Global Strategy - blog

After spending considerable time inside in the company of books and mostly theoretical articles, one may easily become a bit of a book-worm. That is, lose the 'touch' on things. The world (I said it, uh) becomes something not only seen through theoretical glasses, but one in which theory really matters, almost all the time. Therefore it was a real delight to actually do something, for once (articulated in structuralist-mythological language this 'doing' could be expressed as something like a series of utterances in a zero-order language). The task was to take part in this year's vendimia.

Reasons for my enthusiasm were manifold. Not only is it quite unusual for a stranger to be even able to participate in the wine harvest, but I also had an organisational interest of the process. So, right after the sunrise off we went to the finca. The day started with a crash course of the grapes, how to cut them, how to feel them, how to pick the rotten ones out, and so on... Not a surprise to anyone, the highest authority onsite was an old woman who had the accumulated practical wisdom over several decades of winemaking, who would subtly but keenly observe everyone's vintage skills.

Us newbies, of course, messed something up. Despite our careful effort, we managed to confuse the slightly over-ripened ones with the rotten ones (only to be corrected not-so-subtly), but all in all, I think it worked out fine. Additional workforce enabled them to do the task in just a few hours, instead of the whole day.

This whole process got me thinking of the role of our holy scripture, the organisation theory in organising real situations and individuals. I'm not going to say it had absolutely nothing to it, but still I saw some poignant conflicts with our textbook ideals and the practice of drinking beer for breakfast. Still it worked, everyone smiling. What exactly is the point of talking about concepts such as 'practical wisdom' or 'performativity' (just to pick out two, no theoretical discrimination!)? I'm 100% sure that the grandmother, who, according to our theories, lived out many focal aspects of both of those mentioned theoretical concepts and related literatures, would have neither understood nor cared about a word. Moreover, in the small challenges we came across during the day (grape siloing machine did not work and others) I realised I had absolutely nothing to say. All I could do was to trust the experts, most of them having an elementary school background, and loads of experience in wine-making, of course.

Yes, I can come back home, take my 3g-modem, connect again with the world and talk all I want about it, but up the hill, surrounded by the vines, I was a complete tourist. I remember James March saying in HBR interview that: “If a manager asks an academic consultant what to do and that consultant answers, then the consultant should be fired.” Nevertheless, until now I've been in the belief that the academic consultant might know at least something or have a helpful theoretical insight which could bring the process further. The problems, however, were either trivial (fix the machine), or demanded expertise (this is the right kind of smell), which left no room for theoretical commentary. Should I have had at least something to say? Or is it just me?