Why do our organizations so often seem to be less than the sum of their parts? What undermines effectiveness and morale, and gets in the way of achieving what we set out to do?
The Unconscious at Work, Second Edition draws on a body of thinking and practice which has developed over the past 70 years, often referred to as 'the Tavistock approach' or 'systems-psychodynamics'. All the contributors are practising consultants who draw on this framework, bringing it alive and making it useful to any reader - manager, leader or consultant, regardless of whether they have any prior familiarity with the underlying concepts - who is curious about what might be driving the puzzling or stressful situations they find in their workplace.
The First Edition was addressed to people working in 'the human services': health, social care and education. Since it was published in 1994, there has been growing interest in the business world, and in understanding more about the 'irrational' side of organizational life. Therefore, this Second Edition includes an entirely new section where the key ideas are revisited and illustrated with case studies from a wide range of business organizations, from large corporations to start-ups and family businesses.
The aim, however remains the same: to enlarge readers' existing sense-making 'tool-kits' so that they can look at themselves and their organizations with fresh eyes, deepening the emotional intelligence they bring to bear on the challenges they face and providing new possibilities for action. The Unconscious at Work, Second Edition is for managers, leaders, consultants, and anyone working in organizations who has been puzzled, disturbed or challenged by their experiences at work.
List of figures
About the authors
Foreword by Jonathan Gosling
Preface to the Second Edition
Acknowledgements
A note on confidentiality
A note about 'a Tavistock approach'
Introduction: Making sense of organizations - the institutional roots of the Tavistock approach
James Mosse
PART I
Conceptual framework
1 Some unconscious aspects of organizational life: contributions from psychoanalysis
William Halton
2 The dangers of contagion
Deirdre Moylan
3 The unconscious at work in groups and teams: contributions from the work of Wilfred Bion
Jon Stokes
4 The organization of work: contributions from open systems theory
Vega Zagier Roberts
5 Authority, power and leadership: contributions from group relations training
Anton Obholzer
6 Changing the stories we are 'in': power, purpose and organization-in-the-mind
Vega Zagier Roberts
PART II
The unconscious at work in human service organizations
Part IIa Working with people in distress
7 Attending to emotional issues on a special care baby unit
Nancy Cohn
8 Containing anxiety in work with damaged children
Chris Mawson
9 Fragmentation and integration in a school for children with physical disabilities
Anton Obholzer
10 Where angels fear to tread: idealism, despondency and inhibition of thought in hospital nursing
Anna Dartington
11 Till death us do part: caring and uncaring in work with older people
Vega Zagier Roberts
12 Working with dying people: on being good enough
Peter Speck
Part IIb Challenges, crises and change
13 The self-assigned impossible task
Vega Zagier Roberts
14 Institutional chaos and personal stress
Jon Stokes
15 The troublesome individual and the troubled institution
Anton Obholzer and Vega Zagier Roberts
16 Finding a voice: differentiation, representation and empowerment in organizations under threat
James Mosse and Vega Zagier Roberts
17 Confl ict and collaboration: managing intergroup relations
Vega Zagier Roberts
18 Managing social anxieties in public sector organizations
Anton Obholzer
PART III
The unconscious at work in business organizations
Kay Trainor (guest editor)
19 Family patterns at work: how casting light on the shadows of the past can enhance leadership in the present
Francesca Cardona and Sheila Damon
20 Feelings as data
Kay Trainor
21 The myth of rationality: why change efforts so often fail
James Krantz and Kay Trainor
22 Navigating roles in complex systems
Vega Zagier Roberts
23 Beyond the individual: reframing blame and responsibility for 'rogue' behaviour in the fi nancial services industry
Ajit Menon
24 From managing to leading organizations in their contexts
Matthieu Daum
Afterword: Consulting to oneself
Appendix: The genealogy of systems psychodynamics
Bibliography
Index
