There is no shortage of media in which the state of the world is discussed. Readers, listeners, and viewers are inundated with messages of rampant technology change and implications, information, the changing nature of governments, the emergence of non‐traditional organizational structures, and a variety of flexible and virtual work arrangements. In Ann Alder's Pattern making, pattern breaking we see that the phenomena introduced above are less threatening if we attempt to understand them within the context of our own sense‐making processes, and develop the skills necessary to adapt, or break, our “pattern making” as the world changes around us.
Conceptually, this is not a new conversation and elements of it were seen in Donald Sull's (1999) notion of active inertia, Boje's Storytelling Organizations, and in other disciplines. But Alder's contribution is how patterns are not static and people can be taught to be flexible in developing their sense‐making processes.
Alder's twelve chapters are organized into three parts. The book is introduced via a short prelude in which “pattern breaking, pattern making” is introduced. Part III is followed by concluding remarks. The book contains an index, but there is no reference list and all citations are footnoted throughout the volume. The book is illustrated with cartoon images that give the conceptual material a softer tone. Not only are key figures represented with these images, but each chapter is opened with an image.
In the prelude, the author provides a brief rationale for the writing of this book and provides credentials that qualify her as expert in this area. Part I, Pattern Facilitation, contains three chapters in which Alder provides strong rationale for pattern making as a teachable skill for the enhancement of learning outcomes in training interventions. Chapters 4 through 7, in Part II, discuss specific learning skills such as pattern recognition and evaluation, the use of questions, and the productive role of conflict in creative processes.
The final part contains the remaining five chapters where the real treasure of this book is buried: the methods for training the construction and interpretation of patterns. One of the most powerful elements of this book, for this reviewer, was the discussion of metaphor and the power of storytelling in the recognition and comprehension of environmental patterns. While Alder offers a discussion that is sometimes parallel to Boje's (2008) conceptual treatise of storytelling for the purpose of sensemaking it is far more accessible and practical.
This book is an excellent primer that describes the importance of recognizing patterns and developing mental processes for comprehending our own patterns of learning. Furthermore, any read of this book benefits greatly from Alder's three decades of experience in designing and delivering training. Applications for Alder's work extend far beyond the training and development literature and could easily augment strategic management, strategic human resources management, strategic marketing, and entrepreneurship courses in which environmental scanning and monitoring are inherent planning activities. A key objective of each of these courses is the attention to and understanding of macro‐environmental forces that affect organizations and the decisions made by incumbent managers. By honing one's ability to study patterns and to adapt in order to recognize newly emerging patterns, the contemporary student will develop a skill as necessary to career success as that of decision making and the execution of well formulated plans.
