A Tavistock group relations conference provides the context for this article, which compares staff consultants' behaviors in different, though similar enough to be easily confused, conference events. The intentions of consultation vary with the event. This article presents hypothetical consultations, questions, or observations considered possibly useful to conference member groups or subsystems that have requested the presence and services of a staff consultant in their work space or territory. These types of consultations are delivered by conference staff members assigned to the consultant role.
Possibilities for use in consultants' work with member groups in the IG (generally from lesser to greater “depth”) 1. “I notice that you are all men. Do you know that there is also a group in this event composed only of women? How do you come by knowing that? How do you interpret that development in this conference event?” 2. “Did you take a conscious decision that there would be no women in this group? Any idea about what allowed or caused it to ‘just happen’ that way?” 3. “Would your decision about the door be any easier if there were women in your membership? Is interacting with female members of the conference anticipated negatively, positively, neutrally, or indifferently?” 4. “How are you using your experience during this event as a basis for your learning? For example, have representatives from other groups come to your space to observe or interact? What did you learn from that experience? Was that learning transformative or influential in your thinking or behavior?” 5. “You say that you didn’t feel ‘ready’ for them and that you were interrupted and unable to work on establishing/organizing yourselves while they were here and because they came so quickly after the start of the event.” 6. “Was the presence of those ‘Others’ what initiated this discussion and indecision about the open or closed door? Had you already been working on the issue? Did those members of another group, who, you say, were females, in effect set your group’s agenda or task priorities?” 7. “Are you perhaps unconsciously waiting or hoping for more or new members, and could closing (or not) the door be interpreted as letting go of (or holding onto) that maybe cherished but so far unacknowledged possibility?” 8. “Who is next door to you? What’s going on with them? What is your relationship to them?” 9. “How is what your neighbors (and the other groups that have formed) are working with related to what is going on in your group? Can you function (i.e., learn) and survive as a group without knowing?” 10. “How (and when) do you propose to relate or interact with the other groups in this event, who are working at the same time and on the same task?” 11. “Have you sent a representative to other groups (besides that of the Staff)? What feeling or concern or motive prompted that activity? What did you learn from that experience about the open/closed door issue?” 12. “How is your indecision and disagreement about the door’s position related to the task of this event, which is: ‘to examine together the developing relationships between and among member-designed groups and the staff group’?” 13. “Could you say that your group is ‘stuck in the mud’ or maybe in this room and that this issue is intentionally or not, consciously or not, being used to prevent the possibility of interacting with other groups in this Institutional Event? Could fear of interaction play a part in converting a minor, resolvable issue into an insurmountable obstacle, just so intergroup interaction and differentiation (by level of authorization, for example) is avoided?” 14. “Who will ‘win’ or prevail in your decision about keeping the door open or closed? What will 'winning' or 'losing' mean? With only other men in this group, will you develop a specific way to manage, emotionally and psychologically, 'winning' or 'losing' or coming to an agreement about it?” 15. “What does a Mexican standoff mean? How did it ‘happen’ that you got the services of an American-Mexican consultant with this self-described issue?” 16. “Does the presence of Others, including a consultant, make it easier or more difficult to resolve the issue of the door position in a way acceptable to your group’s members? Why? Who is responsible for making the decision?” 17. “Would you prefer the staff group, through the consultant, tell you how to resolve the matter?” 18. “Thinking about it, was the purpose of your request for a consultant in any way meant to make staff aware of your helplessness?” 19. “What role does the door decision play for your group? What effect does it have or what message does it send to your colleagues in the other groups participating in the event?” 20. “It doesn’t seem that time is on your side: about 40% of the event is past, and so far indecision has largely immobilized you. Maybe a discussion with other groups in this event could give you some picture of, for example, whether or not they also have experienced strong internal conflicts or debilitating indecision. If they have, two heads (groups’ ideas) could be better than one (group’s ideas) as far as satisfactorily resolving the issue goes.” 21. “You understand that you would have to authorize in some degree or level a representative from among you in order to gather that kind of information?” 22. “Metaphorically, would you say that your group is “closed” (as in ‘closed for business’) or “open” (as in, ‘open for business’) in this event?” 23. “You are one of ____ (number) groups participating in this event. Because all the groups and staff are inter-connected parts of a single system or event, what risks do you and the others face if any part of the system becomes, for whatever reason, unavailable or ‘out of action’?” 24. “Would it be realistic to say that you are uncertain as to whether you as a group are ‘open’ or ‘closed’ to the task and spirit of this event?” 25. “Could the real
‘victim’ or ‘casualty’ be the learning (i.e., yours and theirs)
possible when different groups interact?”
Possibilities for use in consultants' work with member subsystems in the ISE (generally from lesser to greater “depth”) 1. “You were all in the ISE opening plenary with the Director? What do you suppose or imagine the Director and the institution’s Management would prefer that you do about the door (for example)?” 2. “How do you confirm the validity of the data that lead you to believe that? What fantasies or feelings hold you back from visiting with Management to check out the validity and character of the relationship that joins you in this work?” 3. “This is your self-selected work space during the ISE. In this event, you are explicitly the managers of your behaviors and your relationships (physical, psychic, political, and spiritual) with the other subsystems of this institution. Have you had dialogue about how your selection of this particular space and your current indecision about how you will manage it may be related to the system-in-the-mind that you have of the Management of the ISE?” 4. “How do you define your system-in-the-mind with respect to Management? What do you believe or expect that they should do? How should they behave? What should they be mindful of in managing this institution, including your subsystem?” 5. “In this event, in which we work with Management in order to study the relationship between Members and Management, is it possible to be in a work space more distant physically from Management than the one that your subsystem has chosen?” 6. “Could your location be an oblique statement to Management about your subsystem or to Management about your physical, political, psychological or even spiritual relationship to them, now, at the start of the ISE?” 7. “What do you find it easy to project onto Management? Do you notice that different people, maybe even within this subsystem, view Management through different eyes or with distinct perceptions of what Management’s task or method of working or character or charisma is?” 8. “You say that some of you want the door open and some of you want it closed. Might these mixed or divisive feelings or ambivalence be related to similarly conflicted feelings present in your unspoken, unexplored relationships to the Management of this institution?” 9. “Can you summarize your explorations of the subtle unconscious bases for your indecision? What is behind or beneath this partisan standoff preventing you from effectively managing your task and yourselves and from exercising your leadership in your own work space?” 10. “Some of you are students with previous contact with the Directors/Managers of this ISE. Others have a ‘boss’ at work. Is your present situation and way of acting related to the unshared management ‘system(s)-in-the-mind’ that you hold?” 11. “What could be keeping you from sharing your reflections around your dilemma or struggle or indecision, with Management?” 12. “You say that you have not felt any desire to interact with other subsystems in the ISE, especially with Management. For your subsystem, what is the greatest risk that lies in entering into such encounters? What is at stake in encounters with the Other?” 13. “Management designed and presents this event because it believes that it provides opportunities for learning about one’s management of self, authority, and responsibility as a member of an institution. How do you understand what they are referring to? What institutions? What self-management?” 14. “In dialogue with Management, would you expect to learn anything of use? How could the learning that might take place in such encounters be ‘dangerous’ for you?” 15. “On the superficial level, what do you want or look for in the ‘good’ manager? On a more private, perhaps only interior, plane, what do you yearn for from your ideal manager? How do the 'desirable' qualities compare with what you wish for and obtain in the ISE?” 16. “Is ISE Management functioning or behaving as you expect(ed) them to? Let’s explore the differences between what you expect(ed) and what you get…and the feelings and behaviors that result from such differences.” 17. “When you express anger and resentment towards Management for the difficult and unforeseen situation in which you find yourselves in this event, because ‘they knew beforehand what was going to happen,’ are you speaking perhaps of expectations of Management that you have in your mind and heart? Almost sounds as if you expect Management to insulate you from difficulty because of its theoretical but unexamined ability to know or predict the short-term future. In this system-in-the-mind, what do you fantasy that Management expects of you in return?” 18. “Have you shared frankly with the Management of this event the risks that you anticipate in any encounter with them? Do others in other subsystems feel the same way or have fears or issues or doubts similar to your own?” 19. “Could opening or closing the door signify inclusion or exclusion of Management or serve as a convenient, if nonverbal, way of including or excluding Management?” 20. “Does the door issue have to do with your subsystem’s ‘position’ or 'posture' towards Management, perhaps reflecting an idea of Management that you hold in your minds?” 21. “Do you dare authorize a delegate or plenipotentiary to relate directly to Management? Does the door issue forestall the authorization of each other and thus keep the whole shebang in the safety of the ‘out there’ and of the future tense? Could there be some connection to the idea of your being in a 'retirement home'?” 22. “I encourage you to share with ISE Management your work, your hypotheses and ideas about your relationship with them as Managers and any links you see between your own self-management ability (in your role) and their exercise of management in this event.” 23. “How do you explain the reality that most of you have gone as observers to Management’s work space, but have never spoken with them from a position of authorization as delegate or plenipotentiary? What does allowing yourselves to be only silent observers say about your psychological or spiritual or political relationship to Management?” 24. “You say that it’s all a show, that come Monday, the managers will be acting quite differently. And that a couple years ago, as an undergraduate, you ‘believed’ it all more. Perhaps someone might now describe you as a disillusioned believer, former believer, or even a management-atheist.” 25. “Could your subsystem have some fear that you may not be able to return to being altogether the same, come next Monday morning?” 26. “You report that you saw the Director and the Associate Director, the two top managers of the ISE, walking together and laughing at lunchtime. How did you find yourself viewing them? What feelings did the sight of them leave with you? What do you imagine that they could have been talking about?” 27. Management’s hypothesis
mentioned something about the fear of knowing (learning and transformation
through encounter with the Other) being greater than the fear of not
knowing (maintained through isolation). How do you resonate
with that part of Management's hypothesis within this subsystem?”
Author's e-mail: saludo@usa.netAuthor's telephone numbers:+(1 504) 897 9060 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USAAuthor's mailing address:
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