Knowing, not knowing, and virtual technology: an “organisation on the screen”?

Stream: How are our ways of knowing affected by new virtual technologies and distance meetings?

Knowing, not knowing, and virtual technology: an “organisation on the screen”?

This paper tries to think about approaches to organisations when online interactions rather than meeting-in-person form the bulk of interactions, from Lacan it picks up the idea of the discourse of science as a perverse form of the discourse of the hysteric in which lack is denied, giving the technology an illusion of certainty in which makes it harder to use unknowing as a resource. This is linked to Bracha Ettinger’s idea of “digital stupour” where trauma is inaccessible there is jouissance separated from the capacity to desire, and time is lost in the immediacy of the medium. Both of these can be seen in social media and virtual working.

There’s anecdotal evidence of people who live with auditory or visual hallucinations having particular difficulty with virtual meetings, because the task of linking sounds, screen images and a mental model of actual people is not straightforward. The paper suggests that we all experience a measure of this, raising complex questions around the nature of the group that make sense in terms of basic assumption incoherence, massification, aggregation. There’s a lively question of where the protomental sits in relation to groups where people are not physically present: does this interrupt bodily communication, or does anxiety over the absence of “bodies in the room” reflect anxiety displaced onto the fact of meeting online?

Social media has compounded a problem of people’s online experiences reflecting back their own world view. In public life this raises questions about post-truth politics and the reliability of elections. It complicates the process of people navigating their belonging at the level of nation states and large organisations. As this becomes more normal, it complicates the process of working out how we relate online. Is the person I see on line “them” or a carefully-curated “online persona”?

Blockchain is beginning to pick up some of the functions of “national” governments — running a currency, verifying qualifications in Ethiopia and Covid passports in Argentina adding a layer of technology-induced complexity to people’s relationship to nation states and to technology. What are the echoes of this in organisations?

What happens to the sexual dynamics of organisations when people are relating through devices that might also be used for cybersex or pornography?

The particular circumstances of a global pandemic have shaped people’s experience of virtual working since early 2020. The pandemic itself has stirred up a wide range of anxieties with surprisingly little public discussion of what these are about. The implication is that virtual working, as what has “saved us” from the most extreme economic consequences, is a place that has enabled us to deny our lack — which makes sense in terms of the perverse forms of the Lacanian discourses. As it becomes possible to resume meetings in person and there’s less need to displace Covid anxiety onto Zoom, will we push away the experiences of working online because of Covid (making this another denied lack), or can we think about online working as valid in its own terms.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion 

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Leadership Unbound: Female leadership effectiveness in modern China against the backdrop of collective traumas & emerging opportunities

This aims to illuminate the system psychodynamics behind the remarkable effectiveness of Chinese female leaders. It argues that the unconscious transmission of experiences during unspoken collective traumas like the 1000-year old practice of female foot binding, the Great Famine, and the Cultural Revolution contribute to shaping certain specific leader values and provide a strong purpose in life.

These findings emerged during socio-analytical interviews with senior Chinese female leaders. The paper draws on the work of Long and Bollas by using drawing exercises to provide access to unconscious or preconscious experiences, making them available for exploration. Data was collected through an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the interview results and structured by applying the “Framework for Transforming Experience into Authentic Action through Role’ (TEF).

The results revealed that, while taking up their roles as leaders, the participants demonstrated themselves to be very purpose driven, to have an extraordinary capacity for endurance and perseverance, to embrace a yearning for recognition, and to possess a desire for justice. These characteristics suggest that Chinese female leaders offer specific leadership strengths that grow out of the particular cultural and historical context they and their ancestors have experienced.

Awareness of these repressed or unthought experiences could prove helpful in creating reflexivity and supporting further leadership development. Furthermore, the findings might support female leaders in China in developing the capacity to understand and work with the dynamics at play: tame it, name it, frame it, contain it, and work with it. Additionally, they might foster an increased sense of confidence among Chinese women and the wisdom for all to work with the power of female leadership.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion 

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Want To Know What Lies Below-the-Surface! Really?

Just days after Manchester United team-mate Paul Pogba was targeted with sickening abuse, the young Marcus Rashford was the new target when his spot-kick crashed back off the post in the 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace. The England man was called a “n****r” by numerous accounts on Twitter. Speaking after the game … boss Solskjaer was appalled once again: It needs to stop. I am lost for words.

India’s top-order batsman … Pujara became part of a racism controversy after a couple of former Yorkshire employees lent support to former Yorkshire cricketer Azeem Rafiq, who has alleged that the experience of racism at the county had forced him to attempt suicide. (There were) continuous references to taxi drivers and restaurant workers when referring to (the) Asian community. They called every person of colour ‘Steve’. Even Pujara, who joined as an overseas professional, was called Steve because they could not pronounce his name, Taj Butt … was quoted as saying in a report on ESPNCricinfo.com. Butt, who was employed within the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation as a community development officer, resigned within six weeks of joining due to the targeted language used at the club.

Indian cricketers endured racist slurs from the crowd for a second successive day in the third Test against Australia in Sydney, causing a brief halt in the fourth day’s play, expulsion of some spectators from the ground and an all-round condemnation of the incidents. Siraj, still grieving the death of his father a little over a month ago, was called a Brown Dog and Big Monkey from the SCG stands, BCCI sources told PTI.

Mridula Amin of ABC News informed the world that Australia Talks shows we agree there’s a lot of racism here, but less than half say white supremacy is ingrained in our society, following a report which said: Australians are familiar with racism. Three in four Australians say there is a lot of it here. In fact, the prevalence of racism is one of the more widely agreed-upon propositions bowled up to the 60,000 Australia Talks respondents. Even I pay too much tax mustered only 31 per cent support, but most Australians were pretty sure about the racism.

Australia is finding it difficult to resolve ancestral legacy of embedded persecutory identity dating back to 1788, when the first shipload of felons were transported from overcrowded prisons in North America.4
What’s spreading faster than coronavirus in the US? Racist assaults and ignorant attacks against Asians … In New York City, a man assaults a woman wearing a face mask, calling her a diseased b****.

Freud helps us make sense of the pandemic of racism, this collective psychosis of persecutory anxiety, by reminding us that all the essentials lie beneath the surface of mind, buried and inaccessible. Analytic interrogation into ancestral roots, of both the individual and the human species, can reveal the concealed. Trist and Emery shared their curiosity in how leading elements of the future already exist in the present. Early detection of emergent processes that lie concealed in existing human systems will create the opportunities to shape the future.

Writings from Europe bequeathed a blueprint of imperial thinking whose traces are still with us today: modes of classifying non-white races in hierarchical schemas in which the white race positioned itself at the apex, keeping hidden the shame of wrongdoings evident from the 500+ years of intra-race persecutory history in wars, and diseases.

Following in the traditions of psychoanalytic thought extended to our knowledge of the psycho-social, psycho-history, and systems psycho-dynamics the paper is also a method of inquiry into unconscious dynamics in organizations of empire, and its relationship with the world in Europe. It will keep in mind the chasm that is often blurred in histories of empire: the brutal realities of imperial power in colonial spaces that are eventually erased, relegating the wrongdoings to private conversations and internal archives.

Unexplored, this pandemic will continue to stimulate primitive anxieties in the white race. Alarmingly, non-white retaliation is spreading, an eye for an eye, and likely to translate into violent civilizational conflicts.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion 

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Finding our Moorings during Uncertain Times

Ather Energy is an Indian two-wheeler design and manufacturing company, building an entire electric ecosystem, from scratch. We are a young organization that thrives on first-principles thinking, and speed, and believe that the future is truly electric.

There is great urgency around ‘knowing’ in organizations. Especially in Ather, we implicitly take pride in our empirical thinking. Remote-working was something we had quickly discounted as a workstyle we would not choose, or need. But, in March 2020, we braced ourselves for a series of lockdowns owing to the pandemic. We were introduced to several unknowns brought in by the global standstill, while fighting a cash-crunch and raising fresh capital, in parallel.

The Not-Knowing

The pandemic taught us a lot about ‘not knowing’. There were large chunks of information that were unclear or emerging. We dealt with unknown variables every day – the spread of the infection, changing government guidelines, and supply chain fall-throughs. We constantly ideated and tried various plans, while we were conscious that they could all change at any moment. But, we quickly rallied to manage the not-knowing; crisis management with the underpinnings of change management.

The underbelly of a change of this scale was ambivalence and anxiety. For the first time, we experienced some talent pockets unaligned, cynical, or leaving us. Meanwhile, we also had members passionately driving change, holding the fort, managing non-routine responses, and delivering results.

‘Be Nice’ is one of Ather’s defined values, that is about exhibiting ‘trust by default’. This behaviour was tested as we began work in uncertain times, and in an indefinite remote setup. We needed to trust ourselves and others, to deliver shifting goals.

This fear of ‘not knowing’ mobilized the team to look for assurances from the larger system – the organization. There was anger towards leaders for ‘not fixing’, followed by disappointment, leading to giving up or withdrawing. ‘Me’ness was displayed – to protect the ‘Self’ from uncertainty and what it brings, leading to collusion rather than collaboration.

Coming to Know

During this time, we were both dysfunctional and formidable. We built a greenfield factory, raised two rounds of capital, adopted the Agile methodology of working, launched a new product variant, set up a pan-India dealership network, and conceptualized a new performance-management system: all in-house, during the pandemic. With our focus on bringing cross-functional teams together to solve problems, ‘negotiated’ rather than ‘delegated’ authority became our backbone.

The New Sortedness

While we achieved noteworthy milestones, our belief in the story called ‘Ather’ was tested by fear-induced anxiety. This period demanded of us to look inward, be centered, and continuously work on being better.

We adopted different methods to reach out to team members and engage with them in meaningful conversations to understand and alleviate their fears. We encouraged questions and inquiry to set context, create safe spaces, and build cohesiveness. We used the process of engagement and reflection to explore experiences, generate ideas, build resilience, and stay connected. We drove this transformation using mediums ranging from informal Chat-rooms, Culture Conversations (Focus Group Discussions), All-Hands, internal Podcasts, our intranet, and Ask-me-Anything sessions.

It is unfamiliar and difficult for an organization to accept that certainty is not guaranteed, and choose to be willing to learn and work towards ‘coming to know’. We have now long realized that the ‘not knowing’ is here to stay and we have to adapt with that in mind. We have made peace with ‘figuring it out’, instead of ‘having figured it out’.

This is the new state of ‘sortedness’.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion 

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Storm tossed but not submerged: developing individual and collective knowing through group holding environments in organisations during crises and beyond

Evidence suggests that many organisations do not utilise reflective practice in their everyday operations. The benefits of reflective practice to the individual and organisation are well documented in the helping professions, and include developing personal capacity, learning and maintaining quality work. This paper outlines the findings from four group reflective spaces held in two organisations during 2020-2021 and argues for reflective practices to be a standard offering in all organisations.

The paper argues that such holding environments (Winnicott) are legitimate social methods of inquiry that enable individual and collective knowing in response to trauma and increasing uncertainty and change. While reflective practice is a standard offering in the helping professions, the paper argues that there is an even greater need for such regular holding environments in many organisations as they contend with the impacts of the current global pandemic and the transition to hybrid ways of working.

The case studies of reflective spaces were held in two organisations in which the author was a facilitator and sometimes a participant. The paper shows how these spaces acted as holding environments to nurture individual and collective ways of knowing and understanding self and role that benefited the individuals and their organisational communities. Preliminary findings from the case studies show the sessions helped participants better understand the complexities of organisational realities; created a greater sense of connection within their organisational community; enabled agency; and enabled people to transfer knowledge and develop organisational capacity.

The paper contends that reflective spaces are methods which support the idea that emotional regulation and organisational health is something that is more effectively done in groups, rather than only individually. Practices that bring people together to support discovering ways of knowing is not knew: holding environments and other reflective spaces have a long lineage. The paper draws on a broad range of theoretical ideas and practices, including emergencies and trauma (Gordon), holding environments (Winnicott), clinical reflective practice, and group analysis.

As well as outlining the benefits from the case studies, the paper outlines the potential barriers to these spaces being supported and created in organisations and ideas to influence change.

Participants at the symposium will be asked to share their reflections on the use and efficacy of reflective spaces in their own organisations and/or those they have consulted to.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion 

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Parallel Paper Presentations

The following are presenting at this time