The need to act within paradoxical situations has lead managers to develop new skills and devices in order to “muddle [their way] through” (Lindblom 1959). Managers’ survival as individuals within what have been qualified as “paradoxant systems” (Aubert & Gaulejac 1991), depends greatly on their capacity to successfully develop means to cope with them. However, the survival of the organization itself depends on its capacity to integrate this tacit knowledge, in order to “stay afloat” despite changing individuals. In a recent work, XXXX et al. (2012) explored the importance of this issue and questioned the durability of such organizational forms if they fail to transform an individual ability gained through struggling with paradoxant systems into a durable organizational learning process. However, it is precisely what studies on paradoxes have signaled as impossible (i.e. Hennestad 1990, drawing on Bateson’s original work on paradoxical injunctions). This paper addresses this question: how to transform an individual capacity into a core competence within the paradoxant organization? We shall build on XXXX et al. (2012)’s analysis where they found that mediation between the conflicting alternatives of the paradox was a successful means to work a way through the paradox from within, instead of working against it, denying it or submitting to choice. Pursuing this, and building on recent developments on paradox theory in organizations and on ethnographic data, we shall strive to address the challenge posed in practice by paradoxant organizations to ensure the development of mediation not only as an individual managerial skill but as a core organizational competence. We begin by reviewing the literature on organizational paradoxes, “paradoxant systems” and the idea that mediation can constitute a way through the paradox. Second, we develop a theoretical construct of mediation as an organizational competence. Third, we expose the ethnographic method used. We then analyze the case of a Compliance unit in a French Investment bank to illustrate the process of transforming mediation into an organizational competence through situated construction (sensemaking), translation (sensegiving) and clarification (sensekeeping) in order to produce mediation and we outline the conditions for that process. We finally discuss our findings and possible discussion issues, particularly with sensemaking theories in future research.
