Coming Together || Coming Apart
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Authority and Leadership in a Fragmenting World
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 CSGSS weekend conference has been postponed until April 2021.
Full refunds are in progress. Updates on the 2021 event will be posted here.
A CSGSS Sponsored Group Relations Conference in the Tavistock Tradition
<photo via love these pics>
To dare to be aware of the facts of the universe in which we are existing calls for courage.
— W.R. Bion
Director's Invitation
Dear Participant,
This year the CSGSS Spring conference offers us the extraordinary opportunity to examine the exercise of authority and leadership as the United States and governments around the globe grapple with the task of selecting and electing its leadership. The theme of the conference, Coming Together | Coming Apart: Authority and Leadership in a Fragmenting World, highlights the dilemmas of facing the fragmenting, regressive forces that press us into parties, camps, tribes and identity groups. These constituencies can remain separate and unacquainted, living under conditions that amplify the fragmentation, rarely interfacing, rarely exchanging ideas, and in some cases, not even acknowledging each other. An urgent search for familiarity can drive us further and further into our echo chambers. At a time when we most need to come together -- are we instead coming apart?
This conference, happening the last weekend in April, is a deep, experiential dive into this moment in time using the Group Relations conference model. This framework provides a unique opportunity to participate in the collective human agenda and study the exercise of authority and leadership in groups as they unfold in the here-and-now. Through a focus only at the level of the group and on immediate personal experience, the conference enables us to openly and intentionally study ourselves and others in real-time group situations as we work on issues of joining, representation, and dynamics that affect collective meaning and action.
The Group Relations conference is a gripping method that has enabled generations of people to learn in an immediate and direct way about conscious and unconscious group processes. Come join us as we pursue first-hand learning that can ripen into wisdom about how leadership and effective impact happen, and about the forces that are bringing us together and pulling us apart.
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Dannielle Kennedy, PhD
Conference Director
The conference is designed to provide members, together with administrative staff and consultants, an opportunity to create and study a temporary institution, giving participants the chance to experience, examine, and understand systemic processes – overt and covert, conscious and unconscious – encountered in the exercise of authority, leadership and power. The learning method is experiential, and members learn through action and reflection on their experience in the conference. This method distinguishes this conference from other events where faculty provide didactic information for learners.
The purpose of the conference is educational. Participants are involved in a program of studying groups at work, in real-time, with structured discussions for review and application of insights.
Conference Participants will have opportunities to:
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Learn about both covert and overt group processes through participating in groups that vary in size, structure, and task.
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Discover aspects of group life that create vitality and goal fulfillment and those, which lead to resistance, complacency, inertia, and decline.
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Identify underlying patterns of group interaction by forming groups, establishing leadership structures, and relating with other groups and the institution as a whole.
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Recognize personal and collective reactions to well-defined authority and clearly delineated boundaries.
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Experiment with familiar and unfamiliar roles and with various social behaviors including isolation, autonomy, affiliation, collaboration, and coalition building.
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Learn how varied aspects and perceptions of individual identity such as race, class, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and education level are used by groups with and without the conscious awareness of the individuals involved.
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Understand the difference between the stated task of a group and the task it actually appears to be pursuing.
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Deepen participant’s awareness of their own capacity and responsibility to lead or advocate in their home organizations and social contexts no matter what their formal authority roles.
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Apply what has been learned and experienced to choices in back-home work and social contexts.
Conference Task and Method
I have experienced some of my most powerful insights about leadership and group dynamics during Group Relations Conferences. Participating in conferences has really helped me learn about the limits of my leadership effectiveness, about hidden aspects of my own motivations, and about hidden forces that impact groups and organizations...a truly unique learning experience.
— Hugh O’Doherty
Adjunct Lecturer, Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government
President of the Leadership and Peacemaking Global Network
Tavistock Systems Learning Model
Based on the work of psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, conferences in the Tavistock tradition combine social systems research with psychoanalytic theory and practice. The conference provides a unique experiential learning opportunity to study one's own behavior as it happens. By holding the contextual factors of task, role, place, and time boundaries constant and observing the emergence of dynamics in the here-and-now, attendees become participant observers whose task it is to make sense of the temporary organization they are co-creating.
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These kinds of conferences can be an extraordinary opportunity to tune into a frequency of group and organizational life that is always operating but virtually never accessible.
— Robin Ely
Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School
Who is this Conference for?
Anyone wanting an opportunity to learn through immediate and direct experience about group dynamics and influence and about overt and covert actions involved in the exercise of leadership, authority and power. No particular background or experience is necessary to participate. A wide variety of organizations and industries have participated in CSGSS conference memberships including but not limited to:
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Conference Events
Experiential, Here and Now Events
Reflective, There and Then Events
What is a Group Relations Conference?
Conference Schedule
All Conference Events will begin and end precisely at the times scheduled. The conference will begin promptly at 6:00pm on Friday. The registration will open at 5:15pm.
Please note that there will be no dinner break on Friday.
This conference is co-sponsored by the A. K. Rice Institute and is consistent with its educational standards for Group Relations training in the Tavistock tradition.
Staff
Members of the staff design and manage the conference as a whole. As collective management, they serve the purpose of the conference by managing the boundaries of conference events, particularly in relation to time, task and territory. Staff do not manage the participants or their behavior, but instead collectively manage the boundary conditions that allow the participants freedom to engage the primary task as they choose and as they authorize themselves and each other to do.
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Executive Staff
Dannielle Kennedy, PhD, LICSW
Conference Director and Consultant
Principal, WORKLAB, Organizational and Leadership Consulting; Former President and Board Member, the Center for the Study of Groups and Social System (CSGSS), the Boston affiliate of the A. K. Rice Institute (AKRI). Member, AKRI. Private Practice Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Cambridge, MA.
Rosette Cirillo, EdM
Associate Director for Administration
PhD Student, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Member, North American Association for Philosophy and Education; Member, Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems (CSGSS); Member, A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI).
Axelle Bagot, MPA
Associate Administration
Adjunct Professor of Leadership for social change at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University; Coach and Consultant in Adaptive Leadership (Independent and partnering with Ace-Up); Member, the Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems (CSGSS), the Boston Affiliate of the A. K. Rice Institute.
Consulting Staff
All consulting staff members are certified by the A.K. Rice Institute.
The consulting staff will be chosen from among those listed below.
Dannielle Kennedy, PhD, LICSW
Consultant
Principal, WORKLAB, Organizational and Leadership Consulting; Former President and Board Member, the Center for the Study of Groups and Social System (CSGSS), the Boston affiliate of the A. K. Rice Institute (AKRI). Member, AKRI. Private Practice Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Cambridge, MA.
James Krantz, PhD
Consultant
Organizational Consultant and Researcher, New York City. Principal, WORKLAB; Fellow, A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI); Former President, International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations; Faculty, Dynamics of Consulting, Wharton Center for Applied Research; Visiting Professor, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
Mary B. McRae, EdD
Consultant
Retired Professor of Applied Psychology, New York University; Scholarship involves exploring racial and cultural dynamics in group and organizational life; Private practice in individual and group psychotherapy; coaching and group facilitation for groups and organizations; Fellow, A. K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems; Member of the New York Center for the Study of Groups, Organizations and Social Systems.
Tyler Bean, CPA
Consultant Candidate
Senior Consultant, Forensic & Integrity Services, EY; Member, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners; Board Treasurer, Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems (CSGSS); Consultant Candidate and Associate, A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI); Co-Creator, Group Relations International; Mentor, Freshmen League Program, Boston College.
Linda Gelda, LICSW
Consultant Candidate
Psychoanalyst and Past President, Supervisor, Faculty and Board member at The Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis; Supervisor at Cambridge Health Alliance, a Teaching Associate in psychiatry, Harvard Medical school; Member of The Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems, (CSGSS). AKRI Consultant in Training, private practice in Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Organizational Coaching, Newton, MA.
Mineko Anne Legendy, PhD
Consultant Candidate
Mineko Anne Legendy is a Clinical Psychologist in private practice in New York City. Vice-President of New York Center, the New York affiliate A.K.Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems, and has served on the board since 2011. She is adjunct faculty at New York University (NYU) and teaches in the NYU Masters Program for Mental Health and Wellness.
Sheri-Ann Cowie, PhD
Consultant
Adjunct Professor and Lead Faculty, Counseling @NYU, Department of Applied Psychology, New York University; Director and Psychotherapist, Children's Century LLC; Vice President, A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI). Member, the Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems (CSGSS), the Boston Affiliate of AKRI.
Declan Fitzsimons, PhD
Consultant
Senior Affiliated Professor of Organizational Behaviour, INSEAD, France. PhD from the School of Management at Cranfield University, UK. Dr. Fitzsimons’ research focus is on post-heroic leadership models such as shared leadership, senior teams, leading in complex environments unconscious processes in groups and organisations, experiential and action learning, and organisational change.
Zachary Gabriel Green, PhD
Consultant
Professor of Practice, Department of Leadership Studies and Nonprofit Institute University of San Diego; Lead Faculty, RISE San Diego, Urban Leadership Fellows Programs; Founder and Principle; Organizational Therapist, Gabriel Alexander Institute. Co-Founder, IMAGO Global Grassroots; Fellow, A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems.; Member, IFSI/FIIS; Founding Circle and Director, Group Relations International.
Conference FAQs
Fees
One discount per application. A limited number of partial fee-reductions will be available to those for whom the conference is financially out of reach. These grants will be based on number of applications and the overall enrollment of the conference. To inquire, please contact Associate Director for Administration, Rosette Cirillo at ComingTogether2020@gmail.com before you register.
