My eight year-old son was waiting impatiently for me to finish working on my PC - I was preparing this lecture - so that he could return to his favorite game, a vernacular version of Heroes or something of the sort. In the meantime he took the trouble of lengthily explaining the rules of the game tome. A whole gallery of different characters appeared on the screen, each having specific and predefined characteristics, and each playing a distinct and unique role in the game. When the game starts, each participant selects the character he or she wishes to be throughout the game; "And that", my son commented, "is one heck of a problem". He explained: "Look at this one, that's the 'flame-throwing dragon'. He's sort of a Sheriff, his job is to make sure that every one obeys the laws of the Kingdom .He looks so strong, but he moves very slowly and only in straight lines. In fact, he moves so little that he seems to be standing all the time. He's so frustrating. Now look at this girl here, officially she is the princess. She looks like a nice little girl or something but she really is a hell of a fighter. Her name is 'Fighting Anna'. She doesn't look very strong but she can wipe out almost everybody else around here with her kicks" (this sounds very much like a description of his sister)... "She's cool... but I can't be a girl, can I...?! And take the deer.... He's the King's messenger. You can't just be the deer. You have to receive the certificate from the King. The deer can't fight, that's for sure. But he can run faster than everyone else so he can survive most of the dangers... and if you practice a lot, you get 'power points' and then, but only then, you can use his horns to fight...".

"Oh well, so be it", I thought to myself. Let this become the opening remarks for this lecture on "The Drama of RoleTaking". For after all, was this not my son's description of his Self's experience when immersed in different roles?

Popular wisdom is very much aware of the mutual relation between role and Self; as the popular saying goes, "Man 'does' the role, but the role also 'does' the man".

In fact, we may see the role as a kind of a "place" where the organization and the self meet. In this sense, the "role" is located in the "intermediate space" between subject and object.

Taking a role in an organization inevitably produces an inner drama in which internalized past figures, which are related in some way or another to the "role in the mind", are brought back to life. These charged introjects meet - sometimes, clash - with the representation of the "organization in the mind" and influence the perception of organizational reality, the experience of the self in the role and finally the actual way the role is carried out (Gould 1991, Hirschhorn 1985, Miller 1985, 1993).

Role analysis is therefore a tool useful in the exploration of how organizations and roles are perceived "in the mind" ,which may contribute to our understanding of the interconnections between "human relations" and systems in a broader sense.

The subject of "role analysis" has been thoroughly discussed by many authors. In this presentation I will describe the work of a ‘role analysis’ group (Barber 1987) of managers from different organizations, which was designed to explore the unconscious fantasies shaping participants' internalized ‘Object Relations’ with their respective roles in various organizational situations.

The purpose of the following discussion is to explore the special qualities of the group in 'role analysis' and try to establish the type of listening required to identify, within the body of unconscious verbal and nonverbal communication, those events, metaphors and images which link participants' respective ‘inner worlds’ with their present and past roles

From a theoretical perspective, this is an attempt to set the drama of role-taking within the conceptual framework of ‘Object Relations’ (Bion 1961, Klein 1935, 1975) and the ‘Open Systems theory’ (Lawrence 1979, Miller 1976, Rice 1969), with special emphasis on the intrapsychic conflict which occurs when the ‘self’ is simultaneously (and quite unavoidably) invested in the formal as well as informal role.

The term 'self' will be used here mainly by its intuitive meaning. It is the experiencing 'I' to which the subject refers by saying 'I'. The 'self' as a meta-structure is formed in the course of development, emerging from the matrix of internalized 'object relations'. This matrix is based on relationships with significant figures (parents or siblings) - which were internalized, sometimes in a distorted way, in different life situations after passing through the 'filter' of defences (Klein 1935 ,Fairbairn in Grotstein and Kinsley 1994 , Ogden 1986 ). Interactions which were ascribed with a traumatic sense or which reiterated in a consistent and frustrating way will usually exist in the inner world as persecutory introjects, un-assimilated into the 'core-self', and will tend to repetitively apply themselves onto reality . Through a process of gradual integration and differentiation of various 'representations of the self', a 'self-image' is formed which becomes the sentient functioning and feeling 'I'. The degree of ‘self’ cohesiveness and ‘self’ integration may vary among individuals or situations and is influenced, among other things, by the degree of polarization between the various roles the individual is invested in.

The ‘formal role’ is defined in thus presentation as that role's aspect which is defined by the organization, regardless of the persona who is supposed to fulfill it; it is directly derived from the organization's ‘primary task’. The ‘formal role’ refers to all of the role's components which are defined a-priori by the system; like the function assigned to the role-holder, the definition of his or her authority and rank within the organization's hierarchy structure, the resources at his or her disposal, the norms of communication with subordinates, superiors and peers, salary and benefits, working hours , etc. the ‘formal role’ is shaped in accordance with the system's current organizational culture (Obholzer and Roberts 1994).

The ‘informal role’ will be defined here as the role which the individual takes, driven by needs which are more often than not quite unconscious, as part of his or her personality and as a response to the 'call' of the group which is operating on the ‘basic assumption level’ (Bion 1961). The ‘informal role’ is associated to psychological functions designed to balance tensions, reduce anxieties and gratify instinctual and emotional needs. Although these may not be directly derived from the organization's ‘primary task’, they are quite often necessary in order to achieve it, as in a 'necessary, yet not sufficient', condition; also, people have a differential sensitivity (valency) to different basic assumptions and will therefore differ in their preferences for certain roles and in their ability to lead the group to achieve its goals and gratify its needs in any given time.

The organization thus assigns each individual with a twofold role: on the ‘primary-task’ level, the individual receives a ‘formal role’, whereas on the 'basic assumption' level he is 'called' to fulfill an ‘informal role’. The inherent tension between these two roles is the primary source of 'the drama of role taking', because when an individual invests the 'self' in a role, as part of the process of acquiring an identity in the organization (Erikson 1950), the parts of self invested in the ‘formal role’ may be in conflict or split with the parts of the self invested in the ‘informal role’.

Summing up, an individual in a role often finds him/herself at the center of conflicts created due to colliding forces operating in the 'intermediate space' in which the role exists.

The individual's fulfillment of the role is eventually affected by a combination of several factors:

a. The definition of the ‘formal role’, as provided by the organization, in accordance with the organization's culture and ‘primary task’.

b. The ‘informal role’ which the individual is required to fulfill for the organization (covertly and often unconsciously), on the 'basic assumption' level and as a result of the organization's emotional-motivational situation.

c. Internalized relations with significant 'past roles' and past figures (parents, siblings, etc.), which exist within the individual as sets of 'self representations' and 'object representations' and are somehow related to the role or the organizational situation. These relations will often manifest through the individual's behavior patterns and in the ways the system's needs and boundaries are perceived and met.

d. The ability to maintain a differentiation between the needs of the ‘self’ and those of the role, based on an inner stance of awareness to and separateness from the organization and its inherent pressures.

Role analysis

When the mental pressure on the role holder increase, both from within and from without, so that the integration of the ‘self’ is threatened, mechanisms of denial, split, projection and projective identification are activated in order to generate false inner consistency, while ignoring complexity or anxiety-producing contradictions. These defenses block possibilities for learning or change, and the process of accommodation and assimilation taking place between the ‘inner world’ and the organizational reality is breached (Saravay 1975). As a result, the processes of validation of hypotheses concerning reality are disrupted and behavior is mostly dictated by internalized past behavior patterns transferred onto the present, whose relevance to the current situations is often doubtable. In organizations and social systems, such a process is expressed in the creation of malignant ‘vicious circles’ of projections, projective identifications and splits among the various subgroups making the organization. In such a situation, the boundaries of tasks and roles are shattered and the outbursts of projections and counter-projections are intensified. Because of 'social defenses' (Gould 1990, Hirschhorn and Burnett 1993) the organization sooner or later operates according to self-fulfilling prophecies, recruits more and more role-holders whose skills and qualifications are irrelevant to organizational goals and is decreasingly able to perform its task (Kets 1991).

‘Role analysis’ is designed to break this vicious circle and enable the role holder to regain his or her ability to function efficiently, from a position of separateness and awareness to the ‘self’, the role and the organization .

From the organizations' perspective, a ‘role analysis’ aims to hypothesize why was a particular individual chosen to fulfill a given role in this or that particular timing and context? (Levinson 1991)

The techniques used as part of a ‘role analysis’ process are numerous and varied and will not be elaborated upon in this paper. Suffice it if we mention the use of drawing to describe the role and the organization; ‘critical events’ (Hirschhorn 1985); identifying the relations between childhood memories and management events; identifying the role in the family of origin and its relation to the current role, and so on (Reed 1976).

How does this work?

In order to exemplify the work of a ‘role analysis’ group, an excerpt from a managers workshop follows. The workshop comprised 12 participants and was held in a 'marathon' format (15 sessions lasting 75 minutes each). Participants are all considered outstanding managers in their respective fields (industry, hi-tech, communications). The ‘primary task’ was defined as follows:

To examine participants' perception of their roles and of their organizations.

To examine the relations between the roles taken in the group, in the organization and in participants' respective families of origin.

In the beginning of this session participants were asked to choose and describe to the group a management event which has marked them somehow, and a childhood memory which comes to their minds.

In order to allow for unconscious group processes to 'identify and mark' the ‘informal roles’, no additional structuring was made apart from this initial instruction.

The first excerpt is taken from the opening session.

The consultant has just finished presenting the ‘primary task’ and the format, as described above (his feelings, thoughts and countertransference will be brought in the first person).

The silence was immediately broken by Mark, an energetic and athletic young man who was wearing fancy 'pilot's sun glasses'. In the last two years he has worked as manager of the development division in a hi-tech organization. His speech and intonation are seemingly arrogant and energetic but actually disclose embarrassment and diffidence.

'OK', he says, 'Let's not waste time and just start. My name is Mark, I'm 30, married to Lisa, my 'better half'... and wiser, if I may say so... she would have made it OK in this group. Human relations - that's her forte. We have two adorable children - Dan is 8 and Gillian is 4, and I'm a very emotional about them, I worry a lot... I'm one of those worrying fathers. Oops ... watch it it's going to fall' (he catches a glass cup which the participant sitting next to him mistakenly pushed, with a careless elbow movement, dangerously close to the edge of the arm rest).

'I came here because I want to improve my management skills. I know that within my organization I'm what you might refer to as a "meteoric success". Forgive my arrogance, they say pilots are arrogant, and particularly ex-pilots like myself. It's not that I have nothing to improve as a manager, but the truth is I have always tried to excel in everything. I skipped grades at school. I went to a prestigious high school. In the army I was admitted to pilots' course and I was a very good pilot. In the last years I moved between organizations every two years. That's the normal rhythm of changeover in the Hi-Tech industry. Every time I left for a promotion. I've been working as manager of our Development Division for two years now. I actually feel that now, too, I'm on a crossroad and I keep asking myself "what's next". I still don't know exactly. In the meantime I reached a small 'peak' in my role, as the manager in charge of the development of an acceleration system of a jet engine. We used a test rocket in our last experiment. It's amazing to see that thing soaring. At first you only pray for a successful lift-off, you're happy with it just not falling back to the ground. But then, within 12 seconds, it reaches maximum height... and then it explodes. Hundreds of thousands of dollars going in a bang within 12 seconds. It's unbelievable! All that work and all those painstaking preparations for a single flash of light - and then it's over. I can't get over it. Well, that's it, really. I don't want to take up more time. Let's move on.

'You didn't tell us anything about your family of origin', says Jacob who sits right opposite to him.

'Oh yeah, that's right. Well, I'm the elder of 3 brothers. My mother is 72, she lives out of town. She's a real "iron-lady". She can barely see or hear anything but she's still independent, alive and kicking. She also demands a lot from others. She's not the warm type... she is Strong! That's it'.

'What about your father?'

'Oh... well... psychologists would probably say this is no mere coincidence. My father was a pilot, too. He was killed in a flight accident when I was 8. Probably because of some reckless stunt he tried to pull. The truth is I really don't remember him that much. That's it' (the group is silent). 'Next'.

Now Jacob joins in. He speaks extremely slowly, with short, pauses, designed, to emphasize, what, he is saying.

'OK' (pause). 'What shall we start with? My name is Jacob, I've been working for 20 years in the production division of the dockyards. Until a month ago I was the workers' representative in the management. I recently joined management as department manager. You probably know that the dockyards are in pretty bad shape. Until recently I was up to my ears in tough negotiations, trying to prevent redundancies. The dockyards must become more streamlined and efficient. There are talks of introducing ISO 9000, which raises a lot of problems' (pause). 'Many problems... there's nothing wrong with streamlining and efficiency measures, but on the back of the weak? Over my dead body!!!' (pause) Well, just a bit about myself: My parents live in Tel Aviv - they are very old, almost 90! They live on G. Street. That's a very special building - you may even know it - it was designed by the famous architect X. in the International architecture style. It's very special. Today it's in a bad shape, the plaster is falling off, but its character still shows.

My parents are the last original tenants in that building. All the others have left and were replaced by other tenants. I remember my childhood very clearly. The flats in that house are so small it's unbelievable. It's truly amazing how small they are. But my father, who is a carpenter, knew how to use every nook and cranny, every corner.... he built special cabinets which allowed him to make use of every inch. The beds in which me and my brother used to sleep were put one on top of the other. And since there was so little room, everything had to be very tidy, mess was not allowed. When we took a folded towel out of a cabinet, we put there a folded piece of clothing in its place. My mother used to cook and clean and my father made the furniture. They did everything together and with their bare hands. All tenants were like a large family. We all used to have dinner together on Friday nights, each time in someone else's flat. This was a truly beautiful time. No-one ever locked their doors. We trusted one another.

In the last years, the neighborhood grew older. There's a contractor who wants to buy the land and demolish the house, but the owners can't sell before the last of the protected tenants are evacuated. And my parents aren't leaving. They are there and that's it!!! This is where they lived all their lives and this is where they'll die!'

At that point the door opens loudly and Josh, a boyish looking man, enters the room (he looks 16) holding a cellular phone to his ear. He apologizes, takes a chair from the back of the room, asks Jacob to move a little, and now the inevitable happens: Jacob moves back. Mark moves back, too, and says: 'Oops, the cup!'. The cup drops to the floor but the' kid' catches it nonchalantly with one hand, his other hand still holding the chair. In one fell swoop he puts it on the table with apparent pride. Not a drop spilled. A real virtuoso. The eldest of the group applauds him. 'That's how things are when you're young' he says, 'quick reflexes'.

I try to put some order in my impressions. In such a group of ‘role analysis’, I see my goal as consultant to formulate an intervention which would bring to consciousness the dominant group conflict, while at the same time identifying the ‘valency’ of each participant and the ‘informal role’ each participants assumes, as part of the group effort to produce a leader who would save it. The participants' contribution represents, in this respect, an unconscious 'suggested solution' which the group can endorse (or reject) as a group solution (Whitman and Stock 1958). The assumption is that there is congruence between the role participants take in the group and the informal roles they assume in their respective organizations.

I wonder what is the significance of this obsessive dealing with the falling cup: I find this instance of 'much ado about nothing' fascinating. It is my impression that the group is in a state of great anxiety and that the 'fall' theme is so catchy for good reasons, for it must represent a deep feeling of threat which these (quite literally) high-ranking managers bring along with them.

The task I have given them - to explore their roles and management patterns, must have been interpreted as a call for competition: who will be the 'boss of all bosses' a sort of a gladiators' fight designed to gratify my sadistic desire. Failure is experienced as falling from the height of 'my expectations', an irreparable shattering of one's self image. In spite of their ostensible cooperation, I have an increasing feeling that the group is actually trying to evade the task. True, Mark readily responded and 'hopped on' very quickly, but he also seemed very anxious to 'get off' as soon as possible (I suppose that the sexual connotation of this association is not a coincidence). Jacob interviewed him quite thoroughly, but Jacob's slow speech seemed to be blocking him more than anything else. Where there's no movement, no competition can take place and there are no winners or losers. The group seems to have appointed the former 'workers' representative' to protect it from Mark's 'meteoric rise' in the group, which would have forced everyone to either 'join the competition' or 'be left behind'.

I share these thoughts with the group, and add that now it is my impression that the group found itself an 'omnipotent savior' in Josh, who not only saved the cup from falling but also saved the group by providing it with a 'cellular safety net'.

Josh looks like he did not listen, but Mark seems hurt, and says that by volunteering to speak first he felt he had actually contributed to the group.

'The question is whether you have another option inside', says Jacob.

Mark looks like he does not understand.

'Let me explain', says Jacob. 'Let's suppose that the management requires certain performance from you by a certain date. Do you start to put pressure on yourself and your workers or can you just tell them 'sorry, I can't do it?'

'Who gives a damn about what the management demands. What matters is what I want', says Josh.

I must admitt that Josh manages to arouse my anger as well as my admiration. I find myself looking for an opportunity to confront him so that he would not be able to ignore me and "get away with it".

I try to work through this countertransference reaction so that my intervention is not perceived as a threat, which might confirm the phantasy which must already exist anyway in the group about my role.

'Right now', I say finally , 'it seems that the group, in its attempt to avoid the danger produced by the "management's demands" here, is considering getting rid of the consultant. It is like saying that if he were not there, the "mirror" would disappear and no-one would have to stare it in the eye and see how they looked. It is my assumption that the three statements heard so far from Mark: "If you're not the first, you're not there at all"; from Jacob: "If everything stops - there can be no competition"; and from Josh: "No manager tells me what to do", are probably, as awkward as this may seem, representative not only of the speakers but also of the organizations in which they "grew up" and are therefore very much worth exploring’.

This structuring intervention is designed to offer 'work' in stead of phantasy. For a while it succeeds in centering the group. Following my intervention, Mark and Jacob (and others, too) present the events from their life in their organizations which they chose to share. The working through of these stories is enabled at a later stage of the group work.

Mark's event: 'In our organization', he says, 'the workers write down evaluations for the managers and vice versa. In the last round of such periodical evaluations I received problematic feedback from both directions. The workers said I was a 'pressurizing' boss, that the fact that I was constantly demanding excellence and creativity actually produced the opposite effect. My boss, in the feedback conversation, told me that he was fully aware of my tremendous motivation but that he also felt I was running alone and not really cooperating with the rest of the role holders. Then he said that he mainly felt that I never listened to what he said, which was very odd because I truly admire him'.

In Mark's inner world, the fast advancement (skipping grades, changing jobs every 2 years) is, I feel, a typical and compulsive coping pattern. The phallic description of the soaring rocket sounded filled with sensuality and excitement, but the extinction danger was just as recognizable. 'At the peak of its success', the rocket was destroyed in one bright flash. Just like in sex, the 'peak' is also the 'end'. One must therefore escape such places quickly, 'change jobs every 2 years' before being devoured and destroyed by your own organization. I suppose (and as the group work unfolded, this supposition was corroborated) that this explicit phallic attitude was meant to protect him, deep inside, from the 'woman figure' which he experienced as dangerous. The importance of this insight, apart from its 'personal' value to him, lies in that it may clarify the unconscious way in which Mark may have been experiencing the organization - as a devouring woman to which his devotion represented a grave danger of annihilation (e.g., his submissive remarks concerning his wife or his admiring description of his 'cold' mother).

The internalized figures in Mark's inner world naturally affect and form his relationships with his manager and subordinates. No wonder he pressurizes everyone and that his superior feels left out. Mark's attitude towards him stems from the same place of competitive identification from which his attitude towards his father originates. He is totally attuned to him, following his footsteps, living the same danger which eventually led to his father's death (the fall) but failing, however, to acknowledge him. He clearly does not consult with him. His father was never present enough to speak to him. He can only identify with him.

When I think of Mark, I think of the book 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'. Vertigo, says Milan Kundera, is actually the longing to fall. Could this also be Mark's unconscious longing? 'to fall' so that he does not have to consume himself in ceaseless acceleration, which is intoxicating and exhilarating but also eroding and destructive? Maybe this is what he unconsciously asks from Jacob - to help him 'fall slowly' without crashing. He wants the values he represents, i.e., loyalty to workers and to people, to protect him from what he experiences as a cold and narcissistic climate where excellence seems to be the ultimate value and where people seem to be expendable.

Apart from clarifying Mark's inner perception of his role, it seems that his feelings are representative not only of him but also of the general shape of the department he is in charge of.

His organization - which is one of the best of its kind - has invested huge sums of money in the development project, although no-one knows whether they will manage to reach the finish before their competitors. The development department is therefore under a great deal of pressure to drive the project to 'peaks of success' and save it from a 'catastrophic' fall.

The experience of 'all or nothing' and the tremendous pressure on Mark must be therefore not only personal but also organizational. The organization, as seen through Mark's eyes, is a place where achievements are everything, and moreover, today's achievements are no guarantee for tomorrow. Just like the rocket, the organization, too, with all its 'investments and efforts', may perish and disappear in 'no more than 12 seconds', leaving no trace behind. This is an organization which requires excellence and creativity, but whose demanding attitude consumes both these assets. In this organization no 'term of office' can last more than 2 years. 'Staying put' means letting new generations of young, brilliant and ambitious people (or young and ambitious organizations) overtake you. This is similar to the way Mark perceives the Hi-Tech organizational culture in which he works: either you fly or you fall. If you're not 'brilliant' you don't 'exist' at all. And who can be brilliant for more than 12 consecutive seconds?

On the other hand, there is Jacob's world:

Jacob tells us later that he is 'a pain in the management's neck'. As a department manager he drives a tough struggle to avoid his men from being made redundant. The management feels that he is so entrenched in his position that he cannot see the other's side and that his stubbornness may eventually cause the ruin of the organization. In fact, he is perceived as someone who does not identify with the needs of the organization, even in his new role as manager. It is possible that Jacob's loyalty and devotion to his internalized parental figures does make it hard for him to carry out a balanced assessment of the situation.

Jacob speaks slowly, emphasizing what he is saying, time and again. His is a ship's rhythm. His description of his parents' house reminds me of a ship. A small and narrow place where each and every corner must be used. The house, like the dockyards, also has historical value. He feels commitment to friendship and a certain disdain for achievement-oriented attitudes. He will not let this 'contractor' (the consultant in the transference) ruin the house that he has built. Like his internalized 'parents within', he heroically and persistently clings to the past, refusing to 'sell himself short'. He 'will not go gentle into that good night'. This is how he protects himself and the group, at the expense of development and learning.

Jacob, too, unconsciously conveys here some of the anxieties and cultural traits of his organization. Many of the workers have been there for many years. Some of them have immigrated to Israel after the Second World War. Most of them have no formal education. The organization is now facing changes, as a result of changes in the market and the industry. Many of the workers may find themselves out of job. Just like his parents' house, the organization in which he works had grown old and is facing a dilemma; 'regenerate or die'. And in this organizational culture, regeneration means the destruction of whatever it is that currently exists.

The conflict which came to life in the group between Mark and Jacob is an inherent conflict in the organizational world, in which constant efforts are required to keep a balance between loyalty and devotion on the one hand and competition, excellence and achievements on the other.

Increasingly anxious, the group keeps looking for a 'savior', which is finally found in Josh. Without much ado, Josh takes the familiar role of the 'whiz kid'. This is not surprising; this is also how he is seen in the communications firm where he is employed as the youngest manager at his rank.

In the beginning of the workshop he keeps being late to sessions. In fact, only half of him is actually in the session. His other half is hooked to his fancy and quite sophisticated cell-phone, which vibrates silently and displays on-screen messages as we go on.

In spite of the fact that other participants laugh at that, he seems to be unable to cut this umbilical cord which connects him to the outside.

As for his life story he tells the group: 'I really don't have much to tell you. I was a perfectly normal kid, a bit spoiled. My parents are just great. Dad's a diplomat. My mom's a lawyer. They were not very young when I was born. I'm their only son. I believe my mom had difficulties having children... I think she had 2 miscarriages before me... the truth is I don't know much about their lives before I was born. But anyway, they waited a long time to have me and they were very happy when I was born. Mom quit her work and spent all her time raising only me... sorry... only raising me'.

I later shared with him some of my impressions of him , namely having the feeling of beeing totaly erased by him.

For the first time he looks very pensive:

'When I was 4, dad went away for a three-year mission abroad. He went on his own because they didn't want to make me move and then return and all that fussing around. Now that I think of it, I grew up most of my childhood without having my father at my side. In fact' (he laughs, embarrassed) 'the only way I could speak to him was on the telephone'. The group is silent, listening. 'This is the first time that I think that perhaps I may have missed him'. He looks moved but then, as if comforting himself he says: 'But my mom was always there for me. Even when I messed up at school - And I used to mess up all the time - she always backed me and pulled me out of trouble'.

I ask him whether this pattern of 'messing up and pulling through with mom's help' is still characteristic of him today, too.

He is surprised, and says: ‘A few months ago I got a new project and became in charge of the deployment of a wide-area communications network. I'm responsible for a huge budget. As part of my role I need to negotiate with contractors and subcontractors. A few days ago, our negotiations with one of our large subcontractors was terminated. I had a condition which they were apparently unable to comply with, so I said "OK, then everything is off and we'll just have to find someone else". This made hell break loose. They contacted the General Manger, and they apparently have a lot of strings in the market which they can pull. The manager called me and told me in no uncertain terms to find a way out of this situation, and by the same token he added "and don't be such a smart-ass". I said: "I'm not being a smart-ass, I'm just very demanding and require excellence. If they can't handle it' we'll find others, believe me, we will". And the General Manager said: "Look, this is such a complex operation, I don't want to take my chances with another subcontractor who hasn't proved himself yet. They have renown and experience; it wouldn't hurt you to learn to show some respect to that".

It seems to me that the experience which Josh insists on re-exploring compulsively is that of 'the whole world awaits him' (just like his mother must have awaited him after her two miscarriages). Yet, the ground on which he stands is far from being stable. Ostensibly, what was 'before' is of no 'concern to him'. 'The world started with him' but deep inside he feels abandoned and lives on the ground of his parents' unstable relationship. Time and again he explores the boundaries of his omnipotence - and 'mom' deploys a safety net for him against all the dangerous and revengeful fathers in the world.

In his work, this scenario repeats itself many times. His mobile and eternal cellular phone provides him a sense of omnipotence in that it gives him the illusion of being everywhere all the time. Everybody seems to need him while he seems to need no-one. Ostensibly, he casts away each and every father figure which stands in his way but, in the same time, the phone also represents his longing for his father who, he feels, has abandoned him. In this ‘inner drama’ the mother is replaced by the organization, represented by a forgiving superior who does indeed save him from trouble with the subcontractor.

Maybe in the case of Josh, too, personal characteristics are a mirror-image of his organization.

The communications company where he works is a young company which was created by "renegades" from a more veteran and well known firm. It is often seen as the 'whiz kid' in the communications arena, as it succeeded in entering a most competitive market, and within an amazingly short period of time - and with a stroke of genius in its advertising and marketing campaigns - managed to drive existing market players away and create new market conditions. Soon after that, a 'bug' was found in the system which forced the company to start a large-scale repairs campaign. Some nasty rumors of arrogant and unilateral contracts with suppliers and subcontractors were spreading, which created some antagonism in the industry and made it difficult for the company to score new contracts.

Discussion - the ‘role analysis’ group

The ‘role analysis’ group is a perfect medium for role analysis, since its psychological structure resembles that of the organization. In fact, it provides a ‘Potential Space’: "An intermediate area of experiencing that lies between phantasy and reality" (Winnicott 1951, 1971) .

In the ‘inner world’ taking a role is actually ‘getting into the boots’ of an authority figure (usually a ‘father figure’) identified with the role. This process may arouse conflicts between ‘self representations’, ‘role representations’ and ‘organization representations’. The group externalizes this ‘inner drama’ in that various aspects of the ‘self’ are enacted in various ‘informal roles’; The whole process is driven by anxieties and desires, as each individual's personal resolution of the aroused conflicts unfold.

In the case presented, Mark and Jacob are primarily driven by the anxiety which rose in the group facing its task ( exploring personal behavior patterns is perceived as exposing one's vulnerable spots in front of ruthless and aggressive competitors who will not hesitate to bump into anybody who stands in their way to the top).

The consultant, too, is painted with the shade of massive projections which are thrown onto and into him. At this stage he is perceived as a persecutory and intrusive figure who takes a cruel x-ray of hidden weaknesses without any emotional involvement of his own. Not someone trustworthy, certainly not someone one can seek help or even expect empathy and human warmth from. These are the characteristics of the relatedness, which drives Mark and Jacob (as well as Josh, and the other participants) to retrieve personal coping patterns formed in their past experiences with harmful parental figures, which seem to be 'appropriate' in their present situations (Mark 'flies ahead', Jacob 'stops' everything). These internalized relationships come alive in the group through 'vertical transference' -namely, transference from the past to the present.

In parallel, an additional 'force field' operates on the group, which can be imagined in terms of 'weft' interlacing onto the 'warp', the vertical field, creating a sort of a 'grid'. This 'weft' is the 'horizontal transference' by which unique peripheral components are transferred onto the group, i.e., the culture of the ‘mother organizations’ of the different managers (foulks and Antony 1975). This grid actually works as a 'sieve', filtering the memories and associations which form a binding link between the past and the present, between internalized and actual authority figures (Mark's manager, Josh's manager), between the organization's culture and that of the group. Communication (conscious as well as unconscious) is essentially designed to accommodate the inner world to current objects ( Freud 1900, Langs 1976). The pressure to 're-create' the past in the present and to assimilate it in stereotypical behavior patterns is balanced by a pressure to accommodate the inner world to the present situation. For this reason, only those associations located on a 'junction point' are selected (Freud 1900). The ‘rocket metaphor’ may very well qualify as such a binding link. It quite concretely represents Mark's work, but in the same time it also symbolically represents his perception of his role and his organization, it is his ambition, his self image, his driving force as well as the expression of the catastrophic threat he feels - in the organization as well as in the group. The 'fall' is yet another binding link. It links Mark's childhood trauma of his father's fall to the danger of the possible fall of the rocket; it links the danger of his organization's fall (if the project fails) with the perceived danger of 'falling' in the competition in the group, the falling cup of coffee. Similarly, Jacob's description of 'the ancient house’ doomed to be destroyed and then re-built metaphorically contains his perception of the dockyards' organizational culture, and so does Josh's 'wireless net', Ben's ‘turn-key projects’, and so on.

The group has a unique role in bringing ‘informal roles’ into the light and in externalizing intrapsychic conflicts. The world of 'real' interpersonal relations (relationships) with peers and with the consultant as an authority figure becomes an ‘Archimedean leverage point’, as it were, from which the world of internalized relations (relatedness) with the role and the organization may be examined.

As interpersonal relationships in the group gain weight and importance, a better separateness is enabled among participants and a clearer differentiation is generated between inner reality, which is driven by phantasy, partial objects and persecutory introjects, and the 'external reality' which is inhabited by real flesh and blood people; between the formal role as defined by the organization and the informal role as expressed in the group.

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