Top leadership conferences 2024, GRC Dover, Massachusetts
WELCOME FROM THE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR
A recent Harvard Business Review (HBR) study found a significant increase in the number of meetings employees attended, with 70% being deemed “ineffective and a waste of time” and resulting in fatigue (Laker et al., 2022). This research confirms what many of us already know, that we spend much of our life in meetings that leave us frustrated and wondering, “What’s going on here?” HBR also reported that newly promoted managers used meetings as a platform to gain visibility and to garner “buy in.”
The HBR researchers offered concrete suggestions to managers to reduce meeting frequency and to implement cost-effective productivity measures. However, the researchers overlooked the deeper emotional and group dynamics at play when authority – those in charge – exercise leadership with workers. Subordinates’ complaints of fatigue may mask buried anger and dissatisfaction with leadership. Managers’ use of meetings to gain visibility might stem from a desire for recognition and promotion from their superiors. Seeking “buy in” could also reflect the managers’ attempts to gain authority and allegiance from their teams. As a remedy, the researchers offer practical solutions without examining the dynamics underlying fatigue and dissatisfaction. Left unexplored, these dynamics become entrenched silent patterns that influence authority, leadership, meetings, and the organizations’ ability to accomplish their purpose. This oversight, and its potential for disrupting organizations, suggests a need for understanding authority-related dynamics in meetings.
One way to gain a deeper knowledge of authority dynamics is to attend a “group relations conference” (“GRC”). The purpose or primary task of a GRC, and this Conference, is to provide opportunities for participants to learn about the exercise of authority and leadership in groups and social systems. These conferences focus on the confer aspect of meetings by examining the dynamics that occur when a group of people confer – “come together to have discussions and exchange opinions”; and studying the authority dynamics when we confer – “grant or bestow on oneself or others.” These conferences have existed for over 70 years and their purpose is to create opportunities for you to learn – as it is happening – how you confer authority and exercise leadership by examining the dynamics that appear in plain sight and those that hide out of sight as you work on a task. In this conference, you can learn the script you follow when you exercise leadership or confer authority in a group but find yourself feeling fatigued, stuck, powerless, unsettled, or conflicted. You can explore what happens to your authority in a group when your individual identities including age, political affiliation, religion, race, gender, class, are celebrated, challenged, or denigrated. You can study the narratives you tell yourself about authority when you attend a meeting or lead an organization.
On behalf of the Conference Staff, I invite you to register to explore how you can better author your authority in your own life which can often feel like one big meeting.
Directorate &
Administration
Consultants
will be chosen
from among:
CONFERENCE STAFF ROLES:
MANAGERS AND CONSULTANTS
MANAGERS
The Conference Staff are responsible for creating and maintaining the conditions that support learning. Some Staff work as executive management and others who work as middle managers leading the small, large, and review and application group events. All Staff work collectively as managers to take authority and accountability to administer, maintain, and contain the time or schedule, basic task, and territory or space boundaries of the Conference institution.
TIME boundaries generate an opportunity to learn how clearly defined schedules or meeting agendas can create a sense of safety and predictability in organizations. The time boundaries create learning about our acknowledgment or rejection of time constraints and pressures in organizations such as missing or making deadlines.
TASK boundaries exist to fulfill the purpose of the Conference institution. When managers do not link the task to purpose of an institution, difficulties arise such as divisiveness, disruption, and disengagement in organizations. You have an opportunity to study, from a systems perspective, how you engage with or disengage from the assigned task as you interact within and across different levels of relationships and organizations – individual, interpersonal, group, and intergroup.
TERRITORY boundaries create an opportunity for learning about our overt and hidden responses to physical and psychological territory or spaces. These include the change in organizational or societal climate with: 1) the absence or presence of a formally designated person in an authority role to manage the territory or department; 2) the mental territories we carve out about which groups or departments we exclude or include based on shared identities or worldviews; 3) the conflict that emanates from a territorial dispute between two groups, states, or nations that share a border; and 4) the establishment or defiance of power and authority by having access to certain resources, meeting in designated or undesignated work spaces, or choosing or refusing a particular seating arrangement.
CONSULTANTS
SELF-STUDY – In the Consultant role, Consultants share their observations and hypotheses about how authority and leadership are being exercised – as they unfold in the moment – to advance opportunities for self-study, reflection, and learning. These observations include unseen patterns or dynamics that the group may not recognize.
GROUP LEVEL DYNAMICS – Consultants’ observations and hypotheses are based on the dynamics that are occurring in real time on the group level rather than at an individual level. When an individual is activated to take on a group dynamic on behalf of the whole group, the Consultant will make this dynamic available for the group to study.
Consultants are focused on advancing opportunities for learning. They do not manage the participants or participants’ behavior except in cases where the safety of members or Staff may be compromised.
The way that the Conference Staff exercises authority and leadership is available for study and learning by Conference participants.
CONFERENCE EVENTS
Plenaries
The Staff and all participants will attend three plenaries or Conference discussion meetings. These meetings serve as an opportunity to reflect, review, identify, and talk about the patterns they have observed, and narrate the feelings, actions, attitudes, and thoughts they experience upon entering, working in, and leaving the Conference system.
1. The Opening Plenary is like an on-boarding meeting where participants meet the Staff, learn specific information about the work or primary task they are assigned, and express their experience of choosing to join this Conference.
2. The Institutional Event Plenary occurs after the participants have worked in organizational sectors of their choice. During this meeting, Staff and participants have an opportunity to confer and explore in a systemic way their way of delegating authority and sharing hypotheses across sectors and with Management.
3. The Closing Plenary is the final reflection meeting where the Staff and participants confer to make meaning of the institution they created, reflect on the experiences they authored individually and as a group, and discuss how they want to author their Conference learning.
Small Study Group
The Small Study Group (“SSG”) creates opportunities for participants to learn about dynamics that are typically hidden from their awareness. Participants are face-to-face as they study their dynamics and behavior in real time in the group.
We assign eight to ten participants to each SSG, assign them a task, and supply them with one Consultant to assist their learning as they work.
The task requires participants to examine in real time how they exercise authority and leadership.
Large Study Group
The Large Study Group (“LSG”) consists of all the Conference participants with a team of three to four Consultants. Though the LSG has the same task as the SSG, the architectural structure limits face-to-face and direct personal interactions.
This structure simulates the dynamics of large social systems such as town hall meetings or listserv discussions where participants have difficulty knowing or seeing who is talking, can lose track of the task, and managers may not provide the necessary structure or tools.
Participants have an opportunity to study some of the patterns and dynamics that arise in large group systems including vulnerability, regression or juvenile behavior, reactivity, or creativity.
Institutional Event
In this Institutional Event (“IE”), all participants exercise their authority to work in organizational sectors of their choice. Key areas of the IE are relevant to how workplace sectors or departments work together or in silos.
– How do participants in your sector engage on an assigned task, use or misuse resources, and delegate authority and power at varying levels of leadership and followership?
– How does your sector collaborate across sectors and is this pattern spread out among different levels of function and hierarchies in the system?;
– What are the ideas or hypotheses about the institutional and workplace culture present in the system, and what solutions are indicated?
Role Review & Application Group
The Role Review and Application Group (“RRAG”) consists of five to seven participants typically from the same field or industry. One or two Consultants are assigned to each RRAG to help the group participants work with each other to make meaning of their Conference experiences.
During the RRAG, the participants are in reflection mode. They are looking back and reviewing the ways they took up roles, exercised authority and leadership during their encounters in the formal sectors or subsystems (SSG, LSG, IE), informal subsystems (meal times, breaks), and in the system as a whole.
The RRAG can serve as a bridge by helping participants connect their Conference learning about authority, leadership, and roles to tangible dilemmas they face in their personal, work, social, community, and societal lives.
4 QUESTIONS ANSWERED ABOUT A GROUP RELATIONS CONFERENCE
WhAT IS A GROUP RELATIONS CONFERENCE?
A group relations conference exists to provide you with opportunities to learn how you exercise authority and leadership in groups and social systems, by studying your overt and silent behaviors as they are happening.
Watch this video from 1:41 to 6:32 where our colleague, Dr. Tracy Wallach, tells you more about what a group relations conference entails.
Who Attends?
In a group relations Conference, participants learn firsthand about organizational dynamics by being immersed in a temporary institution co-created by the participants and the Conference staff. People who have attended in the past wanted to lead more effectively and learn how to navigate the silent group dynamics that can influence leadership, followership, engagement, alienation, communication, and collaboration in organizations and society. Past attendees vary by age and generation cohorts, and worked in education, business, healthcare, medicine, engineering, defense, government, and creative arts.
HOW do you learn?
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
Unlike a TED-talk or traditional models of learning where the speaker or teacher holds all the knowledge, this Conference values your expertise as the author of your own experiences.
Your experience functions as data or resources for you to examine as you learn about how you exercise authority and leadership. Your experience includes the actions, thoughts, and emotions that develop depending on how the group makes use of your group and social identities including age, race, political affiliation, religion, and class.
SELF-STUDY IN REAL TIME
In this Conference, you have an opportunity to study your experience in the group and reflect on how your experience is influenced by the hidden and visible dynamics developed in the group.
Your reflections can help you learn how to take time consistently to study your silent motivations, patterns of relating to others and yourself, group dynamics, and biases related to leadership and authority in groups and organizations.
GROUP-AS-A-WHOLE
When Staff work in their Consultant roles, they share their observations about the patterns occurring at the group level, not at an individual level.
The group-as-a-whole approach acknowledges that when a participant communicates a thought, or engages in an action or emotion, the individual -as one part of the collective group – may be expressing this thought, behavior or emotion on behalf of the other parts or participants in the group.
WHERE CAN I TRANSFER MY LEARNING?
MEETINGS & WORKPLACES
Understanding Group Dynamics: Leadership involves the ability to observe dynamics that occur in plain sight and those that are unseen. Your learning from observing group dynamics – as they unfold– can foster discussions in real time with your teams or departments about undercurrents of authority dynamics and engagement with their task. This can help facilitate greater communication of difficult topics and aid with accountability for completing tasks.
Your learning about attending to unseen dynamics in the moment can foster timely communication and less silence about dynamics that can grow potent and become harder to address.
Learning about group dynamics can help you identify and explore – in the moment– undercurrents like divisiveness that your team may not be aware they are invested in maintaining.
INSTITUTIONS, ORGANIZATIONS & BOARDS
Uncertainty & Decision-making: Leadership involves using skills that contribute to, rather than hinder, task performance. Your immersive group relations learning creates opportunities to learn about your threshold for engaging in tasks or making decisions during times of uncertainty.
Learning about systems thinking can encourage you to feed relevant information into all organizational sectors which can reduce the level of uncertainty or task disengagement.
Learning about the embedded nature of socio-cultural, racial, economic, governmental, and geo-political challenges in groups can provide context when crises inside the workplace seem to mirror the outside world.
SELF
Leadership, Role Clarity, & Responsive Communication: Your learning about the dynamics that result in you taking up early familial roles in the groups, can help you identify the leadership gap you may be filling in the organization. It may also help you establish and maintain appropriate role boundaries.
Leadership includes a sensitivity to your and others’ feelings and attitudes. Learning about how you respond to others’ affective responses and your own helps you explore what emotions you and others may be expressing on behalf of the organization. It might also reveal emotions that relate to the task of the organization.
CONFERENCE LEARNING
INSIGHT
TRANSFORMATION
APPLICATION
TENTATIVE CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Day 1 Schedule – Wednesday, January 17, 2024
ALL TIMES ARE IN EASTERN USA TIME (ET)
11:30 AM: Registration Opens
12:00 – 1:00 PM: Lunch
1:15 PM: Registration Closes
1:30 – 2:30 PM: Conference Opening Plenary
2:30 – 2:45 PM: Break
2:45 – 4:00 PM: Small Study Group (SSG)
4:00 – 4:30 PM: Break
4:30 – 5:45 PM: Large Study Group (LSG)
6:00 – 7:00 PM: Dinner
7:15 – 8:30 PM: Small Study Group (SSG)
Day 2 Schedule – Thursday, January 18, 2024
ALL TIMES ARE IN EASTERN USA TIME (ET)
7:00 – 8:30 AM: Breakfast
8:45 – 10:00 AM: Large Study Group (LSG)
10:00 – 10:30 AM: Break
10:30 – 11:45 AM: Small Study Group (SSG)
12:00 – 1:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 – 2:15 PM: Institutional Event (IE)
2:15 – 2:45 PM: Break
2:45 – 4:00 PM: Institutional Event (IE)
4:00 – 4:30 PM: Break
4:30 – 5:45 PM: Large Study Group (LSG)
6:00 – 7:00 PM: Dinner
7:15 – 8:30 PM: Small Study Group (SSG)
Day 3 Schedule– Friday, January 19, 2024
ALL TIMES ARE IN EASTERN USA TIME (ET)
7:00 – 8:30 AM: Breakfast
8:45 – 10:00 AM: Large Study Group (LSG)
10:00 – 10:30 AM: Break
10:30 – 11:45 AM: Small Study Group (SSG)
12:00 – 1:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 – 2:15 PM: Institutional Event (IE)
2:15 – 2:45 PM: Break
2:45 – 4:00 PM: Institutional Event (IE)
4:00 – 4:30 PM: Break
4:30 – 5:45 PM: Large Study Group (LSG)
6:00 – 7:00 PM: Dinner
7:15 – 8:30 PM: Small Study Group (SSG)
Day 4 Schedule– Saturday, January 20, 2024
ALL TIMES ARE IN EASTERN USA TIME (ET)
7:00 – 8:30 AM: Breakfast
8:45 – 10:00 AM: Large Study Group (LSG)
10:00 – 10:30 AM: Break
10:30 – 11:45 AM: Small Study Group (SSG)
12:00 – 1:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 – 2:15 PM: Institutional Event (IE)
2:15 – 2:45 PM: Break
2:45 – 4:00 PM: Institutional Event (IE) Plenary Review
4:00 – 4:30 PM: Break
4:30 – 4:50 PM: Role Review & Application Group Opening (RRAG)
5:00 – 6:00 PM: Role Review & Application Group (RRAG)
6:00 – 7:00 PM: Dinner
7:00 – 8:30 PM: Role Review & Application Group (RRAG)
Day 5 Schedule– Sunday, January 21, 2024
ALL TIMES ARE IN EASTERN USA TIME (ET)
7:30 – 8:30 AM: Breakfast
8:30 – 10:00 AM: Role Review & Application Group (RRAG)
10:00 – 10:15 AM: Break
10:15 – 11:30 AM: Conference Review
11:30 – 12:30 PM: Lunch
12:30 – 2:00 PM: Role Review & Application Group (RRAG)
2:00 PM – 2:30 PM: Conference Close
REGISTER NOW
Space is limited to 50 participants. Register today. *EARLY BIRD* Rates good through Dec. 8, 2023
This outstanding value includes lodging, meals, refreshments as well as the consultancy and management of leaders in the field of organizational dynamics, consulting, coaching, and systems psychodynamics.
We offer tiered pricing and financial assistance across various organizational sectors to accommodate your financial needs and to make this Conference accessible to a broad and diverse audience.
*EARLY BIRD* CORPORATE
Individuals sponsored by a for-profit organization- $400 Discount
- 4 Nights Accommodation
- Meals & Refreshments
- STANDARD RATE $4,200 after Dec. 8th
*EARLY BIRD* SELF PAY
Individuals paying for themselves and not sponsored by their employers- $500 Discount
- 4 Nights Accommodation
- Meals & Refreshments
- STANDARD RATE $3,600 after Dec. 8th
*EARLY BIRD* SELF PAY + 1
Individuals paying for themselves and not sponsored by their employers, who register with one other person from the same organization- $300 Discount
- 4 Nights Accommodation
- Meals & Refreshments
- STANDARD RATE $2,600 after Dec. 8th
*EARLY BIRD* NON-PROFIT
Individuals sponsored by a non-profit organization- $500 Discount
- 4 Nights Accommodation
- Meals & Refreshments
- STANDARD RATE $3,300 after Dec. 8th
*EARLY BIRD* MEMBER
Individuals who are members of CSGSS, A.K. Rice and its Affiliates, or our sponsors- $500 Discount
- 4 Nights Accommodation
- Meals & Refreshments
- STANDARD RATE $3,200 after Dec. 8th
Contact us for information about groups of 3+, scholarships, and installment plans at admin@leadershipgrc.com
PURPOSE & HISTORY OF CSGSS
PURPOSE
The purpose or primary task of a group relations conference (“GRC”), and this Conference is to provide opportunities for participants to learn about the exercise of authority and leadership in social systems such as institutions and organizations.
Participants in this Conference have the liberty to approach the primary task as they choose, and as others authorize them to do, within the laws of the state in which the Conference is held.
During this self-study of hidden dynamics as they occur in real time, it is possible for Staff and participants to encounter opportunities that have the potential for transformation at the personal, organizational, and societal levels.
HISTORY
This GRC is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems (CSGSS) located in Boston, Massachusetts in the USA. It is also known as the Boston Center, a reference to its identity as the Boston Affiliate of the A. K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI). CSGSS has been offering GRCs since 1975.
GRCs originated at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London, England after World War II. This Tavistock model is a formidable framework that has expanded to include open systems, boundaries, sociotechnical concepts, and psychoanalytic ideas about anxiety and desire to understand how hidden social forces in groups can influence how organizations fail or thrive.
A basic premise of GRCs is that individuals are always involved in groups. People bring their earliest history, interactions, and experiences with authority figures, the people in charge of them, beginning with their family of origin and later with community influencers- teachers, medical, public safety, and religious leaders.
EVENTS
CSGSS offers additional organizational, leadership, and authority programs aimed at fulfilling their mission to further the understanding of groups and organizations as conscious and unconscious social systems through experiential learning, education, and application.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Jan. 17-21, 2024; 2024 CSGSS Residential GRC – Authoring Your Authority
Fall 2023 Reading Group* – Organization in the Mind *Scholarship Fundraiser
2024 Leading from Experience – Developing the Consultative Stance
2024 Balint-Style Group – Feedback on Organizational Dilemma
PAST EVENTS
- 2023 Weekend Non-Residential Group Relations Conference: Leadership, Authority, and Power in Transition – The New/Old and in Between
- 2023 Leading from Experience – Developing the Consultative Stance; Leadership Development
- 2023 Balint-Style Group; Peer Feedback on Organizational Dilemmas
- 2023 Residential Group Relations Conference: #A.I. Authority & Intersectionality: Creativity @ Work;
- 2023 Annual Membership Meeting
- 2023 Online Reading Groups – The Work is Alive!; Klein & Wine!; Group Discussion and Learning
WHAT PAST PARTICIPANTS SAY ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
Frequently Asked Questions
What if I Want To Attend But Cannot Afford The Conference Price?
CSGSS is a non-profit organization that works to make group relations conferences available to interested persons who may face financial constraints. We recognize that some of you may need financial assistance or a payment plan to cover the costs to register for and attend this Conference. We are offering tiered pricing and financial assistance across various organizational sectors to accommodate your financial needs and to make this Conference accessible to a broad and diverse audience. If the price prohibits you from attending this Conference, please write to our administrators at admin@leadershipgrc.com to tell us about your situation and the price you can afford.
Do I have to attend every Conference event?
The learning in this Conference is immersive and experiential. Each event, the sequence of the event, and its relationship to events that took place previously or are upcoming, form a vital and integrated Conference learning experience. This learning requires all participants to commit to attending the events and the Conference in its entirety. If you are unable to attend the full Conference, you may wish to postpone your attendance.
Experiential Learning and Stress
The Conference uses experiential learning which can be stimulating, intensive and enriching. At times, experiential learning can be confrontational and elicit strong emotions which can feel stressful. Thus, participants who are ill, going through a period of significant personal difficulties or challenging events, or are emotionally triggered by views that do not align with their own, should forgo participating at this time. Registration may be refused and participation in the Conference may be rescinded at the discretion of the Conference Staff.
Withdrawals or cancellations
Registration fees can only be refunded if a written notice of cancellation or withdrawal is sent via email and is received by the administrators by 6 PM ET on December 17, 2023. An administration fee of $100 will be deducted.
Confidentiality
The Conference staff and participants will not disclose the behavior of any individual member to anyone outside the Conference or to the boards of the sponsoring organizations.
What If I want to Attend with someone from my same organization?
We recommend that two or more people from the same organization attend the Conference together. Learning with others from your organization increases the opportunity for you to have someone who is familiar with this framework and can help you apply your learning. You will also have someone with whom you can generate hypotheses and make sense of unseen group and emotional dynamics that can be disruptive to work satisfaction in your organization.
privacy Policy for email marketing
Your email address will be shared with our sponsoring organizations who support our work in group relations unless you explicitly request not to have your email address shared.
Our Conference takes place during the peak of flu season. As a safety precaution, we ask that you adhere to our Covid-19 Protocol, which may change due to Covid-19 updates.
COVID-19 PROTOCOL
- A negative Covid-19 test, taken within 48 hours before the Conference, is mandatory for all Staff and participants.
- Those exposed to Covid-19 but testing negative must wear a N95 mask. Staff will have N95 masks available.
- Conference Staff and participants who become ill will suspend further participation in Conference events and report symptoms immediately to the Conference Administrators.
Registration for this Conference constitutes an agreement to adhere to our COVID-19 protocol.
2024 CSGSS RESIDENTIAL GRC
LODGING & VENUE INFORMATION
LOCATION: The Connors Center
ADDRESS: 20 Glen Street Dover, Massachusetts 02030
DATES: January 17 – 21, 2024
OPENING:
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Registration Opens: 11:30 am
Conference Opens: 1:30 pm
ENDING:
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Conference Ends: 2:30 pm
Social (optional)
Ends: 2:45 pm
ACCOMMODATION Is Included
All four nights of your stay are included in the price for the Conference. The Connors Center is situated on 80 acres of land in Dover, the wealthiest town in Massachusetts. Dover is about 25 miles from the city of Boston. It is about 30 minutes from Boston Logan International Airport and the Amtrak train station.
For the five days of this Conference, The Connors Center will become the shared home for everyone in the Conference. As you immerse yourself in the spirituality of nature and the opportunities for learning in the Conference, you may find yourself open to insight, transformation and application.
Take advantage of the outdoors before, between, or after Conference events by visiting the gardens, terraces, or the quiet walking trails surrounded by trees. Enjoy the indoor amenities which include a fitness center, wireless internet, a hospitality suite with complimentary refreshments, board or table games, television, a piano, books, and magazines.
MEALS & REFRESHMENTS INCLUDED
Through the Connors Center, we provide nutritious meals and light refreshments throughout the day. The Connors Center offers a range of meal selections including special dietary and food allergy needs.
FREE PARKING
Participants attending the Conference can park in the parking lots on the west side of the Connors Center building at no additional charge.
OUR SPONSORS
