Week Six.
I belong to a variety of CofP. The one that fits into Wenger's model, the best is my job at Willow Valley Golf Club. I only worked at the club for about 4 months in the summer, but it contained all the aspects of Wenger's model of CofP. I worked generally in the golf shop-interacting with members and customers, in person or on the phone. As well as working closely with professional golfers, bar&kitchen staff, groundsmen, managers and the owners of the club themselves. This qualified as a CofP because all the workers at the club worked towards one aim-to keep the existing members of the club happy, safe and golfing as well as trying to gain new members and running competetions such as the Yorkshire PGA.
Wenger believes that these CofP, need a "domain", an identity that is different to others. As a golf club, we were a team-supporting our members in competetions and so on. The Willow Valley uniform of golf t-shirts with the logo created this identity. The sense of community is achieved via the relationships built from conversations and experiences. Daily, different things happened in the club (sometimes very scandelous!) that brought us all together. There was also a death of a member whilst I worked there, this shared experience brought both members and staff together in a community. There was a mutaul understanding between employees about the aim of the club. Also there was a understanding and shared knowledge between us and the members that there are certain rules (such as dress code, no mobile phones in the clubhouse etc) that eed to be understood an stuck too, these help build the sense of community and identity.
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I think that Wenger et al. would be wondering whether you are in fact describing an organisationally delimited team? CsofP are across & outside of the structures recognised by an organisation. Wenger & his colleagues idea's impact wa that it threw into question management theory's assumptions about the expertise and training inherent in an organisation.
ReplyDeleteAll of a sudden, the teams and groupings management thought were in place and important were seen as possibly not what actually made the organisation work, rather it was 'unofficial' networks of unrecognised experts and their acolytes that organisations didn't recognise, nurture, motivate -nor importantly control, that made enterprises successes or failures!