Page 188 - kennis en praktijk in de gehandicaptenzorg

These interviews reveal that these professionals are challenged by the complexity of the situations they have to deal with, to seek what is beneath a problem or behaviour of a client. They use this inquiring attitude to establish and to keep a connection with a client. This connection they put forward as the main driver in their work. It moti- vates them to continue to look for ways in which they are able to help a client. Although these professionals have routines and follow fixed schedules in their work, they are able to release them when they experience that their routines and schedules do not meet a specific situation or client. They do not consider routines and schedules as something to hold on to, but use them to draw a distinction between situations in which they need to be alert or not on unforeseen developments and factors under the surface.
The interviews reveal that when these professionals release their familiar routines and schedules, trust is playing an essential role. It is because of this trust that they will find new ways to cope with a situation, that they do not insist on the ways that they are familiar with, but release them without knowing exactly in advance what to do to replace them. They build this trust on their experiences with former situations in which they also felt to release their familiar routines and schedules and succeeded to find a solution by responding to what was happening.
The third part of my research consists of a review of literature about the meaning of knowledge in relation to complexity and normative professionalisation. The starting point of this review was the approach of critical complexity thinking, that Paul Cilliers partly based on the concept of generalised complexity of Edgar Morin. Both Morin and Cilliers searched for an alternative way to look at knowledge to deal with issues that are not (currently) addressed by scientific research. With the aim to understand the meaning of complexity for the development and use of knowledge by professionals in organisations, I have connected critical complexity thinking to the concept of crafts- manship of Richard Sennett and to complex responsive processes of Ralph Stacey. Fi- nally, I have explored the role of interests and values in the development and use of knowledge using work of Harry Kunneman, Jessica Benjamin and Alasdair MacIntyre. All authors associate complexity with the inability of man to explain and control eve- rything. They argue in favour of an alternative approach in the development and use of knowledge to deal with that inability.
This requires from people that they are willing to abandon familiar views and routines and that they accept that they always have to deal with uncertainty. Although people are able to use knowledge to explain and predict developments, this is not sufficient to deal with important issues and problems in their lives and in our society. Besides knowledge that is based on research, captured in publications and transmitted through training and education, people also need knowledge that is individually de- veloped based on an ongoing process of interactions in themselves and with others and their environment. I represent this as an interplay between Big K and little k knowledge. In the dealing with complexity, little k knowledge is the impetus to find
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