Thinking systemically and understanding organisation dynamics
can be leadership and management superpowers.

NIODA students certainly think so, with a 100% satisfaction rate for the Master of Leadership and Management (Organisation Dynamics) course. They know first-hand that being an organisational leader or managing a team can be enormously satisfying but equally can be frustrating and confusing. Why do smart, sensible people behave irrationally? Why does competition seem to outweigh collaboration? Why is it so hard to shift a toxic work culture? If, as neuroscientists are telling us, 95% of our brain activity is unconscious (Young 2018), then perhaps it’s little wonder these are the sorts of confounding questions preoccupying leaders and managers. How well equipped are most of us to make sense of the paradoxes and irrationality that are regular features of work life? How able are we to just ‘get on with the job’ when we are not aware of so much of what is occurring?

How well-equipped are most of us to make sense of the paradoxes
and irrationality that are regular features of work life?

Business degrees typically cover disciplines such as finance, marketing, operations, strategy and leadership and are designed to equip graduates to take on managerial and leadership roles. Taking a rational, cognitive approach to analysis, problem-solving, and decision-making is valued alongside developing effective teamwork and communication skills. However, this approach on its own is not enough when people and workplace dilemmas don’t respond to logical formulas, when emotions are running high and the capacity for coming up with sound and strategic business solutions is overwhelmed.

Applying an organisation dynamics lens

This is when taking a systems perspective and applying an organisation dynamics lens will help. Having an approach to discerning what might be really going on can feel like having secret superpowers for finding a way through the maze of workplace complexities.

The discipline of ‘systems psychodynamics’ is at the core of the National Institute of Organisation Dynamics Australia (NIODA)’s post-graduate degrees in Leadership and Management (Organisation Dynamics). Founded in 2010 for the purpose of providing high-quality education in systems psychodynamic approaches, NIODA builds on and continues the world-class programs first delivered at Swinburne University and then at RMIT University.

Study designed for work-experienced professionals

NIODA’s Master of Leadership and Management (Organisation Dynamics) is designed for experienced professionals who wish to develop their leadership and managerial capacities. In this world-renowned work-integrated program you learn to:
– analyse, understand and manage ‘below the surface’ group and organisational dynamics in organisations
– identify blockers to change due to structure, culture and technology
– work with the emotional labour of leading complex systems in fast-changing environments.

This part-time course supports the development of individual capacities to shape and take up work roles that are meaningful, values-based, and which serve the ultimate purpose of the organisation. It provides industry-relevant, post-graduate education grounded in rigorous conceptual development and work experience and provides opportunities for engagement with real-world learning in a social and global context.

Reflecting on study at NIODA with graduate, Laurette Chang-Leng

It is so rewarding to hear about how this is being applied by a NIODA graduate who has taken up the option of a continuing professional development subscription with NIODA. I find it such a privilege to think with Laurette about her work and carry on exploring how the concepts and skills learned in the NIODA course can be applied in the workplace.

“I’m more comfortable with the complexity, I embrace ‘not knowing’ and observe what is emergent.”

– NIODA MLM(OD) Graduate, Laurette Chang-Leng

We recently reflected on how Laurette now takes up her role managing large and complex transformation projects as compared to when she came to NIODA. “In some ways, not much has changed, except for one major thing: my attitude and the perspective I bring… large, big-budget projects still have the feeling of being impossible, but now I’m more comfortable with the complexity, I embrace ‘not knowing’ and observe what is emergent. I sit back and think when others are focused on charging ahead, even when the train is heading for derailment! I have the confidence to call it out, and I am listened to – especially because I know the value of a good metaphor!” (an early subject in the course puts a spotlight on the ways in which metaphors are used in management practice and how working with them opens up understanding and new possibilities.)

Laurette and I also talked about the benefit of knowing about her own, what we call, ‘valences’ (predispositions) or what she is bringing into work encounters and what gets triggered for her. “I’m much more in tune with what’s mine and what’s not” – what belongs to the organisational system and others within it. This echoes something I wrote a couple of years ago: The course supports you to locate and integrate learning about yourself, who you are, where you have come from and all the ‘selves’ you are bringing with you to work.

I see the fruits of this self-knowledge all the time in our supervision sessions. Laurette has a courage and a curiosity for reflecting on roles, and what is being avoided or defended against. It is so exciting to witness how she is building the capacity to take up bigger roles, for fostering healthier dynamics, and creating a more effective and resilient team and organisation.

Postgraduate study with 100% student satisfaction

Laurette is just one of the many students who have valued learning with NIODA. We are proud of the 100% overall student satisfaction rating we have gained in the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT). QILT is a suite of government-endorsed surveys for higher education that NIODA has participated in since 2021. Currently, all 41 Australian universities and around 90 non-university higher education providers take part in the surveys. Over the two years of our participation, our students reported higher levels of satisfaction than the QILT national averages on key indicators including: learner engagement (NIODA received 97% compared with the national average of 42%), teaching quality (97% compared with 78%) and student support (97% compared with 74%). As institutes of higher education go, NIODA is small, but punching above its weight with these teaching and learning outcomes.

Helen McKelvie

June 2023

If you’re interested in knowing more about studying system psychodynamics and developing leadership and management superpowers, enrolments are open for our mid-year intake. We also have preview sessions coming up soon.

Young, E. (2018). Lifting the Lid on the Unconscious, New Scientist, Viewed 20 June 2023, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931880-400-lifting-the-lid-on-the-unconscious.

This is the first of a series of short blogs exploring NIODA’s forthcoming Group Relations Conference title, ‘Authority, Role and Distributed Leadership in the Hybrid Organisation: the challenge of transformation’.

First, what is a Group Relations Conference (GRC) and why is it important for leaders, managers, and anyone interested in organisational life to attend one?

A Group Relations Conference is a unique opportunity to learn from experience about yourself, groups and organisational dynamics. Generally, our work days are so filled with meetings and the pressures of work there is no time to stop and consider some fundamental questions such as, what’s really going on here? How am I showing up as a leader and follower? Are we working to purpose and, if not, what is getting in the way? The GRC is an opportunity to pause and explore some of these questions in depth.

The GRC is a temporary learning institution. I think of it as an incubator for in-depth exploration of contemporary organisational life. Members and staff bring with them into the conference their experiences and often hidden assumptions about organisations, work teams, and how authority and leadership are exercised. We also bring less conscious, habitual ways of behaving and taking up roles. In the GRC, without the distraction of day-to-day work tasks, it is possible to learn about these hidden assumptions both in oneself and in others. We also have the chance to try out different ways of taking up leadership within a group and within the temporary learning organisation as a whole.

In the GRC, members and staff are a bit like anthropologists or ethnographers. Together, we work on the conference task and we immerse ourselves in the co-creation of the temporary learning organisation. At the same time, we study what is happening, as it happens, to discover what it reveals about organisational life. The task of this conference is:

With a spirit of enquiry, to explore and study the exercise of authority and leadership in the taking up of roles through the interpersonal, intergroup and institutional relations that develop within the conference as an organisation in its wider context.

The title of the conference will also influence how we go about the task. As the conference will take place in a hybrid format, we can study how this impacts interpersonal, group and intergroup dynamics. We can then consider what this means for our back-at-work context and how we might apply this learning. The reference to distributed leadership is also an invitation to explore. It is a concept that has been used a lot in leadership and management circles over the past 15-20 years, but what does it mean in practice, especially in the context of a hybrid workplace?

This GRC is designed in the Tavistock tradition. It was invented by a multidisciplinary team in post-war London in the late 1950s and has been evolving ever since. These days, GRCs are held all over the world and attended by many senior leaders. One reason for this is that GRCs are a highly efficient way for people to learn in-depth about group and organisational dynamics and the influence that unconscious processes can have in shaping organisational life.

The conference design is an inspired innovation; the temporary learning organisation is highly structured and contained, which at the same time allows for maximum freedom of expression and shared exploration. Past participants have described having learned more from a five-day conference than they learned in three years of an MBA. One organisational leader who attended a GRC at the beginning of his tenure as CEO credited the experience with laying the foundation for his success over a 30-year leadership career.

It is difficult to write about this upcoming GRC in concrete terms because it has not yet taken place. What I can say with certainty is that if you are a curious, courageous, and open-minded person with an appetite to be stimulated and stretched, both intellectually and emotionally, then this conference is not to be missed. Be prepared to learn deeply about organisational dynamics and maybe even be transformed by the experience. You can learn more here.

Dr Brigid Nossal

June 2023

What is a Group Relations Conference (GRC) and why is it important?

ps NIODA’s forthcoming Group Relations Conference is 30 October – 3 November 2023. This is a hybrid event both onsite in Melbourne and live interactive online. Scroll to read more…

How to lead and manage in the hybrid workplace

I keep hearing how it’s a tough gig being a people manager right now. Sustained challenges from the COVID pandemic have left many leaders smashed and exhausted. It can feel like all four of the VUCA elements (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) have become ubiquitous and are impacting everyday decision-making, not just long-term planning. For those who were full-time in the office with their teams, there are now the added ongoing complexities of managing a hybrid workplace as the new normal. Continuing the flexibility around working from home means dispersed teams; building and maintaining trust and connection has become harder. Finding the balance is not easy.

Staff well-being has been a high priority during and post-pandemic, and will always be important. But as business demands increase, leaders are under the pump to deliver and may be suffering ‘compassion fatigue’. Managers are faced with the difficulty of adjusting the implicit messaging for their staff from “we’ll look after you” and “we can be just as productive at home” to “we can’t make everything right, we just need you to do your job” and “flexibility is good but you have to come into the office at least some of the time”. Having the confidence to lead in the hybrid workplace is tricky when critical staff networks have been disrupted, and lines of authority blurred by remote working. With everyone recalibrating, including top-level executives, people managers are left to figure out how to make these new arrangements not only workable but optimal to meet organisational expectations.

Leeds University research has uncovered a huge training need: 74% of office workers surveyed would like to receive training for hybrid working, yet only 8.5% had received any specific training for hybrid meetings (a key employee concern of hybrid working). Hybrid working is a distinct way of working, and investment in support and training is crucial to help employees and managers to thrive in the new workplace.

The research identified that when employees had a choice over where to work within a workspace they reported a whole range of positives, demonstrating the value of designing with more discretion for workers to decide how, when and where to get tasks done. The challenge for managers is to reconsider their role, particularly in relation to authority and responsibility, around employees’ expectations for greater self-management. Managers can also learn to pay attention to supporting social networks in the hybrid workplace, and to developing a sense of belonging and identity in their staff, especially for new starters. Learning to consider the team as a network or system helps managers recognise the location in the network of new and diverse employees. (Davis, M.C., Collis, H., Hughes, H.P.N., Wu, C., Gritt, E., Fang, L., Iqbal, A. & Rees, S.J. (2022) Where is your office today? New insights on employee behaviour and social networks. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds)

Helen McKelvie

May 2023

Is trauma causing your toxic work environment?

ps If you’re a people manager who would like some support in your role in the hybrid workplace NIODA is offering a new workshop series ‘Optimising the New Normal’. The workshops aim to enhance capacity to manage the work boundaries relating to staff well-being and safety in the hybrid workplace; and to provide the sense of containment from leadership that has been compromised or lost in the move to working across onsite and online spaces.