Learning for Leadership

Interpersonal and intergroup relations

A. K Rice, A. K Rice

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136437687
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Prestazione di assistenza sanitaria

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences.
This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press.
Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1965 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

Part I
Conference Design

	CHAPTERS
1	Introduction
2	The Basis of Conference Design
3	Conference Structure
4	Conference Culture

Chapter 1
Introduction

An account of the first full-scale experiment in the laboratory method of training in group relations in the United Kingdom was given by my colleagues E. L. Trist and C. Sofer (1959). They described the conference, organized by the University of Leicester and the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, held in September 1957. Since that first conference, seven more have been organized jointly by the Institute and the University of Leicester, other conferences and courses have been run by the Institute alone, and still others by the Institute in collaboration with other bodies. I was a member of the staff of the first conference and of three out of four of those held between 1959 and 1961. I have been the director of the last three run jointly with the University of Leicester, of one conference run by the Institute, and of two shorter experimental conferences run in collaboration with Christian Teamwork.

The conferences have all been residential. In addition, I have directed two non-residential courses at the Institute. These have consisted of weekly events spread over six months. The programmes of the conferences and courses have been similar, but to avoid awkwardness in writing and confusion between them, I shall describe only the residential conferences in the early chapters of this book and reserve until a later chapter discussion about the differences between them and the non-residential courses.

This account is influenced by my experience of the early Leicester/Tavistock joint conferences of which I was a staff member, but it is written about the conferences and courses that I have directed. It is therefore a personal account given from a particular point of view. Though I was appointed director by my colleagues who have formed the conference staff, and though I continue to hold office only with their sanction, I have directed in my own way; and as director I have been in a privileged position when decisions about design and method have had to be made. My colleagues have not always agreed either with my approach to, or with my actions in, the conferences. But they have not disagreed so much as to make our disagreements intolerable or their support impossible. They have influenced not only conference design but also my own conduct in more ways than I can make explicit or even know about. We still disagree on some points of theory and on more of practice. At this stage of our understanding of problems of interpersonal and intergroup relations, I believe it to be right and healthy that we should continue to differ, provided we can also continue to use our differences constructively.

This is not therefore an agreed account, and I have to accept responsibility for it. I am nevertheless writing it now because developments are continually taking place, and if we wait until we are all agreed about what we are doing and how we are trying to do it, I doubt if an account will ever be written.

This account, then, is intended as a personal contribution to a developing field. By its nature, it can be only a description of work in progress.

My introduction to this method of training in human relations was as organizer and then member of what I believe was the first civilian training group in the United Kingdom using non-directive methods. It was held in 1945. There were twelve members of the group when it started and three consultants to it.¹ For a variety or reasons that group was short-lived and at the end of six sessions was discontinued. I then became a member of a training group at the Tavistock Clinic, with W. R. Bion as its consultant. This group met at weekly intervals over a period of two years through 1947 and 1948. It was in size and method what we have since called a 'study group', and this is the term I shall use throughout this book. The study group is the equivalent of the 'T-groups' of training laboratories in both America and Europe though it tends to be smaller than the T-group. Mainly because of its cost, this specific kind of training activity in the Tavistock Institute and Clinic was suspended, and instead the Clinic concentrated on the development of group therapy and on other kinds of training for allied professional groups. It was revived at the 1957 conference.

In recent years there has been a growing body of literature about training in human relations and considerable research into its effectiveness.² Most of the research and the literature are American, though as this kind of training extends in Europe, so does inquiry into its techniques and their results. One difficulty has been, and is, to integrate this kind of training into more traditional academic courses in the behavioural sciences and into the fast-growing field of management education. In both, what Tibble has called the compartmentalization of education¹ tends to separate subjects and to lead to the use of small groups and syndicates for teaching and training, with too little regard for the whole of which they are a part. One consequence has been that most research work has concentrated on the effectiveness of parts of the training, usually of the study groups or T-groups. There has been less work on defining the task and nature of the training institution as an institution in its own right, and on the part played in it by the various events that it comprises. Thus the names given to conferences and courses, by ourselves as well as by others — 'group relations laboratories', 'human relations seminars', 'sensitivity training courses', 'conferences in interpersonal and intergroup relations' — have, on die whole, been more descriptive of content than of purpose.

I am now working on the assumption that the primary task of the residential conferences with which my colleagues and I are concerned is to provide those who attend with opportunities to learn about leadership. Leadership involves sensitivity to the feelings and attitudes of others, ability to understand what is happening in a group at the unconscious as well as the conscious level, and skill in acting in ways that contribute to, rather than hinder, task performance. But increased sensitivity and understanding are means, not ends, and the end is the production of more effective leaders and followers.²

Men and women in managerial, professional, or administrative roles - in industry and commerce, education, the medical and social services, and government — always have to work in and with groups of other men and women. Most now recognize that they cannot ignore individual or group needs and sentiments when making the decisions through which they discharge their responsibilities arid exercise their authority. They are depressingly aware how often many otherwise well-conceived plans fail because of unforeseen or, if foreseen, unmodifiable, resistance to change; how they become uncertain when under pressure; how they so frequently fail to communicate the genuineness of their intentions to superiors, colleagues, or subordinates; and how elaborate communications systems so frequently appear to break down. They are also aware that good intentions and common sense are not always sufficiently reliable guides for dealing with the resistance, or indeed for making judgements about either its strength or its validity.

In recent years there has been increasing understanding of the behaviour of individuals and of groups. But knowing about group processes and human behaviour does not necessariiy mean that use can be made of the knowledge and understanding. Moreover, knowledge, let alone its effective use, cannot generally be gained from reading, lectures, or seminars. Both the acquisition of knowledge and learning how to use it require direct experience. The aim of the conferences described here is therefore to enable the members to learn, through direct experience, how to work with others as individuals and as members of the groups to which they belong. The conferences provide opportunities for members to experience what forces are brought to bear on diem when they take roles that require them to lead others, and what forces they bring to bear on those who lead them. They learn what it feels like to be, and how to behave as, both leader and follower, and they experience the conflicts that arise in themselves and in others when they take these roles.

The assumption I make is not only that this experience is valuable tor any leader or follower, but that it is the essential common element in the training of any manager, whatever kind of operation he manages, and whatever his status. The techniques of management — the kinds of organization required, the control mechanisms used, and the criteria for judgement of performance — vary according to what has to be managed. In some institutions, as in industry and commerce, results can be measured with some precision, at least in the long run; in other areas — education, medicine, and the social services — neither criteria nor techniques are so easily defined. These differences affect the relationships between superiors and subordinates, between colleagues, between professional workers, and between them and their clients; they must also affect transactions and communications across the boundaries that divide organizations from other organizations and parts of one organization from its other parts.

But all managers, administrators, and professional workers, in whatever field they work, have to use more than techniques; as a minimum they have to come to terms with themselves, and with the personal and group characteristics of those who man the institutions in which they work. To be successful they have to make constructive use of their own personalities. Members of a board of directors of a public company have to come to terms with their shareholders, with banks and investors, with government departments and trade unions, with their suppliers and customers, their managers and workers, as well as with each other; their managers may be protected from some of these complexities but they too have to make multiple relationships. Teachers in schools, universities, and training colleges have to deal with their pupils and the families of their pupils, their professional superiors, government both local and national, their trade union, and their colleagues. The catalogue is almost endless for every job or role, but making a relationship with each person or group in the catalogue demands an understanding of the personal, group, and institutional forces that determine the kinds of transaction that are possible. Few men and women are not called upon, at some time in their careers, to take leadership roles of some kind. Whenever they do so, they are inevitably the focus of conflicting forces that they have to reconcile as best they can.

Between the first and the more recent conferences there have been many changes in design and programme. Not all of these have been retained, and in general the principles on which the first conference was designed have, for the most part, been reaffirmed. Two new events have been added: one, die study of intergroup relations; the other, the study of the behaviour of the large group. An intergroup exercise was first introduced at a conference held towards the end of 1959 (Higgin and Bridger, 1964). In the conferences to be described here this exercise has been retained, but in a different form. The study of the behaviour of the large group is the most recent addition. In the early training groups and conferences 'the central feature . . . . is the creation of small groups which undertake the task of self study. These groups themselves act as laboratories for direct observation and analysis of social and psychological processes. With the help of a professional consultant and observer, such a group examines its own behaviour in an endeavour to find out what is happening in the " here and now", in the field of its own relationships' (Allaway, 1959). This method of study has now been extended to intergroup processes and to large as well as small groups. Leaders, in whatever field or at whatever level they operate, have always to deal with more than their own intimates. They have to deal with groups that are larger than face-to-face groups; and on behalf of both small and large groups, they have to deal with other individuals, and with other small and large groups in their environment. Though in the conferences the study of small-group behaviour still appears to have considerable impact, it is no longer such a central feature, and its relative importance has thereby been reduced.

Some events of the original conference have now been discarded. These changes and the reasons for them are discussed later. The most significant change, however, has been the more conscious use both of the conference itself as an institution and of the processes of conference management in order to enhance the learning experiences for both members and staff.

The report of the first conference (Trist and Sofer, 1959) was an account of work in progress — so is this. I hope that readers will find that the concepts behind conference design are more articulate than they were when we started, and that the accounts of practice show that we have now realized some at least of the implications of that first experimental design.

The book is divided into three parts. In the remainder of this part the concepts and assumptions behind conference design are stated, and the resulting conference structure and culture described. Part II examines the conference events. Part III contrasts concentrated residential conferences and non-residential courses spread over time, discusses the role of director and relations within the staff group, takes up problems of training for staff membership, considers differences between training and therapy, and finally suggests a programme of research work.

The appendix gives the names of the members of staff of all the conferences and courses I have directed since 1962, to all of whom I am deeply indebted.

¹ W. R. Bion,J. Rickman, and J. D. Sutherland.

² In particular, Argyris (1962); Bennis (1959); Burke and Bennis (1961); Bradford and Gibb (1964); National Training Laboratory (1953); Tannenbaum, Weschler, and Massarik (1961); Weschler and Schein (1962).

¹ Tibble, J. W. 'Learning'. A lecture given at Leicester/Tavistock conferences, 1963/1964.

² In this context, 'leadership' is used in its most general sense. The concept is discussed more fully in the next chapter. Thus a manager issuing orders for some task performance is leading, or trying to lead, his subordinates; but he is also 'leading' when he is acting in such a way that by his behaviour he is, consciously or unconsciously, setting an example. Again, a shop steward arguing with management is taking a lead on behalf of his members, even when, as sometimes happens, they disown him and his actions (Rice, 1951). Equally, a doctor is exercising a form of leadership when he tries to cure a patient or a group of patients; and a teacher is leading a class when he is trying to get his students to learn something.

Chapter 2
The Basis of Conference Design

One event in these conferences is a lecture series, in which we try, among other things, to make explicit the main theories on which the design of the conference is based. My object in this chapter is to summarize the concepts and assumptions that are particularly relevant to the more detailed descriptions of the conference and its events in the subsequent chapters.

They fall into five categories. First, there are the concepts to describe human behaviour, and here I concentrate on those aspects of individual, small-group, and large-group behaviour that are usually latent in everyday working life. Events in the conference are designed, we hope, to allow members to become more aware of, and learn how to deal with, these latent aspects. In the second category are the theories of organization that are relevant to the design of the conference as an educational institution. Third, since it is in their various roles as leaders that members will apply what they may learn, it is necessary to say something about our concept of leadership. Fourth, I touch briefly on learning theory, with special emphasis on the problems of learning directly from experience'knowledge-of-acquaintance' - in contrast to more intellectual kinds of learning. Finally, and also briefly, I discuss the basic staff role in helping members to learn from the experience provided in the conferences.

The Individual, the Small Group, and the Large Group

The assumption that is made throughout the book is that individual behaviour is affected by unconscious forces, and, as a corollary, that individuals and groups of individuals always behave in ways that are not wholly explicable in terms of their rational and overt intentions. It is also assumed that, in any group or institution, unconscious motives affect the decisions that are taken; that any committee meeting, for example, has both a written and an unwritten agenda and it is the unwritten agenda that takes up much of the time; and that jealousies, guilt, anxiety, and undisclosed and often unrecognized struggles for power have a prof...