Patricia Shaw - 3 quick questions

Working in the midst of complex challenges – is this to be understood as a certain phase or a certain situation?
No, rather it serves to remind us that we tend to conceive of our projects with tidy beginnings and endings, while in fact we are always 'in the middle' of emerging events in which we can have at best only a partial appreciation of all the influences that are interacting.

Conversation as part of dealing with learning and development is an important issue in your own practice – why is that?
When you stop and think for a moment, you realise that the vast majority of management and organisational learning IS conversational in nature. It involves describing, narrating, making sense, inquiring, framing, accounting, explaining, proposing, recognising, reflecting and so on - WITH OTHERS.

Does paying attention to conversations differ from what we are already doing in most organizations working with learning and development?
Yes, I think so. It shifts the focus away from tools, models and techniques towards noticing the actual details of communicative activity as it happens 'live'.