Two Traditions, One Living System: NTL and Tavistock on group process, authority, and organizational development and change

Hosted by Dr Eliat Aram, CEO at the Tavistock Institute

NTL and Tavistock: two powerful traditions

Two Traditions, One Living System: NTL and Tavistock on Group Process, Authority, and Organizational Development and Change is a dialogic discovery of two powerful traditions that have shaped the field of organizational development in distinctive but complementary ways. This exploration p.m. invites participants into a thoughtful conversation between NTL’s social psychology and applied behavioral science roots and Tavistock’s psychoanalytic and systems psychodynamic approach to groups, authority, and change.

The session will explore NTL’s emphasis on use of self, democratic ethos, diversity and inclusion, participative decision-making, and ethical approaches to power and resistance to change. It will also highlight Tavistock’s deep attention to unconscious process, boundaries, role, authority, and the emotional life of organizations. Rather than treating these as competing perspectives, the talk will examine how each tradition can sharpen, deepen, and learn from the other.

At a time when organizations and the people within them are navigating complexity, conflict, uncertainty, and rapid change, this conversation offers a timely opportunity to reflect on what each approach makes visible, what it may overlook, and how together they can strengthen the value practitioners bring to customers, clients, and the communities they serve. It is an invitation to think more broadly, listen more deeply, and act more wisely for the living systems we all help shape.

Biography: Dr Lennox Joseph

Dr. Lennox E. Joseph is an international educator, executive coach, and OD strategist whose career sits at the intersection of social psychology, organizational behavior, and systems change. Over more than thirty-five years he has advised corporations, governments, and multilateral institutions on leadership, authority, and systems change, including serving as Organizational Development and Effectiveness Advisor at the World Bank Group in Washington, DC.

Twice President and CEO of NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science, Lennox brings deep experience of NTL’s applied behavioral science, use of self, and democratic ethos in organizational life. His academic grounding in social psychology and OD, combined with work across Afghanistan, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, has made him a keen student of power dynamics, resistance, and the emotional realities of organizational change

Co-editor of The Art of Strategic Change (2024), he writes and teaches on how humanistic values, diversity, and ethical uses of power can be woven into strategy and change in a turbulent world. Lennox draws on both NTL and Tavistock traditions to explore group process, authority, and organizational development and change as a single living system, inviting a richer dialogue between their perspectives.

Fun fact

Lennox’s secret superpower has nothing to do with boardrooms or conference halls: he is a legendary maker of carrot cake and Margaritas as claimed by his family and friends.