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Eliat Aram
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Electronic communication is becoming a more and more integral part of modern life. It is, therefore, a matter of great importance to explore the impact of new technological developments in this area on individual and group dynamics, particularly in the context of organisations. Networking technologies are at the forefront of this technological development and they range from email to Internet discussion groups and the use of sophisticated software designed for virtual teamworking. These networking technologies are influencing our lives in many obvious ways such as enhancing communication and speeding up the rate of change. However, they also have more subtle implications for the development of organisations at a deeper level of interaction where the dynamics of anxiety, shame, resistance, envy, authority, power, projective processes, splitting, and others take place in an emergent, sometimes surprisingly escalating manner. Working with networking technologies means working across boundaries. These include cultural and personal boundaries in all their differing aspects, covering attitudes to work and the use of technology, openness or resistance to change, language differences and the use of humour. Those who try to collaborate and work jointly across such boundaries take the risk of unwelcome and unwilling intrusion which could threaten individual and group senses of self. The fragility of a sense of self is heightened when networking technologies come into play, as I will soon show. This can be seen in the dynamics of shame and regression and can sometimes take the form of an overt attack or the taking of offence. My sense is that many of the dynamics that occur in virtual teams are similar to those which have been identified in real life interactions, only faster, less contained and more difficult to work with. To make some sense of what is happening in electronic communications I will use insights from three theoretical perspectives:
The data for this paper arises from my own experience
of participating in the virtual (and at the same time very real) life
of some groups using different networking technologies. I have also
talked to many other people about their experiences and some of these
are woven into this paper. The methodology is, thus, that of participatory
inquiry (Reason, 1994; Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Marshall, 1992; Reason
& Heron 1996) which emphasises the researcher as an embodied experiencing
subject among other subjects. I will now take up the analysis in terms
of four main examples.
Electronic communication and virtual teams Email communication It has now become quite commonplace
for people in organisations to communicate with each other using email.
This applies not only to people in different continents communicating
with each other but also to conversations between people sitting at
adjacent desks. These email facilities have been made available to enhance
working efficiency. In other words, they have been installed as part
of the organisation’s legitimate system. Not surprisingly, however,
what Stacey (1993, 1996) has called the shadow system is also expressed
in email exchanges. For example, figure 1 reproduces an exchange of
emails between two people who are working only a few desks away from
each other in a large corporation. This exchange illustrates the nature
of some of the dynamics that occur in what we might call virtual relationships:
Let us explore this exchange further in the context of this organisation. Here we have a large corporation which has implemented, as part of its Codes of Ethics, a procedure (known as the Blue Form) which everybody in the organisation is free to use when they feel unethical behaviour has taken place. On the face of it, the intention behind this policy is good: to have a system where all individuals take part in the monitoring and maintaining of a moral culture in the organisation. In complexity terms it could be seen as an attempt to allow a culture of ethics to emerge out of a self organising process where each person takes responsibility for his/her actions. While no one has overall control of the system, controlled behaviour nevertheless emerges. (Stacey, 1993; Griffin, 1998). This might have been the intention, yet the formalising of this self organising shadow process enables it to be used as a threat. So what could have been an emergent ethical culture out of the ethical behaviour of each member participating in the life of the organisation ended up being a powerful means of control by the formal hierarchy, which in fact is using its members to spy on one another’s behaviour. In this context, then, it is no wonder that what starts off as a humorous exchange between colleagues is escalated to a degree where one of them is at risk of losing his job. Networking technology is, at present, a medium that is very much centred around language. All that is available is the keyboard, the screen, and the person’s ability to communicate in a recognisable language, commonly English. In this sense what Gestalt therapy (Perls et al, 1972; Polster et al, 1973) refers to as the phenomenological ‘what is’, the multi-dimensional and sensual phenomena, to work with is reduced to that which is communicated on this screen. Much is thus left open for the imagination and fantasy. This is intensified in groups that have formed without people knowing one another beforehand. So the written message can become a sponge for projections because there are no nuances, tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions to accompany the message. Thus, Arthur, reading the word ‘Pollack’ reads it in his context, with his sensitivity to racial comments, leaving out the context of the other. His secure sense of self is damaged and he reacts with an attack. This insecurity is reinforced in the cultural context of this organisation. Now consider another example. The Peer Group This is an email group which operates as a peer group in support of my psychotherapy training. One of the requirements of the gestalt psychotherapy training course is to participate in a peer group whose role is to support, supervise and share one another’s work without the presence of a trainer. In our final year some of us decided to set the peer group up on email. So, this is a group set up for a particular purpose, made up of people who meet at least once a month in addition to the virtual meetings and who know one another quite well in the context of a psychotherapy training. Gestalt therapy is defined mainly by these three concepts: phenomenology, dialogue and holism (Perls et al, 1972; Yontef, 1988; Friedman, 1992). As happens in the case above, in the email group the phenomenological element is reduced to language only. Here, the result is that the concept of dialogue becomes the figure. When one communicates in the virtual space, one is, for the moment of writing, on one’s own, casting one’s thoughts into a space resonating with past feelings, not present responses. In this respect it is very different to face to face conversation where we speak into the response field of another person. In this sense, then, there is less of a spontaneous interaction and the context into which two or more people are writing can differ. This also contributes to the increase in anxiety. The virtual peer group is dialogic and, as far as it can be, it is spontaneous and free. This group is limited in its potential, however, and is helpful only because it is accompanied by regular monthly meetings. The main added value of this virtual group is time saved and ecological consciousness. The dynamics of the virtual interactions resemble those of the large group dynamics even when the actual number of people participating is small. These dynamics are particularly likely to occur in organisations, such as my university, where all members are connected to an internal email system, and in large corporations such as the one from which the above anecdote is taken. The dynamics I am referring to are those in which people have a sense of a loss of individuation, loss of sense of self, by becoming anonymous or by being generalised and labelled into a group without being recognised for their difference. This is accompanied by envy and projective processes (Main, 1985). These large group dynamics are also evident in two very different groups described below. The Chat Group This is an informal chat site on the Internet open to anyone interested in joining it. It started off as a political site, i.e., an area for people to discuss their political views regarding matters concerning Israel. The target audience is Israelis and Jews living in Israel and abroad. The people in this chat group found their way to this site by word of mouth or by surfing the Internet. People did not know one another before joining the group. The people writing in it now are physically located in different countries, they are from different age groups and have different professional backgrounds. Some of the people who write have introduced themselves and have developed contacts outside the site, over the email and even in person. Others have kept their identity hidden. Interesting phenomena take place on this site: some people do not use their real names, but invent new identities for themselves and take up various roles (‘the provocateur’, ‘the family man’, ‘the wise woman’, ‘the uneducated’, and so on); some write under more than one identity. Having begun with one or two people these phenomena have now become part of the culture of this group and other members of the group sometimes know who is writing under what name and sometimes not. In other words, it is practically impossible to know how many people actually participate in this site, how many occasional visitors there are, and who the ‘real’ people are. And does it matter? This group, even though small in physical numbers, has become a large group in the virtual world of fantasy and imagination. For this illustration, we join the chat site soon after a period of friction: a few weeks previously the site had split. Some members had left to write in another site, others had stayed, and some (or others?) are writing in both sites, using the names they are known by, or unrecognisable names, or no names at all. This split occurred after arguments and battles between members in the original site became unbearable. However, the battles are now continuing between the two ‘war zones’ and a regressive dynamic of generalised ‘good guys/ ‘bad guys’ is evident. At the same time that a dysfunctional dynamic of BaF was taking place some very creative debates were also going on. The group that had split off spent most of its time complaining and finding excuses for why nothing interesting was going on in their site, blaming the other group and envying their discussions. The group that remained in the original site, however, carried on conversing, only occasionally interrupted by the departed group. I find it fascinating that these dynamics are similar to those that have been identified in real life situations: This kind of regressed dynamic is very common in face-to-face interactions in inter-group events, for example, in Group Relations conferences. In companies, when competition and conflict is not held or contained, the result is splits and break ups. Also, in family systems where one child holds the role of the successful one and the other is the envious, rejected child, we find an analogy to what was re-enacted in the virtual groups described above. Consider another virtual group. TeamRoom TeamRoom is a GroupWare product of Lotus Notes. Members of the Complexity & Management Centre of the University of Hertfordshire (including me) have been using this software as an additional means of communication and as a space to store information and share experiences regarding various projects. This use of GroupWare is different to the chat group in that all group members know one another well, meet in real life and work together in other places. In this respect it is similar to the peer group. TeamRoom is operated through a main server which is a computer located somewhere in the world. The process by which people interact with the server and with one another is called replication. This is a procedure by which the server updates the person’s local TeamRoom copy with the most recent information it holds at the same time as it updates itself with the new information it finds on that person’s local copy. Thus, the replication is a two-way feedback procedure. Then, the next person to replicate will receive the new updates. The software stores all the interactions among group members under an indexed list that can be retrieved according to the subject of the interaction, the person who created it or the date it was created. As an example of our use of TeamRoom I am going to take our attempt to develop an MA in Complexity Management in collaboration with a university in Italy and a leading international IT organisation. This was a group of twelve people consisting of three sub groups representing the above three organisations. We did not all meet before starting to work on the project and worked together for this purpose only. This project did not achieve the desired outcome, but it is interesting to look at the dynamics that took place as the project was heading for its inevitable death. For example, cultural differences emerged very quickly. The Italian culture, with its intense daily social interaction, did not seem to lend itself to working in virtual space. Using new technology demands the extension of one’s own capability to adapt and to change, as each of us probably knows well from various new gadgets we have had to learn to operate and respond to such as answering machines or faxes. The differences in the way people respond to the use of new technology came across in the group working on the MA and voices were heard expressing the dis-ease with it (‘oops, forgot to switch to ‘local’, this is going to be expensive...’; ‘I think I got the hang of it now..’). All these were potential obstacles that we probably did not address enough. Perhaps we had too much diversity, both cultural and in relation to the capacity to use the technology. Power differences emerged out of this, where CMC members were perceived as holding the theoretical knowledge on behalf of the group, the IT company members as holding the technological knowledge, leaving the Italian colleagues with the perception of being laid back, uninterested and potentially even incompetent . Using the technology played a vital part in the collective memory of this group. The data, impressions and words put on the team space remained there for as long as the space was used and in a way it was as if they were crafted in stone (‘ooooh, it all goes public..’). In addition, we seem to have a perception that computers have a preserving ability. That is, they can capture the meaning of what we write forever because our virtual interactions are being recorded in the mechanical mind of the computer with the possibility of retrieving past discussions. This perception has implications for the way people participate in the virtual groups. It can threaten the spontaneity of dialoguing: some felt they needed to log in often to keep up (‘I think there is some danger in replicating becoming obsessive’), others felt they needed to craft very carefully what they were writing and that it could become very time consuming. Others found it easier to write precisely because they did not see the person they were writing to and thus could be more direct and open. It was interesting to see how the increased frustration arising from the lack of collaboration between the sub groups on the MA TeamRoom was manifest in the boldness and directness of what people were saying, including the use of calligraphic expressions to replace the vocal and physical ones such as the use of bold letters, three dots, question marks and exclamation marks. A question that comes to mind now is why an emergent, open ended, system such as the chat group is surviving despite its frictions, whereas a well-defined and focused group such as the MA TeamRoom failed? Any answer will be too simple but I will try to draw some themes together in the forthcoming section.
Discussion Figure 2 summarises the progressive stages of technology use by teams. It is believed that the group develops linearly from the first stage to the fourth stage as its skilfulness in using the technology develops. Initially, the group can use TeamRoom only as a reference and face-to-face meetings are an integral part of the work. The goal is to get to the stage where coordinated and collaborative work can be done through TeamRoom with very little need for face-to-face meetings. The group’s progression is assumed to depend on two factors only: the nature of human interaction (x) and the degree of behavioural change required (y). That is, to achieve real collaboration the work needs to be coordinated and the feedback in terms of connectivity has to be tuned. Thus, for example, people need to log into the virtual group room and participate in it regularly (à increase in the behavioural change required), so that there is enough rich and synchronised communication among the members (à interactions are complex enough).  Figure 2 This perspective is rooted in linear Newtonian thinking. It does not address the complex meaning that lies within the two dimensions of ‘degree of behavioural change required’ and ‘complex interactions’. I believe an additional perspective is required. Stacey takes such a different perspective, one which is rooted in research that attempts to understand non-linear dynamics (Gleick, 1987; Prigogine, 1984; Kauffman, 1995). He suggests that organisations, being complex adaptive systems, operate in a non-linear manner, that is, in short, outcomes cannot be explained only by a cause and effect mechanism. These systems survive when they operate at the edge of chaos, or in bounded instability (Stacey, 1996). Bounded instability is the dynamics of simultaneous order and disorder, predictability and unpredictability (ibid). Stacey (ibid, p. 179) lists 5 control parameters which determine whether or not a system can operate in bounded instability, which is postulated to be the dynamic required for creative and emergent self organising processes that bring about creative new patterns and change. These five control parameters are: the rate of information flow, the degree of diversity, the richness of connectivity, the level of contained anxiety and the degree of power differentials. When these parameters are at a critical level the dynamics of bounded instability occur. Below that critical level the system solidifies and above that critical level it disintegrates. The use of networking technologies creates many new operating systems within and across existing formal organisations. This means that groups using or emerging out of the use of networking technologies will have high rate of information flow, high degree of diversity and rich connectivity. All these three could, in this context, could become too high producing disintegrative group dynamics. Power difference can emerge in relation to computer literacy, increased anxiety because of the need to use the technology, and language competence. An example of the emergent difference in power was evident in the TeamRoom group. Also influential is how power is exercised in the organisation as a whole and how contained the power struggle is. In this context one can recall the opening anecdote. The other major parameter is that of anxiety and its containment. My experience shows that this factor is often not addressed when introducing networking software into the work life of organisations. For example, the TeamRoom group could not move to work in the third and fourth levels of figure 2 because complex interactions meant that there was high levels of all the parameters above as well as, and even more so, because the anxiety around was neither addressed nor contained. Many organisations try to constantly update themselves with the use of technology, introjecting the idea that ‘fast is good’ and that ‘the world is getting smaller and smaller’ so we can all communicate with everyone across the oceans. Not many, however, stop to think of how potentially risky these introjects are for our sense of self, for our identity, for who we are and what we become when boundaries are so easily crossed. The anxiety that accumulates around this is uncontained and can escalate and burst into the formal, non virtual, system in unpredictable, potentially destructive, ways, as illustrated by the anecdote. I believe that the dynamics are intensified even more when considering the primary task.
The Primary Task It seems to me that a few distinctions need to be made to address the notion of the primary task. The first is between the legitimate and the shadow system. The second is between the perceived, the virtual and the real primary task. My suggestion is that the perceived primary task, that which involves control and clear goals, stems from the legitimate system and is rooted in linear rational thinking. The use of networking technologies is introduced to the members of the organisation from the legitimate system. On this level, thus, the role of using networking technologies is to increase the communication exchange, keep up with, and be part of, the technological developments in the world. I believe that the intention of putting organisations on email is to assist the work of the formal system, to enable the cross-cultural work and, in addition, it carries an ecological awareness function. But, as the case is with complex systems, an informal shadow system is emerging as well and the technological system is developing a dynamic life of its own which is nested within the larger system of the organisation or society and is independent of it at the same time. It is also possible that within the group/s that is/are using networking technologies further groupings emerge, further conversations take place, smaller and smaller circles are created, to the level of pairs and intimate relationships. I was surprised at the level of intimacy created in the various groups by including people’s personal reflections, the immediacy created when people respond quickly and by the subtlety of messages which highlighted the uniqueness and individual voices people do have even when writing anonymously. It is at this level that I propose the virtual primary task be. The virtual primary task is to be able to take part in using networking technologies. I suggest that the virtual primary task of all of the above groups is to converse. I take the perspective that groups form and develop in a non-linear manner, emerging out of ongoing interactions which no one person or group has control of. They are confirmed and re-confirmed in a feedback process of continuing interactions whose goals are not pre-determined and its route is not yet known. This process is enabled in the context of networking technologies and, thus, members can fully participate and truly network in the unfolding process of the virtual group’s development. The real primary task, I suggest, is non-linear in its nature and it can only be worked towards in a self organising, emergent manner. By its nature it involves the emotional dynamics at which I am looking in this paper. The real primary task requires holding together of both the perceived and the virtual primary tasks because the virtual networking system is dependent on conversing for its survival. For a group to be able to work towards the perceived primary task it has to be able to hold the paradox that the real primary task is both a perception and virtual but never tangible. This paradox is a potential source for the increased anxiety and intensity. With this notion of a primary task in mind I believe it becomes possible to understand how these groups survive in what seems to be ‘against the odds’ situations. They fluctuate between dysfunctional, destructive dynamics of splitting and basic assumption behaviour to having some good exchanges of relevant information, be it some free tickets to a concert, report on progress of work or world news and some good conversations about difference, values and others. However, whereas the chat group actually identifies this as their primary task the other groups, both email groups and TeamRoom, believe that their primary task is the perceived one, which is to design and develop a project, or increase information flow among departments and members of them. I think that it is when the perceived and the virtual are not held together that the group/system is at risk of disintegrating. For example, it is interesting to see how the sense of self and of group identity is maintained only when held paradoxically: in the chat group losing the sense of self, who-is-who and how-many-are-one is part of the culture, of the identity of this group. In being part of the group’s identity it serves as a survival mechanism in a similar way that we could say that multiple personality disorder serves as a means to survive the individual who splits off those unbearable parts of himself. In creating multiple personalities, in acting out different roles and in providing the space for imagination and fantasy to be as wild as they may be, the group is holding the tension between surviving and being dysfunctional. Virtual interactions, thus, paradoxically hold very real, very rational as well as very fantastic and irrational dynamics. What emanates is the gap between our perceptions and fantasies regarding computers and what can really happen: We perceive computers as mechanical and logical developments and we do not attribute to them the ability to participate in creating emergent, imaginative, chaotic dynamics. We expect computers to help us reduce and manage complexity and we find that they can actually participate in increasing it. Because of the computer’s storage capacity we attribute to it the ability to hold a collective memory for the group and to capture the meaning and knowledge we co-create. We think it can objectively hold knowledge and meaning for us in a safe mechanical brain that we can always look into. Bortoft, a physicist, however, has a different idea of how meaning emerges:
Bortoft suggests that meaning emerges out of a dialectic between whole and part and because it is an active process it can never be fully captured. This resonates with the idea discussed earlier that in complex systems it is not possible to explore the interactions in a linear, cause-effect, way. Furthermore, he suggests, meaning is a subjective process and cannot be made from a distance:
And he further says:
I believe, that it is in the chat group that members give themselves permission to fully participate in the unfolding life of the virtual group and by this they can get a grasp of the whole. It is in a pre-designed group where there is an illusion that the whole can be captured artificially and mechanically through the apparatus called computer, and participation is not an effort jointly taken by all members, that the group reaches stuckness and possibly disintegration.
Conclusion There is no doubt that networking technologies such as email, the Internet or TeamRoom (which are the ones I am familiar with) greatly increase and enrich context. The use of the virtual space adds a fresh and exciting flavour to the ordinary, familiar human interaction (even though as writing this I am remembering that it is likely that one day this will become the ordinary and familiar means of communication). And most importantly it enriches the conversational life of organisations. In addition, the use of networking technologies has an ecological value in that it saves journey time and could help in maintaining a less polluted environment. The examples taken from the email exchanges, the chat group and the teams show clear signs that virtual relationships manifest similar dynamics to those of face-to-face groups including large group dynamics, inter-group dynamics and even family relationship dynamics. I have shown that electronic communication becomes an even more intense vehicle for group dynamics. The reasons are two fold. Firstly because of its potential for fantasy in relation to the essence of computers and the coming forth of the paradox of the primary task. Secondly, in the fact that the communication is one-dimensional and much space is left for projective processes and generation of fantasies. Three things become important when participating in and/or facilitating virtual teams. One is that real life interpersonal dynamics emerge virtually as well and thus similar skills that one would use in face-to-face interactions as a consultant or, alternatively, as a therapist are valid here as well. The other thing is that virtual groups are potentially more fragile that real life groups in that they are limited in their dimensions of communication, they are fast and less boundaried and dynamics are thus highly amplified. And, thirdly, because networking systems are self organising participating in them is highly important if one is to make any sense of what is going on. Back to Bortoft, one can only make meaning of the whole when going through the parts, in this case it would mean active participation in the virtual conversations.
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