What is a Group Relations Conference and why is it important?

Unique experience

A Group Relations Conference is a unique opportunity to learn from experience about yourself, groups, and organisational dynamics. Our days are so filled with the pressures of work that there is no time to stop and consider 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’s getting in the way? The Group Relations Conference is an opportunity to pause and explore these questions in depth.

How does it work?

The Group Relations Conference is a temporary learning institution. It can be thought of as an incubator for in-depth exploration of contemporary organisational life. Members and staff import their experiences and often hidden assumptions about organisations, work teams, and how authority and leadership are exercised into the conference setting. They also bring less conscious, habitual ways of behaving and taking up roles. In the Group Relations Conference, without the distraction of day-to-day work tasks, it is possible to uncover these hidden assumptions both in oneself and in others and to learn about the impact they have on colleagues and task performance. With these insights, new ways of being in role can be tested, and new ways of thinking and problem-solving emerge.

In the Group Relations Conference, members and staff are like anthropologists or ethnographers.

Together, they work on the conference task and immerse themselves in the co-creation of the temporary learning organisation. At the same time, they study what is happening, as it happens, to discover what it reveals about organisational life. The task of this conference is:

To study, with a spirit of enquiry, the dynamics of leading and following in this temporary organisation, and to apply this learning-from-experience to our working lives.

In the Tavistock tradition

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

Little can be known about a Group Relations Conference in concrete terms until it is over. What can be said 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 register here.

Dr Brigid Nossal

August 2025