The Communitas Project

What’s unique about Communitas events ?

After decades of experience in our field we simply know of nothing quite like Communitas across the globe (if we have overlooked something, please do let us know !).

We have crafted this project by bringing together the best from a wide spectrum of approaches, some of them as yet unheard of in the mainstream of leadership and management. We are passionate about injecting a much-needed psychological edge to all kinds of organisations and are excited to be bringing to fruition such a ground-breaking project. Why do we feel justified in calling our work ‘unique’?

Which comparable training and development courses are available ?

Surveying what is available to you in terms of leadership and organisational development, which other opportunities may be comparable ?

Coaching and leadership development courses are widely available. Some of these share aspects of our emphasis on leading-edge psychological approaches, some provide input on integral models or philosophies, some teach the application of complexity theory or parallel process. Many focus on just one or two specialised tools or methods (e.g. Open Space technology, or NLP).

One exciting and innovative project aimed at leadership skills, based on Process-oriented Psychology is organised by CFOR. One other organisation (Tavistock Leicester Conference) offers an unstructured large group experience.

But none of these training and development courses compare with the Communitas Project in bringing together

• as wide a range of approaches
• in as innovative a fashion
• in self-organising learning communities
• with as broad a spectrum of models and tools
• within an overall integral, systemic perspective

So here are, in summary, the features that distinguish Communitas events from other courses, trainings or leadership development events.

So what makes Communitas events unique ?

As this is a condensed summary and we are deliberately seeking through our work to introduce new models and approaches, it is inevitable that some of the jargon terms may be unfamiliar to you. Many of the terms are mentioned and explained in other blog entries on 'Communitas philosophy'. Or you are welcome to post queries, requests for clarification and comments on our Forum, and we'll be happy to expand on what's currently available on this site.

We have distinguished four categories of features which combine to make our events unique:

• 1. the large group and learning community format
• 2. the tutors' expertise and input
• 3. the overall philosophy that will permeate these events
• 4. the parallel process perspective

In what follows, you will find bullet-point summaries of the key features in these four categories.

1. the large group and learning community format

self-organising learning communities: you are co-responsible for and in the 'participative universe' of the large group = engaging with the real-life diversity and complexity of an organisation as it evolves

practical, experiential, holistic learning process = learning leadership and group dynamics experientially in real-time, through your 'here and now' experience as a 'reflective practitioner' (there will be opportunities to lead sub-groups and reflect on your leadership experience)

effective and precise self-directed learning: being involved in tailoring the events to your specific learning needs and objectives, you work at your developmental edge, selecting material that is relevant to you

relational, multi-modal learning based on multiple intelligences and a modern neuroscientific view of the brain

the large group constitutes a 'social laboratory' - a 'mini-society' - that reflects a contemporary organisation's diversity of stakeholders in the global village

2. the tutors' expertise and input

21st-century psychology constitutes a paradigm shift beyond currently established psychological principles: it builds on the insights of modern neuroscience into multiple intelligences and the brain as a 're-entrant system' as well as a developmental neuro-bio-psycho-social model of human experience and behaviour - in effect, it helps you to understand yourself and others more deeply by attending to conscious and unconscious processes;

relational: understanding individual, group and organisational dynamics from within (enhancing key relationships and an organisation's 'relationship economy')

bringing together in a new way inner and outer experience (integrating the depth and wealth of inner, subjective experience with a focus on the breadth and fluidity of interpersonal interaction)

integrative in several other respects:
in terms of group work: bringing together a uniquely wide spectrum of techniques, theories and group work approaches (including an integration between humanistic and psychodynamic perspectives);
in terms of social and cultural splits and polarisations: bringing together - within an interdisciplinary and undogmatic perspective - subjective and objective sciences, individual and social dynamics;

in summary: 21st century psychology provides a bodymind way of making relationships work, and work deeply, at every level of an organisation, by transforming habitual blocks and patterns as well as accessing the untapped forces in our own psyche and that of others and the collective

As the tutors, we expect ourselves to model this new way of being and working psychologically in such a way that it will affect the group both on an individual and collective level, in small groups and plenary, in structured and unstructured sessions and learning situations.

3. the overall philosophy that will permeate these events

embodied, authentic and engaged leadership through emotional intelligence

Gestalt and field theory as applied to organisations and social systems

systems and complexity theory: the organisation as a system with naturally inherent self-organisingtendencies towards evolving more highly integrated complex structures; unpredictability, bottom-up as well as top-down;

evolutionary and transformational (Ken Wilber's integral philosophy, Spiral Dynamics):organisations as evolving entities ('learning organisations') of multi-dimensional consciousness, involving 21st century leadership in 'managing' an organisation's ongoing consciousness evolution

flexibility of leadership styles made possible through self-awareness (in-depth understanding of leader's own life history as relevant to their leadership capacities here and now)

integrating our impulses for individual creativity/excellence with communal belonging and embeddedness

4. the parallel process perspective

parallel process as the essential key concept in understanding the self-replicating mechanisms which keep group dynamics and organisational cultures stuck and unproductive, thus providing an avenue into transformation: parallels between sub-systems and the whole system, between inner and outer experience (of individuals, teams or whole organisations); between different levels of organisation, between the organisational and the wider culture

an extended notion of parallel process: the above established notion of parallel process can be extended to include an understanding of transference and countertransference as well as bodymind processes, reaching across individual, group and organisational dynamics, thus providing a new neuro-bio-psycho-social meta-theory relevant to leadership in all kinds of social organisms

Key advantages of large group self-organising learning communities in comparison with other training

Why you are bound to learn more - more deeply, more effectively, more directly relevant to you, more lastingly, more comprehensively, more practically ...

Although the tutors (apart from leading the plenaries) will be available for all kinds of theoretical and practical input as well as modelling and demonstrations, a lot of the learning will not only be experiential, but also self-organised and self-directed. The notion of the 'reflective practitioner' - whatever your particular work practice - will inform and guide us throughout the events.

see here for a more detailed description of experiential, holistic learning (- linking to "Experiential, holistic learning")

Here's a summary of the key advantages which a self-organising learning community offers in comparison with other didactic, pre-structured training courses:

• experiential, holistic, relational ways of learning that integrate theory and practice
• you will have influence on tailoring your experience of the event to your specific learning needs and objectives (rather than wading through lots of information that either is irrelevant to you or which you are familiar with already)
• you will be able to join in at a level that is commensurate with your experience (the learning is diverse, individual and specific, and does not treat everybody as if they are a beginner)
• you can stay in your comfort zone if you wish or there is a wide spectrum of possibilities for challenging and stretching yourself
• experiential learning is grounded in reflecting on live experience and collective processes as they occur (whereas much academic knowledge forever remains academic); going beyond abstract management models to address the messy, real-life situation
• the learning community provides multiple and immediate action-reflection cycles which - often in quick succession - intensify the learning
• unlike any other leadership development event, you will be co-responsible for shaping and co-creating the organisation from the beginning (rather than being led throughout in an artificial training situation which then at best includes some experiential work and simulations)
• accessing learning resources and models when you need them (rather when a tutor or the training curriculum decide to deliver them)
• being in a self-directing learning community with no fixed agenda or external tasks, that provides leading-edge 21stcentury psychological expertise in reflecting on the evolving culture and group dynamics as they occur in real-time
• 'here and now' learning based on giving space to and working with interpersonal and group dynamics
• being active and interactive in a group of diverse people from diverse cultures with diverse values, outlooks and identities

Last not least - especially in a recession - there is the financial aspect: considering the depth and variety of learning available, how readily it will translate into your everyday work, and how much value they will add to your work, Communitas events are excellent value for money.

Communitas Philosophy 2

Social development through 'self-organising learning communities'

Few other ways of working in large groups and organisations are capable of generating as much energy, enthusiasm and creative productivity as self-organising Open Space structures. If facilitated well, they can draw out unparalleled commitment and synergy between people, liberating a sense of togetherness and belonging.

Its success depends on a fine balance between structure and structurelessness, on firm, yet allowing leadership plus a sense of safety which derives from the group experiencing potentially destructive collective dynamics being addressed openly and courageously.

This aspect of the Communitas approach and philosophy derives from several influences.

Historically, it is strongly influenced by our experience of teaching on self-directed training courses for person-centred counselling, based on the humanistic work of Carl Rogers. On these courses (which had their heyday in the UK in the 1980's and early 1990's), as at Communitas, students and tutors jointly form a learning community which - instead of a fixed curriculum - creates and negotiates its own tailor-made programme of learning activities. The tradition of these courses was co-initiated by Thom Osborn, and some of his articles and papers go back to that time, and give a good impression of the radical, innovative and inspiring work that was set in motion then.

The principle of self-direction in large groups of people was taken into a variety of different developments, and in one of its forms is now known in OD as Open Space technology. A common tongue-in-cheek explanation for the energetic and motivated atmosphere which this way of working in groups can generate, is based on the feedback that for many people the best parts of events and conferences are the tea-breaks and open spaces in the programme which allow time for networking. So imagine an event that leaves out all the lectures and speeches, and consists purely of open spaces, and you have Open Space technology. As a large group intervention (LGI), in practice, it's not quite as simple as this, as even such bottom-up ways of working crucially depend on the right kind of leadership and facilitation.

The notion of self-organisation is enriched by the fact that it resonates with how that term is used - in a scientifically much stricter sense - in complexity theory (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis).

In summary: as a way of social learning and working together, self-organising Open Space structures model the idea of organisations as communities, encouraging the free participation of all its stakeholders. As such, they have an unrivalled potential for individual empowerment as well as collective transformation.

The possible advantages of self-organising Open Space structures are beyond doubt. However, as a way of working, the benefits of such structures stand and fall with the psychological 'health' of the community in question. Traditionally, organisations have veered between extreme individualism at the expense of the group on the one hand, or extreme communalism at the expense of individual freedom and creativity on the other. The psychological 'health' of an organisation requires that we find a third position beyond these two extremes. To ensure this kind of healthy community requires, in our view, other aspects of the Communitas approach as essential and complementary ingredients, as detailed in the following pages.

Communitas Philosophy 3

New ideas in individual psychology

A central assumption and principle of the Communitas approach is the following: our work with a group or organisation can only be as good as the depth of our understanding of the individuals involved, and that conversely our understanding of each individual depends crucially on our grasp of the group and organisational dynamics which the individual is embedded in. We therefore place equal emphasis on an in-depth understanding of individual and group psychology. How then, beyond that, individual and collective dynamics reflect and replicate each other, is addressed by the notion of 'parallel process' (see below).

Contrary to the behaviourist assumption that - for organisational purposes - the individual's subjective reality is like a 'black box' which does not concern us as long as we can elicit the 'right' or desired behaviour, at Communitas we are interested in the depth of each person's experience.

There is now a wide range of depth-psychological approaches, models and tools available, largely unused and ignored by organisational leaders, management psychology and even much coaching.

This, we believe, is a waste and a shame. With modern neuroscience now confirming in principle as well as in detail the psychological practices we have been involved in developing over the last couple of decades, we are in a position to select the best and most effective aspects of what the wide spectrum of psychological and therapeutic approaches has to offer you.

With a long-standing background in integrative psychotherapy, and recognised as leading experts in the field, Gaie and Michael will help you access models and tools that are both practical and profound.

We think that this integrative spectrum of approaches is so different from the psychology that was taught and practised even 15 years ago, that it deserves the distinguishing title '21st-century psychology'.

It's different from Freud's classic theories, it's different from mid-20th century behaviourism and behaviour modification, and it's different from the great variety of humanistic approaches being ongoingly developed since the 1960's. We draw, of course, on all of these as they have many good things to offer. But all three branches of the psychological field - psychoanalytic, behaviouristic and humanistic - also each come with major limitations and historical baggage. We can help you access the best from that 100-year history, as well as the recent innovations.

As a minimum, a comprehensive list would include the following distinct approaches which help us understand and work with individual psychology deeply and holistically:

• psychoanalytic: object relations, self psychology, intersubjectivity & relational perspectives
• wide range of humanistic-integrative approaches, incl. Gestalt, Process-Oriented Psychology, Transactional Analysis, breathwork & rebirthing, and others like Psychodrama and the existential approach
• drawing on all the schools of the Body Psychotherapy tradition (Reichian, vegeto, bioenergetics, biosynthesis, biodynamic, etc)
• cognitive-behavioural (CBT), constructivist, NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming)
• systemic: Bert Hellinger's family constellations
• transpersonal: Jungian and archetypal psychology, psychosynthesis

Communitas Philosophy 5

The 'parallel process' perspective

Parallel process is a key notion in all aspects of the Communitas Project. See the following books for further information:

We use 'parallel process' as the essential key concept in understanding the self-replicating mechanisms which keep group dynamics and organisational cultures stuck and unproductive, thus providing an avenue into transformation: parallels between sub-systems and the whole system, between inner and outer experience (of individuals, teams or whole organisations); between different levels of organisation, between the organisational and the wider culture

Michael has been instrumental in developing an extended notion of parallel process: the above established notion of parallel process can be extended to include an understanding of transference and countertransference as well as bodymind processes, reaching across individual, group and organisational dynamics, thus providing a new neuro-bio-psycho-social meta-theory relevant to leadership in all kinds of social organisms

Communitas Philosophy 6

Principles and methods of community building

In recognising organisations as communities, we can then draw from systemic and ecological theories on the one hand, and from established principles of innovative community work on the other. Over the last few decades, such principles have been developed, quite disconnected from each other, in projects and approaches such as:

• co-operative enquiry (Heron, Reason, Rowan)
• Open Space technology
• social laboratories and group experiments
• self-directed learning communities (e.g. South West London College, City University)
• Future Workshops (Zukunftswerkstaetten after the futurologist Robert Jungk)
• Conflict Resolution models
• the tradition of community building workshops
• World Café structures
• Paulo Freire’s Forum Theatre and associated community consciousness raising techniques
• Deep Ecology group work (Joanna Macy)
• group work with multi-cultural diversity and polarisations around gender, race and other cultural identities

All of these traditions have something to contribute in exploring the question: What makes for a thriving community ?

Communitas Philosophy 7

The integral-systemic evolutionary perspective

'Integral' is a term used by Ken Wilber to refer to an all-inclusive holistic philosophy which integrates the plethora of maps of reality into an over-arching meta-model. This is not some bland uniformity which homogenises and erases differences, but does find a shared reality within diversity and differentiation. Wilber has been developing this model over the last 30 years and it is now in its 5th major re-vision. Here is a short introduction by Wilber himself.

What do we mean by 'holism' ?

"Reality is not composed of things or processes; it is not composed of atoms or quarks; it is not composed of wholes, nor does it have any parts. Rather, it is composed of whole/parts, or holons. This is true of atoms, cells, symbols, ideas. They can be understood neither as things nor processes, neither as wholes nor parts, but only as simultaneous whole/parts." Wilber:

Integral philosophy has been applied to leadership and organisations for some years now, see http://www.integralleadershipreview.com/. One particular branch of integral philosophy is Spiral Dynamics (based on original work by professor Graves and currently propagated by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan). This is a sophisticated, if somewhat over-hyped, model of organisational evolution and change, based on a theory of evolving levels of human values and consciousness. (PS: Michael has done some training with Don Beck).

We will write our own introduction to integral philosophy at some point, but in the meantime here's a short piece from a couple of years ago:

Integral philosophy

Precious knowledge and practices, important for human wellbeing and development, exist in all kinds of disciplines, communities and professions. However, much of that wisdom and understanding fails to be translated into action because these disciplines, communities and professions remain fragmented and disconnected from each other, thus perpetuating limited and partial experiences, languages and maps of reality. This form of separation and split runs through all kinds of systems, at all levels of size, affecting social and collective as well as individual dynamics, materially and psychologically, objectively and subjectively. As long as we are caught in maintaining such limited and partial notions of identity as habitual stances in relation to others and the world in general, we are bound to generate repetitive patterns of distress and suffering. As long as we are trapped in habitually absolutising and privileging certain features of reality over and against others, we are subject to restricted connection and communication with each other and with ourselves, caught in endless cycles of polarisations, splits and dualisms.

When we recognise the degree to which disintegration, fragmentation and polarisations are rife in our culture and dominate individual and collective consciousness, affecting and informing our interpersonal and intra-psychic experience, we may feel shocked, helpless and resigned. But recognising that disintegrated, fragmentated and polarised state of affairs, we believe, also calls forth an integral response.

Such a response, for all its dangers and potential fallacies, looks for the common thread as well as the conflicts, the unity in multiplicity, the self-organising tendency in evolution and development. It does not deny disintegration, but - by appreciating its creative and developmental potential - is capable of sustaining a gesture of engaged interest and generous embrace of disintegrative and apparently destructive processes. It does not fall into the illusion that integration can be forced or imposed, but trusts that it will emerge, given the context and support and sufficient attention.

What is 'integral facilitation' ?

An integral understanding calls forth an engaged and facilitative response - we believe it is possible to take a facilitative attitude and position in response to the pain and evolutionary potential we are confronted with, in ourselves, in others, in our communities and in the world at large.

Facilitation is different from directing or imposing change, but works by providing a particular kind of space and engaged attentiveness, a presence which can become a catalyst for transformation and re-organisation. But for a facilitator to be invested or attached to such an outcome, however desirable it may appear to everybody involved, is a double-edged .... A facilitator, first and foremost, needs to be capable of lovingly attending to 'what is', to embrace the fullness and wholeness which always already exists in the system that asks to be facilitated. It may then become possible, for emergent processes, impulses for change, forces of evolution to be noticed and followed, by recognising relationships, connections and links between segregated and divided aspects of that implicit wholeness.

A facilitator, therefore, does not change anything, but allows process to occur, whether this results in deepened stability or intense transformation.

A facilitative intention does not need to be rooted in a vision, in knowledge or a precise image of a 'solution', let alone an action plan or strategy. It is simply a commitment to process, but not merely to a process 'out there', but to involvement in a participative universe, co-created moment-to-moment by a sense of response-ability. In the language of therapy: all facilitation hinges on a creative and skilful and appropriate 'use of self'. This willingness to risk oneself in the encounter is not necessarily based on 'knowing oneself' as a fixed and static entity, even as a 'wounded healer', but can equally arise out of a more postmodern view of the self as opaque, shifting, de-centered, multiple and contextual.

Facilitation in this view requires much more than traditional leadership skills. It always already implies self-development, and a continuing process of reflection both on one's own identity as a person and as a facilitator taking a particular role.

What’s our philosophy at Communitas ?

On 'bracketing one's assumptions' and how not to inadvertently impose one's philosophy on a group

At Communitas, our philosophy is first and foremost that we hold any philosophy lightly.

An excursion on 'bracketing' one's prior assumptions

In this, we are influenced by the Gestalt philosophy of 'phenomenological enquiry' - in practice that means: bracketing one's prior assumptions; coming to a situation with as few pre-conceived ideas as possible. We are not saying that complete 'bracketing' is in fact possible. But we are saying that it's a worthwhile exercise. It is a worthy attempt because the human tendency to see reality in terms of self-fulfilling prophecies is vastly underestimated. We see what we expect to see. We don't see what we don't expect (if you don't believe me, maybe it's because it doesn't fit your preconceived ideas of reality ?).

There are any number of stunning experiments that have been carried out by clever psychological researchers, where this phenomenon has been established over and over again: there is a pervasive human capacity for shutting out uncomfortable perceptions that don't fit the pre-existing pigeon-holes. The capacity of human minds to refuse to be boggled boggles the mind.

So, whoever we are and however open and flexible and undogmatic we think we are, we need to make some allowance for our own tendency, as humans and as leaders, to continue seeing what we are accustomed to seeing; to persist in interpreting new realities through the lens of old certainties; to pour fresh, new, tasty wine into the same old wine skins, so it takes on the same old taste.

Phenomenological bracketing of one's prior assumptions is an attempt to allow for this. To not think that my own mind is above this.

What's our philosophy as tutors/leaders ?

As tutors - or as leaders - our philosophy is that we are not trying to impart a philosophy. On the contrary: we are trying not to, as it is likely to get in the way of us, together as a group, discovering something more precious. Imparting a philosophy - our philosophy - is only second-best to what we are trying to do.

There are several reasons for our reluctance to define a 'clear' and unequivocal philosophy that we then stand up for and are then identified with:

a) For a start, to some extent we do not have a coherent philosophy. In practice, we find ourselves having different philosophies, depending on what relationship and social context we are in. For example, in a group of over-controlled and controlling people, I tend to have a philosophy of letting go. In a chaotic, impulsive group I tend have a philosophy of being focussed and interested in conflict.

In this way, the leader's apparent philosophy all too easily becomes an expression of the phenomenon of 'parallel process'. So then my apparent philosophy is no longer a philosophy - actually it is more of an emotional reaction. Nothing wrong with that, but - and here's the rub - it needs to be understood as such. This applies to many - apparently philosophical - arguments.

b) Secondly, as trainers in a self-directed learning community, we are interested in the shared philosophy that evolves. We are certainly wary of imposing a philosophy, although we recognise it will happen and that we cannot help that process. But we are committed to reflecting on this, as tutors and as a community.

How do group norms get established ? Whose philosophy seems to be influential ? Who is being listened to and why ? Is something else being ignored or overlooked ?

Traditional education methods incline us to throw out our own perceptions and our own reality all too readily. So we are alert to self-undermining attitudes around learning. We recognise that most people know more than they know. One of our values is to attend to and allow to emerge the wisdom and knowledge of the group and its participants. having said that, we cannot legislate against the fact that there are always some people who will busy themselves with trying to decipher the leader's supposedly superior wisdom and decode their implicit philosophy.

c) Also, thirdly, we are more interested in keeping our own philosophy evolving than arresting its development by imparting it to others. We are more interested in how philosophies develop than in 'having' one.

d) And, lastly, in the field of groups and organisations, the idea of a unified philosophy or mission statement is often counterproductively used to short-circuit a more complex dilemma, i.e. a clash between two equally valid philosophies. It may be more useful to attend to the clash rather than insist on the oversimplification of one philosophy. There can be something very edifying and productive in a leader's recognition that the only certainty is uncertainty, and something very liberating and empowering for the people they work with.

All of this does not mean we do not have guiding principles, assumptions or models that we draw from. But we prefer to draw from them rather than letting them define us.

Why a new kind of training in organisational and group leadership is needed

"There are no parts - only participants" Hans Peter Duerr

What is the most important asset of an organisation? People (everybody knows that, these days everybody even says that - see for example http://www.tompeters.com/slides/content.php - Part 3: Talent). But what does that actually mean in practice ?

Are people working to their full potential, as individuals or as teams ? How would we gauge a potential that is as yet not manifest ? Until we access that greater potential and are actually eating the proof of the pudding, we won't really know. We are currently liable to extrapolate only on the basis of what we know and what we take to be normal. In an age of unprecedented speed of change, that is not a useful or realistic guideline (have a look what futurologist Ray Kurzweil has to say about this).

What will make the biggest difference to how people work and how they work together ? WHAT they think or HOW they think ? Their conscious thoughts and intentions or their underlying beliefs, feelings and attitudes ? Their mental inventory or their psychology ? You can just about control what people say and what they do outwardly. Using current models of psychology, you can try and influence what they think. But to affect how they think (as well as how they feel, and how they behave spontaneously), you will need a new kind of psychology.

What will make the biggest difference to people's psychology ? Your leadership and your psychology and communication.

Do you want to invest in people - how about investing in yourself ? The Communitas Project is an ideal environment to support the holistic, multi-dimensional development of your unique reservoir of multiple intelligences: emotional as well as rational, social as well as psychological, left-brain as well as right-brain, intuitive as well as reflective, embodied as well as abstract, inner as well as outer.

Most traditional and currently established leadership training is predominantly left-brain and didactic, both in its aims and how it is delivered. It imparts relevant knowledge and models. It works well in predictable situations where the principles and conclusions of the past can be expected to still be applicable to the present. It is built on vision, strategy, planning, with a simple linear timeline stretching from a precisely analysed present into a desirable future. It suits the kind of leadership that is required in a fairly closed, circumscribed system that can be overseen, where the inputs and outputs can be monitored, with all the executive functions located at the centre, the kind of organisation that has a father-figure at the helm.

In short, the principles of currently established leadership training are best suited to leaders in the kind of organisation that was predominant 100 or maybe still 70 years ago - in essence a Victorian organisation: the typical family business of early capitalism. That kind of training does not prepare or support leaders in a globally connected 21st-century organisation in the post-information age. That kind of training is also rooted in a psychology that is Victorian in origin.

What is a Victorian psychology ?

to be continued ....

21st-century psychology and the future of human organisation

It's not people themselves that are the backbone of any organisation. It's the relationships between them. Outcomes depend not on people as individuals, but on the quality of their interactions and the synergy of the social organism. To foster that quality is one of the main tasks of a good leader.

All social organisation depends on groups, meetings and social events - people getting together and interacting, communicating. In a complex, global world no man or woman is an island, nor can they afford to be: to create anything large these days or make things work, requires the co-operation of many interconnected people. Yes, as a leader you need talent around you, and you need to recognise, foster, develop and reward talent. But a) talent is not simply like a piece of software that you can buy or develop to perform a job; and b) a collection of talents does not necessarily make for a great team or for a productive collective achievement.

a) Talent comes in a piece of hardware called a human. As with software, there are vast differences in the skill and sophistication you can buy (sometimes, though not always, related to how much money you are prepared to pay for it). As with software, you need adequate hardware to run it. But unlike software and hardware, human hardware comes packaged with circuits that were not designed for work and performance only. You cannot get human talent to work to its full potential unless you pay attention to the whole human being, including their social, emotional, psychological reality - aspects which on the face of it are extraneous to the performance you employ and pay them for. How much benefit you actually get out of the talent you pay for, depends significantly on how you understand and manage those social, emotional, psychological realities. Current leadership and organisational psychology is not at all equipped to do that well (see 'How the brain-bodymind revolution will affect your business').

b) Those social, emotional, psychological realities (which come packaged with those skills, functions, talents and jobs you want your staff to perform) do not only affect their individual performance. They exponentially affect their performance with others, in groups, teams, departments as well as their relationship with you, the leader. Current leadership and organisational psychology is even less equipped to do that well.

This is because organisational psychology - both in terms of individual, but more so in terms of group psychology - is out-dated by several decades. Its principles are utilitarian and behavioural, largely based on a 1950's psychology of reward and punishment. To many humans in the 21st century, that kind of psychology is an insult. It's a psychology that was developed on rats, and although not entirely invalid when transferred to human psychology, it neglects and leaves out vast areas of people's reality. That kind of psychology is like trying to navigate around the globe with a map of London.

Psychology and neuroscience have indeed moved on since the 1950's. Much of current coaching and leadership development is also influenced by the 1960's and humanistic psychology which was keen to recognise the impulse towards human potential and self-actualisation. But leadership, management and organisational psychology as well as coaching have not at all benefited yet from the recent integrative developments in psychology (especially in the UK) and the revolution in neuroscience. These developments bring a new understanding to people's inner and outer realities, integrating outer behavioural patterns with inner patterns of experience as well as interpersonal patterns of relating to others. These developments, for the first time, enable us to appreciate the underlying wholeness of a person in practice, not just as an idea. A detailed and systemic understanding of that wholeness enables us to grasp both people's full potential and the full extent of the patterns which block that potential.

Again, this is valid both on an individual and a collective level, for one person, for several or for many. A new, holistic, integrative psychology can link individual and organisational processes and how they mutually inform each other, bringing together inner depth and outer engagement. This is the kind of psychology which needs to underpin leadership and leadership development in the coming years. This is the kind of psychology which underpins the Communitas Project. That's why we would argue that you can have access to the psychology of the future now, long before the vast majority of leaders and organisations have even cottoned on. In simple terms, we could call this new psychology - to use an established notion - 'emotional intelligence'. The kind of emotional intelligence we are talking about, however, is not just touchy-feely - it's complex and sophisticated, yet powerful and humane. A more precise description would involve multiple intelligences forming a complex whole. This kind of perspective is necessary to do any kind of justice to the forces and patterns which operate in 21st century people and organisations.

Social structures - for better or for worse - are replicated, stagnate or evolve through groups. How productive or effective your business or your organisation is, depends on how people interact, how they do - or don't - work together. To some extent our future as a species depends on how productively we can co-operate in the various groups that constitute our social world. That in turn - it is our opinion - depends on bringing an integrative and depth-psychological perspective to groups and how to organise, lead and facilitate them as well as participate in them.

We strongly believe that all businesses and social organisations (local, national, global) can benefit from greater emotional intelligence. Current organisational psychology and human resource as well as learning and development technology are woefully inadequate to generate the kind of inspiration and synergy between people required to face current and future challenges. As a result the full human potential for creative co-operation and therefore organisational productivity cannot be accessed.

A new psychological paradigm is needed. Ingredients of such new psychological knowledge are beginning to be developed, but this has not yet been applied to the psychology of how people work together at work.

We have been involved at the forefront of new developments in psychology for several decades, participating in what we think of as a quantum leap into 21st century psychology. This leap is supported by an equivalent paradigm shift in modern neuroscience which is radically re-visioning how the human brain works - affecting our notions of the mind and its development, the significance of emotions and relationships, the connection between mind and body, to name just a few areas. The revolution in neuroscience will eventually transform all areas of work, management and business.

By joining Communitas, you can be part of this paradigm shift that will engender an evolution of the way humans organise their economic and social affairs and simply work together better.

How the brain-bodymind revolution will affect your business - by Michael Soth

Based on a presentation to an audience of business leaders at the Brain-Body-Business Conference

Since the 1970's a slow and quiet revolution has been steadily gaining pace in our scientific view of how the human mind works. The physicist Peter Russell ("The Global Brain", "The Brain Book"), proposed a holographic view of the brain already about 25 years ago. This was followed in the 1990's by the 'Decade of the Brain' during which neuroscience threw off the shackles of 20th century paradigms and re-invented itself, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of a discipline which had been considered at a dead end just a few years earlier. The revolution in modern neuroscience is now well-established and propelled into public awareness through best-selling books like Antonio Damasio's "Descartes' Error" and "Looking for Spinoza", Oliver Sacks' "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" or Steven Rose's "The 21st-century Brain".

A monumental paradigm shift

It is a revolution that is re-visioning everything we believed about human beings, and it will affect every area of our lives. It requires as radical and profound a shift in world view as moving from a two-dimensional conception of the earth as flat to recognising it as round and three-dimensional. And when at some point we will look back from the future, many things we took for granted in the 20th century will look as archaic, simplistic and plain silly as believing in a flat earth. However, it is a revolution that is only recently beginning to actually affect the field of psychological practice, and it has only minimally filtered through into business.

Out-dated psychological and human resource technologies

Most human resource departments, business psychologists, consultants and coaches, and therefore most business leaders and executives, rely on out-dated and anachronistic psychological principles, harking back partly to the mid-20th and in many ways even further back to the late 19th century. We would not expect a 21st century business to perform well with index cards or manual stock-taking. So how can we expect it to excel based on human resource technologies and psychological paradigms which are 60 to 100 years old? Would you do deliveries in a 1912 Ford? In what other area of business would we dream to operate with technologies which are that antiquated ? Let's be clear that these outdated psychological principles do not operate in isolated, circumscribed, peripheral parts of an organisation. They are central to its creative and productive functioning. Antiquated assumptions about human psychology underpin, shape and restrict all attempted culture change, management fads and other efforts at improvement. Our assumptions as to how human minds work (and especially how they do - or don't - work together) pervade every aspect of social and business organisation.

The competitive advantages of 21st century psychology

As is the case with all other forms of innovation, business leaders who grasp and apply the principles of the brain-bodymind revolution will undoubtedly gain competitive advantage. Moreover, these principles by their very nature will enhance both sustainability and productivity. Advances in mechanical and electronic technology are decades ahead of psychology, increasingly offering diminishing returns on technical innovation, and it is in the under-developed recesses of the human bodymind that the margins for improvement are now greatest.

The multi-dimensional nature of consciousness

Yehudi Menuhin once said: "Human potential is like fish eggs, 90 percent is wasted." This figure has been confirmed in terms of our use of the brain: most humans are accessing only a small fraction of the brain's capacity. The ordinary waking state which our culture takes to be the sum total of 'consciousness', is only a small slither of a much wider spectrum of consciousness. Only a tiny percentage of the multitude of intelligent processes occurring every second within us reaches conscious awareness. This statement takes us towards one of the most simple, yet far-reaching implications of the brain-bodymind revolution: consciousness is multi-dimensional - there are multiple intelligences, and all of them are valid, relevant and necessary in processing, mapping and understanding reality. It's only in accessing and drawing on all of the modes of consciousness that we are sufficiently in touch with reality in order to shape and create new realities.

Different kinds of consciousness

The most basic distinction - which most people will have come across - is the differentiation between left- and right-brain hemispheres. Each is associated with a distinctly different mode of consciousness (see the video at http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229 for a simple, but inspiring introduction), leading to the notion that an integration between the two sides is required to make full use of the brain's capacities. Another perspective on different modes of consciousness is based on the well-known, if simplistic, distinction of the brain's sub-systems (Paul MacLean's 1970's 'triune brain'-hypothesis) which apart from the human cortex (the seat of logical, rational thought-processes and our self-reflective capacities) includes the reptilian and mammalian brain. An important aspect of these models is that the main differences between the various parts of the brain are not in terms of the content of consciousness which they process, but in how they process it, using different modes of consciousness altogether. The parts of the brain are not specialised primarily in order to attend to different targets or objects of awareness, but mainly to generate different ways of perceiving, assimilating and processing. Since the 1970's, our understanding of the brain's complexity has grown exponentially, and so has our recognition that our rational waking universe is only the most superficial and accessible layer of a much richer internal multi-verse. This recognition sends shivers down the spine of traditional psychologists, counsellors, coaches and consultants: we now know that rational thought is only a small fraction of that small slither of consciousness that is accessed via language and mental reflection, but that's typically all they can or are trained to work with. It is, therefore, not at all surprising that traditional psychological methods have been limited and haphazard in their effectiveness. Advertising psychology already works with non-rational consciousness A simple, yet instructive exercise in this regard is to get your advertising psychologists together with your human resource department and to start thinking about applying marketing psychology to staff management. Your staff are - after all - the same people that are customers to other companies. Based on what the advertising people have to say about what motivates humans and how they tick, your management strategies throughout your organisational chart will have to cover that much wider range of different modes of consciousness also in your employees. In a field that has otherwise staked its bets on cognition, mental reflection, insight and verbalisation, marketing psychologists are something of an exception. Advertising people had to become wise to the fact that rationality is hugely overestimated in its significance and influence. They do not think of consumers as rational decision makers - far from it. They know about the impact of irrational, emotional and unconscious forces in the psyche, and take them into account. Without having a comprehensive picture nor fully understanding the whole spectrum of consciousness, advertising people are at least working within a wider range of consciousness. But for some reason the psychology through which we understand our customers is - generally speaking - not being applied to our staff. In terms of managing their human resources, most businesses treat their staff as if they only had a neo-cortex, as if they functioned on a rational basis. But that neo-cortex - which is wrongly assumed to be the one working part that earns the wage - comes packaged within a person. That person - whether they are our customer or our staff member - has multiple intelligences, a complex arrangement of psychological factors constituted by different modes of consciousness. It is in our interest for these diverse consciousnesses to work together in synergy - within any one person and between people in our organisation.

The business organisation as an evolving network of consciousness

To think of our business as a learning organisation with a precious and evolving knowledge base (Peter M. Senge "The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization") is only the first step. The next threshold in 21st century management is to consider the business itself as a complex, evolving brain - a power-house of multi-dimensional consciousness. In the next instalment of this series, in order to work towards some principles for managing such an entity - the business as a collective multi-conscious organism - I will focus on the difference between the 'content' and the 'process' of consciousness. This will give us some insight into change processes and also - and more importantly - a deeper understanding of resistance to change. With most management approaches focussed on achieving their positive vision, the understanding of the unconscious forces and dynamics resisting change are usually inadequately understood. This is one area where a depth-psychological perspective can save endless time, money and effort.

What is the best and most effective training format for leadership development ?

A discussion of the setting and format conducive to optimal learning: didactic leadership training in a homogenous student group VERSUS practical leadership experience in the real-life complexity of a diverse group

Look at the composition of the group and the participants in your regular leadership development programme. Look at the way that the programme is delivered - by whom, in what format, using which skills ? Look at the detail of the students' actual learning process: what kind of activities take the bulk of the course time ? What tasks are the students engaged in and which aspects of their personality are activated - what parts of their brains are firing and involved ?

Look at the interactions in the learning group, and how much or how little they have in common with interactions at work (i.e. with the kind of interactions whcih the course is eventually supposed to be preparing for).

And then look at the effects of such training events in everyday practice, once the programme is over and everybody is back at work: the application of models acquired, the retention rate of material covered, the translation of theory into practice.

Is this the most effective way to organise leadership training ?

Are leadership skills best learned by practice or by theory ? By doing or by talking about it, or worse: by hearing about it ?

Is a specialised and homogenous training group of aspiring leaders (typically all of similar age and social background) the best way to go ?

Leadership is a multi-tasking, multi-intelligence activity, requiring mental, emotional and social skills in equal measure. It involves many aspects of our being, many parts of our brain. It cannot be performed or acted -it requires the authentic engagement of who we are. It involves many automatic behaviours and interactional routines.

link: Who is the blueprint for your leadership style ?

For these and many more reasons, leadership is best learned by doing. It is best learned by leading a real group. Even better, it is best learned by leading a diverse, multi-cultural, mixed group that is as diverse and mixed as the team the leader will eventually be responsible for.

Because it involves interpersonal relationships and automatic routines, learning leadership is significantly enhanced by live feedback and many action-reflection learning cycles - that means holistic bodymind learning in the 'here and now'.

In summary: what is a lot more effective than specialised, didactic leadership training in the closed, protected environment of a homogenous group of same-age peers, is to expose yourself to the real-life complexity of organisational diversity and the authenticity of actual group encounters, working within the kind of group that you will eventually have to deal with.

That is the kind of learning environment we are trying to create at Communitas - an environment that is as real an organisational group as you will find, but still somewhat protected by the safety of a particular group atmosphere and the reflective presence of the tutor team who will ensure that any challenges you encounter are worked through to resolution and completion. Thus even real-life difficulties and tricky group situations become empowering sources of learning that will provide an unshakable foundation for your future leadership development and practice. This kind of solidity and experiential confidence will be hard to come by in many other training programmes.

Communitas: A comprehensive and integrative spectrum of approaches

A brief outline of the psychological, groupwork and leadership approaches which Communitas draws from (initial draft)

The Communitas tutors will bring to these events a wide-ranging spectrum of group work approaches and techniques. We draw on these fluidly, as and when appropriate, in an integrative way. As tutors we are - between us - familiar with, have knowledge of, or are experienced in working with the following range of theories / frameworks relevant to this project:

• Gestalt psychology and field theory as applied to groups and organisations
• theories of group dynamics and group analysis (Bion, Foulkes, Hopper, Wasdell)
• parallel process (Hawkins/Shohet) as a fundamental organising principle both intra-psychic and interpersonal
• chaos theory, systems theory, complexity theory (Stacey/Wheatley)
• integral, holistic philosophies (theories of change, evolution of consciousness, Wilber's all quadrants/all leves model)
• Spiral Dynamics (Graves/Beck/Cowan)
• Large Group Process (LGI's) incl. Open Space and Mindell's Deep Democracy ("Sitting in the Fire")
• theories of facilitation (Heron: 6-category intervention, Southgate) & facilitator styles including use of self
• Body Psychotherapy
• Family & Organisational Constellations (Hellinger)
• Psychodrama (Moreno)
• work with trans-generational trauma in both individual and collective experience, incl Hellinger's constellations
• Process-oriented Psychology (Mindell)
• working with multi-cultural diversity and polarisations around gender, race and other cultural identities
• Jungian & post-Jungian Psychology (incl. Archetypal Psychology - Hillman)

Our aims and goals as Communitas tutors

What are we bringing ? What are we committing to ? What are we trying to do ?

As tutors, our expertise is psychological depth, human interaction and group process. Together as a tutor group, we will be running the plenary sessions of the learning community, unless specifically negotiated otherwise. Through this work, we will attempt to generate and co-create an unusual group climate, quite unlike anything you are used to at work or in social life - a group climate that is conducive to the group's full potential. As a result you will not be only drawing on the tutors', but on the whole group's organisational expertise to develop cutting-edge best practice.

The group's expertise arises from its diversity and complexity as a real-life organisation and the vast knowledge and wisdom that is available in such a collection of human beings.

As tutors, our aim is to be present with and within the learning community in such a way as to allow for the full potential of the group and individuals within it to manifest. We are committed to give of ourselves, to contribute, provide input, intervene, model and lead, but are wary of imposing, short-circuiting or aborting emergent processes in the group. We hold the tension between structure and structurelessness, intervention and participation, doing and being.

We are experts at dealing with the psychological blocks and counterproductive patterns which interfere with the unfolding of the group's potential. As we work in the plenary, we will suggest and model interventions, as well as disclose our thinking and rationale. This will give you relevant insights into the psychological perspective from which we operate, in the immediacy of the group interaction.

We will deal with habitual patterns (of being and relating, of feeling, acting and thinking) in ourselves and in others in a way that brings empathy and understanding as well as depth of engagement and attention to the reality of pain and conflict in human experience.

We commit ourselves to paying particular attention to the parallel processes which inexorably arise between the participant group and the tutor group, and to access the learning inherent in these processes.

We see each participant's identity, previous life experience and skills as a resource to the community as a whole, and as such consider each participant in possession of authority, whether they consciously experience and inhabit that or not. For us the group process is an empowering and transformative experience for everybody.

What is the best and most effective way of developing leadership skills ?

A discussion of the setting and format conducive to optimal learning: didactic leadership training in a homogenous student group VERSUS practical leadership experience in the real-life complexity of a diverse group

A discussion of the setting and format conducive to optimal learning: didactic leadership training in a homogenous student group VERSUS practical leadership experience in the real-life complexity of a diverse group

Look at the composition of the group and the participants in your regular leadership development programme. Look at the way that the programme is delivered - by whom, in what format, using which skills ? Look at the detail of the students' actual learning process: what kind of activities take the bulk of the course time ? What tasks are the students engaged in and which aspects of their personality are activated - what parts of their brains are firing and involved ?

Look at the interactions in the learning group, and how much or how little they have in common with interactions at work (i.e. with the kind of interactions whcih the course is eventually supposed to be preparing for).

And then look at the effects of such training events in everyday practice, once the programme is over and everybody is back at work: the application of models acquired, the retention rate of material covered, the translation of theory into practice.

Is this the most effective way to organise leadership training ?

Are leadership skills best learned by practice or by theory ? By doing or by talking about it, or worse: by hearing about it ?

Is a specialised and homogenous training group of aspiring leaders (typically all of similar age and social background) the best way to go ?

Leadership is a multi-tasking, multi-intelligence activity, requiring mental, emotional and social skills in equal measure. It involves many aspects of our being, many parts of our brain. It cannot be performed or acted -it requires the authentic engagement of who we are. It involves many automatic behaviours and interactional routines.

link: Who is the blueprint for your leadership style ?

For these and many more reasons, leadership is best learned by doing. It is best learned by leading a real group. Even better, it is best learned by leading a diverse, multi-cultural, mixed group that is as diverse and mixed as the team the leader will eventually be responsible for.

Because it involves interpersonal relationships and automatic routines, learning leadership is significantly enhanced by live feedback and many action-reflection learning cycles - that means holistic bodymind learning in the 'here and now'.

In summary: what is a lot more effective than specialised, didactic leadership training in the closed, protected environment of a homogenous group of same-age peers, is to expose yourself to the real-life complexity of organisational diversity and the authenticity of actual group encounters, working within the kind of group that you will eventually have to deal with.

That is the kind of learning environment we are trying to create at Communitas - an environment that is as real an organisational group as you will find, but still somewhat protected by the safety of a particular group atmosphere and the reflective presence of the tutor team who will ensure that any challenges you encounter are worked through to resolution and completion. Thus even real-life difficulties and tricky group situations become empowering sources of learning that will provide an unshakable foundation for your future leadership development and practice. This kind of solidity and experiential confidence will be hard to come by in many other training programmes.

As a starting point .... some basic assumptions

If you share a good few of these assumptions, Communitas can help you develop the actual practice that will action and manifest them ...

You are convinced that your organisation ...

• depends on people-skills as essential to its success
• could work in a way that is both more effective and more satisfying
• relies on good communication as a vital ingredient at all levels of operation, whatever the actual task, and that communication can be improved through specific input
• needs to pay attention to the involvement, motivation and commitment of its people
• needs to develop a shared culture that is aligned with its purpose
• is capable of generating more energy and synergy in its meetings
• could expand its collective learning process, creativity and innovation
• derives its strength to a large extent from the quality of its internal and external relationships
• has not yet accessed its potential in terms of human resources
• is made more robust through the diversity of its people and their conflicting views
• can benefit from an added injection of 'emotional intelligence'

You think that good leadership ...

• stands and falls with the capacity to make key relationships work
• involves more than an autocratic style with directives, policies and top-down instructions
• requires flexibility and responsiveness and that a variety of leadership styles and behaviour may be appropriate in different situations
• depends on sensitivity to the organisational culture and emergent trends
• strikes a balance between masculine and feminine forms of authority
• extends across all levels of communication, including non-verbal messages
• grows out of self-awareness as an essential key to good relationships
• relies on intuitive faculties as well as rational-analytic thought

You believe that ...

• the psychological models and methods used in modern organisations are out-dated and inadequate
• an organisation needs to serve its people as well as the people the organisation
• people are complex beings with a physical and emotional as well as rational reality
• much organisational energy is wasted on ingrained habitual patterns and that working through these patterns requires some key psychological skills

You want to learn more about ...

• multiple intelligences and how to access their potential in an organisational context
• the conscious and unconscious dynamics of individuals, groups and social systems
• engaging with a broad range of people and turning diversity into synergy
• integral models for understanding emergent processes and evolutionary trends in social organisms
• dealing with irrational human reactions and limiting habitual patterns
• your own leadership habits and their developmental origins and potential
• a 21st-century understanding of psychology, based on modern neuroscience, applicable to everyday situations

If a good number of these points are true for you, Communitas events are going to be an ideal environment for you to enhance your presence, skills and capacities as a leader. You will see the point of participating in a large group that mirrors the dynamics of any social organism and thus allows real-time organisational learning.

How do you want to develop as a leader ? What are your aims and goals for yourself?

A list of typical self-development objectives for which Communitas events provide the ideal learning environment

Do you want to ...

• connect with the best in the people you work with - and bring out the best in yourself
• develop your leadership capacities, your creativity and impact, i.e. your ability to significantly influence the dynamics of groups and organisations
• effectively attend to your key relationships and maximise both your presence and your capacity to productively engage with a broad range of people
• expand your knowledge of groups and organisations, and understand their psychology on both conscious and unconscious levels
• take account of people's multiple intelligences and to access their full potential in an organisational context
• enhance the design and delivery of your interventions, and generate more energy and synergy in all kinds of meetings
• build an organisational culture where people are self-motivated, involved and responsive to each other
• create an atmosphere in your organisation that balances a sense of community with individual creativity
• perceive, understand and harness the links between subjective and objective perspectives, between the inner and outer realities of the people you work with
• be able to think about your organisation's future in evolutionary terms, taking into account both internal and external collective processes

If these kinds of aims and goals resonate with your ambitions and development plans for yourself, we believe that Communitas may well be the ideal learning environment for you.

What’s the difference between ‘being clear about your philosophy’ and ‘being dogmatic’ ?

A polemic against the rampant and only apparent common sense of 'clarity'

Try googling for ‘leadership philosophy’ or ‘leadership principles’ and you get any number of results like this: http://www.thepracticeofleadership.net/2006/12/10/the-importance-of-a-clear-leadership-philosophy/

“Consistent leadership action and behaviour requires a clear leadership philosophy. Why? Well, because your leadership philosophy determines how you react to people and how you react to situations. Your leadership philosophy affects your behaviour and ultimately your leadership effectiveness.”

Initially that seems like common sense. But in studying examples like this, soon the question arises: what’s the difference between ‘being clear about your philosophy’ and ‘being dogmatic’ ?

In most cases the answer is: very little. If I was dogmatic, I’d say: “None.”

If you follow the author’s line of thought into how he applies this leadership wisdom, the apparent common sense soon breaks down. In this example, the author has a very limited and traditional notion of ‘the leader’: a leader in his eyes is someone who is ‘strong’, who knows what he thinks and what he stands for. Someone who is certain and who is decisive on behalf of his men. Someone who is unshakable in his principles and his position, who gives his word and does not change his mind, i.e. somebody who cannot be influenced by others. In short: somebody dogmatic.

I am not saying these qualities - of clarity, of decisiveness, of reliability - are irrelevant or not useful. I believe they are essential.

What I am saying is that these qualities can also be counterproductive and dangerous, especially when applied in a one-sided way. I am saying they make half a good leader. For a whole good leader each and every one of these qualities needs to be balanced by its opposite.

Unshakable autonomy needs to be balanced by sensitivity and receptivity. Directiveness needs to be balanced by consultation and delegation. Decisiveness and certainty need to be balanced by the capacity for uncertainty and insecurity.

Only when a leader can balance these contradictory qualities and capacities, will we be able to trust them and cooperate with him or her. Otherwise we are merely obedient, and every good leader feels short-changed by merely obedient subordinates. A good leader knows that their team will get by on obedience, but they will never excel in their task.

As a leader I want to be more than merely right, or one-sidedly certain. I do not even always want to be clear. I aim for being balanced and whole, and that - in most cases - includes both sides of whatever coin we’re dealing with.

Communitas Philosophy 1

At Communitas, we do use and rely on the commonly established practices of leadership development, because they sort of work, well enough, after a fashion. In our opinion, they can be exponentially improved, through the study and application of everything we will outline in the other entries of this blog series on Communitas philosophy.

Below we have gathered for you a selection of typical approaches and theories, ranging from the banal to the exhortative to the more sophisticated.

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html

http://www.leadershipnow.com/index.html

Leadership - Character and Traits: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadchr.html

http://www.management-issues.com/2006/8/24/research/seven-principles-of-leadership.asp

http://www.farsightleadership.com/leadership-programmes.php?s=1

Leadership: Theory and Practice (Paperback)

by Peter G. Northouse (Author)

Principle Centered Leadership (Paperback)

by Stephen R. Covey (Author)

Transformational Leadership (Paperback)

by Bernard M. Bass; Ronald E. Riggio (Author)

The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition (Paperback)

by James M. Kouzes (Author), Barry Z. Posner (Author)

• Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions
• Know yourself and seek self-improvement.
• Set the example.
• Keep everyone informed.
• Develop a sense of responsibility in your subordinates.
• Ensure the task is understood, supervised and accomplished.
• Know your people, and look after their welfare.
• Set goals you can reach.
• Make sound and timely decisions.
• Know your job.
• Promote and use teamwork.
This is not a ‘bad’ set of principles, but how does anyone actually develop, apply or ‘live’ these ? And they assume that all that is needed is a clear and rational mind that can formulate the proper goals and make appropriate decisions. They are not based on ‘emotional intelligence’ or an understanding of the complexity of the human mind and relationships, nor do they take into account ingrained individual and social patterns.

Some of merits and limitations of these principles are discussed here (links to): A blunt assessment of current leadership development systems and practices; How the brain-bodymind revolution will affect your business; The psychological aspects of the typical coaching curriculum

We do include and draw from some of the more psychologically-informed approaches which have already been taken up in organisational and leadership development work and are fairly established, such as:

Gestalt in organisations

NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming)

Myers-Briggs Personality Types

Theories of Facilitation (e.g. John Heron’s: 6-category intervention & facilitator styles)

Theories on the ‘use of self’ by the leader

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Communitas Philosophy 4

Applying modern neuroscience and leading-edge 21st-century psychology to groups and organisations as communities is at the heart of the Communitas Project.

This involves several distinct steps:

1) recognising the diverse stakeholders (which make up and surround an organisation) as constituting a whole system which can be understood as a community

2) understanding the interpersonal, group and collective dynamics which determine the behaviour and evolution of that system (including insight into those dynamics and conflicts which block functioning and further evolution)

3) finding ways to lead such organisational systems, (i.e. to intervene and facilitate the evolution of that system, for the benefit of the whole and the people within it), by flexibly drawing on the wide range of available methods and techniques.

The experience of our events will help you expand your skills and capacities as a leader in each of these three areas.

Communitas within the field

The Communitas Project is not at all unique in 1) recognising organisations as systems: the application of systems thinking to businesses and organisations has been evolving for some decades and is well established. All we can claim here is that we are up-to-date with the latest developments in this field, some of which are profound and innovative and have as yet not filtered through into common practice.

Where Communitas is unusual is in extending systems thinking to human and social systems as communities. But where Communitas is unique is in regard to 2) and 3) which require the application of new psychological paradigms and ways of working to organisations and social systems.

Step 3) relies on a special feature of the Communitas approach: its integrative perspective. Over the last two decades the integration of psychological approaches has been accelerating strongly in relation to work with individuals. However, the field of group psychology is still as fragmented and dogmatic as the field of individual psychology was 20 years ago.

We bring together the diverse groupwork approaches in an integrative, flexible and practical way, so that it becomes easy to learn and applicable to everyday organisational life.

1) Organisations as systems

A simple analogy would be of the organisation as its own eco-system, with a community of diverse species. In the field of biology we are only beginning to grasp the full extent to which all members of such a community are subtly interdependent on each other. The same could be said for human systems and organisations.

As soon as we think of systems, a whole new interdisciplinary range of innovative scientific perspectives becomes relevant.

These include: field theory (as used in Gestalt), cybernetics and general systems theory, non-linear systems as researched through chaos theory, complex systems as researched through complexity theory.

All of these have begun to be applied, at least theoretically, to the field of organisational development and business. However, their application stands and falls with the psychological attitudes and paradigms through which they are communicated. Of the various branches of systems thinking, field and complexity theory have the most immediate and profound implications for the role of the leader, and what position he or she takes up in relation to the forces operating within the organisation as a system.

Much of modern management is concerned with visions, targets and an overall linear theory of change and progress. Complexity theory, however, sees linear change as an abstract ideal which the human mind imposes on reality. In nature, systems do not conform to straight lines which can at best roughly approximate development, at worst be grossly misleading. Non-linear change can be gradual and incremental, or sudden and radical, but in complex systems is never entirely predictable. Rather than pursuing the idea of a good leader strongly imposing their vision on an organisation, based on their best predictions, complexity theory suggests that good leadership depends on other kinds of strength.

Communitas events work with the group as a complex self-organising system, and you will be able to experience the basic principles and laws of such systems for yourself. You will be able to experiment with different leadership responses and observe their effects, recognising their respective advantages and disadvantages.

One of the most basic principles in how systems operate and which can fundamentally transform how we approach leadership is the notion of ‘parallel process’. It describes how key dynamics in a system can be replicated in other systems or sub-systems. This is such a crucial notion that we have devoted a whole special section to it.

Organisations as systems - keywords for further research:

• field theory (Gestalt), systems theory, complexity theory (Stacey/Wheatley)
• linear versus non-linear view of systems (linear directiveness always produces resistance)
• complex systems = not predictable, not controllable, but can be influenced through alignment
• established structures versus emergent processes = the leader as facilitator of the conflict between these two polarities
• the use of self in relation to systemic forces

2) The interpersonal, group and collective dynamics in human social systems

One of the starting points for Communitas is the recognition that the predominant psychological principles applied and practiced in today’s management and leadership are so out-dated. This applies to the psychological understanding of individuals and it applies equally to organisational psychology. Interestingly, it does not apply to advertising psychology which is quite sophisticated: we are better at selling to strangers than managing our own staff.

We cannot hope to run a productive, modern business or an effective, successful organisation based on psychological technology that is 50 years old.

In order to get the most out of the people in a 21st-century organisation, we need an up-to-date psychology that does justice to how modern people tick. A psychology that extrapolates from the behaviour of laboratory rats to humans does not do justice to people’s complexity.

With a little interest and openness, with a little effort and empathy it is perfectly possible to understand the inner world of another human much more deeply. Why would we not want to apply such ‘inside’ knowledge to the way we lead, communicate, interact at work ? Why would we not want to use such understanding to inform the way we organise ourselves ?

Now you can. There is no more excuse because such insight and knowledge can become available to you, in your own experience. Neuroscience shows us that we all have the capacity for far greater right-brain understanding of other people than is commonly used.

What that boils down to in simple terms is an in-depth rather than a superficial, exterior or merely behavioural understanding. We’re interested in a psychology from the ‘inside’, that comes closer to the individual’s experience of themselves, as a subject.

For practical purposes, such a depth-psychological perspective needs to attend to the various habitual patterns and behaviours that are outside awareness and/or unconscious.

3) How to intervene and facilitate the evolution of a social system ?

This is what Communitas events are all about - the practical experience of learning these skills through live experimentation and reflection. As indicated in more detail in other blogs, some of the groupwork traditions, models, techniques and approaches we draw on are:

• Gestalt psychology and field theory as applied to groups and organisations
• theories of group dynamics and group analysis (Bion, Foulkes, Hopper, Wasdell)
• parallel process (Hawkins/Shohet) as a fundamental organising principle both intra-psychic and interpersonal
• chaos theory, systems theory, complexity theory (Stacey/Wheatley)
• integral, holistic philosophies (theories of change, evolution of consciousness, Wilber’s all quadrants/all leves model)
• Spiral Dynamics (Graves / Beck)
• Large Group Process (LGI’s) incl. Open Space and Mindell’s Deep Democracy (“Sitting in the Fire”)
• theories of facilitation (Heron: 6-category intervention, Southgate) & facilitator styles including use of self
• Body Psychotherapy
• Family & Organisational Constellations (Hellinger)
• Psychodrama (Moreno)
• work with trans-generational trauma in both individual and collective experience, incl Hellinger’s constellations
• Process-oriented Psychology (Mindell)
• working with multi-cultural diversity and polarisations around gender, race and other cultural identities
• Jungian & post-Jungian Psychology (incl. Archetypal Psychology - Hillman)

Diverse, experiential, self-organising - is a large group learning community for you ?

Whilst intensely productive, creative and transformational, a large group learning community (as we are envisaging it), can be experienced as difficult and challenging by some. For many people it can become an inspirational experience they will never forget, for others it can become too challenging, overwhelming, confusing or plain frustrating. Three key characteristics that you will be exposed to are

1. the diverse make-up of the groups,

2. the nature of the experiential learning process, and

3. the self-organising format of our events.

1. The diversity of the learning community

Whatever your background or work situation, by participating in our events you will find yourself engaged in a diverse group, with people that you usually would not meet or work with, from different professions, different sectors of society, different social contexts. It can be challenging to encounter directly such differences - in outlook, values and identity - but also profoundly enriching.

Remember that wherever you are coming from, whatever your background and identity, these other people potentially are your customers or clients, your staff or suppliers, your target groups, your funders or allies or even your competitors and opponents.

The diverse stakeholders of your organisation

In short: these are people, however different they are from you, that you want to understand (at the very least), engage with and relate to (better) or ideally inspire and bring on board with you.

The Communitas large group will have a diversity equivalent to the community of stakeholders that make up the total system of your organisation. That’s why we think of organisations as communities, as complex, diverse systems.

Well-organised diversity makes organisations robust and creative, and we are, therefore, keen to encourage and enhance the diversity of the group by inviting participants from as wide a range of contexts as possible.

Diversity in social organisms

We recognise that for ‘diversity’ not to become an empty phrase, it needs to be based on facing squarely social issues of power and inclusion. It goes without saying that we are committed to equal opportunities and will resolutely attend to them by appreciating social minorities and diverse identities of any kind.

Diversity is one of the perennial issues of all communities and organisations, and one of the essential domains for social learning. It is thus at the heart of the Communitas Project.

However, we do not believe in dealing with oppressive dynamics by policies, but by emotional, relational and collective work, and therefore have not included the customary ‘Diversity and Inclusiveness Statement’.

2. Experiential, holistic learning

Although as the tutors we are prepared to give input, demonstrate, teach and model within a traditional didactic style (see here for a list of approaches that fall within our expertise as possible inputs into the courses), our main focus is on encouraging and facilitating holistic, experiential, self-directed learning. The large group provides an ideal setting - in both plenary and sub-groups - for learning about being and participating in groups as well as leading them.

Such learning is practical, ‘here & now’, engaged, integrating left and right-brain processing. For most people it leads to much more effective outcomes, with knowledge and skills more applicable and better retained. We emphasise learning processes based on a model of multiple intelligences: emotional and relational as well as mental and rational. Research on the skills and qualities of ‘reflective practitioners’ indicates that such a model of experiential, multi-modal, holistic learning is a key ingredient in sustained excellence, whatever your field.

However, for some the large group can at times be experienced as chaotic, overwhelming or laborious. If you find that you learn best in a theoretical, left-brain, concentrated, individual and secluded manner, then our learning communities may not be suitable for you.

3. Self-organising and self-directed

Unlike most other training courses, our events do not have a fixed curriculum and no pre-designed content to be delivered to you. We do not subscribe to the funnel method of teaching. As the tutors, we do not presume to know better what you need to develop or how to run your organisation. The learning community is self-organising and self-directing, open and responsive to your needs and your influence. As in your everyday work (and in life generally), responsibility for your experience and your choices ultimately rests with you.

Co-creative responsibility - empowering or frustrating ?

In Gestalt philosophy we re-frame the term ‘responsible’ as ‘response-able’. Learning communities are known for their inspiring and empowering effects on participants (often sustained over many years, if you believe some of our testimonials - see link). Whatever your position in an organisation, you can co-create the kind of conducive culture and environment you believe is possible and desirable. We are not suggesting miracles overnight, but there are few learning contexts that will have as much impact on your capacity to engender fruitful organisational processes as our learning communities.

However, for some people this is not what they are looking for in a training course. If you want structured, didactic, abstract and linear input that you can passively absorb, then our learning communities may not be suitable for you.

Key questions that participants bring to Communitas

Communitas events present a rare opportunity and unique learning environment to enquire into questions such as:

• What psychological dynamics within and between people are at work to make groups and organisations thrive or flounder ?
• How do groups and organisations get blocked from functioning at their full potential ?
• How does organisational culture get generated and replicated, what makes it stagnate or evolve ?
• What makes for an inspiring and vibrant organisational culture that is adaptable and robust, stable and innovative ?
• How can you (whatever your role and position) as an individual lead, manage, facilitate, participate, contribute in such a way as to bring the best out of the groups and organisations you are involved with ?
• What personal skills, qualities and capacities are required for this and how can these be further developed ?
• How can both leadership andco-operation, initiative and participation, activity andreceptiveness, doing and being be valued and enhanced ?
• What kind of psychological tools, structures and paradigms are needed to do justice to the fast pace and complexity of 21st-century organisations ?
• How can you develop the psychological skills to work through those ingrained habitual and repetitive patterns which so much organisational energy is wasted on ?
• How can you both participate and exert influence in the groups which constitute your social world ?

How will these questions be answered ?

These are basic and fundamental questions, underlying everyday work practice and leadership behaviour. They are psychological questions and therefore underpin everything we do and don’t do at work, creating a particular inclination and atmosphere around us and informing our communications with colleagues, staff and customers.

At Communitas, we will not pretend that there are simple answers to these kinds of questions. They cannot be answered just with the mind or solved like mathematical equations. They require a process of engaged experience, and a process of learning with and from others.

At Communitas, we will not attempt to give you facile guidelines (how to become the perfect leader in three simple steps), tick-lists and check-boxes, supposedly applicable across the board in all kinds of scenarios. We think it is simplistic to assume that there are general solutions, applicable for all organisations in a great variety of fast-changing circumstances.

What we propose to do instead is support you in finding your own answers, valid for you and your situation. We will provide you with the communicative tools, the psychological models and principles as well as the feedback mechanisms that will allow your learning process to unfold. Within the learning community, you will develop your skills and capacities to the point where you will feel confident to re-create your own answers and solutions, responsive to ever-new and unique circumstances.

Through group participation, practical experimentation, experiential exposure and personal integration, you will discover within yourself the perceptive and intuitive skills, the creativity and understanding, the authority and courage that are the hallmarks of an inspired and inspiring leader.

Why ‘Communitas’ ?

“I can only hope to qualify as a leader (or constructively intervene as a group member or consultant), if I can get beyond myself enough as an individual to enter the perspective of the group or organisation as a whole, if I can identify with the emergent process of the whole.

I can only hope to see the wholeness of the system, if I can appreciate its complex diversity, its tensions, conflicts and synergies, its multiple view points from within. I can only hope to appreciate the diversity of the whole system, if I am capable of entering the inner reality of its constituent parts.

I can only hope to see and experience the organisation through the multiple diverse realities constituting the whole, if I can get inside myself enough to identify with the psychological depth of the individuals that make up the organisation.

The simultaneous appreciation of BOTH the diverse depth of individuals AND of communal belonging within the wholeness of the social system is the foundation of COMMUNITAS. This requires a new psychological paradigm that stretches across the full spectrum of consciousness, from internal to external, from subjective depth to collective breadth, from personal through interpersonal to trans-personal.

In terms of the evolution of human consciousness, it is now becoming a possibility that we may find ways of organising social organisms which do not elevate the individual at the expense of the collective; nor lose the individual for the sake of the community.”

Michael Soth August 2008

“Communitas”, the book

The name for our project was inspired by Paul Goodman, one of the founders of Gestalt Therapy, who co-wrote (with Percival Goodman) a book with the title “Communitas” in 1947

“Communitas stands in a class by itself: a fresh and original theoretic contribution to the art of building cities. Such a book does not appear often… a witty, penetrating, provocative and, above all, ... a wise book; for it deals with the underlying values and purposes, political and moral, on which planning of any sort must be based ...”

Lewis Mumford