Search

Training programs designed to help managers and supervisors improve their communication skills often have the covert objective of manipulating the views of participants to ensure that the underlying system of domination is maintained. Three common ways by which mystification and manipulation is achieved during communication skills training are the use of the communication skills learnt to deflect resistance to control, the creation of a social drama to change the participants' interpretations of the nature of communication, and the development of a sense of indebtness among participants. Participant observation of one such training program confirms that there is a hidden side of communication skills training. Six techniques used to manipulate participants during this particular skills training program are also identified and analyzed.

Most models of large-scale change assume that only outside experts working closely with senior management can initiate and implement change successfully. Using the Polish Solidarity Trade Union case, a model is presented that explains how system insiders - who may or may not have formal status - have the potential to initiate and implement transformational change. The following two facets of the model are emphasized: legitimizing, whereby new beliefs, ideas and theories are legitimated; and reconstructive learning, whereby underlying beliefs and assumptions are explored and reformulated into new practices and ideologies. The article also addresses the relationship of legitimizing and reconstructive learning to implementing, the process whereby new practices, systems, and structures are set in place for the purpose of achieving desired objectives. Research propositions and implications for practitioners are presented. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)