she was mistaken in this regard and overly self-critical, one has to respect her decision to withdraw.

Furthermore, it would be fair to say that – as yet – our collective learning has had less impact. We are still struggling to communicate the benefits of a Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

collaborative approach to leadership development to a wider police audience, hampered by a training orthodoxy that places a high value on uniformity (role definitions and competency frameworks), compulsion (if it works, everyone should do it), and assessment (preferably pass or fail). Perhaps the independent evaluation of our work will lend weight to our own voices. We have certainly learned that, as sense making and knowledge creation move in to the public domain, they can become highly politicized and the potential difficulties of conducting collaborative inquiry in a hierarchical organisation such as the police service should not be under-estimated.

For me personally it has been an immensely satisfying experience. I have become a much more confident and effective practitioner of collaborative learning, more willing to "let my light shine" and more conscious of the choices and choice-points in such a process. We, for example, were quite a closed group: we adopted an informal, loose approach to the action-research cycle: and we focused quite strongly on our individual leadership practices.

Had we communicated more openly with others during the life of the group (say by publicising our "mid-term paper"), had we adopted a more rigorous pattern of action-research, had we addressed systemic leadership issues, we may have had fewer (and narrower) gaps to bridge later on. Yet I’m not sure I would make many different choices if faced with similar circumstances.

Members of the group came with strong personal agendas, which demanded a high level of safety and, thus, confidentiality in the early stages - and I was reluctant to reinforce the prevailing hierarchical culture by imposing too much structure or discipline on our proceedings.

Action Inquiry is not a standard technique that can be applied (like a coat of paint) to meet every need. It is a sophisticated and powerful approach to human inquiry, with enormous potential to help us improve both individual practice and organisational performance. To realise this potential it must be crafted to its particular circumstances and context. There are no guarantees of success but, with a little courage and a lot of determination, a little imagination and a lot of energy, much is possible.

References Bennis, W. (1989). Why Leaders Can't Lead. San Francisco, Jossey Bass.

Claxton, G. (1997). Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind. London, Fourth Estate.

Coghlan, D. and T. Brannick (2001). Doing Action Research In Your Own Organization. London, Sage.

Harrison, R. (1983). "Strategies for a New Age." Human Resource Management 22(3): 209-235.

Heron, J. (1992). Feeling and Personhood. London, Sage.

Heron, J. (1996). Co-operative Inquiry. London, Sage.

Kemmis, S. (2001). Exploring the Relevance of Critical Theory for Action Research: Emancipatory Action Research in the Footsteps of Jurgen Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

Habermas. Handbook of Action Research. P. Reason and H. Bradbury.

London, Sage: 91-102.

MacLure, M. (1996). "Telling Transitions; boundary work in narratives of becoming an action researcher." British Educational Research Journal 6(1).

Mead, G. (1988). "Organization Culture." Federal Bureau of Investigation Management Quarterly 8(4): 1-5.

Mead, G. (1990). "The Challenge of Police Leadership: The Contribution of the Special Course." Management Education and Development 21(5): 406414.

Mead, G. (1995). "Millennium Management for a New Age Police Service."

Policing Today 1(5): 4-7.

Meyerson, D. E. and M. A. Scully (1995). "Tempered Radicalism and the Politics of Ambivalence and Courage." Organization Science 6(5): 585-600.

Pedler, M. (1981). Developing the Learning Community. Management SelfDevelopment: Concepts and Practices. T. Boydell and M. Pedler.

Farnborough, Gower: 68-84.

Reason, P., Ed. (1988). Human Inquiry in Action. London, Sage.

Reason, P., Ed. (1994). Participation in Human Inquiry. London, Sage.

Reason, P. and H. Bradbury (2001). Introduction: Inquiry and Participation in Search of a World Worthy of Human Aspiration. Handbook of Action Research. P. Reason and H. Bradbury. London, Sage.

Reason, P. and J. Rowan, Eds. (1981). Human Inquiry. Chichester, John Wiley.

Schon, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. New York, Basic Books.

Storm, H. (1972). Seven Arrows. New York, Ballantine Books.

Torbert, W. R. (1991). The Power of Balance. Newbury Park, California, Sage.

Torbert, W. R. (2001). The Practice of Action Inquiry. Handbook of Action Research. P. Reason and H. Bradbury. London, Sage: 250-260.

Whitehead, J. (1993). The Growth of Educational Knowledge: Creating Your Own Living Educational Theories. Bournemouth, Hyde Publications.

Author Geoff Mead is a Chief Superintendent in the Hertfordshire Constabulary, currently seconded to National Police Training, Bramshill as Head of Business Development. He was Director of the Accelerated Promotion Course, 1988-91 and a Visiting Fellow at the Office for Public Management 1994-97. He is currently writing his PhD thesis on "living inquiry" into personal and professional practice.

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Peter Sharpe and Paul Acres, Chief Constables of the Hertfordshire Constabulary and Pauline Lawrence, Head of Human Resources for their personal and institutional support for the project - without them it would never have got off the ground. I would also like to acknowledge the support and encouragement of Peter Reason, Judi Marshall, Jack Whitehead and other colleagues at the Centre for Action Research into Professional Practice at Bath University who have somehow managed to sharpen my critical judgement without dampening my enthusiasm.

I extend my most profound gratitude and admiration to the friends and colleagues who joined me in the Developing Ourselves as Leaders Action Inquiry Group: who courageously and tenaciously inquired into their own leadership practices whilst simultaneously teaching me how to facilitate a collaborative process. Thank you Mark, Carol, Phil, Dawn, Roger, Tim, Heather, Bernard, Peter, Judy, Gary, Dave and Barry - without you there would have been no inquiry and no learning. I hope you feel that this paper does justice to our shared experience.

Phase

Theme

Main Activities

Timeframe

1

Doing the groundwork

- Personal sanction from Chief Constable

Sept 1997

- Consultation with influential peers

-

- Get support from HR and Training

Sept 1998

- Letter of invitation to 300+ managers

Oct 1998

- Briefings for 50+ potential participants

-

- Set-up meeting for committed members

Feb 1999

- Establishing my role as co-facilitator

Feb 1999

- Contracting "ground rules" for group

-

- Sharing personal stories, hopes, fears

April 1999

- Developing individual inquiry questions

April 1999

- Meetings every six to eight weeks

-

- Holding each other to account

June 2000

- Individual papers from members

Oct 1999

- Extended review of learning

-

- Multiple, creative techniques

Feb 2000

- Feeding back results to organisation

May 2000

2

3

4

5

6

Getting the group together

Creating a safe environment

Sustaining the inquiry

Accounting for the learning

Bridging the gaps

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

- Presentations at police conferences

-

- Independent evaluation of project

Ongoing

Table 1 – Phases of the Developing Ourselves as Leaders action inquiry

Figure 1 – Convergence and divergence in the action inquiry process

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

Co-operative Inquiry: Changing Interprofessional Practice.

Marian Charles and Sara Glennie1 In Reason, P. (ed) (2002). Special Issue: The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 15(3).

Abstract

Recent Government guidance concerning the welfare of children emphasises the necessity for change in interprofessional practice. This paper examines how co-operative inquiry enabled a diverse professional group to inquire into how change can be promoted in complex practice systems. It considers the influence of external stakeholders, highlights the consequent tension between task and process and addresses the implications for the role of facilitators.

Introduction This is an account of a recently concluded co-facilitated inquiry. It involved fourteen people who train professionals to work together in the "spaces between" the large number of organisations concerned with child protection in different parts of England. The inquiry’s focus question was "how can interagency training be used to promote change in complex practice systems?"

The question was stimulated by the publication of two pieces of central Government guidance that demanded change, and, as a consequence, the need to inquire into how implementation would be managed.

In many ways, it was an ordinary inquiry with characteristics that will be familiar to those who use the method. And in some ways, as groups always are, it was different. We feel as if the dust is just settling around our experience, and we are beginning to see the shape of it sufficiently well to distinguish between its ordinariness and aspects that may be different.

Consequently we draw attention to the challenge of managing a complex environment and multiple stakeholders during the initiation and subsequent processes of the inquiry. Our boundaries were highly permeable and the ebb and flow across them brought richness and relevance into the inquiry process.

It also brought tough facilitation issues that felt alien to a fundamentally cooperative climate.

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

A Complex Environment for Inquiry In recent years, child protection work has dominated state child welfare services in Britain. However, research (Department of Health, 1995) indicates that the emphasis given to incidents of abuse has led to a lack of attention to the supportive services designed to address the wider needs of children and their families. The wider contexts within which children live have been neglected. For example, many children whose parents are experiencing difficulties relating to mental ill health, learning disability, drug and/or alcohol misuse, domestic violence and extreme poverty, are receiving too few services.

As part of the Government’s objectives to improve outcomes for children, two new guidance documents have been published: Working Together to Safeguard Children (Department of Health et al, 1999) and the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (Department of Health et al, 2000). The first constitutes a revision of existing inter-agency guidance setting "out how all agencies and professionals should work together to promote children’s welfare and protect them from abuse and harm" (Department of Heath et al, 1999, p.vii). The latter outlines the corporate responsibility of all local authority departments, health authorities, and community services to assess children in need and their families. Crucially, it provides a holistic practice framework to be used collaboratively across agencies. The initial document carried no explicit implementation schedule, whereas, by contrast, the Framework for Assessment was to be implemented by 1st April 2001, and incorporated "into the Government guidance on protecting children from harm." Whilst welcomed in principle, this deadline created a real sense of urgency in local areas.

We share a strong commitment to both multi-agency working and interprofessional training. It forms a central part of our respective working lives, so we shared the sense of urgency. We were eager to know how agencies would manage the task of implementing this new guidance during the twelve months prior to 1st April 2001. We wondered how the attitudinal shift from the protection to the promotion of children’s welfare could be facilitated at individual, organisational and systemic levels. How could the practice changes necessary be initiated and supported?

Conditions were challenging. All the professionals involved in child welfare are currently faced with a plethora of new initiatives. They are working in disabling environments, characterized by repeated reorganisations, with subsequent new structures, policies and procedures. Fresh managerial relationships and changed priorities sit alongside staff and resource shortages, low morale and inadequate support and supervision systems. Such contexts are hardly conducive to the "secure setting" (Reder et al, 1993) required for professionals to adapt to yet more changes in their roles and practice, especially when these alterations have implications for an increase in workload.

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

We are core members of PIAT (Promoting Inter-agency Training). It is a seven person collaborative partnership between academic and child welfare institutions. PIAT aims to promote inter-agency child protection training, to facilitate a network for those involved and to provide development opportunities. The challenges associated with the new Government guidance offered an opportunity to further these aims through a research project that would explore different approaches to the implementation of guidance whilst they were being developed. Although new to PIAT, co-operative inquiry seemed the obvious methodology; it sits easily with the partnership’s culture because of the focus on exploration, participation, reflection and experimentation whilst maintaining attention to practical outcomes. This degree of fit secured agreement to fund the inquiry following our strong proposal and we agreed to act as co-facilitators.

PIAT’s well-established national network offered a ready framework through which research study group members could be recruited, and it gave the project a certain amount of legitimacy and status. The latter also enabled us to secure additional funding from the Department of Health.

The process of recruiting participants began with an invitation to everyone on PIAT’s data base. The letter gave brief details of the project, its proposed methodology and encouraged people with key responsibility for inter-agency training to apply. Over 50 individuals responded! We were excited to feel others’ enthusiasm meeting our own, but the size of the response raised dilemmas of choice. We increased the group size from our initial intention of ten to twelve and established selection criteria that we considered relevant to the task. We included participants from a range of geographical locations and used gender, ethnicity and professional background to establish balance within the group. Finally, we were eleven women, two of whom are Black, and three men. Two group members shared a professional background in health; one came from education whilst the rest, including us, had career histories in social work.

Negotiating with Multiple Stakeholders The key stakeholders in a co-operative inquiry are the inquirers themselves. It is they who make the investment in terms of time, energy and attention and it is they, hopefully, who will be amongst the primary beneficiaries. By initiating an inquiry in a complex inter-organisational environment however, there were layers of accountability and interest that we needed to recognise and honour.

The recruitment and funding process described above had not only helped us to "make it happen", it inevitably gathered influential people on the boundary of the inquiry, all with qualitatively different investments in it. In practice, this meant that the interests of those at the inquiry boundary demanded our active attention long beyond the initiation and engagement phase of the group’s life.

The additional stakeholders that required our attention were its funders and supporters. As Reason and Marshall (1987) simply and elegantly put it, "inquiry is for me, us, and them" and all three were apparent from the outset.

The funders Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

PIAT and the Department of Health funded the inquiry for different reasons.

We have already described the congruence between PIAT’s aims and an action- based research project. The Department of Health, however, was interested primarily in ensuring the successful implementation of high profile guidance. It was, therefore, keen to use the opportunity that the inquiry offered to spot problems and, as soon as practical, to disseminate good practice lessons or "nuggets" on a national basis. The principal Department of Health commissioning officer, referred to as "DOH", coined the nuggets phrase. He wanted the inquiry to produce both "specific nuggets" relating to the implementation of current guidance, as well as "general nuggets" that would be useful in guiding future inter-agency implementation processes. He persisted in using the word "evaluation" to describe our intention. We persistently challenged that description about both the process and outcomes of the inquiry. We were not in a position to mount an evaluation, and were resistant to the expectations that would accompany that status. As negotiations progressed it became clear that at the heart of our difference lay, not surprisingly, a paradigm mismatch which focussed on the issue of validity and legitimate knowledge. We were proposing to work with twelve people representing the experience of twelve different local settings, and we saw their experience and the knowing that would flow from that as legitimate. It was not, however, demonstrably representative of all implementation activity nationally. DOH, understandably, was concerned about this. There are more than 150 local authorities in England; how could we be confident that the inquiry’s findings were representative of others? We couldn’t of course, but we found a middle place between our differences. DOH found a bit more money, which bought time, and we agreed to construct a questionnaire that reflected the key questions emerging from the inquiry group. We also agreed to find a way of administering it to a number of non-participating authorities in order to "test" the experience of the inquiry group. In fact, although identified as a compromise, this proved to be an important part of the inquiry process and may have accelerated ownership and participation within the group. Given this high level of investment, it was agreed that DOH would attend the initial, midpoint and penultimate meetings of the inquiry in order to stay tuned to the issues arising.

Reason and Bradbury (2001) illuminate the useful distinction between first, second, and third person research. In this case, the needs and interests of one primary funder moved our inquiry from a focus that was exclusively first and second person to that which proactively included the third person. The questionnaire provided a tangible vehicle for inquirers to explicitly generate conversations with others who, whilst outside the group, influenced its process, outcomes and possibly, its potential to exercise influence in the wider political environment that had stimulated the need for inquiry in the first place.

The supporters Standing in the shadow behind the twelve inquirers, literally and metaphorically, were the employing organisations that had agreed to bear the multiple costs of their employee’s participation in the research. The countable Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

costs were time (ten days minimum), travel and expenses, which for some was considerable. Given the focus of the inquiry, it is also important to note that the costs were born by the public purse, and, in particular, the purse that supports some of the most vulnerable members of society. This contributed to the internal pressure and responsibility that we both felt, as initiators, to make it worthwhile. The needs and expectations of this shadow group remained tacit throughout the inquiry and we could never be clear whether we were meeting them. They will have been expressed indirectly through individual participants in a variety of ways. However, as the inquiry progressed, and participants were better able to articulate gains for themselves and their organisations, so too our confidence increased that the support offered by employers was warranted. "….ideas and questions generated at each meeting of the group has fed back into and influenced the ongoing development and implementation of the assessment framework in my county."

During initiation, however, support rested on an employer’s capacity to make courageous acts of faith, invest in people and/or trust the authority that PIAT and the Department of Health brought to the project.

A second group of supporters stood behind us as facilitators. Formally they were the five other members of PIAT’s Steering Group that had endorsed our idea and encouraged it as a part of PIAT’s annual work calendar. Informally, they are our colleagues, mentors and friends with whom we have worked closely for several years. We agreed that we would report back to them at our quarterly meetings and use them to guide and support our professional task as facilitators.

Their investment in the inquiry was multi-layered; they trusted us to work in a new way under the PIAT banner and to manage the relationship with the Department of Health. We were also responsible for finding ways of bringing learning into the network.

The influence of external stakeholders: the inescapable connectedness of systems In Heron’s (1996, p.48) terms, this was primarily an informative inquiry. The intention was to explore and shed light on the processes chosen to generate the systemic change demanded by central Government. The outcomes of such an inquiry could be predicted to be primarily propositional and presentational - for example, in the form of written reports. That proved to be the case, but it seemed, and it felt, more complicated than that. As we circulated, edited and re- editing the group’s final report amongst us, we identified a number of other environmental factors that have affected the quality of the inquiry and in particular, the feelings generated by the process.

As we have already said, we work in a field of professional practice (child protection) permeated by uncertainty and anxiety. This has many consequences (Woodhouse & Pengelly, 1991) but for us it felt as if the sense Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

of urgency to "produce the goods" as facilitators may have been accentuated as a consequence.

Secondly, we were launching the inquiry at a time when as a direct consequence of new guidance, the practice system was de-stabilised, hence increasing individual and organisational uncertainty and anxiety. There was little firm ground to stand on, and at the beginning no one knew "how to do implementation." So there was a real fear that we would explore, and discover…nothing! In this case it did not feel OK to value the journey alone; there was considerable investment in the destination.

Thirdly, we were working with people unaccustomed to a research method that is fundamentally allowing rather than shaping in its process. As mentioned above, participants were accountable for their time and effort to employing bodies. Therefore, it was a key facilitator task to hold the balance between abstract and concrete processes; to generate outcomes that were seen as valuable whilst staying true to the central principles of inquiry. It felt risky doing things differently, working counter-culturally, but we held the resultant facilitator tension. Some of the group members captured this balancing act in their reflections. One comments on the positive quality of working differently: "There was an experience of space and openness within this process (co-operative inquiry) that felt very different than the usual working groups I am involved in. This was interesting given the scale of the task and the number of days (available). I expected to feel crowded by an 11am –4pm schedule and in fact I never felt rushed. I had a real sense of activity flowing out of us being together, rather than us striving to reach some predetermined goal and never quite making it; a common characteristic of organisational working!"

Whilst another addressed the worst fear: "The disadvantage of working in this way might be that the group might never produce anything of value (authors emphasis), … I was sometimes concerned that this might happen, and this concern increased as time passed - though the facilitators provided reassurance in a number of ways: they didn’t seem to be panicking; they were obviously prepared to see that a product emerged… It will probably be for others to judge whether the product is in the end sufficient warrant for the costs involved!"

The process So, what did it look like in practice? After six months of negotiation and recruitment, we came together to begin the ten-day inquiry. The pattern of Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

meetings we adopted was common to other inquiries. Our first and last two days were residential; the intervening six days were scheduled at six weekly intervals. Participation levels varied. Only three of us managed all ten sessions, although a central core of eight evolved, leaving others, less active but still engaged, on the periphery. One member withdrew formally. It seems increasingly difficult to use levels of participation as an indicator of commitment in over-burdened public sector environments. As Mead (this issue), working with the police reflects, this is a "consistent and inevitable feature of organisational life."

There are a number of ways in which one can describe and reflect on process; we have used Heron’s ideas (Heron, 1992) of a "cyclic flow of energy, as through the four seasons of the year". Writing this during an astonishingly abundant English spring made the choice easy. His framework has enabled us to discern the different phases or seasons through which the inquiry group passed: Wintertime: the ground may be frozen, and the weather stormy.

Springtime: new life starts to break through the surface crust.

Summertime: there is an abundance of growth, and the sun is high.

Autumn: the fruit is harvested and stored, the harvesters give thanks and go their way.

(Heron, 1992, pp26/27).

We anticipated starting our journey in wintertime, visualising the low levels of trust and high degrees of anxiety commonly associated with a group getting to know each other. Moreover, we expected the seasons to follow their usual sequential pattern as the group opened up, flourished and finally harnessed their ideas and learning.

Initiating This group started in springtime, both literally and metaphorically. There were a number of factors that accelerated its’ initial stages. Everyone had made an enthusiastic commitment, and most had some connection with another; a professional starting point that enabled initial links. Everyone had knowledge of the PIAT network and the way it works, and the venue was familiar and nurturing. Our first preoccupation was to use these gifts well, and make facilitator choices that would set the tone and ethos for the whole (Hunter, Bailey & Taylor, 1992). The participants who were well aware of the need to construct a safe working environment, and had the skills, as trainers, to do it, helped all this.

The group gathered in the late afternoon, and in the first session focussed exclusively on each other, exploring respective roles, work settings and what it was about the inquiry that had grabbed individual interest and attention. This Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

revealed diverse motivations; some were anxious to connect with a national network during this time of change, others were attracted by the idea of working proactively and co-operatively, whilst a few were seeking a supportive group capable of counteracting the isolation and uncertainty they were currently experiencing in their roles. DOH arrived, a bit later than arranged, in the midst of this, but our fears about his potentially inhibiting effect were unfounded; the discussion continued unimpeded.

DOH was invited to outline the Department of Health’s role and interest in supporting the inquiry group. The position hadn’t changed; the Department was ultimately concerned to know what it has been possible to achieve through implementation and what, as a Department, it could do to facilitate best practice. This openness to learning from the inquiry group’s collective experiences appeared to relieve some underlying uncertainty about DOH. Shoulders relaxed as anxiety dissipated. As facilitators, we were relieved that time spent in early negotiation appeared to have been successful; we could get on with the inquiry without worrying about continually re-negotiating externally imposed expectations. As for the others, their experience and knowledge were to be honoured and respected, and contribute to central Government’s learning. People were freed to engage in further group building, allowing the tentative spring shoots of trust to mature a little.

The next day, we introduced key features of co-operative inquiry and continued to focus on building a working group. We addressed the challenge of how to stay connected and hold on to the inquiry process over time. How could we sustain the early fragile stages of commitment to the research study with a group of inexperienced inquirers vulnerable to the demands and pulls of their individual working contexts? We chose concrete and achievable tasks.

Meeting dates for the year were negotiated and a contact list for circulation was generated as some sort of insurance policy to maintain the connections.

The absence of some participants prompted a suggestion that the group should identify pairs, with each taking responsibility for keeping absentees up to date with the group’s progress and process. This early proposal from the group was encouraging, both from the ‘insurance’ angle and as a tangible demonstration of commitment. Trust and safety were beginning to feel very real.

Working principles were agreed, and again the experience of the group, as trainers, helped this process. Not surprisingly, confidentiality was highlighted, as we would be discussing identifiable work settings and personalities. This discussion was freed up by a facilitator risking a personal story. Being ‘safe enough’ to divulge the tale, and trusting the group to keep the specific details to themselves, led to further sharing of anxieties. One person admitted struggling to understand some of the previous day’s discussion, reinforcing how crucial it was for us to be able to ask naïve questions without fear of criticism or censure.

Holding an appropriate balance between the person-focussed and professional tasks seemed a crucial facilitation issue at this early stage. In an informative inquiry, it was important to allow enough time during our first Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

session together to make some task progress. Mindful of the invisible stakeholders and the ‘product’ culture in which participants worked, we made a judgement to move on and identify our ‘first step’ research questions. This led to two separate tasks being undertaken. Those with education and health backgrounds chose to work together, examining individual concerns and clustering these under emergent thematic headings. The others tried to map out their current implementation processes. Both became engrossed in this reflective cycle, pulling their experience into presentational form, listening to and analysing the similarities and uniqueness of the ‘maps’ produced. Out of this came our first ‘product’, a list of preliminary implementation questions.

These focussed on how the implementation of the new guidance was being managed in individual areas: who was responsible for the task? were implementation groups multi-agency? did they hold a brief to develop an implementation strategy? were explicit links being forged between the two guidance documents? This product served a number of useful purposes. It gave everyone a sense of achievement. Secondly, it illustrated for first timers how co-operative inquiry had enabled us to surface and work with issues in a rigorous and systematic way, and, thirdly, it demonstrated how the group’s move from presentational (pie charts and post- its) to propositional (key implementation questions) knowledge. Before departure, we reviewed our first residential together. There was excitement about the process, valuing "the positive feel to the work", and people were eager to take the key questions back into their own working environments and write up their ‘maps’ for sharing at the next meeting. As facilitators, we were encouraged but retained a cautious optimism, being mindful that after an early spring, colder conditions can return.

Maintaining Momentum Six weeks later we met and opened with personal news rounds. Individual story telling, as with other inquiries, became an embedded part of our process. It provides a gateway for the individual to re-enter the group and a shared ground from which themes can be identified for further more cooperative work. In this session, the discussion settled and re-settled on boundary and structural issues amidst uncertain and confused agency settings. It was clear that within their daily working environments uncertainty and confusion surrounded the implementation of the new guidance as individual agencies struggled to appreciate its implications and the changes necessary at policy and practice levels. There were explicit concerns about whose problem implementation was; was it Social Services responsibility to drive initiatives or should there be wider inter-agency ownership of change?

We wondered if these feelings mirrored views of the inquiry group with participant uncertainty about its process. Story telling consumed the entire morning, raised innumerable questions and with them, anxiety. Springtime had been put on hold.

Reflecting on the stories in the group, four potential inquiry questions emerged.

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• • • •

What range of variables across authorities are affecting implementation?

What environmental and ‘cultural’ factors affect the nature and shape of the implementation process?

What outcomes are we after that could be named and measured?

Who are the most powerful stakeholders in the implementation process?

Would these organising questions introduce a definite focus and reduce feelings of confusion? We were active as facilitators and moved the group to focus. They selected the stakeholder question for further exploration. This was the point when spring returned as the group started to own the inquiry process and steer it, directing their energies into a sense making exercise. As it turned out, the activity proved to be overwhelming and lacking in clarity, although a good dose of humour prevented a slide into despondency.

However, the group held on to its tentative ownership of the research process by making future plans. Our working space was a large conference room. Our physical boundaries were less obvious and, despite pieces of paper strewn over the floor, we struggled to fill the room. It seemed to reflect the outside world and the about how to successfully implement the new guidance.

As the inquiry progressed we found the metaphor of the mirror (Mattinson, 1975) increasingly helpful as facilitators. By asking ourselves the question "what is going on here that may be reflective of elsewhere?", we were able to identify and work with the open system phenomenon where strategies employed in one relationship system may be carried over and affect an adjacent system (Woodhouse & Pengelly, 1991.p29).

Meeting four earned the title ‘Mind the Gap!’ Opening stories were packed with tales of discrepancies between what was advocated and actual action.

There was a crisis in belief that implementation was possible. This was further complicated by the forthcoming visit from DOH and our commitment to turn key issues arising from the group into a questionnaire for wider use. What progress was there to show this influential funder? What tangible issues had been identified that could be explored by those outside of the study group? In terms of our season’s analogy, the early shoots had not flourished sufficiently to be recognised by DOH. The facilitator choices at times like this seemed really challenging. How long do you hold uncertainty and chaos in the knowledge that a pattern will emerge? If you move the group into structure to reduce confusion, is that out of responsibility or one’s own anxiety? What is authentic in these conditions? We chose be proactive, offering a conceptual model around which we could focus. This re-energised the group who grasped key practice questions about implementation and began to crystallise their own thoughts. Again mirroring the divisions evident in the outside world, the non social work members elected to work together. Trust and safety, like early blooms, were fragile and needed nurturing. The level of emotional expression had increased dramatically, language changed and this tough session ending optimistically. People felt "reassured that the same problems are everywhere", "revived" and "stimulated". The gap between springtime and summer had not disappeared but warmer days were now expected.

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The first shift in the pattern of a facilitator led opening came in session five.

This was a clear indication of the group’s growing ownership of the inquiry process. One of the men opened the meeting informally by distributing a paper, which generated a lively discussion and moved us to specific areas for work. This spirited discourse counterbalanced the ‘let down’ feeling engendered by a late apology from DOH. His absence reflected the outside reality where meetings to plan the implementation process in local areas were characterised by the absence of key individuals. Small interest groups worked independently on separate tasks stemming from the inquiry questions generated during an earlier meeting. The first concentrated on developing practice indicators to measure implementation progress, the second considered the consequences flowing from different implementation models whilst the third extrapolated key messages needing to be communicated to all agencies from the new guidance. Each group reported progress and, most importantly, agreed to undertake concrete development work between meetings. This was further evidence of the group taking responsibility for and ownership of the process and, therefore, as facilitators it felt supportive, not a take-over, when we agreed to draft a questionnaire from issues that they had identified. Summer had arrived during a day of purposeful co-operation with everyone fully immersed in tasks, different professional backgrounds forgotten and a deeper level of understanding developed and expanded.

Sustaining Summertime was short lived. The group gathered for session six demoralised and depressed by recent experiences. ‘Mind the Gap’ resurfaced as a metaphor. Story telling focussed on the personal. Three had new jobs, whilst some others faced great uncertainty about the future of their posts. Frustration levels were high. Implementation processes had "reached a plateau" with "agencies working in parallel rather than in a connected process".

Researching in the moment can be frustrating as well as exciting, although the messy process means a lack of certainty about the usefulness and applicability of what emerges. Had the group reached an inquiry plateau, being unable to utilise its work in practice? Was the research process running alongside what was practically possible? In an atmosphere of psychological defensiveness, it felt like winter. The ground felt very hard and the earlier blooms seemed to have withered and died. As facilitators, we were unprepared for this sharp, cold spell.

Ownership of the group had slipped backwards, rendering the process very facilitator driven. It was hard work and drew heavily on our confidence.

However, ventilating frustrations re-energised the group who re-engaged with a cycle of reflection and action, developing and elaborating ideas that had been circulating. These ultimately became a central product; an agreed set of practice indicators for direct use in their work. We also agreed a way in which group members could use the questionnaire and feedback results. Were we fleeing to task or was this appropriate in the circumstances? Seizing work and owning it was noticeably powerful. The inquiry group offered respite from disabling work settings and it produced useful tools! Hence our accelerated

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progress through winter, springtime and into summer where creativity took hold.

Creating By session seven we were in high summer. Success stories in the opening news round were optimistic: local implementation processes were now more concrete, with inter-agency training happening and individuals receiving positive feedback. The focus in the group began to shift, moving from the initial attention to self, to inquiring with one another and now to the outside world. There was a distinct sense of a journey speeding up, both in terms of the internal inquiry process and external implementation processes. The group took responsibility for, and recognised the need to move from information gathering to sense making and decide on the final report’s structure at the next meeting. Autumn was nearing and people were preparing to transfer their learning to the world outside.

DOH came and acted as a catalyst for reflection in session eight. Each participant reviewed the implementation pathway in his/her area, emphasising key issues. Although story telling, these reports were qualitatively different, being slick presentations offering a longer perspective in which positive interagency aspects were highlighted. Implementation was described as a doable, if imperfect, process. Reflections on the questionnaire data confirmed individual experiences. We moved towards concluding our work together, identifying outstanding tasks to be tackled at our last meeting. Autumn came closer as we reflected on what generalisable messages from the study needed to be delivered, in what form, and to which audience in the outside world.

Our final two-day residential was very autumnal. The opening welcome included an announcement of the sudden death at work of one of the venue’s staff the previous day. This had a catalytic effect on the story telling. Personal hopes, fears and struggles were shared with a number of participants acknowledging the supportive nature of the group, "seeing me through something which was not its job". The dominant themes were personal.

Individuals took the centre stage, talking of alterations in their personal circumstances, work uncertainties or potential new job options.

Enormous concern was expressed about missing members, who embodied the loss facing the group. There was evident sadness about the group drawing to a close at both personal and professional levels. We moved through a number of reflective cycles about the inquiry method and process, about ways of knowing and models of learning and about the identification of remaining tasks and consequent future needs. From these came an agenda and loose timetable to guide us through the two days. Small groups threw themselves into tasks relating to the production of our final report. One group drew together a set of underlying principles essential for the effective implementation of new inter-agency guidance whilst the other endeavoured to Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

describe actual or potential blocks in implementation processes. Industry proliferated! By teatime, the room was a physical mess with post-its covering the windows and paper concealing the tables, and the atmosphere was vibrant. A late summer burst in autumn!

When our attention turned to reflections on the inquiry process as a method of learning, common themes emerged. Story telling was highlighted as "freeing" and opening up issues, whilst encouraging reflection and analysis of the narratives. Issues of choice and power were raised, with the group being described as very equal, non-competitive and free of gender issues.

Awareness of professional background differences had disappeared. The absence of a power imbalance enabled real choice alongside opportunities to shape the content of the work. The absence of a fixed structure allowed shared learning to "flow out of the core of experience" rather than individual development being stifled or closed off to others’ information and experiences.

The experience of reflective space and openness within the process contrasted sharply with the pace of usual working life where individuals felt "very driven" and "increasingly activist", and employers had benefited from the group’s energy recycled into organisations.

Our final morning was "very task orientated". Anxious to harvest learning, respective tasks continued. Once results were shared, another reflective cycle began as we checked our understanding, challenged new ideas and reviewed their fit with the latest products. The set of principles covered key messages about implementing new guidance and addressed the obstacles identified. We all agreed these were beginning to look like the "nuggets" that DOH had wanted and it was possible to see the way in which the content for our final report would evolve. As facilitators we were trusted to hold on to all the threads and draft a document for circulation. We moved naturally to discussing next steps. Reviewing the whole process identified issues likely to require future attention. We explored the possibility of coming together again in six months, partly to mitigate the sense of loss, but also to update our stories and consider any feedback received about our report. Coming together in future made the ending easier; sadness tinged with anticipation. We closed with a celebration of each other and what had happened. Regrets were few, although most would have liked to do more work between sessions.

Numerous things were appreciated, too many to detail here. However, without doubt, we all went away with enhanced personal learning, feeling we had generated "more than the sum of individual parts".

Concluding reflections Looking back, our reflection settles on a number of inter-related aspects of our shared experience. First, it feels really important that the inquiry offered a qualitatively different space to that in which public sector organisations currently operate. Working in confusing and exhausting environments, the group was inevitably predisposed to finding inquiry helpful. It gave them time and space to reflect and move their collective reflections on into helpful Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

propositions with which to inform their practice. As the process developed it reminded us of what we all know; that working with complexity is emotionally and intellectually testing and needs to be supported. And we also know that we too often create and tolerate working environments that operate as if that is not the case.

Given our chosen focus, it is neither surprising nor inappropriate that task dominated our process. We worked with the responsibility to create tangible ‘products’ to satisfy our multiple stakeholders and have reached our target; we have sent the groups report to DOH. But we value, and are moved by, inquiry outcomes that are less observable. People are changed through inquiry. It seems that in the most informative of inquiries, transformation is possible.

Inquiry offers people the opportunity to develop two particular skills on which the method turns; the capacity to fully participate with others in exploratory learning and the ability to develop high quality attention to one’s own behaviour; to study oneself in action and bring that study into the inquiry group openly. This combination presents a considerable challenge. The method invites one to develop and hold intense curiosity about the other(s)’ practice whilst encouraging, with equal intensity, a focus on the self in action.

Reason (1994) calls this latter skill critical subjectivity.

"Critical subjectivity means that we do not suppress our primary subjective experience, that we accept that our knowing is from a perspective; it also means that we are aware of that perspective, and of its bias, and that we articulate it in our communications.

Critical subjectivity involves a self-reflexive attention to the ground on which one is standing …." (Reason 1994, p327) One member’s account illustrates this happening: " In meetings which I lead, I am more task-oriented, more dominant, more anxious (than the facilitators). Do I get the best out of the members of those groups? Over the year, I have become more facilitative, more open, less anxious, more protective of less assertive members – I am learning. Those meetings are becoming less stressful and more productive, and I believe that the members have felt more committed to the outcomes."

This is a primary, legitimate and valid outcome of inquiry.

We are also reflecting on the paradox of introducing a questionnaire, an old paradigm method, in the midst of inquiry. It was both surprising and productive in its consequences. The ability to demonstrate the similarity of thinking with those outside the group, to engage the third person directly, gave our work a sense of validity, which, in turn, helped to counteract some of the concerns outlined above. We have learned, again, the value of eclecticism particularly when working in a complex inter-agency context.

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Finally, our ‘seasons’ did not unfold as anticipated. The early spring and summer had not predicted the brief, but harsh, winter that we experienced.

Although it was shortlived, it led to a fruitful autumn. This skewed seasonal pattern reinforces our view that whilst explanatory frameworks are helpful for understanding and planning group process, they can never be predictive.

They need to be held lightly as a rough guide rather than a detailed itinerary of a groups journey. The language of Heron’s model lingers however. We know that the personal harvest from the inquiry has been great, it will take time to see whether interprofessional practice, that we set out to influence, will benefit from the crop!

References Department of Health; Department of Education and Employment; Home Office (2000) Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families, The Stationery Office, London Department of Health; Home Office; Department for Education and Employment and the National Assembly for Wales (1999) Working Together to Safeguard Children, The Stationery Office, London Department of Health (1995) Child Protection Messages From Research: Studies in Child Protection, HMSO, London Heron, J. (1992) 4th edition The Facilitators’ Handbook, Kogan Page Ltd. London Heron, J. (1996) Co-operative Inquiry, Research into the Human Condition, Sage, London Hunter, D.; Bailey, A. & Taylor, B. (1992) The Zen of Groups: A Handbook for People Meeting with a Purpose, Aldershot: Gower.

Mattinson, J (1975) The reflection process in casework supervision. Institute of Marital Studies, London.

Mead, G (2001) Developing Ourselves as Police Leaders: How can we inquire collaboratively in a hierarchical organization? In Reason, P. (ed) Special Issue: The practice of co-operative inquiry: Journal of Systemic Practice and Action Research.

Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (Eds.) (2001), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. Sage, London and Thousand Oaks

Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

Reason, P. (1994) Three approaches to participative inquiry in N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research pp324-339, Thousand Oaks: Sage Reason, P., & Marshall, J. (1987). Research as personal process. In D. Boud & V. Griffin (Eds.), Appreciating Adult Learning. Kogan Page,London Reder, P.; Duncan, S. and Gray, M. (1993) Beyond Blame: Child abuse tragedies revisited: Routledge,London Woodhouse, D & Pengelly, P. (1991) Anxiety and the Dynamics of Collaboration, Aberdeen University Press

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Co-operative Inquiry as a tool for professional development Mark Baldwin In Reason, P. (ed) (2002). Special Issue: The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 15(3).

Abstract This article describes my involvement as an external facilitator in separate research projects, with a total of five co-operative inquiry groups. The groups all consisted of social welfare professionals, mainly social workers, who were wanting to explore the development of their practice in a context of competing demands from legislation, policy and management at an organisational level.

The article focuses on process, and how, collectively, we facilitated these as more or less successful inquiries. There is detail about how co-operative inquiry, with professionals, in their organisational context, can work successfully, and the part that an external facilitator can take in ensuring a positive result.

Keywords: Co-operative Inquiry, Social Work, Facilitation

Introduction I have facilitated five co-operative inquiry groups in the past four years, and have learnt a great deal about this form of inquiry as a research methodology.

It is this general learning that I will focus upon in this article, rather than specific learning from each group. What is important about co-operative inquiry is firstly that it is co-operative, and therefore involves people learning together, and secondly that it is a process, so provides an opportunity for those involved to investigate the possibilities for transformation over time, not just investigation of how things are at the moment.

The normative literature about co-operative inquiry (Heron 1996; Heron and Reason 2001) claims it as a methodology that is different to traditional qualitative method. I have learnt that using co-operative inquiry is useful for researching professional practice and organisational processes because it locates the meaning of experience with those involved, rather than with the researcher. Ownership of the learning from the inquiry is then also with those involved, who have an opportunity to learn from their investigation and transform their practice. In these inquiries I engaged with people from different organisations as co-researchers. We learnt together and were able to investigate changes in practice over time. Co-operative inquiry was uniquely able to achieve this. How inquiry groups can do this, and the skills of facilitating such groups, and making it happen, is what I have learnt from these experiences, and my focus for this article. For people who are

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interested in engaging in inquiry groups, this article will provide some answers to the why? and how? of co-operative inquiry.

My experience of co-operative inquiry has come in two blocks. The first was with two groups of social workers investigating the development of their practice. The second followed commissioning of research by a national children's charity who wished to investigate the development of "innovative" practice within their organisation. I have written elsewhere about the process and outcomes of work with the two groups of social workers (Baldwin 2000; Baldwin 2001), but will use this experience to explore some of the details of how co-operative inquiry can work with professionals exploring their practice.

Using such inquiry for this purpose is a very particular use of the method, and one which has been written about elsewhere (Traylen 1994; Barrett 2001; Hills 2001). The expectation is that this article will be helpful to others who wish to make such inquiries with fellow professionals, although it may be that it is of use to facilitators working with others in co-operative inquiry.

Co-operative Inquiry Groups Two groups of social workers I engaged with two groups of social workers (Social Work Groups) at a time when I was wishing to investigate the process of implementation of the Community Care Act in the UK. I was very aware of the part played by front line workers in the implementation of policy (Lipsky 1984), and was keen to see how this could be investigated with the professionals involved, as it unfolded, rather than parachuting in and "capturing" information from those involved at a particular time. I negotiated involvement with two groups, one of which was a team of hospital social workers (Hospital Social Work Group) who already worked together collaboratively, and the other a more disparate group of social workers (General Social Work Group) carrying out similar tasks from a variety of teams. These two groups were persuaded that it would be of interest and use to them to engage in such an inquiry as a co-operative venture.

Three groups of workers in children's charity projects Three project teams (The Project Groups) from a national children's charity agreed to work with me in co-operative inquiry groups to investigate the development of innovative practice. The three projects were all very different in their work focus. One was a drug awareness project for young people (Drug Awareness Group), another provided respite care for young disabled people (Respite Care Group), and the third was a youth and community work project enabling children to participate in matters affecting their life chances (Children’s Participation Group). The commonality between these projects was that they were all working with young people, whom the organisation recognises as a marginalised sector of the whole population. The organisation proclaims itself a justice organisation that is committed to working with children and young people to reduce their marginalisation within wider society.

Because of the ubiquity of children's marginalisation, projects recognise the

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importance of developing new ways to work with young people. How can an organisation develop innovative practices whilst avoiding replicating the experience of discrimination?

The justification for using Co-operative Inquiry Investigation of a sophisticated professional practice such as social work requires a methodology that will be able to reflect that complexity. The process of making sense of other people's lives across cultural divides requires a particular approach if investigation is to be able to make sense of relationships. Enabling people who have perhaps considerable problems of communication to have their voice heard in decisions about their future is not a skill that can be looked up in a book, demonstrated, and then "captured" by interview or questionnaire. This process of practice requires the transfer of knowledge and skills from one different setting to another, not the scientific application of learnt skills according to determined certainties about context.

Skills for practice in this context thus develop over time, through processes of reflection and action (Schon 1984; Gould and Taylor 1996). A research method that enables practitioners to enter into a process of action and reflection, is more likely to result in learning through and about the process of practice. Co-operative inquiry (Heron 1996; Heron and Reason 2001) provides such an approach.

The co-operative inquiry method was also congruent with the task identified.

With the Social Work Groups, I was investigating the process through which social workers, at the bottom end of the policy implementation hierarchy, implemented and, therefore, influenced that policy. Lipsky (1984) has revealed persuasively the ways in which 'Street Level Bureaucrats' use the process of their practice to systematically undermine policy intentions. There is some evidence (Baldwin 2000), through co-operative inquiry methodology, that participative approaches which focus on engaging street level bureaucrats in the process of implementation are more likely to achieve success. If the argument is that professional practitioners construct policy through the use of professional discretion, then there needs to be a methodology which engages with participants over time, if this process is to be explored with any degree of validity.

Where there is an expectation within research groups that investigation will result in change of behaviour (in this case change in professional practice), then it is of consequence that the methodology enables those engaged in the inquiry to be able to learn about and develop their practice. Heron and Reason (2001) speak of the difference between 'informative or transformative' inquiry cultures. 'Will the inquiry be descriptive of some domain of experience, being informative and explanatory about it? Or will it be exploring practice within some domain, being transformative of it?' (Heron and Reason 2001:183) The Social Work Groups wanted to explore ways of bringing their professional expertise more into line with policy and procedural expectations. I was motivated by a desire to investigate the transformational possibilities for social work practice through these inquiries. It was this desire to research the

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prospects for change that led me to co-operative inquiry as an appropriate methodology.

The Project Groups all identified "innovative practice", the general focus for the research investigation, as a process of developing practice. They recognised the need to engage in such development in a knowing and reflective manner, in order to ensure that the service they offered young people was developing according to the expressed needs of young people.

Both sets of groups set out needing to engage in a process of change and development of practice. We needed a methodology that could facilitate this process, and were persuaded that co-operative inquiry was such an approach.

The collaborative, participative, nature of Co-operative Inquiry has another advantage for groups of investigators wanting to engage in a change process.

Traditional research relies on a researcher using their skills to capture knowledge and information from the objects of research. What was owned by the practitioner, becomes the property of the researcher, as they take away and analyse their data. Through the process of analysis, it takes on the meaning bestowed upon it by the researcher, rather than the meaning of those objects of the research. For change in behaviour to occur, it is important that what is to be changed, and what the change is to consist of, has some meaning within the experience of those who are expecting to change. It is only when potential change has such meaning that it is likely to be owned by those involved and result in desired change. Co-operative inquiry starts with this participative premise (Heron 1996; Heron and Reason 2001), and is, therefore, a method that is likely to facilitate change in practice.

In working with groups of social workers and related professionals it was also important to take heed of the kind of value base that they habitually engage with. Most social workers recognise the importance of a supportive team environment (Payne 2000) to maximise opportunities for the development of effective service provision. Co-operative inquiry replicates that supportive environment, providing a potentially supportive context to explore complex and contested ideas, and the feelings generated by engaging with stressful and challenging situations.

Other parts of the value base for social work and social care practice involve a recognition of the potentially negative effects of power within professional relationships. All the groups worked regularly with people who were marginalised for a range of reasons - age, disability, mental health, learning difficulty, racism, sexism etc. They felt a powerful need to be working within democratic work groups, and a wider organisation in which their voice was being heard in the development of practice and service provision. Having ways of working imposed upon them was a fear for these professionals. This particularly involved a fear that unethical practices might be foisted upon them in contradiction to their espoused values. There was a feeling that group processes must mirror their practice with people using their services. Some group members felt that policy, procedures and practices had been imposed upon them by national government and their employing organisations, and

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they did not want to engage with a research process replicating this experience.

The Project Groups were very comfortable with the way the method reflected the "justice" elements of organisational philosophy within which they were happy to work. Inclusion, social justice and participation mirrored their practice with young people. With the Social Work Groups this organisational congruence was less apparent. Participants within these groups experienced a gap between the expressed intentions of a democratically managed organisation, and the reality of an autocratic imposition of policies and practices with draconian sanctions attached for non-compliance. These Groups were very happy to be engaging with a research process that mirrored their beliefs in how practice development ought to reflect their espoused values for social work practice.

The Process of Co-operative Inquiry In this section I will use my experience with these five inquiry groups to illustrate the development and facilitation of co-operative inquiry. I will explain how the groups were negotiated within the organisations that they were a part of, how they were established, once they had been identified as potential collaborators, how we made initial decisions about the focus of inquiry, and then engagement in the four part process which constitutes co-operative inquiry (Heron 1996; Heron and Reason 2001; see also introduction to this issue). I will demonstrate the learning that flowed from these cycles of action and participative reflection, and the methods that we used, individually or collectively to maintain the flow of inquiry, reflection and learning, during the lifetime of the groups. I will also talk about endings and the way that we fed learning back into organisations to embed the outcomes within the working practices of the inquiry groups but also in the wider organisations. As the skills involved in the maintenance and development of inquiry groups is so integral to the process, I will look at these simultaneously.

Establishing groups Establishing the Social Work Groups involved persuading their employing organisation that it would be a good idea to explore the development of social workers' practice, and that co-operative inquiry was an appropriate method. I started by offering to feed back to social workers in the organisation the results of prior research that I had done into similar social work practices. I had received permission from the organisation to ask if there was anyone attending the workshop who might be interested in exploring the implementation of policy in their team.

A great deal of interest was generated not only in the research findings but also in the proposal to investigate further. I explained the possibility of using co-operative inquiry as a method (it was new to me at that stage), and left it with participants to get back to me if they were interested. It is hard to say why there was such a positive response. I think I do have an ability to sound excited and motivating when discussing my research interests. Some of the

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feedback I received later suggests to me that it was the opportunity for them to investigate their own practices through a collaborative inquiry which sold it to them. The presentation had to be persuasive to enable those workers to give up three hours of their work time each month. They did not do it for me, so they must have felt there was something in it for them. I engaged with two groups of social workers - one of eight people who knew each other more or less (General Social Work Group), and one of five people who were an established team (Hospital Social Work Group), used to a degree of collaborative working.

The Project Groups were established differently. I was asked by the children's organisation to research the development of "innovative practice" within the organisation. Senior management in the national organisation wanted to be seen as representing an innovative organisation, both as a marketing ploy (to increase contributions to the organisation), and as a means to the end of effective practice in an organisation dedicated to social justice for marginalised young people. They were also concerned that practice should be closely scrutinised to avoid the development of oppressive practices. The question for the organisation, was how to facilitate but also manage, the development of innovation in practice.

My feeling was that co-operative inquiry would be an appropriate method for engaging with people working within the organisation, to investigate the development of innovative practice. My contact manager was persuaded that the approach would be appropriate to the task as well as congruent with the organisation's ethos for action research and developmental practice. I was able to persuade two regional managers that it was a worthwhile project and they linked me up with three potential collaborative projects. I met with the managers of two of these and they were left convinced that the inquiry and the method would be of use to them in their commitment to action research and practice development. The third project team were persuaded without a preparatory visit that they would engage in the research venture.

Subsequently I started work with three inquiry groups in this organisation. One was the whole of a very small team of workers engaged in youth work to facilitate the inclusion of marginalised young people in decisions that affected their lives (Children's Participation Group) The three people really stretched the definition of a co-operative inquiry group to its lower limits. Their enthusiasm and commitment to the process of inquiry as a reflective and developmental learning process overcame any problems with their size.

Critical mass for co-operative inquiry groups can be as much to do with commitment to participation as with actual numbers of people.

The second group was the whole of a drug awareness project team (Drug Awareness Group). They wished to investigate the development of their practice and recognised, at that establishment stage, that they had not, by themselves, engaged in much critical reflection in team discussions for some time. They felt that the co-operative inquiry could kick-start their commitment to such a process.

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The third group was a sub-group of a much larger project team that provided a respite care service to young disabled people (Respite Care Group). The whole team was too large to engage with so a part of the team volunteered to work with me. This separating of the sub-group created an interesting dynamic within the whole team. I had an optimal number in this sub-group (six people), but their separation from the rest of the team did, as shall be seen, create difficulties.

The difficulty raises questions about open and closed groups. In all these groups a decision was made at the initial meeting that they should be closed.

There was no problem for any of the groups in this as they were more or less self-contained, as teams, or groups of people who were happy to work exclusively together on the proposed inquiry. The Respite Care Group, however, could not work as a closed group as they were not separate from the rest of the team. Inevitably the others had an influence on the inquiry and, for one cycle of action and reflection they joined with the sub-group for what proved to be an essential exploration of team processes.

At the time of setting up each of these five groups I was stimulated by the possibilities. The preparation work within the organisations was very important to my feeling of engagement and quiet optimism about the prospects for interesting inquiries. I think I am motivated by the uncertainty involved in such ventures. They are, as a friend once put it, "exciting but dangerous"! Certainly, by the time I engaged with the Project Groups, I was committed to cooperative inquiry as a useful way of investigating areas of professional practice, and walked into those groups with confidence that they would be interesting and productive for all involved.

Getting started - deciding on the focus of the inquiry For all groups the groundwork that I did prior to meeting with the people with whom I was going to work, was fundamental. By the time I met with them they had a reasonable idea of the general focus for inquiry and of the intentions as far as method were concerned. The lead in to starting the co-operative inquiry would, I believe, have been far longer if I had not done this ground work.

When, subsequently, we met as emergent inquiry groups, it meant that we were able to deal with discussions about ground-rules (Heron 1996) for group engagement, as well as moving on to look at the focus of inquiry, all in one session. They wanted to be involved in this inquiry, but, however important we know that ground-rule discussion may be, it is often seen as secondary to the inquiry. I used my facilitation skills to enable them to discuss ground-rules in a helpful manner. I doubt that I had the motivating skills to maintain group commitment if we had only discussed group processes at that first meeting.

With the Social Work Groups, we agreed to explore their use of professional skills and knowledge in the implementation of a key social policy initiative.

What we then focused on as an illustration of that more general inquiry was agreed democratically. The Hospital Social Work Group centred on a piece of work specified by agency procedures, to compare and contrast their interpretation of organisational intentions, and how they used their

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professional knowledge and skills to achieve the task. The General Social Work Group focused on examples of their individual work. From this we were able to draw out the general themes in much the same way as the hospital team.

For the Project Groups the focus of inquiry had been chosen by their organisation. Having said that, it was interesting to see the different ways that each group tackled the issue. Although there were differences in detail about what constituted innovation, which reflected their very different work settings, there was congruence in the way that they defined innovation. It was importance to use my facilitation skills in drawing out these themes, reflecting back to them what I heard them saying, summarising their collective views and checking out that I had made sense of the discussion in a way that we could all agree upon. These skills, facilitation, reflecting back, summarising and checking out are fundamental to all stages of co-operative inquiry, but are particularly important in this early stage, where a group is trying to make sense of the focus for inquiry.

Each of the Project Groups then chose a specific focus for their inquiry for Phases Two and Three (Heron 1996; Heron and Reason 2001), in which they would engage in a task, with some agreement about what they would investigate and how they would record their learning. Discussion about the what and the how was focused and optimistic at this stage. They all suggested what appeared to be viable areas for investigation. I did engage in some devil's advocacy, wanting to convince myself and them, that their inquiry was worthwhile and relevant to the over all purpose. Devil's advocacy is part of the validity criteria outlined in the literature on co-operative inquiry (Heron 1996). It is a system in which it is agreed that any member of an inquiry group has permission to 'confront fully some collusion' (Heron 1996;147) that they believe may be occurring. In this way inquiry can avoid uncritical subjectivity and collusion and maximise the validity of the inquiry process.

This kind of focusing on task, and relating it to outcome is important to maintain motivation and commitment. There are dangers of strait-jacketing the inquiry and the groups allowed themselves the freedom to stray from the focus of inquiry if there were important side avenues to travel along. With time constraints so important for busy professionals, I have learnt that it is not viable to be too 'chaotic' or 'Dionysian' (Heron 1996) in the organisation of the inquiry. Discovering that the inquiry group had spent the whole of the first cycle of inquiry travelling into a cul-de-sac could be de-motivating. It could, however, be important to the inquiry. This is what happened with the Respite Care Group, and the change of direction that occurred took us into uncomfortable but important areas of inquiry.

Reflecting on the initial inquiry stages The fruitfulness of initial inquiry cycles can be variable. Maintaining focus on useful inquiry is a key part of these stages, and requires vigilance from all members of the inquiry group to ensure that direction and learning are being achieved. This will partly depend on the chosen task. For the Social Work

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Group that chose to investigate their own practice, there was a ready made focus for work in each cycle of inquiry, and the reflection stage involved drawing out the collective learning from these individual inquiry cycles.

Shifting from the particular to the general and back again in cycles of action and reflection ensured that we maintained momentum. It also, however, dampened down the scope of the inquiry to what was safe and achievable. I could have adopted more of a devil's advocate role in this inquiry, but the depth to which it is safe to explore is a judgement to be made for the whole group, but particularly for the facilitator. I checked out with this group that they were satisfied with the level of inquiry and its usefulness to them in identifying fruitful areas for practice development. The degree of satisfaction with the course of inquiry was, I felt as the outsider, good enough. They moved, as a group, outside of the comfort zone and took risks in their inquiries, but the risks were not as great as those taken by other inquiry groups.

Two of the Project Team Groups were impressive in the way that they engaged in the process of action and reflection. I engaged in some devil's advocacy with the Drug Awareness Group, when they described their expertise as common sense and experience. I was able to help them critically analyse how they conceptualised this tacit knowledge. This critique was important because of the dangers of assumption and prejudice or routine practices evolving without critical reflection. Heron engages in a debate about practical knowledge and 'the knack'. He says you 'can describe a skill in words up to a point, but the inner core of the action, the knack, defies verbal description' (Heron 1996:111). Both this group and the Hospital Social Work Group analysed their professional skills. Both groups got better at identifying and conceptualising the skills they could replicate and transfer into other work settings, always finding a core of intuitive practical skill to equate with Heron's concept of 'knack'.

The Children's Participation Group was extremely focused and, apart from some facilitation, engaged in the process of co-operative inquiry with little assistance. The process was very akin to their habitual team practice.

Establishing their focus of work, immersing themselves in it and then regularly reviewing its effectiveness through critical reflection was routine for them.

They were a small and cohesive team working in a field that engendered huge enthusiasm and commitment from them. It may be unrealistic to expect such a positive focus in groups as a general rule. Skills of facilitation and maintenance are, in my experience, required in most groups to a far greater degree than was necessary with this one. Even with this project team, however, skills of facilitation were necessary to maintain direction and a critical edge to our reflections. These skills of reflection include demonstrating an enabling persistence and helpful challenge. Having checked out my understanding of what I heard, it was then important on occasions to question colleagues’ viewpoints through what is described in the literature as 'critical subjectivity' (Heron 1996; Heron and Reason 2001).

Facilitating genuine collaborative discussions and critical reflection required me to engage in practices such as paraphrasing, reflecting back, and providing similar examples to illustrate points and broaden discussions.

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Explanation of complex practices was relayed in anecdotal form. I sometimes found it useful to reposition these stories into a propositional framework, relating them to some broader theory or value for practice which enabled them to transform the experience into learning and then transfer it into a different context. The classification of stories listed by Reason and Hawkins (1988) is a helpful tool for facilitation in co-operative inquiry groups. In their model, stories can be used as 'replies', 'echoes', 're-creations' or 'reflections' of other stories. Responding to stories or anecdotes told by participants in any of these ways could be useful in elaborating the learning to be found in stories and embedding it in future practice.

In the Respite Care Group I worked with a sub-group of the whole team. The first cycle of inquiry resulted in a frank admission that their focus of inquiry was, at that stage, fruitless to pursue. Wishing to explore the nature of their relationships, as a team, with young disabled people, their carers and other agencies, the inquiry group learnt that they firstly had to deal with their own internal communication difficulties. Almost all of the rest of the inquiry cycles focused on whole team communication and an analysis of the negative effect of power relationships within the team.

In one cycle of action and reflection the whole team explored supervision as an illustrative example of communication in the team. I met with the whole team for the following reflection session. The feedback was that my facilitation of this meeting was crucial to the team dealing with internal communication difficulties which were hampering the development of innovative practices.

There is a lesson here, for facilitators, about the importance of flexibility in managing an inquiry group. If we had stuck to the original plan, without diverting into this essential by-road, then it could have proved a fruitless inquiry. There is also a lesson about using group processes to enable people to reveal and deal with their emotional responses to difficulties that arise. I recognised that there were strengths within the whole team, and that, despite concerns expressed about an autocratic management style pervading the team, there was still a willingness to confront that, when, as the inquiry did, they were given a chance to do so. Recognising and building on group strengths is another important skill for facilitators in particular, but also for all group members. I found this particular group the most challenging of all to work with. On reflection, this seems to be to do with the degree of uncertainty we had to engage with in shifting direction. It would have been easier to have colluded in the pursuit of a fruitless investigation. Courage and determination, for all involved in co-operative inquiry, is at some points in the process the principle quality required.

Endings and evaluation We did, at the outset in all these groups, make plans about endings. This does not always have to be the case, but, when working with busy professionals whose time for such inquiry is largely prescribed by their organisation, it was important to have a clear idea of the length of the inquiry.

We ensured that the tasks and focus for inquiry were geared towards this time limitation. This process was successful for most inquiries. Where it was less

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successful this was to do sometimes with the nature of the inquiry and sometimes with the nature of the team.

Ending is a key part of the co-operative inquiry process. In order to note the change that has occurred, the degree to which the inquiry was 'transformative', rather than just 'informative' (Heron 1996:101), there needs to be an event that evaluates learning. One of the principle requirements for all groups was to replicate the usefulness of the inquiry process in their continuing work as teams of professionals. Indeed, the Hospital Social Work Group used their last two cycles of action and reflection to look at how they could generate critical analysis within supervision, and collective critical reflection within the team. All the groups felt that much had been achieved through a process of inquiry and learning. None wished to lose this, because the research project was finishing.

I now want to return to the problems with endings that some of the teams encountered either because of the nature of the inquiry they were engaged in or because of something within team structure. The Respite Care Group "lost" time by diverting into investigating team communication and relationships, which meant that there was less time for investigating innovation. This diversion was essential, however, and the inquiry did then enable the team to explore practice developments in a different forum. The Children's Participation Group experienced staff turnover in the latter stages of the inquiry which interfered with ending.

Recording is an issue that Heron says should not cloud ending and learning (Heron 1996), so we structured it in from the beginning. Recording of data collected from the inquiry tasks in the action phase was something agreed upon by the groups. This recording produced evidence for the reflective group sessions. We also agreed that I, as facilitator, would record the reflection sessions, producing draft notes, which group members could change.

Recording of the whole inquiry was also delegated to me, with much the same rule, that it would be circulated in draft for people to comment upon and request changes as required. The recording of the inquiry did, to some degree, then, mirror the process of action and reflection.

We also pre-planned a scheme for feeding back our learning into the wider organisation. The Social Work Groups met with senior managers, with the purpose of embedding learning into the rest of the organisation. Whilst the managers were very impressed with the outcomes of the inquiry, and, more particularly with the process we entered into, there is little to suggest that the organisation has learnt the importance of participative approaches to policy and practice development. The process of learning for the children's charity continues. This is an organisation with a keen awareness of the importance of action learning for effective service development. As with many voluntary sector organisations they are currently going through financial crisis and restructuring, but is hoped that there will be an opportunity to discuss learning with managers and project workers to explore ways in which they could replicate the process in their parts of the organisation.

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Conclusions The focus of my research was on change in professional practice, so a method that effects and reflects the change process was a necessity. I have learnt that Co-operative Inquiry is a method for investigating aspects of the human condition and that facilitates learning by actors, so they can understand and transform their behaviour making their practice more effective. In engaging with professional practitioners committed to the development of the effectiveness of their practice, co-operative inquiry was a viable and appropriate method. This article has indicated the ways in which the process of co-operative inquiry does not just reflect the good practice of professional social work, but actually effects its development. It was exciting for me to share with practitioners the generation of critical reflection in and upon practice through a research process. From the experience of these groups, co-operative inquiry demonstrates clearly and conclusively the effectiveness of the forms of professional practice, policy implementation and organisational structure and process that emphasise a collaborative and participative approach to practice development and evaluation. Co-operative inquiry replicates some of the best features of the learning organisation (Senge 1990; Pottage and Evans 1994).

I have also listed and explained, in action, a number of the skills of facilitation for effective participative inquiry. These skills can be located in the role of a dedicated facilitator within an inquiry group, but can also be seen as the responsibility of other group members. Democratic group processes, agreed upon in advance, and discussed and evaluated whilst being used, are an essential aspect of co-operative inquiry.

I have not engaged with any other than groups of professional practitioners in co-operative inquiries so I am not sure how viable or effective a method it would be in facilitating other people's inquiries. From the success of the inquiry groups described in this article, I would suggest that it is an effective method for any group of people who wish to explore an area of mutual significance, investigating the similarities and differences in their perspective on the area of investigation. If the aim is to achieve transformation in behaviour, rather than just a confirmation of how things are, then the way in which co-operative inquiry ensures ownership of learning within the direct meaning and experience of participating individuals, provides a very high likelihood of successful outcome.

Bibliography

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Baldwin, M (2000) Care Management and Community Care; Social Work Discretion and the Construction of Policy, Aldershot: Ashgate, Baldwin, M (2001) Working together, learning together; the role of cooperative inquiry in the development of complex practice by teams of social workers. In Barrett, P (2001) The Early Mothering Project: What Happened When the Words 'Action Research' Came to Life for a Group of Midwives. In Reason, P and Bradbury, H (Editors) (2001) Handbook of Action Research.

London; Sage.

Gould, N and Taylor, I (1996), Reflective Learning for Social Work, Arena, Aldershot.

Heron, J (1996), Co-operative Inquiry, Research into the Human Condition, Sage, London.

Heron, J and Reason, P (2001) The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry: Research 'with' rather than 'on' People. In Reason, P and Bradbury, H (Editors) (2001) Handbook of Action Research. London; Sage.

Hills, M (2001) Using Co-operative Inquiry to Transform Evaluation of Nursing Students' Clinical Practice. In Reason, P and Bradbury, H (Editors) (2001) Handbook of Action Research. London; Sage.

Lipsky (1980), Street Level Bureaucrats: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, Russell Sage Foundation, New York.

Payne, M (2000) Teamwork in Multi-Professional Care. Basingstoke: Macmillan Pottage, D and Evans, M (1994), The Competent Workplace: The View from Within, NISW, London.

Reason, P and Bradbury, H (Editors) (2001) Handbook of Action Research.

London; Sage.

Reason and Hawkins (1988) 'Story telling as inquiry' in Reason (ed.) Human Inquiry in Action. London; Sage Schon, D (1984), The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, Basic Books, New York.

Senge, P (1990), The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, Random House, London.

Traylen, H (1994) 'Confronting hidden agendas: co-operative inquiry with health visitors'. In Reason, P (1994) Participation in Human Inquiry. London: Sage

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Mark Baldwin is lecturer in social work in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at The University of Bath in the UK. He is interested in exploring the part played by welfare professionals in the implementation of policy, and the development of their own practice within policy and organisational frameworks. Critical reflection and the learning organisation are two theoretical frameworks he is interested in exploring empirically. Participative action research is his preferred methodology.

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Beyond reflection: cake and co-operative inquiry.

Penny Barrett & Bev Taylor.

To appear in Reason, P. (ed) (in press 2001). Special Issue: The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 14(6).

Abstract Issues arising during a participatory action research project with a group of midwives are explored, in particular those related to group process, membership and roles. A midwives Action Research Group established an Early Mothering Group for women in hospital to talk to each other and form supportive social networks. The time-honoured ritual of sharing morning tea and cake allowed both midwives and mothers to experience the therapeutic potential and power of women's ordinary talk Introduction Prior to the review process for this manuscript, I thought that I had truly reflected on what it meant to undertake participatory action research. As did my involvement in this form of co-operative inquiry, so too, does the writing process move me beyond my comfort zone to a place where my thinking has been turned upside-down. Outside the layers of reflection that surround the original project, I discover fresh understandings and insights. In this paper, I unwrap some of the processes that until now I had thought dealt with and safely tucked away within the pages of my PhD thesis (Barrett 1998).

Following a summary of the overall project, I will highlight aspects of the research that relate to group process, membership and roles.

Foundations I set out with a general idea of working with a group of midwives to help make women’s early mothering experiences more enjoyable. Having worked in midwifery and nursing for more than twenty years, I was drawn to action research as it promoted the idea of working collaboratively and involving other midwives in making changes that could improve practice (Kemmis & McTaggart 1988). Further, that the action research group would be able to reflect on and learn from their own actions appealed to my sense of not wanting to impose myself on them. I was reluctant to objectify participants by doing research ‘on’ them—it was very important for me that power relations within any group research endeavours were evenly distributed. As I have stated elsewhere (Barrett 1998; 2001, p. 294), I preferred to work ‘with’ other midwives and have them own the change and action plans.

It was important that women were valued, their voices heard, and their experiences, ideas and needs validated (Hall & Stevens 1991). Aspects of feminist process added another dimension to the action research participants’ work in that the power of the group was founded in mutual sharing, integration, nurturing, letting go, responsibility and reflective evolution

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(Wheeler & Chinn 1991). Feminist principles underpinning the way the group operated sat comfortably with the egalitarian goals of participatory action research; both felt ‘right’ and fitted in with my aim of carrying out research that would not exploit participants or generate outcomes that were meaningless or inaccessible to them. I now feel comfortable situating my research within the broader, more inclusive tradition of co-operative inquiry (Heron & Reason 2001; Reason & Bradbury 2001; Reason, forthcoming).

Brief overview of the project Over a time-span of approximately two years, midwives joined with me to form the Midwives’ Action Research Group that became known affectionately as ‘MARG’. During this time, we become change agents within the maternity wards of a large metropolitan hospital for women in Sydney, Australia.

‘MARG’ was the life force of the action research work that resulted in the setting up of an ‘Early Mothering Group’. This was a space for women having a baby in hospital to meet over morning tea and talk with each other during the first few days following their baby’s birth. A midwife attended in the role of friend, hostess and facilitator; joining in the conversation as another woman who had something to share, whilst at the same time being there in case the need arose for mothers to access relevant information or be referred on to another health care professional.

Evaluation of the Early Mothering Groups occurred over a period of 11 months, and they proved to be very popular with mothers who attended.

Feedback was obtained by mothers voluntarily completing a very short, openended questionnaire, and also by MARG participants meeting with each other afterwards and reflectively sharing their own views and experiences. All 26 MARG meetings were audio-taped and transcribed, then thematically analysed for threads that mapped the pattern and weave of various conversation topics so that both process and evaluative comments were recorded. The Early Mothering Groups provided mothers with their own time and place to share experiences with other women, form supportive social networks before they went home from hospital, as well as learn from each other and exchange helpful information. Deeper therapeutic processes were also evident including debriefing, catharsis and validation (Barrett 1998).

Underpinning this flow of conversation and emotional support was a nurturing ritual partaken of by (mostly) women (and some men)—morning tea. At each Early Mothering Group, mothers were offered a variety of teas, coffee, cold milk or water, and a selection of ‘non-hospital’ biscuits (cookies) of the special, tasty kind that women put out for house guests who call for morning or afternoon tea. These included chocolate-coated, cream-filled and wheatmeal biscuits as well as tasty shortbreads; contrasting sharply with the plain and monotonous ‘public hospital’ variety normally offered to mothers with their morning and afternoon teas, as well as supper. Basically, we (MARG participants) wanted mothers to feel special and one way of doing this was to offer them nourishment of the body, mind and spirit. This made up in some small way for the lack of ordinary talk-time available in hospital midwifery and nursing practice.

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In fact, the latter observation emerged from my doctoral work as important data supporting hospital midwives’ claims that they never have enough time to spend with mothers in their care (Barrett 1998). A permanent state of ‘busyness’ precludes these midwives and nurses form being able to provide satisfying emotional care for birth women. Talk-time is not easily measurable using conventional quantitative tools, thus it is ‘invisible’ via the biomedical positivist and economic rationalist perspectives that dominate the way contemporary health care is funded, administered and researched. Ironically, it was through talking and reflecting on our own practice that this insight crystallised.

Involvement Prior to MARG taking form and while awaiting hospital Ethics Committee approval to commence the study, I undertook a ‘preliminary reconnaissance’ of the field (Kemmis & McTaggart 1988). This comprised talking informally with midwives in all areas of the hospital about things that mattered in relation to their role and women’s experiences of early mothering. The preliminary reconnaissance was important for two reasons. Primarily, I wanted to get an idea about issues that were amenable for potential change or improvement and also relevant for midwives themselves. Secondly, I wanted to become known as a part of the hospital so that I could authentically be (and be seen as) a researcher and a midwife within the yet-to-be-formed group, rather than simply as a PhD student directing it.

My direct contact with birth women had been more recently limited to education. To further enhance my ‘street-cred’ during the research and again become tuned-in myself to what it felt like to be a ward midwife—re-identifying with my midwife ‘Self’—I worked a weekly or fortnightly evening shift. I purposefully became an ‘insider’ as part of becoming accepted in the field.

Later on during our meeting conversations, MARG participants were to affirm that I was seen as an employee of the hospital rather than an outsider. I felt accepted and trusted. Consistent with my egalitarian views on carrying out research that did not exploit participants, I also felt that I would be less likely to do this if I identified with what it felt like to be one of them. In effect, when we started operating as an action research group, there was no major distinction between the MARG participants (midwife-researchers) and the myself (the researcher-midwife); there was an ‘us’ rather than a ‘them and us’.

Not only did I want to increase my involvement as a way for more meaningful reflection on and understanding of the world in which the MARG participants practised as hospital-based midwives, but also I felt that becoming a ward midwife again for a time would help to even out potential power imbalances between midwife-researchers and researcher-midwife (myself). Issues of power (both negative and positive understandings) are central to co-operative inquiry (Heron & Reason 2001; Reason & Bradbury 2001; Reason 2001) and certainly underpinned processes and reflections as we negotiated the action research phases

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I felt that it was important for MARG participants to be able to relate to each other with some degree of familiarity and genuineness. All midwives could potentially have been affected by any changes implemented, and it was essential that I did not enter the setting as a change imposer, but rather as a change energiser, so as to avoid the transgression of over-powering as opposed to of em-powering midwives.

In terms of group process, I used gentle, facilitation rather than directive leadership. At the time (as recorded in my journal entries), one of the most difficult tasks was to ‘let go’ of the need to direct the group. Interestingly, later on during mothers’ groups the same dilemmas would apply and became part of the MARG’s deliberations and reflections in the planning phase of the primary action research cycle.

Power I was conscious of all sorts of power dynamics around us in the organisation at large and within our action research group and I was aware of the possibility that such skewed power relationships could very easily evolve within MARG. My journal entries and reflections were full of concerns about whether I was exerting too much power or influence over the other participants in the group.

On reflection (as always), I surmised that seeing MARG participants as less powerful than I was would be doing them an injustice. The research was being carried out within their work environment, not mine. They were the clinicians and practitioners in the hospital and I was the visitor, although at the time I was working regular casual shifts and was seen by the others as ‘one of them’. I conceptualised authority-power within MARG as being balanced through a sharing of ‘knowledge-power’. I did not, in fact, perceive that other MARG participants had less knowledge-power than I, rather that we had power from different sources of awareness and what we brought to the group as a result of this. Knowledge-power for the MARG was linked to one’s access to knowledge that had bearing on issues relevant to the project’s aims.

Midwife-researchers possessed a certain degree of clinical knowledge-power, in that they were actively involved in full-time care of women before, during and after childbirth; whereas my knowledge-power was in the form of a beginning understanding of participatory action research. Their hands-on, day-to-day clinical knowledge-power was greater than mine, which had of recent years been circumscribed by my limited opportunities to actually provide direct care for women as a ward midwife. Conversely, my research knowledge-power was greater than that of the midwife-researchers. I was a doctoral student with recently acquired (although still at this stage quite raw) knowledge of research methodology and theory.

Group coherence built on inner-strengths unfolding as we reflected on events occurring during our action research work and supported each other through difficulties and dilemmas. As the MARG evolved, decisions were made democratically. This is not to say that we always agreed about things, but

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rather that the group shared a rapport and trusted each other to a level that we felt we could talk things through, disagree and debate issues through, and yet listen to each other’s opinions before final decisions were made.

Meeting and eating Seven midwives from diverse areas of the hospital decided to join the group.

One had only recently completed her midwifery education, another had been a midwife for more than 30 years, with a spread of experience, age and personalities in between. Until we met for the first time as a group, most of the others did not know much about the each other, whilst I had known only one of the participants prior to this. Finding out we had similar interests and feelings about work, life and the universe through our talking at meetings resulted one of the MARG participants becoming my best friend.

I was terribly excited about stepping out into this new adventure called action research, and at the same time aware that I needed to try and ‘let-go’ of having to control things—to trust in the power and strength that would grow from within the group. Sitting in an inner city café awaiting the participants at our very first MARG meeting, I mused on what the future would bring and where this adventure might lead. Pensively, I captured this moment in a journal entry and poem. From these early beginnings, food was to play an important part in the research.

27th May 1992 Just relax…go with the flow…and my feelings. That’s what this feminist perspective is supposed to be all about. And the group power is what the action research perspective is supposed to be all about. Maybe that’s what my life lesson is all about at this point in time.

The sun is shining on a warm Paddington winter morning.

The cappuccino is frothy and chocolaty.

The music is easy.

The world is nice.

After this first MARG meeting, having tea and coffee with cake or biscuits while we talked seemed such a normal thing to do. After all, people do this ordinarily at any social gathering where conversation is to be the primary activity. Food and fluid as a ‘social lubricant’ made sense for subsequent meetings as participants were in the middle of working days and their bodies needed nourishment to keep going. Apart from my own situation whereas I was a full-time PhD student employed for limited hours per week, attending MARG meetings was an extra activity for the others, which is remarkable considering their already very busy days. Throughout MARG’s life of approximately 18 months, I considered it part of how I could repay the other women who were giving so much of themselves for the project.

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Here, Polanyi’s (1983) ‘tacit knowing’ is relevant to conceptualise the idea of tea and cake at MARG meetings; being a taken-for-granted understanding of something that may otherwise remain seemingly invisible without reflection to help draw out its essence and meaning. ‘Cake as research’ symbolises how midwives’ tacit knowing of this ritual and their practice was uncovered through the processes of reflection and learning that they wove through MARG meeting conversations.

A ‘Mad Tea-Party’—food and facilitation MARG meetings were not really a ‘mad tea-party’; the similarity between the Hatter’s party in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and MARG ends with tea and cakes that were enjoyed by all. Nevertheless, a typical MARG meeting consisted of midwives sharing tea, coffee and a cake or pastry that one or other of us would bring along for the group. At a meeting shortly prior to implementing the primary action plan—the Early Mothering Group—during the planning phase of the action research, midwives spoke about ways of enticing mothers to attend the proposed Early Mothering Group and how to provide a nurturing atmosphere where they would be able to relax and chat together. We needed a symbol that would promote caring messages for mothers similar to those we were giving and receiving through our group processes and conversations at MARG. Our message to mothers was simple: ‘This is a space for you to spend some time meeting your own emotional needs. We want you to feel special and pamper you as we know what an amazing, giving role you are taking on as new mothers.’

MARG as a reflection or microcosm of the Early Mothering Group is evident in the following extract from one of our meeting conversations. Didi had brought along some leftover Christmas cake for our MARG meeting.

June It’s great! [referring to the left-over Christmas cake we were all eating, which Didi had brought along for the MARG meeting] So, this is another thing that came up in my head. Do we bring anything for the women at the Early Mothering Group to eat? What are the logistics of cups of tea, and all that sort of thing? Do we bring biscuits?

Didi

Food’s always a good thing.

Sue [eating] I think you can bring biscuits, but they probably won’t eat them all, so then you have some left for the next group.

Ann

They might just like a sweet biscuit and a cup of tea.

Didi

It’s a good token—you know?

June It’s a ‘breaker’, isn’t it?

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Didi

Yes, that’s the word I was trying to use. It’s like a gesture.

June It’s been an important gesture in our group, [chewing a mouthful of cake] because the food and the coffee is an important sort of thing, I think, in women’s talk.

Diana Well it’s a social interaction. [group all talking at once as they ate their pieces of cake] Didi

Women talk over coffee.

June [with a mouthful] Mmm. And tea.

Ann Mmm. And tea. [with a mouthful of cake] It melts the barriers a bit, doesn’t it?

Diana Sounds like the ‘Nescafé advert’! [group laughter] June [laughing with a mouthful] Maybe it will be.

Didi

Yes!

June So, that’s easy. The ‘biscuit’ bit’s easy. [speaking in the middle of a lot of group laughter] What’s coming out of this group is humour, as well. I sit there transcribing the field-tapes sometimes, and I have these lovely little laughs. It’s part of women and talk and support, too.

With cake and conversation in our own group, we were embodying the very essence of what we wanted to provide for mothers—food and facilitation. At the same time, we were discovering the positive effects of humour (which also became a cathartic process at mothers’ groups).

New members and group identity—ambivalence and acceptance Midwives’ conversations were richly laden with stories and reflections about the world in which they lived, worked and related, as well as their experiences setting up and eventually facilitating the Early Mothering Group. I was one of these midwives and found it refreshing to feel part of such a supportive group, whilst at the same time believing that we were doing something that was helping birth women. Feeling valued was an important motivating factor when it came to finding energy to work through difficulties and we found it empowering to identify with each other as part of this group. Here I highlight part of MARG’s story that presented us with the dilemma of wanting new members but being afraid of losing our group closeness, cohesion and identity. This is relevant in terms of how groups may proceed within their own changing environment.

A co-operative inquiry/action research group that works over time is bound by fluid and permeable perimeters. This can result in varied outcomes; however,

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reflection on both positive and negative aspects can lead to fresh insights and understandings. About eight months after our first meeting, we spoke about needing more midwives to join MARG and help facilitate the Early Mothering Groups; by this time, several MARG participants had left the hospital.

MARG’s identity was unfolding. We had become so well known and approved of by significant gatekeepers within the institution that our group and action plan was fully endorsed by the Director of Nursing Services (DONS). We felt so empowered in our new roles and strong identity that we were reasonably comfortable inviting the most powerful nurse and midwife within the hospital to join us. About half way through the project, we invited her and other senior midwives to join (although not all took up our offer). One thing that made it easy for us to consider this radical change in membership was the fact that the new Director was known to be approachable, forward thinking and supportive of midwives, nurses and women.

Powerful people could help catalyse implementation of our action plan but we were hesitant about what sort of changes new members would bring to the MARG group dynamics. There was a certain level of reluctance to let go of the strong bonds of support and friendship that had built up during the past 10 months since MARG had been meeting. The new Director of Nursing Services had expressed interest when I asked her about whether she would like to join.

Being aware of the potential for her position of authority to override her presence as an ordinary member of MARG, she wanted the group to have a chance to debate the issue prior to making a decision. This led to some soulsearching by MARG participants about what to do if someone with whom we did not feel comfortable wanted to become part of the group.

On the one hand we wanted our group to be effective, and we saw that having powerful people as members would help us overcome many potential obstacles in trying to make an organisational change within a hospital. As midwives and nurses, we belonged to a group that had relatively less power to influence decisions than did the more powerful medical and general administrative groups.

On the other hand, we had built up such a good rapport and were getting so much from our regular meetings and conversations that we were afraid of upsetting our group cohesion and closeness. This is not to say that we never disagreed, only to point out that we had evolved into a group that valued each other’s diverse opinions and respected others’ rights to speak as equals. We were really comfortable saying whatever we felt like saying about whomever we felt like saying it. We often spoke about sensitive issues. Didi wondered aloud about what it might be like to censor what she said, should the new Director join MARG: I guess the only thing that makes me a bit nervous even though I want her in the group—because I think she really has got a great feeling for women—I do worry about whether I’m going to be a bit scared to say brash rude things I often say. [laughing]

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The imperative to clearly articulate our principles of process and procedure— to formalise our guidelines and have some ground-rules—was gaining momentum. Our reflections on admitting new members helped us to articulate the principles underpinning MARG’s processes and functioning. This led me to draw on previous conversations and print out a summary of ‘MARG groundrules’, which I brought to the next MARG meeting for discussion and reflection. The list of group issues we considered important to address with new members included: trust and confidentiality; group cohesion; power relationships and decision-making; ownership of group-initiated actions; as well as reliability and action-plan work sharing.

In the end, we decided to welcome new participants for a trial of membership at two meetings. The Director of Nursing Services joined MARG as another midwife sharing stories, continuing to support the Early Mothering Group in her administrative roles and later, as the Executive Director of the newly built Hospital. This helped in two ways: legitimisation of the research and validation of our action plan (the Early Mothering Group).

Group dynamics changed slightly after more new members joined; participants became a little less open with personal revelations. Only four of the original eight midwives (including myself) were left in what had been a tightly knit group. Although new participants were active in facilitating the Early Mothering Group in various ways, they were not connected in the same way as core members were to the conversations that had been woven into the MARG’s midwifery praxis during the group’s formative phases.

I recall thinking that the new MARG member who was the Director of Nursing Services may have had problems finding time to regularly facilitate mothers’ groups. She verified this, highlighting the idea that MARG participants might be able to fulfil various roles in support of the action plan. For instance, her role could be paving the way past various gate-keepers; lending her support and endorsement to the Early Mothering Group and helping to maintain it as part of the hospital’s supportive infrastructure for new mothers. In fact, the new Director was one of the strongest supporters of both MARG and the Early Mothering Group, helping negotiate a way through numerous difficulties encountered in the ensuing years. It was important that we had her support even though she did not actually sit in on Early Mothering Groups.

As a footnote to this story, next to the PhD award framed and hung in pride of place in my home is a letter from the afore-mentioned Executive Director/ Director of Nursing Services, thanking me for ‘…allowing us to be involved…’ and commenting that the project had been ‘…a very positive activity for the Hospital and has made a real contribution to care’ (Thoms 1999). These comments are priceless validation that the action research was meaningful for midwives, mothers and midwifery within the hospital; I value them highly.

Women’s words Consistent with feminist values highlighted earlier in my paper, it was important to acknowledge women’s voices. As one way of increasing audibility

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within the limitations of the printed page, I decided to record MARG meeting conversations on audiotape and use written transcriptions of these to map progress and change. Later when writing up my PhD thesis, I would use these midwives’ own words as the main text for five out of 12 chapters. Over approximately 18 months that we met, I transcribed the 26 ‘field-tapes’ verbatim following MARG meetings and returned a copy of the transcription to each midwife at subsequent meetings for further reflection and/or comment.

This proved to be a very powerful way of preserving what would normally be lost to memory or to the walls of the ‘tearoom’. Some would argue that this is unnecessary and may even interfere with the processes aligned with action research (Tripp 1995); however, it was important for the reasons outlined above to have full conversations available.

In terms of balancing out power and control within the group, it was important that I not impose my interpretation on each transcribed conversation. This was the rationale underpinning my decision to return whole transcripts to participants rather than summaries. I met with mixed reactions from MARG participants when they viewed their own words for the first time. These ranged from mild interest, through curiosity and amusement, to a strongly held opinion that valuing women’s orally transmitted knowledge (by recording and transcribing it) could help to empower women. Cath (pseudonym) thought it was ‘…like a "soapy"—like reading a Shakespearian comedy…’ Midwives whose talking was recorded and transcribed were quite entranced and fascinated by seeing their own words in print.

Only towards the end of MARG meeting 26 (out of a total of 30), some 18 months following the first gathering, did participants decide that they did not need to have full conversation transcriptions returned to them; summaries of each meeting would suffice from here on. As Didi (pseudonym) reflected, in the beginning when MARG participants were beginning their action research work, there was some degree of insecurity about what would happen to them.

The transcriptions then seemed to be some kind of physical evidence that what MARG was aiming for was something ‘special’—the worry was that the ‘spark’ that was keeping MARG participants’ motivation to keep going would somehow be lost if the transcriptions ceased to be made available.

Silently, I remember feeling relieved that the physical pain associated with transcribing would ease; however, I also wondered what would happen to MARG after this. After another four meetings the MARG discontinued, despite attempting to start on another action plan which was second on the original list of priorities—a support group for midwives within the hospital. It became difficult for participants to continue without formal organisational time being made available—the realities of having to meet their job commitments within very busy hospital wards precluded MARG participants and other midwives from contributing time and energy needed for this change. I reluctantly departed from MARG to write up my PhD thesis.

I made an ethical decision to share facilitation of weekly Early Mothering Groups for a time, as this was a living change that now formed part of the offerings for postnatal women. We experienced thoughts of uncertainty and

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optimism as our action research work became reality; and we hoped that mothers would be able to claim the group as their own or may even return to attend it after they had left the hospital.

In conclusion In this paper, I have attempted to illuminate some of the issues that the Midwives’ Action Research Group dealt with during the time that the action research work was being carried out. Pivotal issues of group process, membership and roles include: setting up MARG and engaging with participants towards improving practice, whilst at the same time enjoying the benefits of women’s ordinary talking and socialising; working with power; and membership within the MARG. I felt a great deal of satisfaction spending time talking with other midwives, sharing and reflecting on our experiences as we became acquainted with one another and what it was like to work co-operatively in a mutually rewarding research project that improved practice. Others shared my feelings. We were, on the whole, very excited about what we had done. One of the most difficult things I had to do was leave the field and say goodbye to MARG, letting go and giving freely of our efforts to the women for and with whom we worked.

Especially hard was ending my research with cake, coffee and conversation.

REFERENCES Barrett, P. A. (1998). Early Mothering—A Shared Experience: Feminist Action Research with Midwives and Mothers, unpublished PhD Thesis, School of Nursing and Health Care Practices, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia.

Barrett, P. (2001). The early mothering project: What happened when the words ‘action research’ came to life for a group of midwives. In Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (eds), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, Sage Publications, London, pp. 294300.

Hall, J. M. & Stevens, P. E. (1991). Rigor in feminist research.

Advances in Nursing Science, 13 (3), 16–29.

Heron, J. & Reason, P. (2001). The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry: Research ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ People. In Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (eds), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, Sage Publications, London, pp. 179-188.

Kemmis, S. & McTaggart, R. (1988). The Action Research Planner, 3rd edn, Deakin University Press, Victoria.

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Polanyi, M. (1983). The Tacit Dimension, Peter Smith Publishers, Gloucester, MA. Reason, P. (forthcoming), Doing co-operative inquiry. In Smith, J. (ed.), Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Methods, London: Sage Publications.

Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (eds) (2001). Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, Sage Publications, London.

Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. 2001, Introduction: Inquiry and Participation in Search of a World Worthy of Human Aspiration. In Reason, P. & Bradbury, H. (eds), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, Sage Publications, London, pp. 1-14.

Thoms, D. (1999). Letter from the Executive Director, Royal Hospital for Women, Barker Street, Randwick, Sydney, 29th April.

Tripp, D. (1983). Co-authorship and negotiation: the interview as act of creation. Interchange, 14 (3), 32-45.

OR (?)

Tripp, D. (1995). A light-hearted comment on taping interviews, Email to Qualitative Research for the Human Sciences, QUALRSL@uga.cc.uga.edu, 1st May. Wheeler, C. E. & Chinn, P. L. (1991). Peace and Power: A Handbook of Feminist Process (3rd edn) National League for Nursing Press, New York.

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Using Co-operative Inquiry with Black women managers: exploring possibilities for moving from surviving to thriving.

Carlis Douglas In Reason, P. (ed) (2002). Special Issue: The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 15(3).

Abstract This paper recounts and explores the early stages of a Black women managers’ Co-operative Inquiry group exploring strategies for moving from surviving to thriving. The term ‘Black’ describes any person perceived not to be White. It considers why Action Research methodology was perceived to be appropriate for this work; outlines key considerations attended to in setting up the inquiry; and then briefly explores some of the dilemmas encountered and insights gained in the process of undertaking the inquiry.

To ensure confidentiality all names used are fictional ones chosen by the individuals.

1.

Introduction

This paper tells the story of a group of Black women professionals using Cooperative Inquiry to explore the survival strategies used to negotiate the everyday challenges encountered, in and out of organisations. It explores early stages of the inquiry identifying some of the challenges encountered that appeared to be not just specific to our group, but that may have resonance with any group of oppressed people using Co-operative Inquiry to explore the process by which their oppression is constructed - with goals of liberation.

The Co-operative Inquiry group was one of a variety of different Action Research methods used in a larger research project. The main research project was designed to help me better understand how, as change agents, we might more effectively impact on institutional discrimination in ways that would enable people from oppressed groups to experience themselves as having equal opportunities to realise, and use, their potential in organisations.

It seemed that despite the resources input towards creating greater equality of opportunities in the 1980’s the fundamental processes of institutional discrimination were still at play.

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My research concerns grew out of my work and life experiences as a Black woman in Britain working with organisations to implement their various equal opportunity policies. They also emerged from a more fundamental life question "Is it possible for Black women to thrive in Britain?". That question was first triggered during a Maya Angelou poetry reading concert in Lewisham. Though inspired by the woman herself, I was most struck by the idea of ‘surviving’ and ‘thriving’ as distinctly different goals for the Black woman. They became structural frameworks around which newly emerging thoughts clustered and took shape. She said: "The issues that face us all are not just how to survive – obviously we are doing that somehow, but how to thrive – thrive with some passion, some compassion, some humour and some style."

I began to understand my research as, not simply an attempt to generate conceptual knowledge about change, institutional discrimination and equality of opportunities, but as a mechanism for impacting on the status quo. I wanted to experience research as change not just for change. (Romm 1997)

2.

Why Action Research?

It was my intention to go down from the 'high ground' of Equal Opportunities policies and procedures, into the messiness of the ‘swampy lowlands’ (Schon, 1983) where individuals’ perceptions, meanings and behaviours are entangled, and where what is being sought is often not clear. In doing that I hoped to gain insight into some of the underpinning structures of the system and therefore be better equipped to design more effective change strategies.

I also wanted to shift the traditional power balance by using the research as a vehicle for the voices and thoughts of Black women to be expressed. From my experience I had observed that perpetrators of racist and sexist practices are often unconscious of their actions, while the recipients of those actions are often very aware of what has taken place (Essed 1991). I believed that from years of witnessing, observing and experiencing discrimination people from oppressed groups develop a sophisticated level of skill at seeing and analysing human interactions and detecting discrimination in its more subtle forms within interpersonal transactions. We seem to have a well-developed 'sixth sense', which allows us to 'know’ discrimination, even when we are not able to isolate and verbalise the problem objectively. We seem to gather this knowledge through the experience of being in the presence of, and from engaging in joint actions with, ‘the other’. We collect this information through our senses and then hold the knowing within ourselves as feelings. In some instances we are able to translate these feelings into conceptual knowledge that gives insights into the ways in which our oppression is maintained. But often this translation work is not done, and nevertheless we walk around potent with this knowledge. Therefore, if suitable spaces are created in which feelings and ‘sensings’ can be tapped for their knowledge, Black women, and others who experience discrimination, have unique contributions to make to Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

the understanding and deconstructing of discriminatory systems; and to designing and framing more equal and mutually beneficial ways for people to relate to each other (hooks 1982, Friere 1972).

Therefore an important challenge was to find a research paradigm that validated that contribution and empowered participants to offer their knowledge, and their sense-making skills, which are often different to those valued in traditional research. Action Research, with its long established links with liberation struggles, was a prime choice. Its explicit values of researching with, rather than on, people provided a framework in which there were possibilities for participants, as co-subjects and co-inquirers, to give meaning to their own experiences from their own perspectives on, and standpoints in, the world. Its acknowledgement that cognition resides in all parts of our system offered me a process for valuing our subjective experiential knowing as an additional source of information (Reason 1988, 1994, Heron 1988, 1992). Since domination, exclusion and disadvantage are more often acted out, rather than explicitly spoken, the stated assumption (Schon 1995) that some knowledge can be only accessed through observing our actions and reflecting on our experiences, created possibilities for us to come to know how we collude in our oppression. As we observed ourselves relating to each other we were able to move beyond what we think and say we do, to seeing what we actually do. In those moments we discovered worthwhile questions that previously we did not know existed.

Our Inquiry generated great insights into the challenges for us as Black women wanting to not only survive but to thrive. It connected our subjective and objective ‘knowings’ about the many ways in which we unintentionally collude in the complex process by which many of the groups with which we most closely identify are kept excluded from the benefits of the system and disadvantaged. In addition to this it was instrumental in progressing our development. In this paper I recount the early stages of our inquiry group and reflect on the ways in which our survival strategies, the very topic of the research, continuously tripped us into habitual ways of being and relating.

Unfortunately, in this paper I can only indirectly communicate the insights gained about the ways in which our collusion in the system is effected. My main focus is on describing the method in practice and the lessons learnt about engaging people from oppressed groups in inquiry endeavours with goals of liberation.

3.

The Co-operative Inquiry in Practice 1. Overview

Towards the end of 1991, having gathered, and made sense of quite a lot of data about the experiences of Black women managers and professionals in organisations, I was now ready to move into the second phase of the work. I decided that six would be the ideal group size. Between October and December 1991, from my extensive network of Black women, I made a long list of managers and professionals with the type of experience I wanted to tap and outlined some criteria for achieving a successful group process. This Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

became the basis on which I invited women to join the group. I was quickly able to identify potential women for the group, and over a period of 6/8 weeks had long face-to-face, or telephone, conversations outlining my proposal, and requesting their involvement in the research. The first five I approached accepted. This was in many ways not surprising, as during the period of doing this work I have found that whenever I talked to other Black women about the project they were extremely interested.

Our first meeting took place in February 1992, and we met on six subsequent occasions. The group was never formally terminated and I was left with a contract to continue the work, - "at any time, and in any way that would be helpful to the project."

Re-reading my personal journals of this period reminds me of the amount of thought and attention that went in to planning for this cycle of research. In other cycles of the research, as I uncovered ways in which my survival strategies colluded in maintaining my oppression rather than in negotiating my liberation, I had experienced feelings of vulnerability and of being de-skilled.

Therefore I was extremely conscious of the degree of disturbance that this work might create in participants. As initiator of the inquiry I felt a great responsibility to do my best to create a safe and secure context for participants and for myself. I became aware that I if we were to be effective in identifying our habitual taken-for-granted responses we would need heightened awareness of ourselves in action. Towards this I invested in transforming three friendships so that they became learning contexts in which we developed our skills at giving and receiving support, as well as feedback that challenged our habitual ways of seeing and being, and used journalling, and therapy to create spaces for retrospective reflection and sense-making.

It seemed that another important determinant of a successful group process was the selection of the ‘right’ people. Time was short and I wanted a group that would form and perform quickly, so I generated the following criteria for guiding my choice. I looked for women who: • •

• • • •

•

Were experienced and effective at working in groups.

Had an in-depth knowledge of the process of institutional discrimination; and an understanding of the concept of internalised oppression Were experienced in developing Black women – I hoped to tap a wider source of knowledge than just our personal experience Were actively pursuing their own journeys of personal development.

Would be willing/able to collaborate as equals taking neither teacher, nor mentee roles.

Were endeavouring to use power constructively –If we were to attain the goals of the research and this collaboration was to further facilitate our liberation we needed to be aware of the ways in which we respond to and use power. Therefore there had to be congruence between the content and process of the work.

Give and receive loving challenge. I perceived a potential for Cooperative Inquiry groups to become collusive. This seemed particularly

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• •

•

•

3.2

likely for a group of women who spent a large part of their lives in isolating contexts. I felt that a quality outcome was dependent on our ability to create an ethos of critical reflectivity, and thought that the survival strategy of detaching the self and heavily protecting it might undermine this possibility.

Able to give one afternoon every 4 to 6 weeks for a period of about a year.

Able to identify what they wanted, or could get, from participating in such a group – the attainment of shared ownership was important to me. Therefore I was explicit about the hopes and expectations I brought to the group and invited others to share theirs so that we could consider the compatibility of our objectives. This formed part of our discussions prior to the first meeting and in the first few meetings of the group.

Were experienced group facilitators, had counselling skills and were already engaged in their own development. The psychological safety of the group was a paramount concern. I anticipated the need for people who could work constructively with the re-activation of old pain and reopening of unhealed wounds. I assumed that the pursuit of their personal development would have alerted them to the likely of this happening, nevertheless in our conversations prior to joining I checked their preparedness to re-engage in such work. Safety was also about the creation of a space in which there was permission to make mistakes and to get things wrong. I was very conscious that I was engaging in an endeavour in which I had little prior experience. I had a certain amount of conceptual knowledge of the method but I too was a learner. I needed a group in which there was acceptance that we were all co- learners, co-researchers and co-subjects.

Willing to work within the Co-operative Inquiry approach. Reflecting on my own struggles in letting go of my internalisation of the values of traditional research it seemed critically important that prospective participants should be aware that this research was based on a different research paradigm. Therefore in my initial conversation with each woman I described the Co-operative Inquiry method, and a paper about the methodology and my research goals was sent prior to our first meeting. I did not anticipate that they would have experience of working in this way but it was important that they should be willing to entertain the redefinition of valid and effective research.

Getting started

Our first meeting started with a sense of quiet expectation. We seemed to be anticipating good, and worthwhile outcomes. We were all highly pressured women, balancing a number of different roles, so it was a great sacrifice to give up a Saturday afternoon. Therefore we did not take it for granted that everyone would turn up. When we reflected together at the end of the first meeting, the presence of everyone (except Aisha, whose inability to be there was known) was mentioned, as a sign of each individual’s commitment to this Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

inquiry. Faced with the dilemma of deferring the start of the group for some weeks or starting with a member missing, Aisha had suggested that we got going without her.

As the initiator of the Inquiry I took leadership responsibility and provided a structure for the first meeting. At that meeting we discussed ways in which we might share leadership of the project. All participants were supportive of shared leadership but no one wanted to take any leadership functions, claiming that they did enough of those things in their professional lives, and this inquiry was perceived to be about their personal development. This presented me with a research dilemma. It was agreed that in the first 2 or 3 meetings I would take the facilitator’s role and that the issue of sharing facilitation would be addressed later in the life of the group. Anticipating that membership at our meetings would fluctuate, and therefore perceiving a need to quickly build a robust yet flexible group I gave priority to establishing good working relationships and a climate conducive to exploration, challenge, learning and change.

I commenced the first meeting by restating the purpose of our gathering and making explicit the process by which this group was brought together. Our agenda featured opportunities for getting to know each other; making public prior links and relationships; identifying hopes and expectations from our joint endeavour; exploration of the Co-operative Inquiry method; and time to reflect on how we had managed our meeting and worked together. We introduced ourselves firstly by each woman taking some time to talk about herself. Our introductions centred on our families; life goals and purposes; and the reasons that brought us to the group. We connected as Black women and mothers. We did not talk about our jobs, professional responsibilities and status. Rapport and empathy were very quickly established, and rather surprisingly, we moved into exploring the topic with degrees of self-disclosure that seemed unusual for such a new group. Time went unnoticed.

Then we used a loosely structured activity to create a visual depiction of the links and connections existing at that very early stage of our group, and to provide a process for facilitating Aisha’s entry in to the group at our second meeting. This did not work well. Although there was consensus about the need to openly disclose prior relationships and friendship bonds and there was stated commitment to the activity, many members of the group experienced problems with the activity which were expressed as a need for further explanations of the methods. As facilitators skilled in handling complex activities, using a simple method, I sensed that the difficulty expressed was masking an issue that we were not yet able to speak in the group. We progressed in a rather jerky way - sometimes with high energy and engagement and then becoming stuck - trying to work out the mechanics of the exercise. The frustration of our process was balanced by a lot of humour and laughter. The prior relationships between each member of the group and myself assisted the negotiation of this very sticky process. We had not got very far with the activity but it has been planned to continue it at our second meeting.

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Towards the end of the meeting we shared our hopes for and expectations from the project; and reviewed our management of the inquiry; and the experience of working together. We realised that we had not left enough time for these very important aspects of our process and resolved to give more time to reflection in future meetings. Reviewing our experience of working together Claire said that she wanted to cry, but she was conscious that we were out of time and that she would soon be on her way home, so she was mentally pulling herself together to go home. This comment reminded me of the fact that I had always been aware of the power of such a group to disturb coping mechanisms and to release distress. I was concerned that this had been expressed at the point when there was no space to deal with it. Offers to stay behind and talk were made but Claire was in a hurry to get away. This incident raised again issues of my responsibility as initiator of inquiry for the emotional safety of co-inquirers. I had committed myself to getting Fleur back to the station at a certain time and so I was not available to Claire her even if she had chosen to stay behind. As a new group we had not yet established the level of trust that might have made it likely for Claire to accept the support of another member in dealing with her distress. I felt a moral, though possibly unrealistic, obligation to ensure that group members did not leave meetings feeling distressed. So I left with a sense of not having been able to discharge a responsibility and with a determination to ensure that next time I would be more available.

Our stated hopes and expectations reflected a tension that almost ended the group, and that was eased somewhat when one member, who represented the far end of one pole, withdrew from the group. This was the stage at which we first began to realise that not everyone wanted to bring their whole self to the research. While some group members assumed that an important outcome of the work would be personal growth others wanted only intellectual stimulation. At this first meeting we recognised this as a tension but did not understand how problematic it would be to negotiate that difference. We left the meeting pleased with what we had gained and surprised that we had engaged with the task so quickly and with such intimacy and self–disclosure.

While the dominant themes of our first meeting were those of discovering similarity and experiencing connectedness and empathy, those of our second meeting were about difference, challenge, and negotiating power. Aisha’s presence completed the group and also brought a difference – we were no longer a group of mothers. We commenced our second meeting by returning to the connections activity, using it as a way of introducing ourselves to Aisha and engaging her with the first meeting. I noticed that while we were now fully engaged in a smooth flow of conversation, rather than the stop-start nature of our previous encounter with the activity, all the rules were being broken or reframed. This seemed to indicate that the problems experienced with the activity in the first meeting were related to its structure. Therefore I suggested that we stopped trying to make the activity work and made a decision to abandon it. This statement seemed to release something in the group and with laughter the sheet of flipchart that represented our relationship ties was put aside.

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One member of the group, Roselyn, stating that she was struggling with feelings of separateness, and disconnection in the group, expressed an urge to talk about her connection with a woman who, though not a member of our group, had been on her mind throughout the whole of our first meeting. She mentioned a woman, Clementine, who with Claire, Roselyn and I had set up and run Network for Black Trainers, in the late ‘80’s, when there were few Black people in that profession. She had been very present in my mind also.

A year earlier it would have been inconceivable to imagine establishing this group without inviting her to join. I realised that Roselyn was naming the fact that though physically absent Clementine had been brought to the group by at least half of us. This connection, which could not be represented on our paper map, proved to be very influential on the group’s process.

A few months earlier Clementine had had a mental breakdown, and with that went her ability to engaged in activities such as this, aimed at changing the system. As we spoke about her we realised that we thought of her as a casualty of the oppressive system. In the process of this conversation we discovered that two of the other women also knew Clementine. The event of her breakdown had powerfully impacted on 5 of the 6 of us, and with it the statistics about the overrepresentation of Black people in mental institutions was being given meaning. This took us into a conversation about our own vulnerability in relation to the very powerful system that seemed constructed in ways designed to bring about our destruction. Fleur, the only member of the group who had no connection with Clementine, abruptly and powerfully interrupted this conversation. She told us that "at the risk of breaking rapport" she found it impossible to go along with the trend of our conversation. She told us that she had constructed a ‘life story’, which was not about vulnerability, changed the mode of engaging from experiential to conceptual and then introduced an activity.

The experience of challenge among a group of Black women proved deeply disturbing. In the previous meeting we had discovered the experience of empathy and connection and now suddenly we were again in more familiar territory of feeling not understood and unconnected. This experience in a group of people with whom we felt most closely identified was highly anxiety raising. It was interesting to observe from the tapes that Fleur prefaced every statement of difference with "at the risk of breaking rapport". It seemed that she was aware, though maybe only at an intuitive and experiential level, that the expression of difference was an extremely risky thing to do in a group of historically oppressed people with a high degree of self-referencing.

This second meeting was the point at which the group almost disintegrated, though that only became apparent some time after the session. During the meeting it was difficult to identify that we were experiencing a group crisis. No voices were raised, a high level of facilitation skills was demonstrated as we enquired into others’ meanings and seemed to listen rationally to each other’s perspectives. In retrospect I see this as a good example of us utilising the facility to ‘mask’, which emerged from the research as one of our survival strategies. At the meeting I had been unaware of my feelings and the insights they gave to what was happening. In my review of the session I talked Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

rationally about my performance as facilitator and group member. It was many hours later, through paying attention to bodily sensations of severe discomfort, that I realised that the meeting had profoundly disturbed me.

4.

Reflections: key issues and themes emerging

At the start of this work we perceived Co-operative Inquiry to be a method suitable for inquiring into the potential of our survival strategies for helping us to thrive. However an unintended outcome was the discovery that these strategies inhibit us from bring the whole self to the inquiry and therefore reduce our capacity for participation. In this paper I share my reflections on three of these issues.

4.1

Initiator of the research as leader /participant

I entered this endeavour with awareness of the seductive nature of power and of its potential for destruction if it is not used properly. On one hand, my political awareness of institutionalised discrimination alerted me to the consequences of abuse of power. On the other, recent painful memories of being in three groups in which the leaders had, for very different reasons, abdicated their power, were producing shifts in my perception of power. I was beginning to see it as a necessary resource to be used actively and positively for the good of the group. Therefore I consciously paid attention to the challenge of holding in creative tension the paradox of control and structure with relaxed flexibility. How could I as a leader provide the group with direction, form, and focus for the task and attend to the needs of the individuals and the group for nurturing, care, and safety while also giving space to others to take and share those roles? I found this difficult.

Claire’s statement about feeling distressed at the end of the meeting raised for me questions about the initiator of the research project. Were my responsibilities different to and greater than those of the other participants.

From the incident with Claire I began to perceive that in those early stages of the group’s process there were needs that I was best placed to deal with. Yet I observed my ambivalence about fully embracing the leader’s role and realised that I was much more comfortable with being co-inquirer. I too was in danger of abdicating the role before ensuring that there was capacity in the group to perform the necessary leadership functions. I noticed a matching ambivalence towards the leadership role in the group.

Despite the unanimous agreement that I should take that role for the early sessions, my subjective experience was that control and structures were resisted persistently, sometimes strongly, but more often lightly, with a lot of humour. It took many forms during the ‘life’ of the group. Initially I thought that the problem had occurred due to something I had done badly, or had omitted to do. I invited feedback on my performance and used my journal to reflect carefully on my actions, considering how they were contributing to the outcome. Through this process I began to realise that contradictory messages were being received from the group – there was dissonance between words and actions.

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I found this situation double-binding, and I became conscious that it was also triggering my survival strategy of withdrawal – from the role, if not the group. I suspect that I was helped to remain connected due to my high commitment to this work; plus my memory of the pain experienced in those other situations when there had been an absence of leadership; and the group’s explicit request for leadership. In a state of not being clear about what to do I presented to the group the contradictory messages I was receiving and my own ambivalence about the role. This triggered a mindfulness about our response to structure. It was much later on in the group, through cycles of reflection on our responses to Fleur’s sudden seizure of the leaders’ role, in our second meeting, and her imposition of a scripted activity that we were able to catch sight of our fear of and resistance to power. Until then understanding of our responses to power remained at an intellectual level and subjective knowing remained outside of our conscious awareness.

4.2

Learning about emergent structure

Part of the learning that occurred for the group, and myself, was that structure could be emergent and that it did not always have to be pre-planned or held too tightly. A challenge that produced much learning about this occurred in the first meeting when I discovered that the paper about the method had not been read. Believing that capacity for learning would be enhanced by intellectual as well as experiential engagement with the method, I became anxious when my plan to engage my colleagues in an exploration of what it might mean for us to apply Co-operative Inquiry principles in practice could not be realised. In the other cycles of the research and particularly through therapy I had been coming to accept that I did not have unilateral control, and that no matter how detailed and tight my plan the unexpected may happen. I had been learning about the need to let go, surrender and be responsive. Nevertheless this was intensely challenging for me. Through the various cycles of the research I was helped to identify this urge to be over-controlling as not only a personal response but as a group strategy (see also Scott 1991).

Learning about the need to balance planning and control with responsiveness enabled me to acknowledge my disappointment and avoid trying to force the realisation of my plan. Instead I shared the objectives hoped for when requested that the paper was read prior to the meeting, and my disappointment that we had not been able to discuss the method together. We agreed that I would make a short impromptu presentation of the method and questions and concerns would be brought to the next meeting. This did not happen and it was only in retrospect I was able to see that, nevertheless, the group fully engaged with exploration of the method. Reviewing tapes of our 3rd, 4th and 5th meetings I realised that, in the context of doing, we had been working quite intensely at making-sense of what it meant to research in this mode. There were many other occasions in which plans made outside of the experience could not be realised. From the leadership position I had to learn to let go of them, sometimes sharing my hopes/ objectives with my colleagues and always trusting that if it was important it would re-emerge in other ways.

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My colleagues also struggled with the emergent aspect of the research processs. Claire, from a scientific background often joked about her struggle to get us to set clear and achievable aims, determine success criteria and set targets for our attainment. Like Claire, some members of the group found the open and flexible structure of our inquiry very difficult. The uncovering of many issues and resolution of only few challenged them. Both as individuals, and as a group, we searched for, and found, many ways of ‘keeping hold’ of the emerging issues. In our third meeting, Claire observed that our way of working was not as chaotic as it seemed " We are creating new forms as we go along, so it is only in retrospect we are able to say how we worked to uncover whatever we find." By the sixth meeting having experienced our ability to return to process

and content issues left unfinished at earlier meetings she said that she was reassured to see that we were working systematically at issues even though our methods were not always evident.

Nevertheless, recognizing that this way of working, in which threads were left hanging rather than prematurely neatened, was anxiety-raising and therefore challenging for some members of the group and we regularly checked with each other to see how we were coping with it emotionally . Working consciously, as we were with defense mechanisms, it was challenging to know when not staying with and deepening understanding around a theme was avoidance colluded with the maintenance of our ‘unknowing’ (Field 1990, Maslow1968). and when it was because we had genuinely taken it as far as we could at that time. Claire’s question, often asked at the end of a meeting, "Have we been honest?" kept us constantly aware of this dilemma.

3. Research Process as rich source of information We entered the research alert to the fact that the survival strategies that were the subject of our inquiry were likely to be reflected in our working relationships. We saw this as a challenge to which we had to pay close attention. Observing our process, how we did what we did in and between meetings, proved to be not irrelevant incidental occurrences but invaluable research material.

It was as we paid attention to the subjective experience of being in this group, to our ways of responding to each other, and to the feelings and bodily sensations experienced as we attempted collaboration that we understood deeply, in ways that connected head and gut, that liberation engages the individual in a process of continuous struggle. Exploring the resistance to the activity in the first meeting, and our responses to Fleur’s powerful interruption of the group’s process in the second meeting, we began to understand that, despite strongly held values of inclusion, equity and co-operation, our habitual ways of surviving had taught us to resist being controlled and either to avoid or abuse power. This learning, while very painful, was critically important to our understanding of the part we play in maintaining

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and perpetuating the destructive, oppressive system that we so passionately want to change.

Following our second meeting I was able to discover how deeply anxious I become when I experience myself as without of control, and vulnerable to someone into whom I cannot see and therefore do not know if I can trust. Using my journal to explore the experience of being awake at 2 am, though physically very tired; my sense of being uncomfortably full and my surprising bodily reaction to Fleur’s activity the previous afternoon I discovered fear. Through this process I realised that Fleur’s inability to allow herself to experience, rather than intellectually explore, the concept of vulnerability had made the group unsafe.

Her inability to experiment with letting go of this to survival strategy – even momentarily – took us by surprise. We all talked the language of openness, disclosure, intimacy and honesty but it was only as we examined the difficulty of exposing feeling of fear, and of being at risk experienced that we could identify that we used these words as a mask.

In this meeting the tension, spoken in our first meeting, between those who wanted intellectual stimulation and those wanting experiential knowledge, was painfully encountered. These poles were most represented by Fleur (intellectual) and Roseanne (experiential). At the second meeting Fleur indicated that she was considering leaving but it was actually Roseanne who withdrew. She never expressed a clear decision to leave, but she just did not attend any other meetings. In retrospect I realised that we had not yet attained a level of openness and trust that allowed her to feel safe to engage at the level that she wanted to inquire. As a group of experienced facilitators we entered the inquiry aware of the need for psychological safety, but it some weeks before we understood what we meant by this or even realised that we did not know how to make it safe. In the course of this work I deepened my understanding of this issue and also uncover some questions I previously did not know existed.

Through our various processes of reflecting on action and also while in action we were able to give meaning to the idea that cognition resides in the body as well as the brain. It affirmed for me the importance of having spaces and places within the research process in which feelings and bodily sensations could be credited as important research data, and of the need to have mechanisms for tapping the insights that reside within. We did this by cycling the same experiences many times and in different ways. In my journals I used a range of reflective processes (Rainer 1978) to surface ‘sensings’ which were often only within my realm of consciousness as a feeling.

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4. The experience of being Black women working together The research – process and outcomes - were influenced, in so many ways and at so many levels by the fact that we were a group of Black women, and there were some experiences and outcomes that are more likely to occur among people from oppressed groups. We struggled to balance multiple roles. In or out of organisations, whether married or single – with or without children – we were extremely busy, managing multiple roles and with large workloads. The combining of caring responsibilities – whether for adults or children, with a professional role was particularly challenging, and when young children were involved it became almost impossible. We often found that when compared to our colleagues we carried much heavier workloads and despite the imbalance it was often the case that any new work was given to us. We were also asked to take on additional tasks, related to helping the organisations learn about racism and in identifying or responding to the needs of the Black community. There were also, often implicit, demands from Black staff and from the Black community that they take on additional roles. From Black staff there was expectations of emotional and practical support in negotiating the challenges of the organisation. Many of us were mentors – in and out of the organisation. To the Black community we were bridges for facilitating communication with the powerful institutions. In addition to this, we played active roles in their churches and/or in the community, sometimes involved in more than one voluntary organisation. The notion of needing to make a contribution to our community was strongly felt.

5. Closing Remarks Despite the challenges that this method posed us, our inquiry was extremely productive. Through a research process that allowed for the emergent, perceived emotions and sensations as potent with information and encouraged the development of skills at ‘mining’ for the rich, but not easily seen, insights we were able to gradually uncover our habits of surviving and gain choice. In these ways we developed ourselves and learnt how to create more opportunities in which we are able to thrive. In the course of this work we came to better understand that paradoxically the very strategies that have keep us surviving inhibit our ability to engage intimately and therefore to thrive. The surfacing of the multifarious (and often not visible) ways in which we habitually mask in order to protect the self, and in doing this unintentionally create and maintain separation from the other, is important for effective engagement in Co-operative Inquiry. It is as we attend to the research process and the dynamics between participants we are able to catch sight of the subtle ways in which separation and alienation are being constructed in the course of the ordinary research interactions. While these issues were extremely pertinent to us a group of Black women, they are also relevant to all people - to a lesser or greater extent we have all experienced oppression and learnt the protective habits of alienation.

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References Essed, Philomena, (1991) Understanding Everyday Racism – an interdisciplinary theory Sage Publications.

Field, J., (Milner, M.,) (1990) A Life of One’s Own London: Virago Press.

Freire, Paulo (1972) Pedagogy Of The Oppressed London: Penguin Books. hooks, bell (1982) Ain`t I A Woman: Black Women And Feminism London & Sydney: Pluto Press.

Maslow, Abraham H (1968) Toward A Psychology Of Being New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Romm,N., Weil, S., Flood, R., (June 1997) Presented at Fourth World Congress on Action Research, Cartegena, Colombia Schon, D. (1995) in Change, Nov-Dec p27-34 Schon, Donald A (1983) The Reflective Practioner: How Professionals Think In Action London: Temple Smith.

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Reflections on Co-operative Inquiry in this Historic Moment Patricia Maguire In Reason, P. (ed) (2002). Special Issue: The Practice of Co-operative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 15(3).

My reading of the six accounts of co-operative inquiry in this volume comes during a historic moment for action research in which the tensions of celebration and caution pull in opposite directions. On the one hand the recent successes of legitimizing action research as an approach to knowledge creation gives those of us committed to participatory, experiential, actionoriented research much to celebrate. We’ve pried open the former strangle hold of positivist research, never to turn back. Action research is used in settings ranging from social justice organizations to multinational corporations, from formal schools to community-based literacy efforts, from human services to for-profit businesses, from international development agencies to social services, from hospitals to prisons.

On the other hand, the question nags, is action research being co-opted into a depoliticized tool for "improving practice" devoid of critical understanding of power relations and structures. Improving our practice for whose purposes, whose benefit? The danger of de-linking action research from its transformational potential and emancipatory intentions is worrisome. Gaventa and Cornwall (2001:77) analyze the dangers as large-scale international development organizations "scale-up" field-based participatory approaches, while the development organizations themselves are hierarchical, nonparticipatory, and inflexible. Greenwood and Levin raise similar concerns about the teaching of and promotion of action research in institutions of higher education which are undemocratic, hierarchical, and rigid (1998).

Create safe, supportive spaces for the long haul work Given this historic moment, I read these accounts with an eye for lessons of how to sustain the political nature our work and resist co-optation. One such lesson reveals itself by taking the work as a collection. Peter Reason notes in his introduction that the majority of contributors have close associations with the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice at the University of Bath. Many contributors note that their critical inquiry project was part of their doctoral thesis. It is the long-term commitment of action research advocates such as Peter Reason and his University of Bath colleagues that carves out university-based space to support the participatory, democratic processes of action research. This volume shines the light on work of the Centre for Action Research. Other such university-based initiatives include the Cornell Participatory Action Research Network, Deakin University, Southern Cross University, City University of New York, and Queensland University. All owe a debt to the long-term work of committed action researchers.

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This highlights a critical lesson. Promoting transformational action research takes a personal and collaborative commitment to "dig where we stand" (Maguire, 2000). Digging in long enough to grapple with the messy work of changing our own institutions is part of the long-haul struggle for creating a more just, loving world. This is particularly difficult work whether in the academy or the private sector. To paraphrase Geoff Mead in this volume, many of our institutions are good at "activating their immune responses" to the values and practice of action research. As you step back to consider the entire volume, I urge you to recommit yourself to collaborating with others in the risky business of action research as political work confronting powerful entrenched forces. Find ways to support colleagues, community members, students, and others attempting this work. Find ways to develop critical mass, to create the relationships and spaces that nurture this work and its workers.

While this publication and dozens of others over the past thirty years reflect the legitimacy of action research, recent tenure battles such as Alice McIntyre’s (1997, 2000) remind us that engaging in action research is not without personal and professional risks. The assassination of Elsa Alvarado and Marios Calderon, members of the Columbian People's Education and Research Center, prior to the 1997 Cartagena World Congress on Participatory Action Research sadly reminds us that in some contexts, the risks can be deadly (De Roux, 1998).

Consider co-operative inquiry as a tool for modifying the near environment, i.e. where you stand in the short haul Another lesson is revealed through individual contributors' accounts. Jill Morawski contends that one of the greatest challenges for feminist scholars is "modifying the near environment in which researchers conduct their science, learn, teach, and judge the efforts of other scientists" (1997: 677). Each of these co-operative inquiry accounts offers detailed, contextually rich stories and analysis of how a co-operative inquiry project might actually go about changing a specific workplace, i.e. the "near environment." This is useful to both action researchers and feminist activist-scholars ready to tackle their own near environments to make them either more supportive of or receptive to cooperative inquiry.

These accounts provide rich examples of using co-operative inquiry as a tool to understand and modify our near environments, whether universities, government agencies, for-profit corporations, or non-profit agencies. They provide sorely needed nitty gritty details as well as the encouragement to embark upon efforts to change the places in which we teach, train, celebrate, consume, and create various forms of human knowledge for social change.

In the case of Carlis Douglas' work, her co-operative inquiry project with Black women professionals aimed to learn how to effectively impact on institutional discrimination across organizations, across near environments. Marian Charles and Sara Glennie give an account of a co-operative inquiry in social service environments destabilized by repeated central government promoted Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

modification and cobbled by inadequate resources and support. Their project worked across agencies that had to cooperate in the implementation of a government initiative to shift from child protection to services for needy children and families.

Kate McArdle's co-operative inquiry project didn't initially focus on changing the corporate culture of XYZ. Instead, she found an earlier entry point by focusing on helping young women managers within the organization understand their experiences of it. The details of her hopes and experiences with the "beginnings" of establishing a co-operative inquiry group in a multinational organization offers insightful comparisons between the culture of co-operative inquiry group and that of the surrounding corporation. The corporation valued quantification of time, task, and clear outcomes and benefits, values at odds with more flexible, ambiguous, process-oriented cooperative inquiry. The detail and insight illuminate the importance of processes which help people first understand the "near environment" within which they work as part of modifying it.

Geoff Mead’s project alerts us to the need to meet those in the "near environment" where they are. While his first intention is to create a project which grapples with men and masculinity, after listening to trusted insiders, he takes a different tact. By inviting men and women into a space that is communal, collaborative, and less hierarchial than the larger organization, Mead hopes to "challenge the deep-seated notions of hegemonic masculinity." Mark Baldwin discusses choices an inquiry group make which are probably influenced by what they feel safe doing. He discusses how far to go in challenging their "comfort zone." In these cases, rather than co-optation of co-operative inquiry, Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals (1972) are at work.

To change the near environment, each starts from "where the world is" not where they wish it to be. In the tradition of action research praxis, these cooperative inquiry projects show the interwoven nature of changing the environment through studying it.

Sharing lessons with feminist-informed action research I have long asserted that action research cannot possibly fulfill its' transformational potential without attention to diverse feminist thought and practices (Maguire, 1987; 1996; 2001). Though not all accounts of the practice of co-operative inquiry in this issue overtly claim feminist influences or purposes, I nonetheless read them all through my particular feminist action researcher lens. I noticed many similarities with the principles of feministinformed action research. These principles, sometimes articulated and sometimes not, are reflected in many of the choices and challenges faced by the authors in their critical inquiry groups. In this final section, I focus on the lessons that these co-operative inquiries share with feminist research concerned with developing practical knowledge for worthwhile human purposes. These are lessons to keep in mind as we collaboratively create safe, supportive spaces for cooperative inquiry and modify our near environments.

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Knowing takes place in-relationship Feminist psychologist Jean Baker Miller (1986) asserts that humans develop "in-relationship" rather than as autonomous, independent beings. Likewise, human knowledge is created in-relationship. These relationships cannot be hot-housed or fast tracked (Maguire, 1996.) Each author describes how their co-operative inquiry project calls upon and builds on prior personal relationships, friendships, professional networks, and organizational ties between and among the co-researchers.

Mark Baldwin emphasizes that by engaging with people over time, cooperative inquiry enables them to develop the skills and interactions to reflect, learn, and act. Clearly, human relationships are central to the knowledge creation endeavor.

As described, these relationships are in contrast to what Jill Morawski calls the gendered objectivity of science. Objectivity is gendered because it reflects "‌masculine ideals in its privileging of detachment, control, manipulation of nature, and the emotions of disinterestedness" (1997:672). These authors describe how subjective personal relationships influence such factors as who they ask to be in the co-operative inquiry group (Douglas); who they hope drops out (McArdle); responsibilities they feel toward other co-inquirers (Douglas); friendships that develop out of the inquiry process (Barrett); decisions to close an inquiry group (Baldwin); co-facilitation dynamics (Charles and Glennie); and drawing on long-term organizational relationships to help shape the inquiry topic (Mead). Sharing personal stories and disclosing personal feelings during various phases of the inquiries contributes to building and nurturing the relationships essential to deeply reflective inquiry. Personal sharing contributes to the capacity of co-inquirers to build safe, trusting, environments. The authors describe a spiral of engagement in which sharing promotes safety, then individual's subsequent sense of group safety promotes more sharing of personal feelings, experiences, observations, and analyses.

Several authors acknowledge the importance of sharing food to building relationships. The providing and sharing of food within the critical inquiry projects is not devalued as a traditionally feminine task, but rather celebrated.

In the words of Penny Barrett, food is a "lubricant" for talk in these communities of inquiry. Knowing takes place in relationships which are figuratively and literally nourished.

Start with everyday experience. Everyday experience is gendered.

Just as action research starts with everyday experience (Reason and Bradbury, 2001:2), so too feminist scholarship prioritizes women's everyday experiences and feelings as a source of legitimate knowledge (Hartsock, 1974). Each of these critical inquiry accounts begins with co-inquirers' everyday experience of the particular research site. For example, in Geoff Mead's project with police managers, they do not try to improve the quality of

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their leadership by studying theories of leadership but rather by inquiring into their daily practices of leading.

Feminist-informed action research shines a light on the gendered dimensions of these everyday experiences. For example, Kate McArdle's co-operative inquiry project focuses on helping young women managers understand their experiences of the XYZ corporation as women. Despite Geoff Mead's interest in men and masculinity, and his insider credibility as a senior police manager, he found resistance to utilizing co-operative inquiry to explore men's gendered experience as police managers. His candid description of this resistance confirms that recognizing men as gendered beings is still hotly contested ground in action research (Maguire, 2001).

The everyday is experienced through multiple identities and the web of oppressions.

Black feminist thought and the scholarship of difference recognize the complex, interdependent, and simultaneous effects of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation on human inequities and privileges (Collins, 1991; Dill and Baca Zinn, 1997). While some of the particular costs of and barriers to women's equitable participation in action research projects has been outlines (Maguire, 1996), race remains more invisible than gender in action research discourse (Bell, 2001). Carlis Douglas’ identifies the additional costs of and barriers to engaging in participatory inquiry for people from oppressed groups.

She explains how the web of oppression of race and gender works to make it harder for Black women to participate. Black women have additional responsibilities to the larger Black community, to other Black professionals for mentoring, to families and churches, and even to white dominated organizations which expect them to take the lead in helping these organizations learn about their racist practices and policies. Who has the time for participatory, action-oriented inquiry? Douglas notes that it is particularly difficult to carve out precious personal time for reflection and inquiry when a project is not organizationally subsidized. When initiating co-operative projects, inquirers need to be attentive to the range of barriers and trade-offs that may make it difficult for participants from oppressed groups to join.

Pay attention to issues of voice – space, benefits, and costs Participatory, experiential, action research creates meaningful opportunities for those long marginalized and silenced to raise their voices in the knowledge creation process. Mark Baldwin points out the importance of working within democratic groups in organizations in order for the usually silenced voices to be heard when developing policy and procedures. McArdle takes us through the many facilitation choice points of keeping the co-operative inquiry space open for the women's voices. Barrett describes the need for gentle facilitation which empowers rather than overpowers participants. Marian Charles and Sara Glennie address the need to develop a co-operative inquiry group that includes voices from a range of geographical location, while balancing gender, ethnicity, and professional backgrounds. In Baldwin's case, the co-

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operative inquiry groups he initiated worked with people marginalized for many reasons, including age, disability, mental health, racism, or sexism.

While there are benefits to creating and keeping open spaces for diverse voices, there are costs to bear in mind. Raise one's voice is not always a joyous, immediately empowering activity. It may be painful, with personal risks and costs. For example, in Douglas' project, she wants to deconstruct the mechanics of organizational discrimination by asking her co-inquirers to "‌come to know how we collude in our oppression" through retrospective reflection and sense-making. It is a difficult task given the masks and armor of personal detachment needed to survive in oppressive, dehumanizing systems. Even the initiating inquirers can be challenged. McArdle describes her struggles as a young woman inquirer to maintain her voice, to be heard, and to resist the mechanisms of silencing. McArdle bravely lays out her nonnegotiable positions to the corporation. She is likewise determined that her voice not be drowned by the male voice of her university supervisor.

Yet sometimes discussion of the benefits of "voice" have to be packaged in a way that can be heard by the sponsor. Barrett points out that midwives' "talk time" with new mother's is not easily quantifiable hence it is invisible to the biomedical positivist and economic rationalist perspectives that dominate contemporary health care funding decisions. Perspective participants in McArdle's group question the quantifiable benefits of participating in the group. McArdle's finds herself caught between promoting the inquiry benefits in terms that upper management gatekeepers and ambitious young managers can hear and the more ambiguous outcomes of collaborative research.

Just as "talk time" may have invisible benefits not readily quantified, it has costs. Many of the accounts point out that paid work-release for co-operative "talk time," as well as travel and expenses, were subsidized by the employing organizations (Charles and Glennie; McArdle; Barrett, and Mead). While financial support for the co-operative inquiry makes it possible, it adds pressures and expectations for identifiable benefits or worthwhile results. This creates a challenge for the co-inquirers which Charles and Glennie articulate as "‌staying true to the central principles of inquiry." Barrett describes the near impossibility of keeping the MARG inquiry group together once participants no longer get paid work-release time. Part of modifying the near environment is educating organizations about the harder to quantify benefits of co-operative inquiry.

Power Finally, each of these projects, though quite differently situated, reaffirms the potential of critical inquiry for shifting and challenging power structures and relationships through democratic, participatory, experiential processes.

Each of these authors candidly and generously opens up their experiences to our scrutiny for lesson making. Along with the authors, Peter Reason and I Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

have shared our learnings. Now, move forward to risk a co-operative inquiry endeavor and discover your personal lessons from first hand experience. We look forward to your stories.

Patricia Maguire Western New Mexico University Gallup Graduate Studies Center July 2001

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Reason, P. (ed) (in press 2001). Special Issue: The Practice of Cooperative Inquiry. Systemic practice and Action Research, 14(6).

Contributors Professor Peter Reason Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice School of Management, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY p.w.reason@bath.ac.uk

Kate McArdle School of Management, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY mnpklm@bath.ac.uk

Geoff Mead National Police Training, Bramshill House, Hook, Hants, RG27 0JW gmead@bramshill.ac.uk

Marian Charles and Sara Glennie Centre for Social Work, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD marian.charles@nottingham.ac.uk

Dr Mark Baldwin Department of Social Work School of Management, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY hssmjb@bath.ac.uk Link to: http://www.bath.ac.uk/carpp/publications/special_issue.html

Dr Penny Barrett Department of Family and Community Nursing, The University of Sydney pbarrett@mail@usyd.edu.au

Professor Bev Taylor Professor of Nursing School of Nursing and Health Care Practice Southern Cross University Lismore NSW Australia

Dr Carlis Douglas 101 Ansell Road, London SW17 7LT cdouglasa@aol.com

Professor Patricia Maguire Western New Mexico University Gallup Graduate Studies Center 2055 State Road 602 Gallup, New Mexico 83701, USA maguirep@cia-g.com

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