Here’s an attempt at a summary from our first Open Evening, held in London on March 3rd 2009.

Introduction

We thought that on the whole the meeting reflected well what we consider the spirit of Communitas and both Thom and I were quite happy with the atmosphere we generated as a group and the connections that were formed. The group represented a spectrum of backgrounds ranging from business, consultancy and HR to groupleaders, trainers and therapists. As expected, there was a high degree of self awareness and psychological sensitivity, with some very experienced people in their respective fields and a profound collection of skills, knowledge, expertise and resources. We tried to keep psychological jargon to the minimum, whilst recognising that a new psychology is needed across all kinds of organisations. A deeper understanding of the human psyche seems necessary to tackle especially the question how we can align ourselves with our espoused values and how we deal with and respond to prevalent gaps between the ‘walk’ and the ‘talk’. Some people expressed their perception of such gaps in business and as contributing to the current economic crisis, others reminded us that similar disappointing gaps exist within ourselves.

A key leadership dilemma

Within the time frame, we thought as a group we struck a good balance between providing a firm sense of structure on the one hand and an openness to the group’s participative engagement in shaping the event on the other. Thom and I were trying to give a clear impression of what our vision for Communitas is as well as allowing this particular group to form and begin to establish an inkling of a sense of community. Arguably more information could have been conveyed in two hours and more activity could have been achieved by tighter structuring and more directive leadership, but would more overall engagement with each other have resulted ? What did YOU think about that balance and what is YOUR evaluation of it ? We’d like to hear your comments on this. This is, of course, one of the essential conundrums and dilemmas of leadership: giving a clear vision, direction, structure, impetus, but not at the expense of the emergent processes within the group or organisation. To be clear about the direction (so people can gather around it), but not rigid and exclusive about it to the point that it denies everybody else the possibility of influencing and shaping not only the content, but also the process. Being able to recognise and hold that tension in itself already implies new models and techniques of leadership, which in turn require more sensitivity and self awareness and new psychological skills of perception, understanding and intervention. As Communitas tutors we do want to provide and deliver these models and paradigms theoretically, but experientially - through the group experience.

Themes within the group discussion

There were nods and general agreement that in challenging traditional forms of authority the humanistic approaches had swung too much into the other (anti-authoritarian) extreme and that an integration of the two is needed (see here for some ideas towards that integration that form the start of a blog entry on this theme). Integration became an important word in the group discussion, in all kinds of ways: integration between business and psychology, between leading and participating, between individualism and communality, between doing and being. And as personal integration and integrity. We were very aware that many of us tend to keep moving in fairly separate subcultures, especially as psychologically and business-oriented people. We spoke of our longing for belonging, for being part of a community and the new forms of leadership that this will demand of us. Which immediately raises the question: what is a ‘healthy’ community ? what are the criteria and signs, the functions and processes that characterise a ‘mature’ community ? People talked again about values and the alignment of values and behaviour – walking our talk. This requires both inner work and outer work, and attention to the parallels between personal and organisational reality, and an understanding of ‘shadow processes’ (to be clarified further what that is and how it is important – see, for example, Arnold Mindell on the ‘disturber’ as the catalyst of new consciousness). [If I’ve left anything out that you consider relevant, would you mind adding to what I have summarised here in comments or further posts?]

continued in Part 2