One of the beauties of Weick’s clock is, he turns it into a mandala, to show the dialectic between tensions in organising. He states (p.36) (The Social Psychology of Organising):
Failure to accept the inevitable trade-offs implied in the GAS formulation (General, Accurate and Simple) seems to be at the heart of many current research problems. Investigators act as if they can simultaneously accomplish all three aims in their explanations, and that delusion is at the heart of much trivial, inconclusive research.
Then this (p.41):
The argument implies that each individual should locate a position on theclockface, banish any unnecessary guilt that i is tied to ideals that can’t possibly be realized from that position, and somehow keep i in touch with work at all of the other eleven positions, especially the one directly opposite the located position.
For example, my style of scholarship falls at ten o’clock, then I should try especially hard to locate people at the four o’clock position, and I should be certain that I understand their work and maintain some contact with that work. Better still might be the solution in which I alternate my research style and systematically try to move among the various positions over the duration of a year or a career.
Here we see the fundamentals of the mandala – intentionally engaging in dialectic with one’s opposite. We have discussed this before with regard to understanding ethics and moral dilemmas (https://safetyrisk.net/mandala-as-a-method-for-tackling-an-ethic-of-risk-a-video/). This is critical for deconstructing the naïve deontological ethic of Safety (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/the-ethics-of-risk/).
The brilliance of Weick is the way in which he describes the need to understand the dialectics of organising. If this were to be visualised in a semiotic it might look like the mandala we use in SPoR to understand many of the dialectical tensions in organising.
Rather than seek to explain the mandala in propositions, just look at the mandala and what it holds in tensions in oppositions. This is a way of understanding the dilemmas that co-exist in organistion without resolution,
Weick states (p.42):
But a completely general explanation (twelve o’clock research) is hard to generate and may, in fact, be non-existent. This means that the person who wants to be relevant has the following choice: the person can either be wrong as he moves from twelve o’clock toward the ten o’clock position, or he can be obscure as he moves from twelve o’clock to two o’clock. It’s very unlikely that scientists who move in either direction will be regarded as saviors. It’s good to know what you’re doing.
We will unpack some of this in our free workshops on Weick and HROing in June. You can register here: admin@spor.com.au
In the next blog we will explore the brilliance of Weick in use of metaphor, Linguistics and use of semiotics.
Prof. Robert Long
Latest posts by Prof. Robert Long (see all)
- Weick’s Expectations of the Unexpected - May 13, 2026
- The Non-Revolution in Safety - May 12, 2026
- Suspending Your Agenda to Begin Learning in Risk - May 11, 2026
- The De-Ethicization of the Object in Safety - May 9, 2026
- Weick’s Organising as ‘Consensually Validated Grammar’ - May 9, 2026
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