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A Non-Residential Group Relations Conference
October 22-24, 2004 The James MacGregor Burns Academy
of Leadership
We live in a time of transition and complexity. Emerging theories of complexity suggest how order, structure, and pattern arise from extremely complicated and apparently chaotic systems. To find our way back to leadership, creativity, and security, we will travel a path to a deeper wisdom by experiencing and understanding the powerful human forces at play between people, groups, organizations, and nations. Many of these forces are borne of the false construction of Self and Other, allies and enemies, good and evil, the group and the individual. Coexisting within these dynamics, however, is a subtle, enduring, and universal spirit – what Yeats called the Spiritus Mundi – that is available to everyone and offers a glimpse of other ways of being and seeing. Primary Task The Leadership, Complexity and Spirit Conference offers opportunities to experience and to learn about leadership and spirit during times of transition. The Learning Model for this Conference The method we use is a combination of experience, study, application and reflection. Experience comes through participation with others around the task. Study is ongoing throughout the conference. In all sessions, as we begin to integrate the theory, perspective is gained on the experience. What is learned will be applied to our organizations, our areas of interest, and ourselves. Reflection aids us in making meaning of the experience, study and application. This Group Relations or Tavistock model of working and learning evolved from the work of pioneers in group relations theory: A. Kenneth Rice, Wilfred R. Bion, Gordon Lawrence, Pierre Turquet, Eric Miller, Margaret Rioch and others. The group relations approach has since been adapted throughout the world. The James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership’s mission is to foster leadership knowledge and education, with particular attention paid to those underrepresented in leadership. Who Should Apply The Conference provides opportunities to learn experientially. Although we do not prescribe any particular learning, areas of learning include: how we take up leadership and followership, what helps and hinders us to take up authority, issues of delegation, the impact of boundary management, unconscious motives and dynamics, how individuals relate to groups and how groups relate to each other. In this conference we pay particular attention to complexity and transition and how the spirit is present in all of this. Conferences like this have attracted people from all different professions who are interested in understanding more about the psychology of groups and systems. Conference Events The conference is a series of events to provide opportunities to learn through examining one’s experiences in a variety of learning contexts. There will be introductory and reflective events: the Conference Opening, the Opening of the Institutional Event, (brief) Lectures, Silent Events, The Review and Application Groups and the Conference Discussion. And there will be “here-and-now” events: the Small Study Group, the Large Study Group and the Institutional Event. In the “here-and-now” events we study our behavior as it occurs in smaller and larger group settings and in a setting where the emphasis is the study of interactions between groups. The Staff’s Function Throughout the conference, staff members serve in specific but varied roles to provide an optimal learning environment so that we can pursue the primary task of the conference. The conference is authorized by the Executive Committee of the Washington-Baltimore Center for the Study of Group Relations (WBC) and the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership. Administrative Staff Director and Inspirer Managing Director Administrator Associate Administrator Consulting Staff Ron
Becker, M.S. Laura K. Dorsey-Elson, Ph.D. Leon
A. James Rene Molenkamp, Ph.D. Peter Shapiro, B. A. Georgia Sorenson, Ph.D. Michael Speer, Ph.D. Shelly Wilsey,
B.A. Staff is subject to change. Practical Information
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