A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world (Stephen Shorrock, 6 March 2023)

Summary

In this blog, interdisciplinary humanistic, systems and design practitioner Dr Stephen Shorrock explores the dangers of project leaders relying on assumptions about work-as-imagined, detached from the reality of contextualised work-as-done. He describes his experience working on a project in which he discovered that operational staff felt anxious and unprepared for the major changes to come. This was unacknowledged by management, and he ascribes their lack of awareness to a failure to physically and empathetically engage with the workers in the reality of the processes and systems management had designed.

He highlights the importance of empathy and asks the question, "In your worlds, how connected are managers and other non-operational specialists with operational staff and the operational environment, where changes ultimately end up? Those who wish to support operational staff through change must take the role of pupil, or apprentice – not master."