Managers, trainers, OD professionals, and coaches constantly work with boundaries and deal with groups and individuals who blur or break them. Challenges to boundaries can be regarded as unconscious communications revealing something of significance about the individual and/or the group. For example, when somebody is late for a meeting it is probable that this is expressive of his/her ambivalence about being there. If the meaning of lateness is explored, what is uncovered is likely to be different, and more interesting, than the excuse that was offered. There are occasions for lateness outside an individual’s control, but these are usually rare. When we need to be on time (for a job interview or to catch a plane) we are on time.

We can help this transition by acknowledging it and giving people a chance to put things aside, and we can do it in many ways. For instance, I started off a retreat that began at the end of a working day by asking "What do you need to set aside in order to be fully present at this retreat?" I then put people into small groups. Some people just needed to clear their minds; others dealt with distractions by making a decision about when they would handle them.

This can be managed in a much more informal way - for instance at a meeting you could give people a minute or two to clear their minds by identifying things that may be distracting them and making a note of them for handling later. Depending on your work environment and the particular group, you may want to start all your meetings with a procedure to help people through this transition. Likewise, you may make the judgment that you only need it occasionally.

Take for example this mental health team. An entry-level worker had been a member for six months. He was attractive and bright and had the right basic skills, but he was discouraged to the point of considering a change in his profession. It emerged that much of the staff debriefing sessions after groups were spent in helping him to see and correct mistakes he made. As is always true in scapegoating, there was a kernel of truth; he was inexperienced. It is also true that in mental health work, success is elusive and difficult to attribute. Everyone on the team was concerned about their effectiveness; everyone made mistakes. So long as others did not open their own to scrutiny, he carried that burden for them all. What appeared to be attempts to support him, actually served to make the others feel wise and skillful.

The scapegoating process is difficult to influence. The group will naturally resist change because members will not want to own their part of the problem. If scapegoating has gone on for some time, people may be locked into their perceptions and roles. Early intervention is the best course.

Address the problem gently. Never use the word "scapegoat". It will be seen as pejorative, and people will throw up defenses. It is also too vague. People will not know how they can change. Scapegoating always emerges from some concern within the group. The key task is to discover and name the concern. The second task is to shift the focus away from the "problem"person and find a way to work on the issue with the group. How you choose to do so depends on the capacity or need for the group to work on its process. Take the case of the mental health team discussed above. A direct intervention to enlist the group’s thinking might be: "There is something odd going on in the group for me. On the one hand we appear to be trying to help John, yet it feels to me as if we are picking on him. What do you think?" A less direct intervention would be to change the debrief meeting structure and have each person reflect on times they felt good and times they felt unsure of themselves as they worked. We might use another meeting to discuss how challenging mental health work is to one’s sense of accomplishment. On the other hand we might not bring the issue up in the group. Sometimes if one or two key people become aware of what is happening, their responses in the group change; others pick this up, and the group shifts. Or we might want to handle it in an oblique way. For instance, if you, as a manager, became aware of the dynamic, you might want to introduce a training session for the team where group facilitation issues could be discussed in a de-personalized way.

For more on scapegoating

Subgroups always form in any organization of any size. They may be around functional areas. They may be around different perspectives. Individuals holding similar interests or views will tend to gravitate to one another. The training department will have a different perspective, for instance, on human resources to the finance department. It is often difficult to communicate across these subgroups. Sometimes the subgroups become polarized in their views and locked in conflict. This tool helps to break down some of the barriers. For more on subgrouping see "Flexible Subgrouping: A Factor in Organizational Health"

Trainers have been ingenious in developing many "ice breakers" intended to address the issue of getting people engaged. Sometimes these ice breakers miss the point. Sometimes their purpose can become displaced from forming the group to making the trainer look clever. Some icebreakers are disjointed from the course content. Some plunge people in too rapidly with questions such as "What would you like to be your epitaph?"

We would like to suggest a restricted list of opening exercises which rely for their novelty on the fact that meeting new people for the first time is pretty interesting.

A simple design is to ask participants to form buzz groups (2 - 4 people) to talk for about 5 - 10 minutes on a simple but relevant topic. Then bring them back into the large group to report on their conversation and continue the discussion in the whole group. A main objective is to foster everyone’s participation, so allow ample time, say 10 - 20 minutes. Hearing his or her voice for the first time in the large group is an import step for each person becoming a member of the group.

Select topics for the buzz groups that are relevant and important but not especially demanding. The topic should be interesting but one which all participants can readily speak about. Some examples are:

• What are both your wishes and fears for this workshop?
• What are your personal goals for the workshop?
• What personal experiences do you have of the issues this workshop wants to address?

* group discussion, role plays, structured exercises, etc.

Interpretation is part of a reasoning process. A consultant reflects on her observations of an interpersonal relationship or group and arrives at an explanation of what might be happening to give rise to the present situation. He/she then formulates an hypothesis or interpretation. This interpretation is then used as the basis for an intervention, a way of intervening in the process that builds the group’s capacity to function more effectively.

The problem with interpretations is that the idea being expressed unconsciously is not something the client wishes to know. To interpret ahead of the client’s readiness will tighten the individual or group’s defenses and cause a breakdown in communication. Psychoanalysts understand that the time to interpret is when the client is almost ready to reach the insight. Direct interpretation in consultancy requires sensitivity and a strong relationship with the client. It is often best to use your interpretation as a basis of action rather than a direct communication.

Consider this example. A newly formed project team is taking part in a team building workshop. During the last meeting of the first day a conflict broke out between the designated team leader and a senior specialist and was not resolved. The next morning several group members arrive late. The facilitator might look at that and think - they are alarmed by the conflict of yesterday. An interpretation might be to ask, "What has the group members’ lateness to do with yesterday’s conflict?".

The facilitator might be right in his interpretation, but unhelpful in its application. The group is too new to deal with such information. The members who were late may well feel publicly shamed that their excuses were not accepted at face value. The facilitator would be better to keep his interpretation to himself and approach the issue indirectly. For example, later in the day he might introduce a session on conflict in teams. In the best of circumstances the group would talk about yesterday’s conflict and work through the issues that it provoked in the group.

*********

* Thanks to Helen Clinard for her comments on interpretation.

• To foster the team members’ awareness of team processes.
• To encourage the team to take responsibility for regularly reviewing how well they are working together.

1. Explain to the team that the team’s task is to develop a self-assessment questionnaire for the team and request each member to take 5 - 10 minutes to think back on their experiences of working in teams and make notes about the characteristics of effective teams and of ineffective teams. Suggest that it is helpful bring to mind specific examples or incidents. Also ask them to think about the characteristics of good and poor team members.
   
   
2. Give the team 30 minutes to discuss the topic and agree on the 8 - 10 characteristics that they want to assess their own team performance.
   
   
3. When they have agreed on the characteristics ask them to put each of them into a statement that they will rate on a 5 point scale (Almost always - Almost never). This questionnaire can then be printed and be used regularly to review their team performance.

Note. In our experience team members invariably came up with the common criterion that is discussed in the literature. However, if the consultant thinks there are one or two important criteria that have been overlooked there is no disadvantage in contributing these to the group’s discussion.

To make use of the experience we need to switch ourselves from being immersed in the experience of being bored, and look down on ourselves and say "Aha! I am bored. What is this about?" In so doing, we move from the isolation of boredom and connect ourselves to the group through a spirit of enquiry.

So what if you are bored in a group? First of all, you can expect that you are most likely not the only person bored. Secondly, you can ask what is this boredom is saying about the group . People are not being engaged, and this may be so for a number of reasons: an old conflict keeps resurfacing; the group needs to be more candid about performance; a dominating individual needs to be confronted. Any of these might seem too difficult for the group, and so members retreat into boredom.

The first job is to identify what is causing the boredom - what are the underlying issues? Once this is done, a judgment must be made as to how ready the group is for any intervention. Are members bored enough that they want a change? How resistant will they be to addressing the issues they need to face? What works with this group - shock or subtlety? From this comes a decision as to how gentle or confrontational you are.

Interventions can range from :

1. Bringing up the issue in the group (either focus on the group’s current low functioning or the issue you have identified).
   
   
2. Proposing a plan for group development (a strategic planning retreat, etc.).
   
   
3. Doing nothing. Doing nothing is a perfectly valid option if you believe the group is not ready to be openly confronted on the need for change. Interestingly, if you have moved yourself outside the experience of being bored into reflecting on the process, then this will have an impact on your participation and on the group as a whole.
   

• To encourage the group members’ awareness of the norms which are influencing their behavior in the group.
• To assist the group members to modify the norms of their group

Display a chart of the norms on a flip chart or overhead projector. Bring the group back together and facilitate a discussion of each of the norms in turn with respect to the "good" and "bad" discussion group. Aim to arrive at a group consensus on the norm framework operating in each of these groups. The discussion usually takes about 10 minutes.

Suggested norm framework for analyzing a discussion group:

Giving information. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Asking questions. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Support another member. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Listen carefully to what others say. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Disagree with another member. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Build on another members idea. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Bringing in another member. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Interrupting another member. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Summarize what has been said. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Admitting difficulty. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Self-disclosure. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Expressing feelings. Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Humor and playfulness Low 1 2 3 4 5 High

This list of norms is not comprehensive and can be changed to suit the particular circumstances.

Lewin view organizations as systems in which the present situation was not a static pattern but a dynamic balance of forces working in opposite directions. In any situation there are both driving forces that push for change and restraining forces that will act against change. The status quo represents an equilibrium between these forces.

1. List all the forces for and against a change in two columns.
   
   
2. Question all of these forces as to how valid they are? Could they be changed? Which would be easier or harder to change? Which are the key forces?
   
   
3. Now, assign a magnitude to the forces by scoring them from 1 to 5.
   
   
4. Finally, draw a diagram of the forces by drawing a line down the center of the page and draw the driving and restraining forces (to scale according to their magnitude) pushing against the line to give you a visual picture of the force-field. Your force-field analysis will help you decide if the change is feasible and, if so, where you can create the greatest leverage

If you decide to go ahead, change can be achieved either by increasing the strength of the driving forces or decreasing the restraining forces. The problem with increasing driving forces is that it can create new restraining forces - e.g. increased assertiveness may provoke people from passive annoyance to active opposition. If you work to decrease restraining forces, this must be done with empathy for the concerns of the people involved, or it will be perceived as manipulation.

1. The International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (IPSO) provides a forum for academics, clinicians, consultants and others interested in working in and with organizations utilizing psychoanalytic concepts and insights.

The Society's aim is to share organizational research, consultation and experiences in the context of psychoanalysis. The ISPSO holds an annual meeting and symposium, locally organized study groups and ongoing discussions on the Internet and encourages scholarship and research in the field.

The Society has a wonderful archive with full text papers from its annual conferences.
http://www.sba.oakland.edu/ispso/

2. Group Analysis is the journal of the Group Analytic Society (London). The special issue of the Group Analysis to be published in March 2002, "Group Analysis in the New Millennium", with Ben Davidson, as Guest Editor is currently available in a draft form on the web:
http://www.groupintervisual.net/hosting/ga-special-issue/

3. If you have the energy to join an e-mail discussion group I recommend Orgdyne.

Roger Harrison designed a team development exercise called Role Negotiation. This a simple, yet tough minded, approach to helping teams develop the working relationships between their members. The consultant asks each team member to think about how they are working with each of the other team members. Encourage them to find the time to reflect and make notes about what they like about their present relationship and what they want to change. Harrison proposes that team members organize their reflections around three statements,
1 If you were to do the following things more often or better, it would help me to increase my own effectiveness.
2. If you were to do the following things less frequently, or were to stop doing them altogether, it would help me to increase my own effectiveness.
3. The following things which you have been doing help me to increase my effectiveness, and I want you to continue to do them.
The members then work in pairs with each other to negotiate the changes in the way they work. In these discussions some changes are easy but others are hard. The two members may need to work out a trade-off, "I will always discuss my decisions ahead of announcing them if you will keep me informed of your calendar." At the end of each round of negotiations they write down their agreements in specific terms; What will change, When, and under What conditions. They both sign the document as if it were a legal contract.
The team members then move on to work with other team members. At the end of all these negotiations they are asked to present their contracts to the rest of the team. This part of the exercise presents the opportunity to deepen the communication within the team, moving to a more open, mutually supporting, challenging and reflective group culture. At the team level they can also look at those conflicts which arise over which the individuals do not have control. The team together can work out ways to resolve these problems.
Use this exercise when there is role confusion and conflict within a team. I usually do some preliminary work before this exercise to develop a supporting group culture and get them into a frame of mind to work I might ask them to discuss the characteristics of an effective team or to prepare an effective meeting evaluation questionnaire for their team.

A telephone bridge line is a service that enables people to hold telephone conference calls. Callers phone the same number and enter a virtual space in which they are able to talk to each other as if they were in the same room. Typical bridge lines enable 30 people to talk together. Other bridge lines have an even greater capacity, 150 people and up. Telephone technology has developed to the point that the sound quality is extraordinarily good. Indeed it has to be good because the any interference such as a persistent background noise or echo is very wearing on people taking part in the conversation.

Coach University is one of the early adopters of this technology and has built up a substantial business as a training agency for coaches. The core of its training program are the bridge line conference calls - called tele classes - in which students meet with their class tutor. These classes are international, in many classes there are students calling in from England, France, Canada, Australia and other countries as well as Americans. Tele classes supported by e-mail and a resource rich web site can constitute an effective training system.

Similar telephone conference services have been available to people in corporations for a number of years. The bridge telephone is a system that is well suited to the needs of individuals and small companies. At $10 - 20 per hour rental costs are reasonable. In addition to this each caller will pay the cost of a long distance phone call.

All bridge lines to get glitches occasionally and it is important that callers do not cell phones or speaker phones for example. Overseas calls sometimes cause echoes.

Telephone bridges can be rented from a variety of agencies, here are two:

http://www.teleclass4u.com/telebridge.cfm   They offer two options for teleconference line rentals – hourly ($20) or annually ($900).

www.teleclassinternational.com   up to 90 minutes, for 150 people,$20 +$5 if you want it recorded. Offers pin only access.

A service which I have just heard about is www.mrconference.com   which offers free teleconferencing. I have not used this service yet but it is worth be worth checking out.