In ‘Working Below the Surface’ (Karnac Publishers), Clare Huffington, discusses what women leaders can tell us. She suggests that:
‘Traditional ideas of role, primary task of the leadership, authority and power derived from these seem less useful when ‘organisation’ appears to be a provisional concept. Many organisations, especially public sector organisations, seem to be in a state of deconstruction and incoherence, in which traditional organisational boundaries have broken down.’
In many respects partnerships are both a type of organising that exemplifies this trend and also an alternative way of handling deprivation, persecution and loss (a consequence of this trend, in Clare Huffington’s analysis). I hesitate to say a ‘defence’ against them; neither do I have the evidence to suggest that they are a reliable way of metabolising such emotions. Partnerships made up of multiple interests – and therefore not simply an analogue for ‘pairing’ – are a developmental type of practice addressing the proposition that we can organise effectively in a constantly fluctuating environment, across a gap of some sort where there is a need for connection. Partnerships can be a more or less intimate response to a sense of incoherence.
Slingshot