Group Relations
Group Relations
- What is group relations?
A method of studying and understanding group dynamics, leadership, authority and organisational behaviour through experiential learning, rather than through abstract theory.
- Where did the group relations methodology start?
It emerged at the first Leicester Conference, organised by the Tavistock Institute in 1957. The conference has run every year since and remains the flagship of group relations conferences worldwide.
- What does group relations training cover?
How authority is taken up, the formal and informal roles people assume, and how boundaries of time, space and task affect how a group works, learned through direct experience of group processes as they unfold.
Tavistock group relations thinking starts from the premise that much of what drives behaviour in groups - decision-making, conflict, the pull towards certain roles - is not immediately visible. Projections, transference and unspoken anxieties all shape how groups function, often more powerfully than any formal structure or stated intention.
Learning about leadership
The ground-breaking group relations methodology for learning about leadership emerged at the first Leicester Conference in 1957, and now there is a lively and dynamic global community of activity exploring and developing group relations and its application.
LinkedIn group
For previous and future members of the annual Leicester Conference – and also anyone interested in group relations and systems psychodynamics – you are invited to join the private Tavistock Group on LinkedIn. We post Leicester updates and all kinds of group relations news here and you can receive, post and share.