Coordinated Management is a leadership tool.

Barnett Pearce and Verner Cronen are the founders of the communication theory CMM (Coordinated Management of Meaning). The theory is based on a social constructionist approach, which emphasizes that we, through our practices, language and stories, are co-creators of the world we live in.

The theory is based on the latest discoveries in the field of communication, chaos and complexity theory, storytelling and philosophy, systemic therapy and consciousness research. In his book "Communication and the Creation of Social Worlds" Pearce shows how communication consists of speech acts, episodes, relationships and the self in specific cultures and how we, through our choice of communication, can make a difference and create a better social world. Find more of these topics at PROBANA - Facebook!

CMM radically breaks with the traditional sender-receiver model of communication and with the idea that if you learn to communicate clearly, that the message will get through. Communication is not so simple! Pearce points out that there is no neutral observation or neutral observers.

"So-called spectator knowledge will always be an external and interpreted knowledge and therefore not the same as participant knowledge. With Barnett Pearce's approach, one can say that you learn a culture by participating in it - not that you can come to understand the culture or communication, but in order to coordinate within it" (Holmgren, 2007, acc. Pearce, 2007). What is special about CMM theory is that it indicates that we should not have any illusions about being able to understand, but at most, create enough sense to coordinate. It's about "how to go on?" as Barnett Pearce cites the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the main theoreticians within social constructionism. Find more of these topics at PROBANA - Facebook!

Pearce and Cronen have developed models and a methodology for how to understand communicative development in organizations and human systems. CMM theory focuses on how any story can be told in different ways, depending on the context. "We are accustomed to thinking of language as a tool to describe, but the words we use to describe an episode, actually also help to change reality, according to systemic theory" (Pearce acc. Kristensen, 2007, p1). CMM is about being exploratory in terms of how we linguistically interact and how we linguistically coordinate our presence in the world. If you want to learn more about these techniques and tools, so you can become a great leader or develop your current management skills: www.activeglobe.com or find more of these topics at PROBANA - Facebook!

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