Abstract
Gervase R. Bushe, for four decades and counting, has explored, challenged, and evolved the field of organizational change. His passion and conviction flow from a desire for more organizations to become places where people have opportunities to make free and informed choices so that they are engaged to give their very best in the work they do. This thread is evident throughout every strand of his work, each manifested as a contribution to create collective, participative engagement methods for organizational change. His work to build useful, relevant change theory and practice spans the disciplines of organizational design, appreciative inquiry, leadership, and organization development (OD).
With a rich lineage in personal and organizational development, Bushe’s influences span the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and wider system domains. This eclectic, integrated understanding – in theory and in practice – appears throughout his work, and the complementarity between these builds over time. The two latest examples are the widely used Clear Leadership method and program; and his paradigm shifting work to frame the emerging new threads of OD with the term now becoming known as Dialogic OD. As well as these recent integrated contributions, Bushe has also made incisive contributions within particular areas, perhaps the best known being his work from the earliest days of appreciative inquiry to help define, test, refine, and amplify its power and effectiveness as a method. Tracking and fanning, synergenesis, amplification, generativity, and generative images are all ideas born out of this work, and they have returned over time in Bushe’s work on leadership and Dialogic OD. Less well known but highly regarded in academic circles is his early work on parallel learning structures.
Bushe’s strong grounding in both experiential laboratory education such as T-groups and the action research tradition, have influenced his work consistently, giving a clearly recognizable trademark to his contributions, perhaps best summed up as human, accessible, highly practical and progressive.
References
Bushe, G. R. (1995). Advances in appreciative inquiry as an OD intervention. OD Journal, 13(3), 14–22. [Chosen as one of the ten best articles ever published in the OD Journal and reprinted in (1999) Special Issue: The Best of the OD Journal in the 20th Century, 17:2, 61–68. Reprinted in Cooperrider, D. Sorenson, P., Whitney, D. & Yeager, T. (eds.) (2000) Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking Human Organization Toward a Positive Theory of Change (113–122). Champaign, IL: Stipes and in Cooperrider, D. Sorenson, P., Yeager, T. & Whitney, D. (eds.) (2001, 2005) Appreciative Inquiry: Foundations in Positive OD(179–188). Champaign, IL: Stipes.]
Bushe, G. R. (1998). Appreciative inquiry in teams. OD Journal, 16(3), 41–50. [Reprinted in Cooperrider, D. Sorenson, P., Whitney, D. & Yeager, T. (eds.) (2000) Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking Human Organization Toward a Positive Theory of Change. Champaign, IL: Stipes, and Cooperrider, D. Sorenson, P., Yeager, T. & Whitney, D. (eds.) (2001, 2005) Appreciative Inquiry: Foundations in Positive OD. Champaign, IL: Stipes.]
Bushe, G. R. (2000). Five theories of change embedded in appreciative inquiry. In D. Cooperrider, P. Sorenson, D. Whitney, & T. Yeager (Eds.), Appreciative inquiry: Rethinking human organization toward a positive theory of change (pp. 99–110). Champaign: Stipes. [Reprinted in Cooperrider, D. Sorenson, P., Yeager, T. & Whitney, D. (eds.) (2001, 2005) Appreciative Inquiry: Foundations in Positive OD (121–132). Champaign, IL: Stipes.]
Bushe, G. R. (2001). Clear leadership: How outstanding leaders make themselves understood, cut through the mush, and help everyone get real at work. Palo Alto: Davies-Black Publishers. [Translated for the Indian sub-continent and published as Clear Leadership by Jaico Publishing House, Mumbai, India, 2003. Translated into Swedish as Klart Ledarskap. Stockholm: Ekerlids Förlag AB, 2006, and into Chinese as 无障碍领导 , China Labor & Social Security Publishing House, 2007.]
Bushe, G. R. (2002). Meaning making in teams: Appreciative inquiry with preidentity and postidentity groups. In R. Fry, F. Barrett, J. Seiling, & D. Whitney (Eds.), Appreciative inquiry and organizational transformation: Reports from the field (pp. 39–63). Westport: Quorum.
Bushe, G. R. (2004). Managers want tribes not teams: An invitation to rethink teambuilding. OD Practitioner, 36(1), 9–12. [One of 35 articles chosen from hundreds in the OD Practitioner to be translated into Spanish in 2008. Digested for the National Post’s Financial Post Executive section, Dec 2, 2008, FP8.]
Bushe, G. R. (2005). Praise and blessing: The function of the leader archetype. Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner, 7(4), 41–43.
Bushe, G. R. (2006). Sense-making and the problems of learning from experience: Barriers and requirements for creating cultures of collaboration. In S. Shulman (Ed.), Creating cultures of collaboration (pp. 151–171). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bushe, G. R. (2007). Appreciative Inquiry is not (just) about the positive. OD Practitioner, 39(4), 30–35. [Reprinted in the Oxford Leadership Journal, 1:4 (2010), 1–9; and in Verman, P. & Shah, H. (eds.) Dynamics of Appreciative Inquiry: Concepts and Cases (pp.24–38). Amedabad, India: Academy of HRD, 2013.]
Bushe, G. R. (2009a). Clear leadership: Sustaining real collaboration and partnership at work (2nd ed.). Boston: Davies- Black. [Translated into Swedish (Ekerlids Förlag AB, 2010 ), Norwegian (Fagbokforlaget Vigmostad & Bjørke AS, 2012) Spanish (VeMejors SC, 2012) Korean (Younglim Cardinal Inc., 2013) and Dutch (Advance-Groep BV, 2013).]
Bushe, G. R. (2009b). Learning from collective experience: A different view of organizational learning. OD Practitioner, 41(3), 19–23.
Bushe, G. R. (2010). A comparative case study of appreciative inquiries in one organization: Implications for practice. Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala/Review of Research and Social Intervention, 29, 7–24.Special Issue on Appreciative Inquiry
Bushe, G. R. (2012). Appreciative inquiry: Theory and critique. In D. Boje, B. Burnes, & J. Hassard (Eds.), The Routledge companion to organizational change (pp. 87–103). Oxford: Routledge.
Bushe, G. R. (2013a). Dialogic OD: A theory of practice. OD Practitioner, 45(1), 10–16.special issue on advances in Dialogic OD
Bushe, G. R. (2013b). Generative process, generative outcome: The transformational potential of appreciative inquiry. In D. L. Cooperrider, D. P. Zandee, L. N. Godwin, M. Avital, & B. Boland (Eds.), Organizational generativity: The appreciative inquiry summit and a scholarship of transformation (advances in appreciative inquiry) (Vol. 4, pp. 89–113). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Bushe, G. R. (2013c). The appreciative inquiry model. In E. Kessler (Ed.), The encyclopedia of management theory (Vol. 1, pp. 41–44). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Bushe, G. R. (2016). How has appreciative inquiry lived up to its promises and what will its future look like? Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner, 18(1), 30–33.
Bushe, G. R. (forthcoming). Appreciative inquiry. In B. Frey (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of educational research, measurement, and evaluation.
Bushe, G. R., & Coetzer, G. (1995). Appreciative inquiry as a team development intervention: A controlled experiment. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 31(1), 13–30.
Bushe, G. R., & Coetzer, G. H. (2007). Group development and team effectiveness: Using shared cognitions to measure the impact of group development on task performance and group viability. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 43(2), 184–212. [Winner of the Douglas McGregor Memorial Award for best paper published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science in 2007.]
Bushe, G. R., & Kassam, A. (2005). When is appreciative inquiry transformational? A meta-case analysis. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 41(2), 161–181. [Honourable Mention, Douglas McGregor Memorial Award for best paper published in JABS in 2005. Reprinted in Shani, A.B.. & Coghlan, D. (Eds.) Fundamentals of OD, Volume 3, (245–266). Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage Publications, 2009.]
Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (2009). Revisioning organization development: Diagnostic and dialogic premises and patterns of practice. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 45(3), 348–368. [Winner of the Douglas McGregor Memorial Award for best paper published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science in 2009.]
Bushe, G. R. & Marshak, R. J. (Eds.). (2013). Special issue on Dialogic OD. OD Practitioner, 45:1.
Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (2014). The dialogic mindset in OD. Research in Organizational Change and Development, 22, 55–97.
Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (2014). Dialogic OD. In B. B. Jones & M. Brazzel (Eds.), The NTL handbook of OD and change (2nd ed., pp. 193–211). San Francisco: Wiley.
Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (Eds.). (2015). Dialogic OD: The theory and practice of transformational change. Oakland: Berrett-Koehler.
Bushe, G. R., & Marshak, R. J. (2016). The dialogic mindset: Leading emergent change in a complex world. OD Journal (special issue on Culture and Adaptive Leadership in Turbulent Times), 34(1), 37–65.
Bushe, G. R., & O’Malley, J. (2013). Changing organizational culture through clear leadership. In L. Carter, R. Sullivan, M. Goldsmith, D. Ulrich, & N. Smallwood (Eds.), The change champions Fieldguide (2nd ed., pp. 463–479). NY: Wiley.
Bushe, G. R., & Paranjpey, N. (2015). Comparing the generativity of problem-solving versus appreciative inquiry: A field experiment. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 51(3), 309–335.
Bushe, G. R., & Pitman, T. (1991). Appreciative process: A method for transformational change. OD Practitioner, 23(3), 1–4. [Reprinted in On the Beam, 11:2 (1991), pp.2–3 and Business Dynamics, 54 (1992) pp.1–3. Abstracted in Brain/Mind Bulletin 16:9 (1991) p.8.]
Bushe, G. R., & Pitman, T. (2008). Performance amplification: Building the strength based organization. Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner. (Special Issue on Strength Based Organizations), 10(4), 23–26.
Bushe, G. R., & Shani, A. B. (1991). Parallel learning structures: Increasing innovation in bureaucracies. Reading: Addison-Wesley. (series in OD). [Translated into Spanish: Estructuras paralelas de aprendizaje: Fortalecimiento de la innovacion en sistemas burocraticos. Wilmington, DE: Addison-Wesley Iberoamericana, 1993.]
Bushe, G. R., & Storch, J. (2015). Generative image: Sourcing novelty. In G. R. Bushe & R. J. Marshak (Eds.), Dialogic OD: The theory and practice of transformational change (pp. 101–122). Oakland: Berrett-Koehler.
Gergen, K. J. (1978). Toward generative theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(11), 1344–1360.
Gilpin-Jackson, Y., & Bushe, G. R. (2007). Leadership development training transfer: A case study of post-training determinants. Journal of Management Development, 26(10), 980–1004. [Digested in Human Resource Management International Digest, 16:7, 16–17 (2008).]
Gossling, R. (2006) Evaluating clear Leadership’s impact on individual and organizational performance. Research report, Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University.
Grint, K. (2005). Problems, problems, problems: The social construction of leadership. Human Relations, 58(11), 1467–1494. Sage Publications.
Head, R. L. (2000). Appreciative inquiry as a team-development intervention for newly formed heterogeneous groups. OD Practitioner, 32(1), 59–66.
Heifetz, R. A. (1998). Leadership without easy answers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Macnaughton, I. (Ed.). (2004). Body, breath and consciousness: A somatics anthology. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Newman, H. L., & Fitzgerald, S. P. (2001). Appreciative inquiry with an executive team: Moving along the action research continuum. OD Journal, 19(3), 37–43.
Powley, E. H., Fry, R. E., Barrett, F. J., & Bright, D. S. (2004). Dialogic democracy meets command and control: Transformation through the appreciative inquiry summit. Academy of Management Executive, 18(3), 67–80.
Short, R. (1998). Learning in relationship: Foundation for personal and professional success. Seattle: Learning in Action Technologies.
Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A leader’s framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review, 85(11), 68–76.
Zand, D. E. (1974). Collateral organization: A new change strategy. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 10(1), 63–89.
Further Reading
Bushe, G. R. (1988a). Developing cooperative labor-management relations in unionized factories: A multi-case study of quality circles and parallel organization within joint QWL projects. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 24, 129–150.
Bushe, G. R. (1988b). Cultural contradictions of statistical process control in American manufacturing organizations. Journal of Management, 14, 9–31.
Bushe, G. R. (1998). Power and the empowered organization: The design of power in highly adaptive organizations. Organization Development Practitioner, 30(4), 31–43.
Bushe, G. R. (2001). Self-differentiation: The missing ingredient in leadership. Organization Development Practitioner, 33(2), 41–47.
Bushe, G. R. (2002). The inner core of leadership. Leader to Leader, 25(Summer), 37–41.
Bushe, G. R. (2010). Being the container in dialogic OD. Practicing Social Change, 1(2), 10–15.
Bushe, G. R., & Chu, A. (2011). Fluid teams: Solutions to the problems of unstable team membership. Organizational Dynamics, 40(3), 181–188.
Bushe, G. R., & Gibbs, B. (1990). Predicting OD consulting competence from the MBTI and stage of ego development. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 26, 337–357.
Bushe, G. R., Havlovic, S. J., & Coetzer, G. (1996a). Exploring empowerment from the inside-out, Part 2. Journal for Quality and Participation, 19(3), 78–84.
Bushe, G. R., Havlovic, S. J., & Coetzer, G. (1996b). Exploring empowerment from the inside-out. Journal for Quality and Participation, 19(1), 36–45. [One of 22 articles selected for the 1996 Anbar Management Hall of Fame from over 13,000 articles reviewed from the 400 leading management journals world wide.]
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this entry
Cite this entry
Kenward, T. (2018). Gervase Roy Bushe: Progressing Ideas and Practices to Make the World a Better Place. In: Szabla, D., Pasmore, W., Barnes, M., Gipson, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_69-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_69-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49820-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49820-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Bushe, Gervase Roy: Progressing Ideas and Practices to Make the World a Better Place- Published:
- 24 September 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_69-3
-
Gervase Roy Bushe: Progressing Ideas and Practices to Make the World a Better Place
- Published:
- 30 September 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_69-2
-
Original
Gervase Roy Bushe- Published:
- 31 March 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49820-1_69-1