PART I WHY ORGANIZATIONS ARE METATHEATRICAL

Chapter 1 Metatheatrics has to be managed

Metatheatre Intervention Method is designed to be a companion to the SEAM (Socio- Economic Approach to Management) Method (Savall, 1974, 2000; Savall, Zardett & Bonnet, 1999).

The basic assumption of Metatheatre is the “organization is theatre” (Savall as cited in Boje & Rosile, 2002) and the Metatheatre is a multiplicity of theatres; the organization is not just one theatre; there are many simultaneous theatres.

Metatheatre is defined here as the multiple and contending theatres that constitute organizations.

Management in its earliest definitions in France meant to be the head of an Entertainment Company (Peron, 2002). We believe corporations and public enterprises are still Entertainment Companies in an Entertainment Economy that Guy Debord (1967) calls the Society of the Spectacle.

Metatheatre Intervention uses theatre concepts to diagnose corporate theatre, SEAM method to analyze hidden costs and untapped financial potential, and intervenes using theatre interventions (Boje & Rosile, 2002).

Enterprises are assumed to have hidden costs and untapped financial potential from mismanaged metatheatre.

1.1 Metatheatre is multiple theatres

TAMARA is that name of a theatre play written by Krizanc (1981/1989) for which Boje (1995) sees as the TAMARA-esque theatrical fabric of organization life. In TAMARA, Los Angeles' longest-running play, a dozen characters unfold their stories before a walking, sometimes running, audience. The organization is metatheatric; there are multiple theatres in any organizations; some are front stages, others backstage; some play in one office, while others happen at the same time in other offices, other factories, and other countries. The Metatheatre is a network of theatres, a TAMARA.

TAMARA the Play - The play Tamara, written by John Krizanc, was first performed at Strachan House in Trinity-Bellwoods Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada on May 8, 1981. “It is Italy, January 10, 1927, in the era of Mussolini. Gabriele d'Annunzio, a poet, patriot, womanizer, and revolutionary who is exceedingly popular with the people, is under virtual house arrest. Tamara [De Lempicka], an expatriate Polish beauty, aristocrat, and aspiring artist, is summoned from Paris to paint d’Annunzio’s portrait. Instead of remaining stationary, viewing a single stage, the audience fragments into

METATHEATRE INTERVENTION MANUAL page 1 small groups that chase characters from one room to the next, from one floor to the next, even going into bedrooms, kitchens, and other chambers to chase and co-create the stories that interest them the most. If there are a dozen stages and a dozen storytellers, the number of story lines an audience could trace as it chases the wandering discourses of Tamara is 12 factorial (479,001,600)” [Source, Boje, 1995: 997].

1.2 Metatheatre can be transformed

Transformation of Metatheatre entails rescripting the “metascript” of the organization.

Metascript is defined as the multiplicity of scripts, mostly unwritten ones, that constitute the micro and macro structure, behavior, social dysfunctions, and hidden costs/performance potential of complex organizations. Examples of metascripts include a call script between salesperson and customer, a performance program, a strategic plan, a scenario, and the scripted performance of one executive or manager who seeks to take control from another person with a different script.

The transformation of Metatheatre is a juxtaposition of SEAM and what we (Boje & Rosile, 2002) call the SEPTET.

SEAM stands for Socio-Economic Approach to Management. SEAM is defined as a method for diagnosing hidden costs and untapped revenue potential that through researcher-intervention with organization members can lead to a healthier relation between Socio dysfunctions (in working conditions, work organization, communication-coordination-cooperation [3Cs], time management, job training, and strategic initiative) with Economic domains (Overworked people, time wasted, wasted resources, lack of production, non-creation of revenues, risks to survival and growth, and non-sustainable ecology practices).

SEPTET means seven elements of Metatheatrics. The seven elements are: (1) Frames, (2) Themes, (3) Dialogs, (4) Characters, (5) Rhythms, (6) Plots, and (7) Spectacles.

METATHEATRE INTERVENTION MANUAL page 2 The purpose of the Metatheatre Intervention manual is to give you concepts, definitions, and tools that stem from the relationship we see between SEAM and SEPTETIC Metatheatre elements.

Table 1: Model of SEAM to SEPTET Metatheatre hypothesized relationships SEAM SEPTET 1. Work 1. Frames Organization 2. Working 2. Themes Organizing Hidden Costs Condition Managing And 3. 3Cs 3. Dialogs Influencing Metascript Untapped 4. Training 4. Characters Leading Of Hidden 5. Timing 5. Rhythms Controlling The Revenues Enterprise 6. Strategic 6. Plots Planning 7. Spectacles

Table 1 displays the hypothesized relationships between SEAM and SEPTET elements. For simplicity we show a one-to-one relationship between the six SEAM elements and the first six of the seven SEPTET elements. However, it is more accurate to say that all (7) SEPTET elements affect each of the (6) SEAM dysfunction domains. For example, the Frames affect primarily the Work Organization but also impact Working Condition, 3Cs, Training, Timing and Strategic domains. Since we are talking about management of the metascript and metatheatre, we also depict hypothesized relations of the SEPTET elements to five functions of management (organizing, influencing, leading, controlling, and planning).

Aristotle from whom we have adapted six of the seven SEPTET elements is the author of the theatrical Poetics (350 BCE). We follow the trail of Augusto Boal (1974/1979) in giving more postmodern interpretations to Aristotle’s six Poetic elements of theatre (i.e. SEPTET elements 2 through 7). The first element of SEPTET, “frames,” is adapted from Kenneth Burke’s (1937) work. Burke (1972: 23) believed ‘frames’ to be the missing element to his PENTAD model of theatre (act, scene, agent, agency, & purpose; See Burke, 1945: 231).

We will give more formal definition of the SEPTET and SEAM elements, along with organization examples, in subsequent chapters of the Metatheatre Intervention Manual.

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