This part of the website will be developed more fully later.
I offer consultancy and support for organisational development and facilitation skills for teams and organisations.
For details of my work with individuals in organisations and business, see Coaching & Mentoring ....
Here are some management training events based on these ideas, which I have run in the past:
FACILITATING DECISIONMAKING IN GROUPS
Tutor: Michael Soth
Most task-oriented group work has to do with decisionmaking - teams, committees, action groups, working parties, staff groups spend most of their time in the various stages of interconnected decisionmaking processes. It has been said that the potential of groups lies in the fact that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Yet for most groups and teams this notion is wishful thinking. Often collective decisions are either long-winded, complicated and frustrating, pushed through by a decisive minority in steamroller fashion, or are left to be made by default. Although plenty of models and structures for 'win-win' decisionmaking processes are known, on a feeling level it seems hard to believe that anybody will or can get their way without dominating. In short: culturally we carry a lot of distress around the power dynamics of decisionmaking. Especially in groups where more consensual and participatory ways of decisionmaking are attempted, this distress is bound to manifest and interfere with the process. This often results in a conflict between the task at hand and the feelings evoked. The role of the facilitator can be crucial in ensuring that all group members feel involved at the same time as continuing to move towards a decision.
This workshop is designed for people who are interested in taking on the role of the facilitator in all kinds of set-ups, and who want to prepare themselves for this task or expand their skills in this area.
Drawing on participants' experience of decisionmaking, we will use roleplays, psychodrama and a technique called 'forumtheatre' to assist facilitators in the three steps of PERCEIVING (the group energy), UNDERSTANDING (making sense of the perception) and designing INTERVENTIONS.
This will include work on the interaction between task and group dynamic (content and process), issues of power (INTEGRATION of hierarchical and consensual modes) and the '7 steps of decisionmaking' (a holistic model for decisionmaking).
TRANSFERENCE 'AT WORK'
An experiential seminar for managers, trainers and team/group leaders
Tutor: Michael Soth
Managers, trainers and team/group leaders - as persons in a position of power - attract projections, both positive and negative. They are seen as punitive ogres, all-knowing experts, restricting disciplinarians, temperamental primadonnas, superhuman towers of strength, critical or neglecting parents, and many other figures. The psychoanalytic concept of 'transference' refers to the 'transferring' of usually unconscious attitudes, feelings and expectations often based in childhood onto present relationships and circumstances. But although it was first formulated in the special situation of the psychotherapeutic relationship, the manifestations of transference are by no means restricted to the consulting room. On the contrary: unless managers develop effective ways of responding to projections, they often end up in struggles which feel like Don Quixote's battles against windmills. Many situations around issues of authority and competition, or conflict generally, can be 'managed' and 'contained', but cannot be 'resolved' without some transformation on the level of transference. This workshop is for managers and group / team leaders who have observed and are interested in dealing with such transference dynamics in the work place.
We assume that everybody involved in such dynamics - managers AND staff - will tend to cope with projections by establishing habitual and fixed patterns of relating, which are often inappropriate to the task at hand. This rapidly results in effective communication and cooperation becoming blocked, often leading to entrenched positions. In this atmosphere everybody's sense of motivation and responsibility is affected, which in turn has negative effects on the quality of work. It has been suggested that the area of unconscious dynamics at the work place is nowadays the most important factor in determining efficiency and job satisfaction.
This course will be an opportunity for managers and team leaders to familiarise themselves with the concept of 'transference', and to explore ways of dealing with and responding to the actual situations they are faced with day by day. Through roleplays and presentation of typical difficulties, participants will have space and opportunity to reflect on their work and develop their own understanding and strategies appropriate to their particular working environment. Theoretical input will be in the context of experiential work, and there will be an appreciation for the strong reactions, and often irrational feelings which transference can evoke.