Introduction to Making Meaning of Group Relations Learning
Tanya Lewis
Given that behavioral change is often a framework through which most professional and individual development is viewed, and that learning to think/feel differently is often undervalued, the question about what will be learned and how conference members apply their group relations learning is inevitably going to be asked. Encouraging people to come to group relations conferences requires explanations of what might be gained by attending. As deep learning itself is unsettling and frequently difficult, some knowledge of why someone would persevere is often helpful.
At the same time, the learning can be hard to articulate. As a conference member, I have sometimes felt reluctant in review and application groups to make sense of experiences that need time to process and metabolize. I haven’t wanted to foreclose on the potential of my learning and I know that my learning continues well past conference experiences. I am also curious about what keeps people reengaging in group relations learning and how they are making sense of their experiences; how they are different over time at work and in their lives because of their learning.
In his article Group Relations, Innovation and the Production of Nostalgia in Organizational and Social Dilemmas 20 (1) Summer 2020, Carlos Sapachnik says that the value of group relations conferences lies in the impact that it has on conscious and unconscious experience, even if not all of what takes place is understood. He outlines the difference between the word application (attach, join, connect) and the implications of psychoanalysis (embrace, entangle, connect closely, associate) as it applies to group relations conferences (p.13). He uses a metaphor of clapping at the end of a musical performance to explain this difference. Clapping returns the audience to reality and breaks the reverie of desire, of what is longed for and evoked through the performance. Sapachnik says that an emphasis on application and on conference themes is like clapping at the end of a performance. It returns the group to the everyday and breaks the more subversive potential of learning about individual and group desires. Within this tension, between what is unconsciously evoked and the inevitable return to reality, there is a possibility of meaning-making. This issue of the newsletter focuses on participants’ learning from conferences. I would be interested to hear of your learnings and what is evoked as you read.
Research on Learning From Group Relations Conferences
Tanya Lewis
Tracy Wallach summarized her research on members’ learning in group relations conferences in her article, What do Participants Learn at Group Relations Conferences? A report on a conference series on the theme of authority, power and justice in Organizational and Social Dynamics 19 (1) Summer 2019. The three conferences that she researched were held between 2014-2016. Members were predominantly students from Boston College. The research included post conference surveys and interviews focussed on the meanings made of the conference by the members and the personal and professional impact it had on them. Many of their reflections focussed on unsettling realizations related to power, authority and gender and race dynamics:
“I discovered a strong preference for the white-male-power status quo…it feels safe even if it is holding me back” (p.13).
“My age, my race made them doubt my ability to be a leader” (p.14).
“I had unconsciously given up on growing personally and professionally. I had built a barrier around me that sustained me. I had settled…because of the projections others had placed on me and was actually beginning to live in them” (p.15).
One participant raised the question: “How can you not see what you are doing? It made me think how I am not seeing critiques of me or what I choose to hear” (p.12) .
Participants also spoke about the difficult and painful nature of the learning. Wallach raises a question about how group relations conferences may privilege pain and aggression over other aspects of human experience and describes the value of post conference debriefs to support participants in continued meaning making about their experiences.
Ellen Short, in her articles, Group Relations Love: Sentience and Group Relations Work Part I and II in Organizational and Social Dynamics Volume 19 (2) outlines her research on the experiences of individuals with a history of group relations work as consultants and members. In her review of the literature, Ellen Short quotes Margaret Rioch’s 1985 article, Why I work as a consultant in the conferences of AKRI, in which she says that: “Working in this role with other consultants promotes the development of deep friendship and good companionship…assists individuals in becoming more courageous…and engenders awareness of the potential to live more fully in the present” (p.194). Participants also spoke about exploring envy, shame, competition, jealousy and sexual attraction, betrayal and abandonment.
One of the research participants summed up their experience this way: “GR has given me a way of voicing my knowing about the world in a way I do not feel out of control or stupid…I have become less afraid of what I see in my world and I have understood my reactions better. So GR has given me a language through which I make sense of my world” (p. 206).
Others spoke of the value of the humility to learn, to make mistakes and take risks (p. 213).
ICI Practitioners Learning
n January, 2023 the ICI Practitioners came together to talk about their learnings and how those learnings were reflected in their work and other parts of their life. What stood out in their conversation was their regard for the intrinsic value of learning through group relations; for what might be opened up, for confronting fears and for learning over time. What they learned may be unexpected but it changed their knowledge about themselves and group life.
Some people spoke about their growing capacity to be in a group, to register how they are feeling and articulate their thoughts in the service of more thinking and planning. Janelle Joseph describes this capacity:
“In my work day I attend many meetings, all of which take place at a table with chairs. Some rooms are more comfortable, more warm, more bright than others, but there is always the expectation that meeting attendees will sit. I have recently become more attuned to the detrimental outcomes, the embodied cost, of sitting while discussing issues related to equity. Indeed, the equity issues I’m dealing with in these meetings are ethical issues. We, as community members, researchers and administrators are asking questions of how individuals and groups should be treated to receive the most benefits and the least harms.
Recently, I met with sport and education leaders who had invested in equity/ethical programming in Canada’s north. I listened patiently while they described, with the best of liberal intentions, how they intended to “fix” broken communities. I was feeling the tension rise in my back and neck, feeling increasingly short of breath, and finally so uncomfortable in my seat that I wanted to run away and hide until I heard the words: “Since their parents don’t value education, we couldn’t even reach youth in the schools. We had used sport to incentivize Indigenous attendance.” This fundamentally racist idea hit me like a punch in the face. I have heard again and again how blame is placed on individual Indigenous and Black parents for inequitable youth outcomes in systems they do not control. Because of those previous times I had heard victim blaming ideologies, and because I was able to debrief on several occasions about my discomfort and disappointment in myself for not speaking up, combined with my training in group relations to observe what is happening as group rather than individual processes, this time I was able to make a timely intervention.
Previously, the racist comments happened too quickly for me to catch what was going on. Once I learned to recognize moments of intervention as they were occurring, I was too nervous to speak up for fear of how I might be judged, too angry to call it out without being confrontational or accusatory, or too slow to respond, delayed by overthinking the ‘right’ reaction. Every previous time I missed my chance to say something, anything, to resist my complicity in denigrating an entire group of people and to change the direction of the conversation.
At this most recent meeting, I merely stated my observations that what I had heard sounded like blaming victims for structural inequities. I led with a curious regard for what was meant by not valuing education. I shared my knowledge that education comes in many forms among Indigenous parents, and that caregiving may actually look like refusing to prioritize attendance at Euro-centric schools given the horrors of the history of residential schooling of Indigenous children in Canada. Last, I suggested the program could be re-framed as supporting Indigenous parents and children to establish and meet their own self-defined goals.
I attribute my ability to intervene in this instance to the times I have spent within the ICI network, learning together about difference, training as a consultant, considering what is beneath and in-between the words people use, and ‘listening’ to my body. I have group relations to thank for helping me understand that the instinct to flee from my chair is a sign that I have words to speak and work to do.”
Others spoke of a growing ability to see individual responses as part of a larger system without personalizing it. One leader described how she has come to see attacks from other black people as a reflection of how the group was using her to vent their frustrations rather than as a personal attack on her and her work. Others spoke about feeling less anxious in their recognition that mistakes are inevitable and that their shame and humiliation can be metabolized. This allows them to step in and break their polite silence.
The group also spoke about changing skills in listening and responding with more capacity to be curious and more openness to listen for and explore particular words or phrases. With less defensiveness, the practitioners felt they had more ability to face what was “right” in what was being said, not just push it away. One member spoke about her ability to more clearly define her role at work with clients, colleagues, her team and her supervisor by sharpening her understanding of her boundaries, authority, role and task.
Stewart Morton spoke about staying open to layered understandings of what takes place in a group leading to multiple possibilities for exploration rather than a single interpretation or action. He says:
“Oh look! GR conferences can sometimes be dramatic, and the drama is where we naturally focus our attention. And while this may be the case, I think our GR training has warned us to mistrust the drama, and rightly so. We have to realize that the real situation may be the opposite of the dramatic one. It may seem like lots of good work is being done when in fact it’s pseudo work and conversely, when nothing seems to be happening in painful silences and awkward missteps, a lot of real work is being done. Then again, the dramatic work might be the real work and the silences sterile. Now I will explain to you how to tell the difference.
Sorry, that was for dramatic effect: pseudo knowledge.
I don’t know how you tell the difference, but I have had an inkling a few times that I was doing some real work and it was usually when I abstained from rushing to judgment or action and foreclosing further possibilities. It usually meant staying with the difficult feelings. Then again, I have also appreciated the spontaneous act and sometimes that leads to somewhere better. Personally, if I’m metaphorically standing at the edge of a precipice and feel tempted to jump I’ll try to remember that though it appears to be an act, it is really giving up the possibility of action. Then again, leaps of faith need not be that dramatic.”
Finally, Ray Bakaitis, a participant at two Exploring Difference Workshops
describes his learning as an older white man this way:
“At work and conferences I often receive what I experience as skepticism, mistrust, and bite, particularly from younger Black and Brown women. I feel misunderstood. It doesn’t feel fair. I typically feel angry regarding how I am misperceived. I’m one of the good guys. I often respond defensively.
I’ve gradually come to see and respect the intensity and authenticity of how others can respond to me. While not pleasant, I’ve come to recognize their reactions as an attempt to engage rather than feel indifferent. When I am reflective, a state of mind that seems to come and go, I try to take in the other’s feelings as a gift – something to be curious about, engage with, and learn from. I sometimes feel ashamed when I recognize what is true in what the other is seeing in me. The person is often calling out aspects of myself that I don’t want to see.
I don’t think projection is the only way to understand how these interactions work. We know from behavioral research that learning generalizes. If someone has been messed with by people who look like me, it should not be surprising that their aversion would generalize to me. Projection of course is also involved but the language of projections can be mysterious and overemphasize intrapsychic determinants of experience when we talk about racism and patriarchy. This can obscure the more straightforward, systemic reasons why people feel and react to racism and sexism as they do. Projection and behavioral learning can operate at the same time and both can occur unconsciously.
My discomfort with the other is also connected to White supremacy dynamics. As politically enlightened as I may be, or not, I have the privilege to be complacent. It requires effort to listen to the scream of the other and not push it away. As a quasi technocrat leader I can keep the feelings and needs of the other at arms’ length. Because I want to think of myself as competent and right, the other’s negative experience of me can interfere with my internal sense of myself as being good. At the same time, I am learning that when I don’t listen to the other my subsequent work is at best empty and at worse perpetuates established power inequities. Neither contributes to meaningful change. I’ve learned that listening increases my competence rather than threatens it.
I know that engagement is a form of love. Love and hope are necessary to sustain us in persevering through hardship and the struggle to bring about fairness and equal opportunity in the world. I want to be part of that work. I think the best I can do is to be honest, sincere, acknowledge my limitations, and use my strengths as I take up my roles. I think a lot about my age. I talk to myself about sustaining hope when cynicism, bitterness, grievance, and destruction are rife in American White, male, Christian culture. Destruction is attractive. It feels powerful. Violence and destruction are not my primary bent, but I sense my valence for it. A challenge for me is to not introject other’s worst impressions of me and then enact their projections. Shutting down is one strategy I sometimes use to manage this challenge. But that strategy leaves me feeling envious of others who have feelings when I am shut down. As an older White man seeing the world around me change, I pray to have the courage to be open to hear others’ stories; stay in touch with my own emotions, and hold true to my values and best self. I think of that as my dignity, the possibility of which I wish to project onto all.”
ICI Community of Practice
ICI Practitioner Development Workshops convene on-going learning opportunities for everyone in the ICI community recognizing different capacities, experience and expertise. We consider that this requires parallel learning processes:one linked to practice and increasing knowledge about consulting skills;the second being a shift to a deeper ongoing examination of and exploration of personal valencies, blocks and strengths – a more challenging area of work.
This proposed learning opportunity is intended to deepen our awareness and self interrogation practices regarding how our underlying unconscious processes may be at play in your work and how this impacts on what we see/don’t see; say/don’t say and what we are open to exploring/not exploring.
Learning Outcomes
-
Tackling some useful theory and how thoughts/concepts can be used to guide ‘consulting’ (reflective listening and responding?)
-
Opportunities to ‘consult’ to here and now processes, self-examine, and engage with feedback
-
Opportunities to explore our ‘identities’ and how the performance of self supports and disrupts normative and systemic modes of relating that replicate in-justices
-
Deepen community relations through risk taking with one another and curiosity.
Cost
- Consulting Practice: $300. plus $39. HST = $339.
- Group Member: $200. plus $26. HST = $226.
Up-Coming Conferences
Race Relations in a Global World: Leadership, Organizations, and __________.
April 14-16 2023, over Zoom
The New York Center for the Study of Groups, Organizations, and Social Systems, and SUNY Schenectady County Community College are excited to announce an in-person group relations event that foregrounds Race Relations in a Global World. On April 14-16, 2023, all are invited to join this in-person group relations conference, Race Relations in a Global World: Leadership, Organizations, and ______________ (fill in the blank).
This three-day event is designed to support leaders of varying backgrounds to engage in a dialogue on race relations across the boundaries of racial lines using group relations methodology. Past, present and future leaders will have the opportunity to explore their organizational experiences with race relations in a Global World, while forming a temporary learning organization. Participants will learn more and begin to explore the following questions: What does race relations look like in organizational systems in different countries? How does race relations manifest within organizations in different countries? Why should we pay attention to race relations in organizational systems in different countries? Who is involved in race-relation dialogues within organizational systems in different countries? Where should I look for organizational answers when engaging in dialogues related to race relations?
Leadership and Creative Expression 2023: Boundaries, Expansion, Role, Task & Authority (BERTA)
April 21-23 2023, In Person
The Conference will include a series of events to integrate the expansion theme into the learning. The Expression and Expansion events invite exploration of potential antidotes to repression. Repression can refer to the psychological repression of memories, desires, ambition, and other innate drives necessary for human survival. Repression in the social justice context also means historically and state-sanctioned violence, murder, and dehumanization of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities physical and cognitive, and divergence from the “model worker” expected to be male, heterosexual, abled, white, and cisgender. In this Conference, expansion refers to the integration of the experiences of a new and dynamic normal due to the pandemic, the increased awareness about systemic racism, xenophobia, sexism, and the increased blurring of boundaries between someone’s home life and work life. Expansion can help us let go of outdated assumptions that do not serve us and requires a willingness to step into the new – time traveling back and forth to learn and relearn from the past to gather the strength to continue forward.
For more information, please visit their website: https://www.csudhgrouprelations.info
Leading from Experience: Developing the Consultative Stance
May 5-7, In Person
This workshop is designed to strengthen participants’ ability to exercise leadership in abroad range of work roles through taking up a consultative stance. Participants learn to recognize the value of their inner experience – thoughts, feelings, associations, fantasies, daydreams, pre-occupations – and to articulate them to further the group’s purpose and task.
What is the Consultative Stance?
The act of acknowledging one’s experience and sharing it to further the group’s aim is the consultative stance. Whether taken up formally as a designated leader, consultant, member or participant, the consultative stance recognizes that people in a group are inevitably, though often without being aware of it, in touch with the emotional life of the group. Paying attention to what one is feeling, thinking about and reacting to may open a window into what is going on in the group, just outside of members’ awareness. Speaking to this experience from one’s role, while checking it against both the experience of others and the purpose of the group, can help the work of a group evolve, particularly as it leads to discovery of previously unseen contexts and potentially challenging dynamics. Taking a consultative stance creates an opportunity to exercise this form of leadership; this is leading from experience.
For more information, please visit their website: https://csgss.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/csgss/event.jsp?event=53
Energy, Creative collaboration, and Well-being in organizations (ECW)
June 2-4, 2023, In Person in Possagno, Italy (near Venezia)
The purpose of the Conference is to raise awareness of our shared responsibility for exploring and creating structures that nurture the well-being and vitality of the systems we live in and the people we are in contact with (colleagues, collaborators, clients, family members).
Discounts are available for AKRI members. For more information please visit
their website:
https://www.ilnodogroup.it/en/attivita/ecw-energia-collaborazione-creativa-benessere/
Latina/o/x/e/?
A Group Relations Conference
on Latine Leadership and Authority
June 9-11 2023, Online
Despite being currently tallied at 19 percent of the US population (Pew Research Center), Latine folx are severely underrepresented in many professions including medicine, law, politics, and corporate leadership positions. This conference seeks to explore the leadership and authority dynamics that both support and hinder Latine individuals from taking up leadership positions and using their power. Responses to Latine leadership will also be under study, including competition, resource allocation, and allyship. We are seeking to use the method of group relations, which highlights the unconscious aspects of group and organizational life that prevent us from establishing and maintaining cohesive communities, to meaningfully pursue these questions together.
Leadership for Change
July 14-16, 2023, In person
For More information, please Contact Us.
Authority, Leadership, Legacy
July 26-30, In person (residential)
The Authority, Leadership, and Legacy: Nurturing the Now and the Next (ALL) is a conference in the group relations tradition.
How nimble, agile, resilient, and responsive will we be to the emerging possibilities? What is learned as we enter this now—together?
ALL honors the group relations tradition and embraces a responsibility to nurture the renewal and legacy of the A.K. Rice Institute National Conference. As such, our focus will be on the exercise of authority, the emergence of leadership, and the unconscious dynamics inherent in the study of groups and social systems.
For more information, please visit their website: https://www.akrinational.org/
The Leicester Conference
July 29- August 11, In person (residential)
The 14-day experiential learning event that provides space to reflect and contemplate, within a global cohort, how you lead and follow in your organisation, your community and your life!
The conference has taken place every year since 1957 and is the flagship of all the other Group Relations conferences and institutions around the world. It is only for those who are deeply invested in understanding their relationship to leadership and authority in complex, uncertain contexts. It is the home of learning by experience.
For more information, please visit their website: here
China and the World
Translating Across the Great Wall: Desire, Fear, and the Role of Other
October 1-5, Online
For more information, please visit email via this link: chinaandtheworld@163.com