For many centuries the symptoms of scurvy in sailors - listlessness, diseased gums, loss of teeth - baffled ship’s surgeons. It was not until the 19th century that scientists were able to trace the path from the symptoms to the cause - a deficiency of the sailors’ diet. Years later, we take for granted that the body is a complex of many interacting systems, and we readily accept that a disturbance in one part of the system will show up in another part of the body.

S. H. Foulkes brought this way of thinking about signs and symptoms and their relationship to root causes to the study of group behavior in organizations in the 1940's. The organization is made up of the individual system, interacting with the group system, which is interconnected and interacting with all the other systems of the organization. A problems that shows up in any part of this complex system can have its source elsewhere. This idea forms the basis of his concept "The Location of the Disturbance".

Foulkes offered a good illustration from the time he served as a psychiatrist in an Army rehabilitation center during World War 2. He was developing the use of group methods in helping soldiers recover from the trauma of the battle front and had been encouraging a variety of group activities - one of these was the formation of a dance band. On one occasion he observed the band in the process of losing its leader. The outgoing leader had been an effective musician, but not especially liked. Band members were reacting with a mixture of feelings of loss and relief. The new piano player who was to take over the role was being browbeaten by the old leader. Foulkes reflected that should a stranger have entered on this episode in the group’s life, she would notice a depressed, fractious atmosphere and would see the piano player being bullied. The behavior would probably be puzzling. The visitor would be unaware of the group’s history, the personalities, and the imminent departure of the band leader. To understand the current dynamics within a group requires a sensitivity to the total situation. It was the imminent departure of the band leader and the associated feelings of loss that Foulkes identified as the location of the disturbance.

The director of a software development company approached us to do some team training. His company had been formed by a major electronics company in an attempt to break from the traditional culture of the parent organization which was thought to stifle innovation. The initial start-up phase of the new company had been exiting and fun, but it had grown very rapidly, and as it grew, working relationships deteriorated. The director had several pressing concerns. One was that the management team was not working well together. Attendance was poor at meetings, and members openly expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of time spent to accomplish little. A second concern was an unacceptable 30-40% turnover of new hires. They were having trouble keeping people whose skills were in high demand.

Our client believed that training in team work would make a difference. In fact, when we began work within the organization our diagnosis revealed an altogether different issue. Although the parent company had created a new company, it had kept many important ties. Each management team member’s major customer was in the parent company, and each team member had to report to that person on his or her projects. In effect there was an invisible organizational structure; the staff were controlled by senior managers in the parent company. In practice the new management structure had a limited influence on the work of the projects. Team training would have had about as much effect on the basic condition as a toothbrush in the treatment of scurvy. Our client needed to work on the issues of confused authority, structure, and roles within the company.

Foulkes considered the concept of the "Location of the Disturbance" a key principle of group work. Disturbance located in the group may show up in an individual’s behavior. Thus we might see a person dominating a group. Our tendency is to identify the person as difficult - a monopolizer. But what does this behavior tell us about the group? Foulkes would see this as an unconscious collusion between the monopolizer and the group. The monopolizer’s behavior is in some way serving a function for the group - after all, nobody else has to talk and may thus be avoiding a difficult issue.

What is happening in other parts of the system can give rise to disturbance in a group and in individuals. For instance, a stomach ache (the system of the body) which keeps the child from school may be the expression of the child’s anxiety (the system of psychology) which is an expression of bullying in the peer group (the system of the group) which, in turn, may be a reaction to a disturbance within the relationships of the principal and the teaching faculty.

When we work with organizations and encounter disturbances, it is important that we alternate our perspectives as we deepen our understanding of the situation. Pursuing the obvious may lead us to faulty solutions.