Organising Protest:

Where is our Systems Psychodynamic thinking on

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS?

Organising Protest:

Where is our Systems Psychodynamic thinking on

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS?

NIODA'S 6th Annual Symposium

7, 8 & 9 September 2022

This year the NIODA Symposium asks the question –
What can systems psychodynamics add to our understanding of social movements?

We have four keynote panels and many individual papers all addressing the dynamics of social movements. The program also has a social dreaming session and social times for networking.

Social Movements have long been part of societies world-wide. We can instance such momentous issues as indigenous land rights; female suffrage and the emancipation of slaves; as well as protests against wars or government economic measures; and more recently there are demonstrations surrounding climate change, cruelty to animals, racial discrimination and gender, even against government public health measures.

A social movement may be defined as ‘a loosely organized but sustained campaign in support of a social goal’ (Britannica). They most often involve a protest against ideas, actions and the culture of the establishment or a call to action for change. As distinct from an interest group, social movements are organized to initiate social change and involve action by the members, often in the form of protest using multiple methods. They are collective and may arise spontaneously amongst people with a common outlook, but then become sustained and organized.

This is an area of interest to systems psychodynamic and socioanalytic researchers and practitioners. Such movements are of interest in themselves, but they also may affect the people and groups in our everyday work, leisure and not-for-profit organisations.

Organising Protest:

Where is our Systems Psychodynamic thinking on

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS?

🇦🇺

Melbourne Australia

Wednesday 7 September

5.00 – 7.00 pm Opening & Panel
7.00 – 9.00 pm Panel & discussion
9.00 – 9.30 pm Social space

Thursday 8 September

8.00 – 9.00 am Social dreaming
9.00 – 11.00 am Panel & discussion
11.00 – 11.30 am Social space
5.00 – 7.00 pm Dialogue session
7.00 – 9.00 pm Parallel papers
9.00 – 9.30 am Social space

Friday 9 September

8.00 – 9.00 Social dreaming
9.00 – 11.00 am Parallel papers
11.00 – 11.30 am Social space
5.00 – 7.00 pm Parallel papers
7.00 – 9.00 pm Closing reflection
9.00 – 9.30 pm Social space

🇺🇸

New York USA

Wednesday 7 September

3.00 – 5.00 am Opening & Panel
5.00 – 7.00 am Panel & discussion
7.00 – 7.30 am Social space
6.00 – 7.00 pm Social dreaming
7.00 – 9.00 pm Panel & discussion
9.00 – 9.30 pm Social space

Thursday 8 September

3.00 – 5.00 am Dialogue session
5.00 – 7.00 am Parallel papers
7.00 – 7.30 am Social space
6.00 – 7.00 am Social dreaming
7.00 – 9.00 pm Parallel papers
9.00 – 9.30 pm Social space

Friday 9 September

3.00 – 5.00 am Parallel papers
5.00 – 7.00 am Closing reflection
7.00 – 7.30 am Social space

🇬🇧

London UK

Wednesday 7 September

8.00 – 10.00 am Opening & Panel
10.00 – 12.00 noon Panel & discussion
12.00 – 12.30 pm Social space
11.00 pm – 12.00 am Social dreaming

Thursday 8 September

12.00 – 2.00 am Panel & discussion
2.00 – 2.30 am Social space
8.00 – 10.00 am Dialogue session
10.00 – 12.00 noon Parallel papers
12.00 – 12.30 pm Social space
11.00 pm – 12.00 am Social dreaming

Friday 9 September

12.00 – 2.00 am Parallel papers
2.00 – 2.30 am Social space
8.00 – 10.00 am Parallel papers
10.00 – 12.00 noon Closing reflections
12.00 – 12.30 pm Social space

🇸🇬

Singapore

Wednesday 7 September

3.00 – 5.00 pm Opening & Panel
5.00 – 7.00 pm Panel & discussion
7.00 – 7.30 pm Social space

Thursday 8 September

6.00 – 7.00 am Social dreaming
7.00 – 9.00 am Panel & discussion
9.00 – 9.30 am Social space
3.00 – 5.00 pm Dialogue session
5.00 – 7.00 pm Parallel papers
7.00 – 7.30 pm Social space

Friday 9 September

6.00 – 7.00 am Social dreaming
7.00 – 9.00 am Parallel papers
9.00 – 9.30 am Social space
3.00 – 5.00 pm Parallel papers
5.00 – 7.00 pm Closing reflections
7.00 – 7.30 pm Social space

Program Schedule

🔖 PRESENTATION

Opening & panel

📆  DATE

Wednesday 7 Sep 2022

⏰  MELBOURNE TIME

5.00 - 7.00 pm

⏰  LOCAL START TIME

time start

Not Knowing and Coming to Know Panel

MS DEB MARTINDALE

Not Knowing and Coming to Know Panel

MS SALLY MUSSARED

Not Knowing and Coming to Know Panel

DR KENWYN SMITH

Not Knowing and Coming to Know Panel

MR SETH THOMASSON

Learning to listen: the challenge of the Uluru statement from the heart

During COVID lockdown late in 2020, Deb Martindale, Sally Mussared, Kenwyn Smith and Seth Thomasson were motivated by the Uluru Statement from the Heart to respond to the government’s interim report. This led to the consideration that perhaps our role as ‘white fellas’ in the Yoorrook (Victorian Truth Telling Commission) was to actively listen. Regular reflection sessions have led to us being moved by what we have heard in the public hearings from Victorian First People Elders whose experiences illustrate many of the key impacts of colonisation still felt today, including Jack Charles, Uncle Johnny Lovett, Aunty Fay Carter, Aunty Alma Thorpe, Uncle Larry Walsh and Isobel Paipadjerook Morphy-Walsh, Uncle Kevin Coombs and Uncle Colin Walker. The impacts of our listening are developing, and we encourage you to listen to the Uluru Statement from the Heart to consider your role in this social movement.

🔖 PRESENTATION

Panel

📆  DATE

Wednesday 7 Sep 2022

⏰  MELBOURNE TIME

7.00 - 9.00 pm

⏰  LOCAL START TIME

time start

Kat Hamilton

KAT HAMILTON

Esther Salomon

ESTHER SALOMON

Simon Western

DR SIMON WESTERN

Learning with Activists

Kat Hamilton – Force of Nature, Esther Salomon – Animal Think Tank and Simon Western – Eco-leadership Institute, share what brought them into activism, the purpose of their organisation and social movement, and the effects of their activism.

🔖 PRESENTATION

Panel

📆  DATE

Thursday 8 Sep 2022

⏰  MELBOURNE TIME

9.00 - 11.00 am

⏰  LOCAL START TIME

time start

Lydia Alpizar

LYDIA ALPIZAR

David Luna

DAVID LUNA

Anita Prasad

ANITA PRASAD

Barbara Williams

BARBARA WILLIAMS

When social movement organizing meets systems psychodynamics

Lydia Aplizar – Mexican feminist human rights activist, mak wemuk (Davíd Luna) – Indigenous (of the Coahuiltecan peoples) and Latinx (Chicanx), Anita Prasad – grassroots community development and social justice leader and organizer, and Barbara Williams – psychoanalytically oriented organizational consulting practice focusing on leadership development, shared leadership and governance come together to explore when social movement organizing meets systems psychodynamics.

🔖 PRESENTATION

Dialogue session

📆  DATE

Thursday 8 Sep 2022

⏰  MELBOURNE TIME

5.00 - 7.00 pm

⏰  LOCAL START TIME

time start

Aarti Kapoor

AARTI KAPOOR

Emma Olivier

EMMA OLIVIER

Jenny Smith

JENNY SMITH

Employees and Organisational Perspectives on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG): The dynamics of making progress toward socially-impactful business.

Creating businesses that make positive contributions to their social and environmental
context is a significant area of focus and investment in developed economies. A dialogue event opening a conversation about the dynamics of making progress on Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) issues in the corporate context. The dialogue will offer participants the opportunity to engage in conversation with corporate leaders, Aarti Kapoor, Emma Oliver and Jenny Smith. The discussion aims to unearth the desires, opportunities, tensions and organisational dynamics that appear for executives and employees around ESG in the workplace.

🔖 PRESENTATION

Paper (parallel)

📆  DATE

Thursday 8 Sep 2022

⏰  MELBOURNE TIME

7.00 - 9.00 pm

⏰  LOCAL START TIME

time start

Gilles Amado

GILLES AMADO

The Anti-Vax Movement: A gateway to amalgams?

Mark Argent

MARK ARGENT

“Organising protest”, in the light of Lacan’s perverse discourses

Margo Lockhart

MARGO LOCKART

“Why He Orders the Steak. An exploration of gender differences within the animal rights movement.”

Petros Oratis

PETROS ORATIS

Taming the Beast: Exploring the lateral dynamics between the social movement and its opposition side and the need to shift from polarization to co-existence.

🔖 PRESENTATION

Paper (parallel)

📆  DATE

Friday 9 Sep 2022

⏰  MELBOURNE TIME

9.00 - 11.00 am

⏰  LOCAL START TIME

time start

Karen Loon

KAREN LOON

Anxious Nation – How historical anxieties shape Asian-Australians today

Harley McDonald-Eckersall

HARLEY MCDONALD-ECKERSALL

Redefining Uncertainty - what the cultural and creative movements can teach us about social movement organising

Anna Turley & Barbara Williams

ANNA TURLEY & BARBARA WILLIAMS

Building Social Justice Movements: What’s organizational role got to do with it?

🔖 PRESENTATION

Paper (parallel)

📆  DATE

Friday 9 Sep 2022

⏰  MELBOURNE TIME

5.00 - 7.00 pm

⏰  LOCAL START TIME

time start

Jo-anne Carlyle & Barbara Williams

DR JO-ANNE CARLYLE & BARBARA WILLIAMS

Problematising our orthodoxies

Greg Cook, Allan Shafer & Jenny Smith

GREG COOK, ALLAN SHAFER & JENNY SMITH

The Dynamics of the 'Seeking Asylum Project'

Neo Pule

DR NEO PULE

Student leaders’ unrest: A call to action for social justice through social dream drawing

The fundamental methods in psychoanalytic and socioanalytic research

PROF SUSAN LONG

🔖 PRESENTATION

Reflections

📆  DATE

Friday 9 Sep 2022

⏰  MELBOURNE TIME

7.00 - 9.00 pm

⏰  LOCAL START TIME

time start

Jennifer Burrows

MS JENNIFER BURROWS

John Gibney

MR JOHN GIBNEY

Fiona Martin

MS FIONA MARTIN

Cath McKinney

DR CATH McKINNEY

Mr Thomas Mitchell

MR THOMAS MITCHELL

Sally Mussared

MS SALLY MUSSARED

Reflections on the Symposium – Social Movements

Reflective practice in action with each member of the Symposium Planning Committee presenting their highlight of the symposium. Small group discussions to explore your highlights of the symposium and what was gained from the papers and presentations attended. Followed by a large group open discussion.

Social Movements: NIODA Symposium 2022

Day(s)

:

Hour(s)

:

Minute(s)

:

Second(s)

When & Where

NIODA Symposium 2022: Organising Protest: Where is our Systems Psychodynamic thinking on SOCIAL MOVEMENTS?

📆  Dates

Wednesday 7 – Friday 9 September 2022

⏰. Session Times

5 pm, 7 pm, 8 am & 9 am 🇨🇰  Melbourne
8 am, 10 am, 11pm & 12 am 🇬🇧  London
3 am, 5 am, 6 pm & 7 pm 🇺🇸  New York
3 pm, 5 pm, 6 am & 7 am 🇸🇬  Singapore

💷  For only

AUD $290 including; panel discussions, parallel paper
presentations, open reflection sessions, social dreaming sessions, social spaces & session recordings

👩🏻‍💻. Location

Live interactive online sessions via Zoom

Symposium archive

Opening the space to think differently and to go on thinking in the face of turbulence;
exploring and creating possibilities

Not Knowing and Coming to Know: Methods of inquiry into unconscious (hidden) dynamics in organisations

8-10 September 2021

NIODA's fifth annual symposium

live interactive online

Working into the Future: Building individual and organisational culture beyond 2020

9-11 September 2020

NIODA's fourth annual symposium

live interactive online

Building Healthy and Ethical Organisational Culture

12-13 September 2019

NIODA's third annual symposium

Parkville, Melbourne

Leading and Managing in the Emergency and Trauma Sectors

14-15 September 2018

NIODA's second annual symposium

Mount Macedon, Victoria

Getting the policies we deserve

September 2017

NIODA's first annual symposium

Melbourne

About NIODA

The National Institute of Organisation Dynamics Australia (NIODA) offers internationally renowned post-graduate education and research in organisation dynamics, and decades of experience consulting with Australian organisations. 

The study of organisation dynamics brings together socio-technical and psychoanalytic disciplines to explore the unconscious dynamics that exist in every group, team or organisation. Learning more about these theories, and reflecting on the experience of them, can support leaders and managers to unlock great potential in their organisations, tackling issues through a whole new light.

Get In Touch

Emerging Leadership: cometh the moment, cometh the leader.

Popular literature and human dependence promote the idea of The Leader, someone who can be relied on to show us the way. As if The Leader is always a leader. Some individuals are able to manipulate this wish and convince others that they have some special quality which makes them a person to follow in all circumstances. However, the evidence of history is that successful leadership is always circumstantial, regardless of whether history judges the outcomes to be good or bad. Such circumstances are a combination of the social forces that originate outside the person and the unique capacities that emerge from within the person at the right time.

At this time in Australia, we have a pending referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. We have official ‘leaders’ seeking followership, The Prime Minister (Yes) and the Leader of the Opposition (No). Both the individuals occupying these roles are currently regarded as uninspiring, just playing politics, not really mobilising others to identify with the possibilities of change.

Formally they are regarded as ‘leaders’ but on this issue, they are just politicians. The historical moment, which neither of them can claim to have shaped, is searching for a person or group who/which can connect the historically determined circumstance to the lived experience of those who will decide Yes or No through their vote.

The vacuum of leadership on this issue is not surprising because neither formal ‘leader’ can point to any convincing personal appreciation of what is at stake. Nothing is emerging at the top level; it is all about fixed arguments, ‘righting historical wrongs’ versus ‘threats to the constitution that has served us so well’.

Navigating Ambiguity: The Essence of Emerging Leadership

The notion of ‘emerging leadership’ is that it is a dynamically contingent relationship between what capacity an individual or group can find within themselves and how this speaks to the challenges others experience about which path to follow. We don’t need a leader if the choice is clear; then we only need an administrator or manager who decides the way forward based on some established criterion; a way that is tried and true, efficient, technically feasible, politically correct, evidence-based etc.

The emergent leader actually embraces an ambivalent situation and can look inward to discern an aspect of their being that connects to the deliberation about possibilities; and on the basis of that reflection argues for this way rather than that way, regardless of the formal position they hold, whilst mindful of the values of those they seek to influence.

Emergent leadership can be an everyday occurrence, not necessarily one of national and historical importance.

Discovering Leadership Through Personal Experience

Some years ago, working as an organisational consultant, I was persuaded by an acquaintance to offer assistance to her sister’s small business. Having started a fashion design business from her parent’s garage, this young woman had, with the unpaid help of her husband, achieved enough sales to employ another sister with marketing expertise and then, following further business growth, was needing to hire the first employee from outside the family. She wanted help in conducting the selection process such that this critical decision would enhance her growing enterprise whilst not threatening its family values. She had never used a consultant before, was appropriately dubious about the cost, and asked me if I knew anything about small business. I replied in the negative since all my consulting had been with larger entities.

We negotiated a sliding scale contract that would limit her risk depending upon the value she determined I was providing. She was really trusting her sister’s recommendation that I would be worth the expenditure. And I was impressed by her practical common sense.

It took two meetings between the sisters and me before I emerged as a leader in this circumstance.

As I reflected on my experience with the two sisters, of what was being said and not said and how this made me feel, I suddenly could not believe that I had told the client and myself that I did not know much about small business. When my conscious mind relaxed enough, I recalled that I had actually grown up in a small business. My father and his brother had started a small business after WWII and run it for 40 years. My whole young life had been shaped by the vicissitudes of a small business but the ‘professional’, adult me had left that all behind. When I got back in touch with my early experience, including memories of all the financial precariousness that my parents had tried to shield us from, of interfamily dynamics, and the direct satisfaction that I saw my father gain from being valued by his customers, I was in a changed state of mind when talking to my small business client.

Navigating Complex Leadership Dynamics: Balancing Intuition and Expertise

I began listening and speaking from a different space. I became a quiet leader whose thoughts and suggestions were amplified by my intuitive understanding of the risks and excitements my client was trying to estimate and choose. She was a talented and ambitious designer, a start-up entrepreneur in a notoriously risky sector and she had young children. Whose needs would prevail? Could it be both/and?

When I undertook that assignment I was already a ‘senior’ in the world of leadership development but obviously still very humanly vulnerable to putting conscious ‘knowing’ ahead of ‘coming to know’ within a particular circumstance. The case revealed that my most relevant resources were in my lived experience rather than my formal knowledge. I had to ‘emerge’ as a leader in the particular circumstance so could I lead my client to articulate what she felt about bringing an outsider into her business; a business that was outgrowing the family.

My sudden remembering of a past I had ‘forgotten’ is what Freud meant by getting in touch with the unconscious. In the consultation I did not need to explore why I had repressed my early experience, it was enough to embrace the creative lead it gave me into the current circumstance. It gave me a voice that was missing up until that point. A voice that was sufficiently authentic for my client to take it seriously.

Cultivating Emerging Leadership: Unveiling Personal Experience for Future Possibilities

Leadership does not belong to a formal role; it finds a voice of its own.

So I now argue that a critical aspect of leadership development is a process of helping individuals to recover the resources that exist within their own experience. This is different from developing an administrator, manager or executive who is rightly expected to have requisite knowledge and skills for the job they are employed to do. Leadership is not a fixed position. The need for leadership emerges and it can be offered by those who have some insight into future possibilities; possibilities that can connect the known to the unknown. We cannot be trained to do that but we can be primed to do it, if we learn to reflect in an intentional way to recall, to recognise and to harvest our past experiences as a resource for the future.*

It is quite possible that neither the Prime Minister nor the Leader of the Opposition have the internal resources to inspire a future for the Indigenous Voice but that does not mean such leadership will not emerge. Leadership does not belong to a formal role; it finds a voice of its own.

*My colleagues at NIODA are offering a leadership development workshop to encourage just this,  ‘Embracing your personal history for impactful leadership’, Learn more here.

PO Box 287, Collins Street West,
Melbourne  8007  Australia
+61 (0) 414 529 867
info@nioda.org.au

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Emerging Leadership: cometh the moment, cometh the leader.

Popular literature and human dependence promote the idea of The Leader, someone who can be relied on to show us the way. As if The Leader is always a leader. Some individuals are able to manipulate this wish and convince others that they have some special quality which makes them a person to follow in all circumstances. However, the evidence of history is that successful leadership is always circumstantial, regardless of whether history judges the outcomes to be good or bad. Such circumstances are a combination of the social forces that originate outside the person and the unique capacities that emerge from within the person at the right time.

At this time in Australia, we have a pending referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. We have official ‘leaders’ seeking followership, The Prime Minister (Yes) and the Leader of the Opposition (No). Both the individuals occupying these roles are currently regarded as uninspiring, just playing politics, not really mobilising others to identify with the possibilities of change.

Formally they are regarded as ‘leaders’ but on this issue, they are just politicians. The historical moment, which neither of them can claim to have shaped, is searching for a person or group who/which can connect the historically determined circumstance to the lived experience of those who will decide Yes or No through their vote.

The vacuum of leadership on this issue is not surprising because neither formal ‘leader’ can point to any convincing personal appreciation of what is at stake. Nothing is emerging at the top level; it is all about fixed arguments, ‘righting historical wrongs’ versus ‘threats to the constitution that has served us so well’.

Navigating Ambiguity: The Essence of Emerging Leadership

The notion of ‘emerging leadership’ is that it is a dynamically contingent relationship between what capacity an individual or group can find within themselves and how this speaks to the challenges others experience about which path to follow. We don’t need a leader if the choice is clear; then we only need an administrator or manager who decides the way forward based on some established criterion; a way that is tried and true, efficient, technically feasible, politically correct, evidence-based etc.

The emergent leader actually embraces an ambivalent situation and can look inward to discern an aspect of their being that connects to the deliberation about possibilities; and on the basis of that reflection argues for this way rather than that way, regardless of the formal position they hold, whilst mindful of the values of those they seek to influence.

Emergent leadership can be an everyday occurrence, not necessarily one of national and historical importance.

Discovering Leadership Through Personal Experience

Some years ago, working as an organisational consultant, I was persuaded by an acquaintance to offer assistance to her sister’s small business. Having started a fashion design business from her parent’s garage, this young woman had, with the unpaid help of her husband, achieved enough sales to employ another sister with marketing expertise and then, following further business growth, was needing to hire the first employee from outside the family. She wanted help in conducting the selection process such that this critical decision would enhance her growing enterprise whilst not threatening its family values. She had never used a consultant before, was appropriately dubious about the cost, and asked me if I knew anything about small business. I replied in the negative since all my consulting had been with larger entities.

We negotiated a sliding scale contract that would limit her risk depending upon the value she determined I was providing. She was really trusting her sister’s recommendation that I would be worth the expenditure. And I was impressed by her practical common sense.

It took two meetings between the sisters and me before I emerged as a leader in this circumstance.

As I reflected on my experience with the two sisters, of what was being said and not said and how this made me feel, I suddenly could not believe that I had told the client and myself that I did not know much about small business. When my conscious mind relaxed enough, I recalled that I had actually grown up in a small business. My father and his brother had started a small business after WWII and run it for 40 years. My whole young life had been shaped by the vicissitudes of a small business but the ‘professional’, adult me had left that all behind. When I got back in touch with my early experience, including memories of all the financial precariousness that my parents had tried to shield us from, of interfamily dynamics, and the direct satisfaction that I saw my father gain from being valued by his customers, I was in a changed state of mind when talking to my small business client.

Navigating Complex Leadership Dynamics: Balancing Intuition and Expertise

I began listening and speaking from a different space. I became a quiet leader whose thoughts and suggestions were amplified by my intuitive understanding of the risks and excitements my client was trying to estimate and choose. She was a talented and ambitious designer, a start-up entrepreneur in a notoriously risky sector and she had young children. Whose needs would prevail? Could it be both/and?

When I undertook that assignment I was already a ‘senior’ in the world of leadership development but obviously still very humanly vulnerable to putting conscious ‘knowing’ ahead of ‘coming to know’ within a particular circumstance. The case revealed that my most relevant resources were in my lived experience rather than my formal knowledge. I had to ‘emerge’ as a leader in the particular circumstance so could I lead my client to articulate what she felt about bringing an outsider into her business; a business that was outgrowing the family.

My sudden remembering of a past I had ‘forgotten’ is what Freud meant by getting in touch with the unconscious. In the consultation I did not need to explore why I had repressed my early experience, it was enough to embrace the creative lead it gave me into the current circumstance. It gave me a voice that was missing up until that point. A voice that was sufficiently authentic for my client to take it seriously.

Cultivating Emerging Leadership: Unveiling Personal Experience for Future Possibilities

Leadership does not belong to a formal role; it finds a voice of its own.

So I now argue that a critical aspect of leadership development is a process of helping individuals to recover the resources that exist within their own experience. This is different from developing an administrator, manager or executive who is rightly expected to have requisite knowledge and skills for the job they are employed to do. Leadership is not a fixed position. The need for leadership emerges and it can be offered by those who have some insight into future possibilities; possibilities that can connect the known to the unknown. We cannot be trained to do that but we can be primed to do it, if we learn to reflect in an intentional way to recall, to recognise and to harvest our past experiences as a resource for the future.*

It is quite possible that neither the Prime Minister nor the Leader of the Opposition have the internal resources to inspire a future for the Indigenous Voice but that does not mean such leadership will not emerge. Leadership does not belong to a formal role; it finds a voice of its own.

*My colleagues at NIODA are offering a leadership development workshop to encourage just this,  ‘Embracing your personal history for impactful leadership’. Learn more here.

Professor Emeritis John Newton 

August 2023

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