Steen Visholm
Roskilde University
Denmark
Paper
prepared for the ISPSO symposium in Stockholm 2007:
Leadership,
gender and generativity[i]
- a research project on open and hidden family dynamics in organizations
Caution:
This paper is arranged as material for a power point presentation. It should be
read as work in progress and new ideas as well as criticism are welcomed at the
presentation.
The aim of
this paper is ..
- to demonstrate that and how: open and hidden family
dynamics are important for the understanding of organizational life and
- to present a research project aimed at finding
further evidence for this hypothesis and to discover new links between family
and organization
I. Links
between family and organization
II. Excursus:
Myths, fairytales and metaphors
III. Extended
group and family dynamics
IV. 29
hypothesis
V. Methodological
considerations
VI. Perspectives
1. Family
and organization was once the same
In traditional societies family and workplace was the
same[ii].
Parents was ‘leaders’ and had the authority to decide
their children’s education, partners and carriers.
The question about heritage was of major importance.
The Oedipus complex is also about this.
2. Family
as motive for work
Most of the outcome of labour is spend on family and
home issues
House, car, schools, kids, food etc. is a measure of
job success
3. The
relation between work role and value as love object
Some work roles seems to ad to or diminish the role
holders value as love object
There are (changing) systems of attributions of gender
to work roles
There are (changing) systems of attributions of gender
to hierarchical positions
5. Family
as evaluation group - choice of education, work role and partner
Experience from psychotherapy and role analysis seems
to reveal that
family interaction and role distribution is shaping
the children's ambitions.
The family has a function as both an internal and an
external evaluation group[iii]
in relation to work life..
6. Family
as the first ’organization in the mind’
From a system psychodynamic point of view family is
the first system we deal with
or the first 'organization in the mind'[iv].
That means that the family is a primary source of
transference at the work place.
Despite this ….
7. Family
issues are overlooked in group and organizational literature
Either open or hidden family issues are mentioned in
organizational theory[v]
Either open or hidden family issues are mentioned in
motivational psychology[vi]
Participants in Group psychology is mostly ageless,
sexless and leaderless
8. Family
issues are overlooked in basic group relations and basic psychodynamic systems
thinking
The idea that Oedipus is private/an issue for therapy
and Sphinx is public/an issue for work life leaves the group members as
individuals with out age and gender[vii].
The group appears as something primary, while it could
be argued, that a group is a brotherhood that cannot be understood without
sisters, fathers and mothers.
Actual reasons to put family on the organizational
agenda …..
9. The
shift in emphasis from role to person in organizations
The decline of the Weberian/Taylorian organizations
brings personality and emotions to the work place[viii],
and opens up the space for psychological processes,
family dynamics, transference and counter transference
10. The
division of labour between men and women is changing
Rigid patterns of attribution of gender to work and
hierarchy roles are loosened.
Sex mixed workplaces increase - mono sex workplaces
decrease.
Men and women meet at the work place.
Husband and wife have both carriers and has to share
the work at home
11. The
boundaries between work and family is changing
Management language is adopted in family life[ix]
-
the work place becomes more familiar and emotional.
By home work stations and cell phones work life
intrude into the family.
By cell phones and emails family life intrude into the
work place
12. The
authority relations in society is changing
Meyrowitz: After 1960: Levelling of
male/female, adult/child and leader/follower roles[x]
Jensen: Patriarchate -> WWI -> brotherhood ->
WWII -> motherhood[xi]
Kheleelee: WWII Missing fathers/dependency ->
failed dependency -> fundamentalism/evangelic leadership[xii]
Schwartz: Postmodernism/PC: Madonna and child and the
Sin of the Father[xiii]
1.
Genesis:
Bakan/Hirschhorn: Genesis is describing a change from
matrilineal to patrilineal culture. About how to stop fathers from killing
their first son and offer lambs etc. instead. Abraham-Isaac, God-Jesus[xiv].
Mono sexual sibling rivalry: Cain and Abe in relation
to God, Joseph and his brothers in relation to fathers favouritism of Joseph
the next youngest, Jacob and Esau in relation to the right of the first born -
one supported by mother
2. Greek
mythology:
Oedipus: killing father, marrying mother, his
daughter/sister Ismene warns Oedipus about a lethal conflict between his
sons/brothers Polynices and Etocles, but Oedipus let them kill each other.
Orestes and Electra: working together to kill their
mother Clytemnestra because she has killed their father Agamemnon [xv]
3.
Fairytales & literature:
Cinderella, Simpleton, King Lear: same sex sibling
rivalry
Hansel and Gretel, The Wild Swans: how siblings with
different sex cooperate against evil parents
Pairing and competition: A king and a queen has an
unmarried daughter (sometimes very hysterical) and calls for suitors. Another
family has three sons; the two eldest overdriven useless conformist and the
youngest a creative figure with a good heart. He cures and wins the princess
and half the kingdom.
4.
Organizational metaphors:
Monks and nuns are calling themselves brothers and
sisters
Secret societies are often calling themselves
brotherhoods.
The parole of the French revolution and later the
workers movement: liberty, equality and fraternity
Here the point is solidarity by giving up competition
for parental power
The royal family is often used as metaphors for
organizational processes: the crown prince, king, queen etc.
The concept of heritage is also often used
1. From
Oedipus to extended group and family dynamics
To make family dynamics applicable to organizations
and psychodynamic system theory in a boarder sense it is needed to extend the
amount of key concepts from those linked to the Oedipus complex and include: siblings, the change of relations over
time: the generational shift and the
society - especially the other family
and the other group. This opens for a lot of complexity and combinations
and there is no obvious place to stop. This calls for a more general theory of
differences and positions in group and family dynamics.[xvi]
1. Point
of departure
When the mother and child relation is satisfying, the
child feels at one with the mother, omnipotent and complete or whole
When the relation changes to ‘bad breast’ the child
feels helpless, dependent, fragmented, incomplete, anxious etc. There is a lack
where the good breast should have been. The child envies the ‘good breast’ and
attacks to rob it
2. General
pattern
This pattern: 1) feeling whole and complete, 2)
experiencing difference and dependency of what one have not: feeling
incomplete, 3) becoming envious and defensive, 4) working through and feeling
gratitude - could be used as a general model for family related differences: good
breast/no breast, male/female, adult/child, parentship/no parentship etc.
3.
Differences, lacks and possessions
Differences are generally denied or overestimated.
Invested with meaning which they doesn’t have or robbed from any meaning at
all. Growing up could be seen as a ongoing confrontation with differences which
leaves you with a lack of something you are dependent of. Those differences are
insults to your narcissism or your wish to be complete and whole. The anxieties
raised from this experience calls for defences.
The learning it takes to be mature, is to realise that
your are not complete, you are dependent on others - and others are depending
on you.
Complete is only the reproduction system as a whole -
in which you can play a part.
The individual experience of wholeness is only
available by identification with the system as a whole[xvii].
5. The
burden of differences
Freedom from differences seems - even if it is an
illusion - to be a deep wish
Chasseguet-Smirgel[xviii]:
The anal universe, where the oedipal polarities, and thereby the need to
develop, is denied, holds an perverse attraction.
Freud[xix]:
to fuse with the preoedipal mother or living in the womb is connected with
tension free pleasure and also with death, the Nirvana principle and the
oceanic feeling.
Cannetti[xx]:
the feeling of oneness in the crowd is often a joyful break from the stress
full dealing with differences in society and its subgroups.
III C. Basic concepts of extended group and family
dynamics
1. The
Oedipus complex
The Oedipus complex consists of a parental couple and
a child. From the boy's point of view the father is possessing the desired
object: the mother. The boy then identifies with the father and wants to take
over his position. The resulting feelings are jealousy hate and idealization as
an acknowledgement of the fathers' superior power and status as an ideal or
'role model'. The hate leads to the passive fear of punishment and retaliation
just like the idealization leads to a wish for acknowledgment from the father. [xxi]
2. The
couple relation
Part of the family dynamics is also the relation
between the mother and father. You can't learn much about this from
psychoanalysis, but there is a rich material listed under psychodynamic marital
or couple therapy and family therapy. [xxii]
3.
Siblings
When you add siblings[xxiii]
to the Oedipal triangle more complex patterns of competition and alliances
enters the surface.
The advent of a sibling is basically traumatic, a
threat to existence, annihilation fear and hate and annihilation wishes are
primary feelings.
The group feeling, the 'esprit de corps' and the claim
for 'social justice' is a reaction formation against this hate. [xxiv]
4. Sibling
alliances and rivalry
Combining the sibling dynamic with the Oedipus
dynamics reveals family dynamics with a double tension: the child is competing
with/hating the one parent and loves the other and at the same time it loves
and competes with the siblings:
the ongoing conflict between the wish to be the preferred
child and the wish to be part of the sibling clan.[xxv]
5. Sex
differences and sibling alliances and rivalry
In accordance with the 'interests' in the Oedipus
complex
rivalry is mostly occurring between same sex siblings
alliances is mostly occurring between different sex
siblings
6. The
promoted sibling from above
The sibling who is promoted from above takes the
position of middle manager in the family. He or she takes the role of a parent
without being a parent and without getting access to the desired object. He or
she will by the other siblings be seen as a betrayer who goes for to low a
price. The promoted sibling becomes target of envy, contempt and devaluation,
while those siblings, who are not promoted, sticks together in solidarity and
self idealization.[xxvi]
7. Group
psychology - the other group
Freud's 'formula' of the mass/group:
each group member has projected his or her ego ideal
into the leader and identified with each other [xxvii].
The strong feelings of love between members and
between members and leader
are a reaction formation to the primary sibling hate.
Addition to Freud: the sibling hate is repressed AND
projected into the other group
8. The
group/mass and the leader
The leader of the group is not - like Freud seems to
suggest - a father figure
He/she is a by the siblings promoted sibling leading
an attack at the parental power
The leader of the group/mass does seldom appear as
part of a couple
9. The
promoted sibling - from below
The sibling promoted from below takes the role of the
rebel, the role of a parent without actually being a parent and without getting
access to the desired object. He or she is
seen a saver or a hero and is lowering the distance to the desired
object by pervert, illusionist/creative efforts. He or she becomes idealized
and in the group of supporting siblings self idealization and melting together
occurs. The hate and aggression is directed more or less openly towards the
parental level and at the other group.
10. The
other family
It is often forgotten that to get your self a non
incestuous love object the existence and the interchange with other families
are required.
Like the group needs another group the family needs
another family. The other group and the other family are both resources and
competitors - love objects and rivals.
11. The
law of father and the law of mother
Juliet Mitchell has introduced the concept of mothers
law[xxviii].
All must be equally loved by their father, but before
they are equal in their sameness to each other for their father, children must
be equal in their difference for their mother.
Exercising mother’s law means containing the hate
between siblings, helping every one to find his or her own identity and
ensuring that there is room for all.
12.
Democracy and brotherhood
The democratic constitution could be seen as a
combination of fathers and mothers laws. Every citizen is equal to the law and
everyone is free to be different as longs as it doesn't hurt other citizens. In
this way the democratic constitution is a substitute for the parents. The
constitution makes it possible for the children/citizens to keep the sibling
hate at bay/cooperate and compete whit out violence.
When sibling dynamics are added to the Oedipus complex
the relation between the complex and the generational shift becomes obvious.
The generational shift is the focus point in the family dynamics and even if it
is a natural phenomenon it is, because it stirs up all kinds of powerful and
early primitive emotions, always a challenge for all involved parts. If the
parents hasn't made a good preparation the sibling rivalry will explode, even
if the sibling are mature citizens and known for being calm and disciplined[xxix].
Jaques organizational molecule[xxx]
is a three level hierarchy imbedded in which are the core dynamics of
hierarchies: the manager is accountable to the manager-once-removed for his own
work and for the work of his subordinate, and he manages his subordinate within
terms of reference set by the manager-once-removed. The underlying family
dynamics is the tree level family hierarchy: parents M/F, promoted sibling M/F
and the rest of the children M/F.
The combination of oedipal and siblings dynamics
operates with double love and double hate relations. In this regard the
important issue for analysis of social systems is to find both the two love
relations and the two hate relations - which can be displaced in many ways.
16.
Creativity
1) initiatory creativity - Ps: mother and child as
fused omnipotent unit [xxxi](Halton),
2) reparative creativity - D: the child tries to
repair the damaged mother [xxxii]
(Halton)
3) oedipal creativity - identification and competition
with same sex parent [xxxiii]
(Freud)
4) sibling rivalry (related to the Oedipus complex)
5) evolutionary creativity - the creative couple who create out of gratitude [xxxiv](Meltzer,
Halton)
6) perversion as a pseudo creativity [xxxv]
(Chassegeut-Smirgel)
7) creativity emerging from the whish the heal a wound
or fill a hole in the self (Hirschhorn, Wilke[xxxvi])
8) 'creativity' motivated in returning humiliation -
out of revenge [xxxvii].
17. Mother
and child (the apprehension of beauty)
Beauty shouldn't be misunderstood as the latency
version: beauty as perfect surface.
When the newborn baby comes into the light it sees the
ordinary beautiful mother: face with eyes and breasts with nipples, an
experience of passion. It soon realise that behind the surface is all kinds of
pleasure but also al kinds of bad things like hunger, more babies etc. While the
outside of the beautiful mother is available to the senses the inside must be
constructed by creative imagination.
When the mother looks into the eyes of the baby she
sees all the fantastic good things the baby can become. When the baby looks
into the mothers eyes it captures that vision[xxxviii].
18. The
preoedipal mother
The image of the preoedipal mother is split in two:
1) The source of joy, pleasure, satisfaction and
harmony
2) The omnipotent ruler of life and death
19. The
father on different developmental stages
Possession of phallus gives access to the mother[xxxix]
Phallus is a tool for creation and a weapon for
protection[xl]
Phallus is idealised as a defence against the power of
the preoedipal mother[xli]
The father and his penis is needed for preconception
20. The
dissociated and collusive sexuality in latency (phallic/anal)
BOYS - lived and expressed/GIRLS - repressed and
projected:
competitive brain/body, aggressive, occupied with
strength and genital sex (in an anal way), perpetrator
GIRLS - lived and expressed/BOYS - repressed and
projected:
caring, empathic, tender, romantic and occupied with
beauty (in an contra anal way: purity), victim[xlii]
While the transferences at top leaders are
idealizations (good or evil) drawing from mother and father figures[xliii] and the image of the
creative couple[xliv],
the transference at middle managers are devaluation drawing on the image of the
sibling promoted by the parents[xlv]. An idealised middle
manager is drawing on the image of the sibling who has been promoted from below
and is leading the followers in an attack at the top leader[xlvi].
2.
The top leader and the vision
The top leader shall hold the vision in
his/her eyes looking at followers.
3.
Creativity can be prevented but not controlled
Creativity builds on combination of different things.
While the process of making love is available for the senses the process of
preconception is not, it's invisible both for the creative couple and for
others. To be creative in this way you have to get in contact with the riches
of tradition and find new ways to combine things - like the two strings of DNA.
4.
Creative imagination, mystery and management of projections
The authority mystification[xlvii]
(Meyrowitz) and impression management[xlviii]
(Goffman) is two non psychoanalytic concepts coined to describe how the
projections of others to a certain extend can be managed or lead. When people
realize that quantity and surface is only a part of the whole, creative
imagination as well as projection and transference about what is inside begins.
Eyes and language and actions that stimulates mystery and imagination:
projective spaces and perceptual traces are used[xlix].
It is important not to reveal all which is inside, partly because it could
damage your image and partly because it leaves no place for mystery if all is
revealed[l].
A hidden dynamic behind the aspiration for
the top leader role is the wish for being a part of the parental couple and
create out of gratitude. When the aspirant gets into the role he or she either
gets in contact with the internal creative couple or realize, that there is no
other half hidden in the office … and feels lonely at the top.
The fantasy behind the top leaders whish
for and the expectations to a coach/consultant is to find the other part of the
creative couple. The one who has what I don't have but needs to make a 'baby'.
The well bounded privacy around the coaching/consultation room elicit
projections and fantasies like the parents bedroom.
7. Consultants represent split off male or female
parts of the creative couple.
The consultant represent split off parts
of the creative couple. Some leaders identify with one of the parts in the
split between task and people orientated leaders. To take actions with an overt
aggressive content like cutting down or firing people a male consultant is send
for - like lady Macbeth had to ask God for help 'Lord unsex me!' when she felt,
that political killings was necessary. While the female connotated HR-function
or the psychologist department is mobilised when care and reparation is needed.
If the top leader is identifying with the
creative couple the followers is representing a way to transcendent death -
gratitude as a 'wish to return goodness received'[li]. If the leader hasn't
come to terms with his or her 'midlife crises'[lii], then the envy of the
possibilities of the younger followers and the fear of their envy and oedipal
strivings, which he/she knows from own experience, will inspire an revengeful
leadership style. This transferences makes it difficult to deal with the fact
that each of the children has a legitimate wish to become a part of a creative
couple and that only one can take his or her place - or in other words to
execute the combined laws of father and mother.
9. The
middle manager's transference at followers
The middle manager often experience a split between
leaders and followers. Should he or she identify with the parents and be the
target of the hate from the betrayed siblings or with the siblings and take the
risk of degradation. Or can he or she find an external object to direct the
hate against. He or she knows very well, that he or she is not so much better
than the siblings and to secure a safe distance he or she often feels tempted
to infantilize the siblings or to pretend, that the difference doesn't matter
at all.
10. Parent-sibling dynamics as drivers and barriers related to ambition
The
parent-sibling dynamics constitutes a general dilemma: ambition has inherent in
it competition and puts there by sibling loyalty, loyalty to parents or both at
stake.
Groupformation and family dynamics
11. Gender
based group formation as a defence
The emphasis of gender or sex difference serves as a
defence against anxieties related to internal competition in the same sex group
and against envy and fear of envy related to the parental couple[liii].
Keeping the two sexes apart is the parents way of preventing competing
creativity.
12.
Polarization between men and women as a collusion
The emphasis of sex differences some times takes the
shape of a collusion related to the dissociated sexuality in latency - which
according to Kernberg[liv]
is also the sexuality of public life[lv].
13.
Conventional masculinities and feminities as polarised anal/phallic fixation
At the anal/phallic stage in latency the riddle of
conception is still not solved and the young boys and girls identifies with
their same sex adult figures by their surface attributes. Quantity and surface
is all there is. Sexuality is dissociated with an underlying anal colouring.
Intercourse is dirty like farting and shit and associated with battle and
aggression, while tenderness and romance is clean as the 'after' section of a
washing powder commercial and associated with peace and harmony. The morale is
a black/white concept like movies for children and the conventional discourses
in public life[lvi].
14. The
denial of the sex difference as a defence
The emphasis on gender or sex equality (the reduction
of sex difference to culture and power) is a defence against the experience of
envy at what the other sex has but you don't have and at the creative couple -
narcissistic rage because of not being complete[lvii].
15. Men
often forget why they compete
Some men work to get access to the universe of the
preoedipal mother, which is an illusive universe. This is beside a secret and
some times men forget why they work and engage themselves in obsessive
competition whit each other[lviii].
16. The
feminine mystique
Some women identify with the mother in the universe of
the preoedipal mother, her magic, power and completeness (the feminine
mystique, Betty Freidan). It is - as mentioned - an illusion, and from this
point of view it has as the secret precondition, that the husband keeps
reality, hard work and danger at bay. Real work in the real world becomes a
dilemma for the woman, because it contradicts the identification with the
primordial mother[lix].
17.
Powerful leaders identify with the preoedipal mother
The traditional pattern of men competing on doing brave and fantastic things and
women competing on being most
beautiful seems in modern societies to hide more than it reveals. I hard to
overestimate the power of the image of the preoedipal mother who without any
noise reigns over life and death, joy and pleasure and terrifying anxiety and
persecution. Powerful leaders don't raise their voice or use their physical
strength, they have men with tools and weapons to do the work.
18.
Cinderella and Simpleton knew - their siblings didn't
If women
believes that men compete as men and men believe that women don't compete
either of them has understood the games. The stereotypes of male competition
has to do with overt and measurable skills and possessions: biggest, strongest
and fastest, while the stereotype of female competition is that only failures
compete. Women needs to develop abilities to compete in an invisible way. At
the end of the day men needs to do the same, since organizational power is about building up support and alliances and finding
the right moment in the right situation.
19. Work- and leader roles related to value as love
object.
There seems to be some empirical evidence for that
pairing usually takes place between a man who is older, higher, earns more and
have more status than the woman[lx].
That leaves at least a partner problem for high performing women and low
performing men, but since the pattern seems rather irrational it calls for
psychological explanation. One question is about if men can't love (becomes
frightened of) women with more power than themselves or if women can't love men
with less power than them selves.
20.
Age, gender and competitive advantage
Since the educational system groups boys
and girls at same age in the same groups the pattern of male status superiority
in pairing has as a consequence, that girls and women pays attention to boys
and men upwards in the system and make boys and men at the same level feel
invisible - until they turn their head downwards and look into the admiring
eyes of the younger girls and women. This gives girls and women an advantage in
competitive power related to same age boys and men, since relationships to
older boys or men gives access to important information in social life as well
as work life. This inequality loose some of its power later in life, partly of
pure mathematical reasons and maybe also related to the inequalities related to
pregnancy and age based limitations to female fertility.
21. Family and work - a collusion between
sociotopes
The
links between the social and geographical divided work and family is money and
more or less unconscious motives. The workplace becomes carrier of what is
conventional male and the home carries what is conventional female. Two grey
green plants in the workplace reception and at home all traces of work exiled
to the garage, cellar or home office. The family sociotope becomes the place
where work life success or failure is expressed whit out any relation to work,
while it in a way is considered sinful (protestantic ethics, lean, cost reduction
etc.) to link beauty to the workplace.
22. Family and work - reintegration in the post-modern area
In the post-modern area the boundaries between family
and workplace seems to be in an ongoing restructuring process. Work stations
and management discourses invading home and mixing of gender and
emotionalization/feminization at work. Men and women can discuss children,
cooking and cleaning in the breaks at work while husband and wife can discuss
work life issues at the dinner table. Some kind of reintegration is taking
place. This increases possibilities for mutual leaning and help and at the same
time it increases possibilities for comparison and thereby competition.
23.
From task, time and territory to constant inter group events
The new technology to a certain extend
undermines the idea of bounded situations. People are more or less always
present in two simultaneous situations and carries therefore tensions from
both, or uses one to get rid of tension from the other.
24.
Family and work - serving and leading two organizations
The changes in family and organizations produce a situation where the individual man and woman is serving two organization. In the old model: man as provider - woman as housekeeper - both parts could do their best to obtain mutual benefit. To day progress in one carrier can undermine the other.
The children are forming their ambitions by identification or counter
identification with parents and by the need to find different identity profiles
among the siblings. The parents supply with projections of their own needs and wishes[lxi].
In this context of competition as well as in-group
feeling the family members are ongoing evaluating each others performance. The
family as the first 'organization in the mind' influence the individual member
both as a living and as an internal evaluation group[lxii].
OTHER
ISSUES
26.
Self-governing groups - the return of the promoted sibling
Self-governing groups has their point of departure in
the wish to get rid of the evil located at the middle manager, who in classic
industry holds the evil in the organization while the people at the floor stick
together. After the middle manager has gone he or she returns as a ghost in
form of the trouble to manage in the authority vacuum in the group. Sibling
rivalry is the hidden dynamics. Whit out containing authority from the top
leader no one dares to take initiative because of the hate and envy a 'look
alike' middle manager will receive[lxiii].
27.
Divorce and remarriage as the hidden family dynamics behind fusion and fission
The
hidden family dynamics behind fusion and fission is the hopes and fears
connected to divorce and remarriage. The bonds of loyalty of the employees are
tied to the old parental couple, guilt feelings and efforts to repair goes to
the excluded parents, and anger and hate is directed against the new partner
and his or her employees - often expressed in sabotage and hiding of knowledge
for the new children/employees[lxiv].
28.
Political correctness as a defence
Political correctness seems - because of the prefix -
to be something else than correctness, truth. Prejudice used to be the concept
for political incorrectness - a group psychological phenomenon where a group
holds ideas about another group which are incorrect, either because they don’t
know better or because they ignore the truth[lxv]. PC is a judgemental
culture which establish a fixation in the paranoid schizoid position. Fear of
wrongdoing and of being excluded undermines curiosity and search for knowledge
as preconditions for learning. Unwanted experience cannot be explored and
worked with and are forced to live under the surface.
29.
Temporary conclusion
By using extended family and group dynamic thinking
and placing the gender issue in a wider context it has become clear, that men
and women don't think, feel and behave the same way in all situations and that
they don't have one single coherent picture of what either their own or the
other sex is about. Just like men are different and women are different each
man and woman has different experiences during life with being one sex and
dealing with the two sexes. These experiences are called upon in different
situations, some times very regressive and loaded with powerful emotions some
times more integrated.
V. Methodology
Links between work place and home
- elicit
patterns, scenes and 'family basic assumptions' to extend the interpretive
repertoire for as well role analysis and supervision as consulting to groups
and organization
- or to
make a potential space for organizational creativity
Notes:
[i] The
concept 'generativity' is related to Chasseguet-Smirgel (1984) and Eriksson's
work (1950) and refers to creativity and succession in the exchange between
generation
[ii] According to Exodic's study published in 1992
(Brotherridge & Lee 2006) 90% of American businesses were family owned and
operated. Brotherridge & Lee (2006) has reported a study comparing Work
Environment Scale (WES) with Beavers Self-Report Family Instrument (BIF) used
on 204 government employees. They found enough statistical significance to
support the hypothesis, that structures of families and organizations has some
kind of congruence.
[iii]
Hirschhorn 2003
[iv]
Armstrong 2005
[v] Nik
Chmiel (Ed.) Work and Organizational
Psychology. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publ. 2000.
[vi] Theories
on motivation: Maslow etc
[vii] Family
dynamic are downplayed but not excluded in Bion's Experience in groups (1961), Rice and Miller (1967) didn't use
family dynamics in the classic group relation model, on the other hand
Hirshhorn and Gilmore (1980) wrote on using concepts from family therapy in
organizations, and Shapiro and Carr (1991) did a book on the psychodynamic
connections between individuals, families, organizations and societies.
[viii]
Hirschhorn 1998
[ix]
Hochschild 2001
[x] Meyrowitz 1985
[xi] Jensen
2006
[xii]
Khaleelee 2004
[xiii] Schwartz
2001
[xiv]
Hirschhorn 2002
[xv]
Hinshelwood 2006
[xvi] Visholm
2006a, 2006b, 2005a,
2005b
[xvii]
Totalitarian societies usually identify with a whole to which something doesn't
belong and has to be excluded. The whole of the totalitarian society is at the
end of the day a part, that cannot tolerate not being complete. Freud (????)
has the point, that we have a double existence, partly as mortal individuals,
and partly as the infinite life of biosubstance handed over from generation to
generation.
[xviii]
Chasseguet-Smirgel 1984
[xix] Freud
[xx] Canetti
1984
[xxi] Freud,
Britton 1998
[xxii] Dicks
1967, Jakobsen & Visholm 1987, Ruszczynski 1993
[xxiii] Wilke
1998, Mitchell 2003, Cole 2003, Visholm
2006a, 2006b, 2005a,
2005b
[xxiv] Freud
1921
[xxv] Coles
2003, Sanders 2004
[xxvi] Visholm
2005a, 2005b, 2006a
[xxvii] Freud
1921
[xxviii] Mitchell
2003
[xxix]
Winnicott 1971
[xxx] Jaques
1976
[xxxi] Halton
2004
[xxxii] Klein, Segal,
Halton 2004
[xxxiii] Freud
[xxxiv] Meltzer
1990, Meltzer & Williams 1988, Halton 2004
[xxxv] Chassegeut-Smirgel 1984
[xxxvi] Hirschhorn 2001, Binney et. al. 2003
[xxxvii] Volkan
2004
[xxxviii] Meltzer
& Williams 1988
[xxxix] Schwartz
2001
[xl] Meltzer
& Williams 1988
[xli]
Chasseguet-Smirgel, Torok
[xlii] Kernberg
1995
[xliii] Gabriel
& Hirschhorn 1999
[xliv] Meltzer
& Williams 1988, Halton 2004
[xlv] Visholm 2006a, 2006b, 2005a, 2005b
[xlvi] Visholm 2006a, 2006b, 2005a, 2005b
[xlvii] Meyrowitz 1985
[xlviii] Goffman
1959
[xlix] Meltzer
& Williams 1988, Visholm 1993
[l] At an
MPO working conference the theme was 'Leadership, gender and creativity'. In
one session men and women was divided in two mono sex groups and asked to tell
each other stories about experiences related to the theme. During the
organizational event a lot of mutual curiosity was expressed and steps were
taken to set up a sex mixed fish bowl where stories could be exchanged. A
female participant sadly realized, that it wouldn't be the same way stories
were told, when women were present. She realized that she would never know what
men are talking about, when there are no women present. It seemed like she also
felt a bit relieved, knowing that there would always be a little unknown
mystery about men. Another observation reported by a female consultant was,
that men in mixed groups that were totally open seemed to be seen as boring,
while men who kept small secret spaces in their conversations about the theme
had a quite attentive female audience.
some sessions
[li] Halton
2004, Klein
[lii] Jaques
1990
[liii] In
writings like for example Paula Nicolson (1996) and Vivian Burr (2003) this
splitting between goodhearted women and bad men is obvious; all men seems to
like each other and stick together to suppress women, just like women have no
conflicts or competition between them, and are united as victims. Mats Alvesson
and Yvonne Due Billing (1997) are very much aware that focus on gender very
easy seems to establish a simplistic in-group/out-group dynamic.
[liv] Kernberg
1995
[lv] At an
OPU working conference a mixed sex research group from the MPO had been aloud
to make observations in Auditorium 2, one of the authorized rooms in the inter
group event. I happened that a mono sex group (men only) established themselves
in that room. It was presumed by all parts of the conference - including the
male group, that these men would use a 'typical male' language with quite some
explicit sexual references. The interesting thing was, that the group of
observers noted, that the only use of 'typical male' language and sexual
references was done by visiting women (Birkholm et. al. 2006). Men and women
colluded so strongly in preserving the traditional split up between
masculinities and feminities, that the women had to help the men being dirty.
[lvi] Kernberg
1995
[lvii]
Chasseguet-Smirgel (2005) is arguing against the French inspired American
feminist movement represented by writers as Monique Witting, Judith Butler,
Donna Haraway etc. who is 'destructing differences' and 'rebelling against the
biological order'.
[lviii] Schwartz
2001
[lix] Schwartz
2001, Chassegeut-Smrigel 1980a, 1980b, Torok 1980
[lx]
Borchorst, Anette, Løgstrup & Carlsen
[lxi]
Experience from psychotherapy and role analysis (Leicester, OPU and other
places) strongly support this idea. Working with triangulation between
participants ways of choosing and taking up roles in primary and secondary
family, the work organization and the actual conference dynamics, seems to
provide rather powerful learning opportunities for participants.
[lxii]
Hirschhorn 2003
[lxiii]
Visholm 2006a, 2006b, 2005a, 2005b
[lxiv] Gilkey 1991
[lxv] Schwartz
2001, Huffington 2006
[lxvi] Hallway
& Jefferson 2005
[lxvii] Hallway
& Jefferson 2005
[lxviii] Gabriel 1999, French & Simpson 2006
[lxix] Lorenzer
1970
[lxx] Bion
1961
References:
Alvesson, M & Billing, Y D (1997) Understanding Gender and Organizations. London: SAGE
Publ.
Armstrong, D (2005) "Emotions in organizations:
disturbance or intelligence". In French, R
(Eds.) Organization in the Mind. London, New York: Karnac.
Binney, G., Wilke G. & Williams, C. (2003) Leaders in transition. The
dramas of ordinary heroes. Berkhamsted: Ashridge. P. 187-197.
Bion, W.R. (1961) Experiences
in Groups - and other Papers. London: Tavistock/Routledge.
Birkholm, T et. al. 2006 Master thesis at MPO
Borchorst, A (2002) (Eds.): Kønsmagt under forandring. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
Britton, R (1998) "Oedipus in the depressive
position." In. Britton (1998) Belief
and
Imagination. Explorations in Psychoanalysis. London:
Routledge.
Brotherridge, CM & Lee RT2006 "We are Family:
Congruity between organizational and family
functioning constructs." In:
Human Relations, Vol 59(1): 141-161,
London: SAGE Publ.
Burr, V. (2003) Gender and Social Psychology. London:
Routledge.
Canetti, E (1984) Crowds
and Power. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Chasseguet-Smirgel, J (1980a) "Den kvindelige
skyldfølelse." In. Ørum, T (Eds.):
Kvindelighed. Kvindefrigørelse og psykoanalyse.
København: Tiderne Skifter. 53-112
(1980b) "Freud og den
kvindelige seksualitet." In. Ørum, T (Eds.): Kvindelighed.
Kvindefrigørelse og psykoanalyse. København: Tiderne Skifter.
161-186
(1984) Creativity and Perversion. London: Free Association Books.
(2005) The Body as Mirror of the World. London: Free Association Books.
Coles, P (2003) The
Importance of Sibling Relationships in Psychoanalysis. London & New
York: Karnac 2003
(2006) (eds.) Sibling Relationships. London: Karnac.
Dicks,
H.V. (1967) Marital Tensions . Clinical
Studies towards a Psychologiocal Theory of
Interaction. New York: Basic Books.
Erikson,
EH (1950) Identity and the Life Cycle.
New York: International University Press.
French, R & Simpson, P (2006)
"Downplaying Leadership: Researching How Leaders Talk
About
Themselves." In: Leadership, Vol. 2,
No. 4, London: SAGE Publications, 469-479
Freud S. (1905d) "Three essays on the theory of
sexuality." In.: Standart Edition
VII, London:
Hogarth Press 1950-74.
(1913a) "Totem and Taboo".
In.: Standart Edition XIII, London:
Hogarth Press 1950-
74.
(1917b) "Mourning and
melancholia". In.: Standart Edition
VIX, London: Hogarth Press 1950-74.
(1921) "Group Psychology
and the Analysis of the Ego." In.: Standart
Edition XVIII, London Hogarth Press 1950-74.
(1928) "Civilisation and its
discontents". In.: Standart Edition
XXI, London: Hogarth
Press 1950-74.
Gabriel, Y (1999) Organizations
in Depth. The psychoanalysis of Organization. London: SAGE.
Gabriel, Y & Hirschhorn L (1999) "Leaders and
Followers." In.: Yannis Gabriel (1999)
Organizations in Depth. The psychoanalysis of Organization. London:
SAGE.
Gilkey, R (1991)
"The Psychodynamics of Upheaval: Intervening in Merger and Acquisttion
transitions." In. Kets de Vries et. al.. (eds.) Organizations on the couch. Indianapolis:
Jossey-Bass. P. 331-360
Goffman, E (1959) The
Presentation of self in everyday Life. New York: Anchor.
Gould, LJ, Stapley, LF, Stein, M (2001) The Systems Psychodynamics of Organizations.
New
York, London: Karnac Books.
Halton, W (2004) "By what authority. Psychoanalytical
reflections on creativity and change in
relation to organizational
life." In: Huffington, Clare et. al. (Eds.) Working Below the
Surface. The Emotional Life of Contemporary Organizations. London:
Karnac.
Hinshelwood, R.D. & Winship, G. (2006) "Orestes
and democracy." In. Coles, P. (eds.) Sibling
Relationships. London: Karnac.
Hirschhorn, L (1998) Reworking
Authority. Keading and Following in the Post-Modern
Organization. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: The MIT Press.
(2000) “Changing structure is not
enough: The moral meaning of organizationDesign.”
In: Michael Beer & Nohria, N.
(eds.) Breaking the ode of Change. Boston: HBS Press Book.
(2001) "Passion and Group
Life. Examining Moments of Creativity and Destructivenes."
CFAR. http://www.cfar.com
(2002) "The Modern Project
and the Feminisation of Men." In: Hinshelwood, R.D. & Chiesa, M
(Eds.): Organisations, Anxieties &
Defences. Towards a psychoanalytic Social Psychology. London: Whurr Publ.
Ltd.
(2003) Power Point slides from
lecture at MPO, RUC.
Hirschhorn, L. & Gilmore, T. (1980) "The
application of family therapy concepts to influencing
organizational behaviour." Administrative Science Quarterly. 25,
18-37.
(1992) "The New Boundaries
of the "Boundaryless" Company". Harvard Business
Review, May - June 1992.
Hochschild, AR (2001)
The Time Bind. WhenWork Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work.
New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Hollway, W & Jefferson, T (2005): Doing Qualitative Research Differently. Free association,
Narrative and the Interview method. London: SAGE Publ.
Huffington, C (2006) "A contexttualized approach to
coaching." In: Brunning, H (Eds.):
Executive Coaching. Systems-Psychodynamic Perspective. London:
Karnac.
Huffington, C, Armstrong, D, Halton, W, Hoyle, L &
Pooly, J (2004), (Eds.) Working Below
the Surface. The Emotional Life of Contemporary Organizations. London:
Karnac.
Jacques, E. (1990) "Death and the Midlife
Crices." In.: Creativity and Work. Conneticut: Int.
University Press 1990.
(1976) A general Theory of Bureaucracy. London: Heinemann.
Jakobsen,
P. & Visholm, S. (1987) Parforholdet.
Forelskelse, krise, terapi. København: Politisk
Revy. In swedish: Parförhållanden.
Förälskelse, kris, terapi. Falun: Alfabeta 1993.
Jensen, H. (2006) Det
faderløse samfund. København: People's Press.
Kahleelee, O. (2004) "Not Leading Followers, Not
Following Leaders: The Contemporary
Erosion of the Traditional Social
Contract". In.: Organisational and
Social Dynamics Vol
4, No 2, London: Karnac.
Kernberg, OK (1995) Love
Relations. Normality and pathology. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press.
Klein, M. (1946) “Notes on some schizoid mechanisms."
Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 27:99-110.
(1952b) "Some theoretical
conclusions regarding the emotional life of the infant", In Klein, K,
Heimann, P, Isaacs, S, & Riviere, J (Eds.) Developments in Psycho-Analysis. London:
Hogarth. p. 198-236.
Lorenzer, A (1970) Sprachzerstörung
und Rekonstruktion. Vorarbeiten zu einer Metatheorie
der Psychoanalyse. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
Løgstrup, J & Carlsen JM (2005) Kunsten at gøre karriere. Om kvinder, valg og dilemmaer.
København: Jyllands-Postens
forlag.
Meltzer, D. (1990) Sexual
States of Mind. Perthshire Scotland: Clunie Press.
Meltzer, D. & Williams, M.H. (1988) The Apprehension of Beauty. The role of
aesthetic conflict
in development, art and violence. Worcester: Clunie Press.
Meyrowitz, J. (1985) No sense of place. The impact of electronic
media on social behavior.
New York
& Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller EJ & Rice KA (1967)
"Selections from: Systems of
organization". In.: A. D. Colman & H.
Bexton (Eds.): Group Relations Reader 1. Washington:
A.K. Rice Institute 1975. S.:
43-68
Mitchell, J. (2003) Siblings.
Sex and Violence. Cambridge, Polity Press.
Nicolson, P (1996) Gender,
Power and Organization - A Psychological Perspective. London:
Routledge.
Ruszczynski,
S. (1993) (eds.) Psychotherapy with
Couples. Theory and practice of the
Tavistock
Institute of Marital Studies. London: Karnac.
Sanders, R (2004) Sibling
Relationships. Theory and Issues for Practice. Hampshire & New
York: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Schwartz, H.S. (2001) The
Revolt of the Primitive. An Inquiry into the Roots of Political
Correctness. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
Shapiro, E.R. & Carr, W. (1991) Lost in Familiar Places. Creating New Connections Between
the Individual and Society. New Haven & London: Yale
University Press.
Sievers, B. (1993)
"Motivation as Invention." In. Work,
Death and Life Itself. Essays on
Management and
Organization. Berlin, New York:
Walter de Gruyter. P. 3-8.
Torok, M (1980a) "Betydningen af 'penismisundelsen'
hos kvinden." In. Ørum, T (Eds.):
Kvindelighed. Kvindefrigørelse og psykoanalyse. København:
Tiderne Skifter. 113-161
Visholm, S. (2006a) "Demokratiets psykologi." In.
Psyke & Logos Vol. 27, no 1.
København:
Dansk psykologisk Forlag. 162-215
(2006b) "Regression in democracies - ‘democracy’ as
regression. Reflections on the
Legacy of Lewin and Winnicott." Power Point Presentation at OPUS,
London, November
2006
(2005a) "The Promoted
Sibling. Sibling Dynamics - a new dimension in the
Systems Psychodynamics of
Organizations." Power Point Presentation at ISPSO,
Baltimore 2005
(2005b) "Uklare roller i
postmoderne organisationer - om ledelse og selvstyrende grupper." In Arbejdsliv, Vol 7, no. 1.
(1993) Overflade
og dybde. Om projektiv identifikation og det modernes psykologi. Politisk
revy 1993. In swedish: Yta och jup.
Psykoanalytisk perspektiv på människan i det moderna samhället. Stockholm:
S.F.P.H. 1999.
(1996) “Destruction and desire -
in the conflict between tradition and
renewal.” Paper read at the 10th European Symposium in Group Analysis,
“Destruction and Desire.” University of Copenhagen, August 24-29.
Volkan, V (2004) Blind
Trust. Large Groups and Their Leaders in times of Crisis and Terror.
Charlottesville, Virginia:
Pitchstone Publ. 2004.
Wilke, G (1998) "Oidipal and Sibling Dynamics in
Organizations." In: Group Analysis 31/3,
1998. P. 269-281.
Winnicott, DW (1986) "Some thoughts on the meaning of
the Word 'Democracy'". In. Home is
where we start from. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. 1986.
(1971) Playing and Reality. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1980.