Mike Pedler, Tom Boydell, Jean-Anne Stewart and Joe Raelin
John Burgoyne died on 22 April of this year. In the last issue, Cheryl Brook, a long-time friend and colleague provided a short appreciation of John’s life and work. Here are additional reflections on John from others who knew him over many years.
From Mike Pedler
I first met John in 1973/4 whilst he was finishing his time at Manchester Business School and going to Lancaster University to work with Don Binsted at the then Centre for the Study of Management Learning (CSML). CSML was a specially created unit which, over the next 20 years, was to pioneer and initiate a whole new field of Management Learning into the academic worlds of Management Studies and the practice worlds of Management Training and Development.
Legend has it that it was my colleague Tom Boydell who first encountered John in the men’s toilets at the recently established Manchester Business School (although John used to query this claim). What is certain is that when Tom & I went off to work in Ghana for the summer of 1975, we took with us an invitation from John to join him in writing a book for McGraw-Hill. The publisher wanted something different from the normally didactive textbook, something more developmental. A Manager’s Guide to Self-development finally came out in January 1978 and remains (just about) in print.
The longevity of this book rests on a foundational model of ‘The Qualities of Successful Managers’ derived from John’s expertise in the evaluation of management development programmes. This idea stemmed partly from his PhD research up to 1973 but more especially from his subsequent work with Roger Stuart at CSML on the nature, use and acquisition of managerial skills. In a series of articles published in Personnel Review, John and Roger laid out the essential justification for the scholarly study of management learning. From this great contribution, CSML grew in strength and numbers, attracting talented researchers and practitioners drawn to the learner-centred philosophy being created and nurtured in the Centre. This flourishing research programme led to many publications, postgraduate courses and what became the journal, Management Learning, of which John was an early Editor.
Over the nearly 50 years that I knew and worked with john, there were other productive collaborations, but only one that re-captured the creative energies released by A Manager’s Guide. This was a project to go beyond the self-developing individual to a vision of organising that could produce ‘organisations fit to house the human spirit’ – in one airy conception. In early 1990, John, Tom and I shut ourselves away in a small hotel outside Lancaster and cooked up what was to become The Learning Company. Appearing in 1991, this book caught a fair wind from Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline which established the learning organisation as a 1990s zeitgeist. Whilst – as we used to say – Senge sold slightly more copies than we did, that particular collaboration laid the basis for a 10 year-long Learning Company Project which organised conferences and sponsored research consortia.
Over the years since then, we made several efforts to re-capture that collaborative magic. Whilst each of us contributed in different ways to our working sessions, what emerged was rarely traceable back to any one of us. John was often quiet or seemingly absent for long periods, but would then come in with an idea or bit of theory that suddenly fitted. These collaborations were a highlight of all our professional careers, times in which we were truly ‘All in a knot of one another’s labours’ (attributed to Samuel Hartlib 1600–1662).
What you noticed first about John were his intellectual capacities, for which he was widely respected and admired. I remember someone at a conference rhapsodising about his ‘beautiful brain’ – and you knew what she meant. Though he had grappled with dyslexia throughout his life he remained fond of making hand-drawn slides with sometimes idiosyncratic spellings, yet this never distracted from the quality of what he said. Throughout his professional life, from being a bright young researcher under the wing of Professor John Morris at MBS to becoming a Professor Emeritus much sought after as a doctoral supervisor, John possessed a gravitas that commanded attention. Naturally private, he didn’t easily talk about himself and what I knew of his early life came in glimpses, often after a glass of red wine or two. This was also the case with his emotional and spiritual lives, which you often sensed although he never wore his heart on his sleeve. Perhaps partly because of this, many people were fond of John, his vulnerabilities somehow rounding out that notable intellect.
Another special aspect of John was his personal kindness. He supervised around 70 PhD candidates on their way to their doctorates and several of them have spoken warmly of this precious quality. One, who wrote to me on hearing of his death, said: ‘I'd like to express my thanks to him for changing my life for the better. I have really found my vocation in life and its largely down to his wise council and belief in me that this has happened. I'll miss his guidance and insight as well as his friendship enormously’.
In thinking of him now, I miss him not being here, a good friend and companion in so many adventures.
Mike Pedler
Independent Consultant
From Tom Boydell
My memory is that I did meet John in the gents at Manchester Business School, where he said he had been asked to write a book on Management Self-Development by McGraw-Hill and would Mike Pedler and I like to work on it with him. As Mike has related, this was the start of a long period of co-operation and, perhaps more significantly, friendship.
As I mentioned at his funeral and a subsequent memorial event, my overarching sense of John was that he was immensely ordinary. That is, in spite of what was in fact his extraordinary knowledge, understanding and wisdom around management learning, he was never remotely ‘up himself’, but always treated others as equals, with respect, interest and understanding. He was also great fun to be with – the term impish springs to mind when I think of him, although this didn’t always quite work out as intended. As well as creating slides that were somewhat aesthetically challenging, he often joined in email conversations initiated by Chris Blantern that involved us in creating limericks – about learning and organisations rather than ‘rudeness’ – but seemed to be gripped by a form of rhythmic and rhyming dyslexia that led to them never quite working.
Never mind. He was great to be with.
Tom Boydell
Centre for Action Learning
From Jean-Anne Stewart
I first met John in 2004, shortly after I joined Henley Business School (or Henley Management College, as it was then). John set up the Centre called Henley Evaluation of Leadership & Management, with Dr Sadie Williams, as well as supervising our colleagues’ PhDs. I worked with John on several research projects, such as EU projects researching leadership development for SME leaders, as well as CITB Leadership projects, which led to several very successful action learning programmes for SME leaders, both in the UK and throughout Europe. As a relatively new researcher, John was very supportive and attended presentations with me and kindly supporting me when I was asked tough questions from quite challenging audiences of industry specialists. I continued to see John at action learning conferences and at journal meetings, and he has always been a very caring and supportive colleague. We will all miss him at Henley.
Many thanks
Jean-Anne
Professor Jean-Anne Stewart
Professor of Leadership Development
Leadership, Organisations & Behaviour
Henley Business School
Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 3AU
From Joe Raelin
I was saddened to hear of the passing of John Burgoyne, a rock in the wider field of management learning and development and especially of action learning. I met John while a visiting fellow at Lancaster University when he was director of the Centre for the Study of Action Learning. He provided a particularly warm reception to me leading to my increasing association with the Centre and ultimately to the new journal, Management Learning, created from the then long-established MEAD journal. Although he helped me with the transition to life in the Northwest, such as with tips on the best fellwalking trails, it was our long conversations about management learning that fascinated me. What always struck me about John was his total concentration and curiosity extended to the other. In fact, he raised my commitment to the academic field at a time when I was becoming increasingly disconsolate about the lack of attention of my peers to liberal education (in the classic sense) rather than to their professional advancement. John became my model of the consummate scholar and advisor/tutor with his integrity and colleagueship. When I raised any issue about our mutual field, he listened as if he had heard my musings for the very first time, even though he already had command over the subject matter about which I was addressing. I could only have imagined what his students must have acquired in articulation and confidence from his mentorship. John will thus be always remembered as the model of the forever appreciative colleague.
Prof. Joe Raelin
Donald Gordon Visiting Professor of Leadership
University of Cape Town
The Knowles Chair Emeritus
Northeastern University