Making Common Sense: Leadership as Meaning-making in a Community of Practice

Introduction

Suppose you have been given the assignment of forming a new unit within a corporation. The unit—which is ongoing, not a task force—is responsible for designing, assisting in the implementation of, and monitoring the corporation’s “green” practices. You have been assigned people from a variety of functions, but everyone has some interest in, and detailed knowledge of, environmental issues. As the nominal leader of this new unit, imagine your first meeting.

Everyone is talking, trying to get air time. Feeling a responsibility to make the time productive, you try to bring a degree of order to this by flip-charting some agenda items, structuring people’s participation, and so forth. This is only partly effective. The meeting ends on ...