June, 2021
Recently I was invited to be co-author on a paper on ‘generativity.’ Briefly, generativity refers to creating and caring for future generations. Here are a few notes from that effort.
Origins and meaning. The construct of generativity originates with psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, in the 1950s. According to Erikson, during life, a person passes through eight stages of psychosocial development, from infancy, to adolescence, adulthood and old age. Each stage includes a ‘virtue,’ which also constitutes the name of that stage, and two opposing psychological tendencies—one positive (i.e. mature and well-adjusted, psychosocially) and one negative. The seventh of eight stages, reached during chronological adulthood, is the “Care” stage, which refers to the virtue of caring for others. The positive tendency of the care stage is generativity, which Erikson defined as “the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation.” Parenting, according to Erikson, is the quintessential manifestation of generativity, because it involves both the procreating of, as well as the subsequent caring for, the next generation. The negative tendency at the Care stage is “stagnation” or “self-absorption.”
Adoption and adaption by other disciplines. Since Erikson, and in a manner demonstrative of generativity itself, numerous disciplines have adopted and adapted generativity for their own work. Perhaps the most well-known and developed, is in computer science, particularly by Jonathan Zittrain, who defines generativity this way: “a system’s capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences.” He writes that the internet is “consummately generative” because it maximizes participation as an input (anyone can contribute), and maximizes innovation as an output. In his 2008 book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, he warns that the generative capacity of the internet is diminished by “appliances” that are closed system, pre-programmed, ‘black-box’ proprietary devices that dictate for the ‘user,’ how they will be used, as opposed to a platform, which invite “tinkering” and where specific uses are determined by those using/operating the platform. Other disciplines adopting generativity include biology, artificial economics, Austrian economics, and most relevant for our purposes on this site, organizational studies and organizational development.
Relevance for organizations. Much of the academic research on change management, for example, is focused on organizational ‘preparedness,’ i.e. preparing for change that originates externally, by becoming, for example, agile, nimble, resilient, etc. Generativity, and better yet, ‘organizational generativity’ is focused not on preparedness for the future, but rather on the proactive creation of the organization’s future. Thus there are similarities to innovation, R&D and product/service development. Unlike these efforts, however, organizational generativity—at least to the extent it is said to retain its connection to Erikson—explicitly maintains a “concern” for future generations, and thus organizational generativity, at least as I conceptualize it, is decidedly humanistic. This humanistic orientation is also present in Zittrain’s definition of generativity, which values maximum participation, with easy accessibility, low barriers to entry and also ease of mastery. Similar to these efforts, generativity can be risky, because it is focused on the creation of the new—which includes of course, and regardless of the progenitor’s intentions, both good ideas and bad.
Generative organizations are said to be characterized by energy, serendipity, ‘randomality’ and enthusiasm (Harquail). Generative processes are those that are likely to lead to new, novel, and unexpected results and ideas, that lead in turn to the creation of more of the same (Cooperrider). ‘Degenerative’ processes would be those that are fixed to the point of atrophy; closed to, or unwelcoming of external input; dehumanizing, etc.
Relevance for PragManagement. One of the fundamental strengths of pragmatism and a pragmatic approach to managing and leading—what I refer to as PragManagement—is that it is welcoming of whatever ethical methods are useful for the purpose(s) at hand, according to those involved, and generativity is no exception. Is generativity aligned with or useful for PragManagement? It depends on the purpose, and the particular and unique situation, and of course the people involved.
One aspect of generativity that does seem directly relevant for a pragmatic approach to managing, is in the solicitation of new ideas and approaches for solving specific problems, or capturing specific opportunities, such as through crowdsourcing. This point is important, I think, and worth building up, step by step.
PragManagement can be considered as, essentially, a problem solving approach. A ‘problem’ occurs at an impasse, when the way forward is blocked, or unclear. In such situations, re-framing of the situation can be useful–i.e. experimenting with different ways of looking at the overall situation, and what we’ve decided to treat as problematic. If you’ve done much cooking, no doubt you’ll have come across a situation where you are well into making the dish, and discover you are missing an ingredient. As a novice, this can be a panic inducing–what now? Can I just leave it out? Should I stop and run to the store? With experience, we learn that a teaspoon of white vinegar, which we do have, will work just fine as a substitute for the teaspoon of lemon juice called for by the recipe, which we don’t have. The novice frames the situation as: ‘lemon juice required,’ and thus arrives at a (mostly self-created) impasse. The cook with more experience re-frames it as the need to sharpen up the flavor a bit, or as the need to acidify–for which many ingredients, including vinegar, will work well.
Of course one of the challenges of reframing–as you’ll know if you’ve tried it–is that ‘looking at things differently’ can be much easier said than done! Thus the solicitation of ideas from others, especially others who are likely to have different views, such as through crowdsourcing, can be one effective way of shining light onto previously unseen paths. Mohammad Keyhani (see links below) notes how generativity, through the maximizing of participation and diverse inputs, can help to address both first-order unknowns (so-called ‘known unknowns’–something you know that you don’t know) as well as second-order unknowns (so-called ‘unknown unknowns’–things of which you are utterly unaware; quite literally, ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’). One or more of the people solicited, may have the information or competency (or the lemon juice) that we’re looking for, thus resolving our first-order unknown. Even more transformative can be the ideas that help us resolve the problem in an unexpected way–the information provided was different from what we were looking for specifically, but it resolves the problem anyway. And sometimes, the information provided is different enough, that it’s really more like the resolution to a different problem altogether–in other words, it is the resolution of an unknown unknown. The novice cook did not see vinegar as the solution, because vinegar was the answer to a question they don’t even know they should be asking–how to acidify my dish? When searching, we usually only see or find whatever it is we’ve already decided we’re looking for, and of course there are times when this is best. Other times (and more often than we think–an interesting but different topic!), inviting others can be one way of ‘detaching the searcher from the search process’ (Keyhhani) or at least loosening the connection enough to welcome in new ideas. For similar reasons, e.g. solicitation of alternative methods, of potential solutions for intractable problems–a wide variety of companies, not just tech companies, often make use of crowdsourcing, enabled by sites such as Topcoder or Hacker One.
Personal Reflection. Before joining the effort to write a paper on generativity, I was only vaguely aware of the construct. What I am definitely aware of however–and increasingly so for the past few years (I’m 57 now)–is a shift in my own personal and professional interests, a shift I’ve described as moving from ‘opportunity’ to ‘contribution.’ Earlier in my career, I was on the lookout for opportunities to further my own career, and to better provide for family and friends. No regrets there. In recent years, however, and no doubt accelerated by my move from full-time consulting work to full-time faculty work (and years before that as a parent!), my interests have shifted toward the question of how I can make the best contribution to others and to their careers. Although I wasn’t aware of it at first, my writing style gradually changed too. I used to ‘build the best arguments’ I could, like some kind of engineer, in support of the points I wanted to make. Now I’m more likely to offer proposals, for ideas that I think might be useful for the managers, leaders, class participants and colleagues with whom I interact, and particularly for those whose career paths extend farther into the future than mine ever will. In other words, generativity articulates well many of the personal-professional interests that currently keep me motivated. Thank you, Erik Erikson, and co-authors Cees Hoogendijk and Celeste Wilderom, for introducing me to ‘generative’ and ‘generativity’–words to better describe, understand and enrich, for my benefit and others, the life stage I’m currently in.
Related Organizations, Sites, and People
Encore.org focused on inter-generational collaboration
Professor Mohammad Keyhani: https://mises.org/library/professor-mohammad-keyhani-generativity-new-digital-pathway-business-growth
Zeef: “Curated Directory for Development & Tech Resources”
Related Research Materials
Affifi, R. (2015). Generativity in biology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 14(1), 149–162.
Bushe, G. R., & Paranjpey, N. (2014). Comparing the Generativity of Problem Solving and Appreciative Inquiry: A Field Experiment. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 51(3), 309–335.
Calo, T. J. (2007). Boomer generativity: An organizational resource. Public Personnel Management, 36(4), 387-395.
Cooperrider, D. L., Zandee, D. P., Godwin, L. N., Avital, M., & Boland, B. (2013). Organizational generativity: The Appreciative Inquiry summit and a scholarship of transformation. Emerald Group Publishing.
Erikson, E. (1950). Childhood and society. Norton.
Erikson, E. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). Norton.
Erikson, E. (1964). Childhood and society (2nd ed., rev. and enl.). Norton.
Erikson, E., & Erikson, J. (1981). On generativity and identity: From a conversation with Erik and Joan Erikson. Harvard Educational Review, 51(2), 249–269.
Gergen, K. J. (1978). Toward generative theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(11), 1344–1360.
Gergen, K. J. (2015b). From mirroring to world-making: Research as future forming. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45(3), 287–310.
Harquail, C. (2013). What’s a generative organization? Authentic Organizations [blog post]. http://authenticorganizations.com/harquail/2013/12/11/whats-a-generative-organization/
Hoogendijk, C. (2020). From Review to Framework: Conceptualizing Generativity for Organization Development. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2020, No. 1, p. 16701). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Marshak, R. J., & Bushe, G. R. (2018). Planned and generative change in organization development. OD Practitioner, 50(4), 9–15.
McAdams, D. P., & St. Aubin, E. de (1992). A theory of generativity and its assessment through self-report, behavioral acts, and narrative themes in autobiography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(6), 1003–1015.
Tajedin, H., Madhok, A., & Keyhani, M. (2019). A theory of digital firm-designed markets: Defying knowledge constraints with crowds and marketplaces. Strategy Science, 4(4), 323–342.
Wall, F. (2015). Organizational Change for Its Own Sake? In Advances in Artificial Economics (pp. 45–56). Springer Cham.
Zittrain, J. L. (2006). The generative internet, 119 Harvard Law Review, 1974.
Zittrain, J. L. (2008). The future of the internet—and how to stop it. Yale University Press.