From the 2010 AKRI Symposium held at the Cenacle in Chicago
The Chicago Center for the Study of Groups and Organizations (CCSGO), an affiliate of the A. K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI) is dedicated to advancing the understanding of the covert processes affecting leadership and authority within groups and social systems, with particular attention to:
Experiencing the ways in which covert processes in groups and organizations may impede or facilitate the accomplishment of work and goals that affect one’s ability to lead and to follow.
Studying the effects on leadership and followership of individual differences, such as race, culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and age
Learning about the multiple ways in which you can more successfully take up your roles as leaders and followers, exercise authority and responsibility, and enhance your organization’s effectiveness.
In the tradition of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, the Chicago Center develops and sponsors group relations conferences and other related training programs based on the application of psychodynamic and open systems theories. Since 1988, the Chicago Center has sponsored one or two group relations conferences each year.
A group relations conference provides a powerful and distinctive means for participants to learn from their own experience how to take up authority, leadership, and participation in increasingly responsible and effective ways. Learning more about social systems can advance greater individual professional development as well as greater organizational and social system effectiveness to address the challenges of the 21st century.
In addition, the Chicago Center sponsors ongoing Peer Consultation and Study Groups in which CCSGO members and other interested persons learn together from studying and applying concepts such as authority, role, task, and boundaries to the understanding of their own work situations.
