A practical psychodynamic understanding of how professionals experience and perform through the uncertainties of innovation may help organisational development practitioners better support executives navigating this specific leadership situation. This article presents observations from a novel leadership development approach building on the previously developed “innovation leadership map” theoretical model as a comparative method of evaluating good and bad leadership experiences with structured psychodynamic interpretations. Action research with over 500 professionals suggests positive professional and personal outcomes with this approach. Observed across participants was that the framework and comparative method provided: i) rarely accessed experiential self-analysis of their response range when operating in emotionally charged environments of innovation; ii) relatable language to insightfully describe and discuss the feelings, thoughts, and behaviours of leadership that influence outcomes; and iii) a way for individuals to access evidence-based underlying psychodynamic imprints influencing how they work with or destructively become overwhelmed by innovation’s emotional dynamics. While every innovation leadership situation is unique, the mechanism of “emotional gearing” featuring centred, surging, and stuck positions is proposed as a practice for how leaders can work with and be mindful of strong emotions within themselves, their team, and/or the organisation.

Work, organisations, and society have been transformed by digital technologies. Information and communication technologies are increasingly important to the management and delivery of human services. Significant sums are invested with the expectation that new technology will drive positive changes such as improving service user experience, efficiency, and outcomes. Sometimes the promises of technology are not fully realised. As researchers and practitioners in organisational and social dynamics it is important to understand how these technologies are affecting the ways in which we organise, communicate, and relate. In this article I explore one aspect of this dynamic, which is that technologies are entangled with the anxieties of human service organisations where the task is caring for people who are ill or in distress. This may lead to structures and processes that are not requisite to the primary task of these services and the technology implementation may fail to meet its aims. I draw on the work of Kurt Lewin, Isabel Menzies Lyth, sociotechnical systems theory, and my own research to explore the entangled nature of contemporary organisations. I suggest ways in which we might develop our concepts and practices to fully account for the role of technologies in organisational process and therefore our ability to consult to those processes.

Drawing on contemporary progressive psychoanalytic thinking and critical social theory, this article examines some of the orthodoxies and unchallenged assumptions in the theory and practice of systems psychodynamics and its offspring group relations. While their foundational forms have been undeniably important to our learning, we question why and how the structural and systemic underpinnings of real global inequities, and social justice organisations??? efforts to address these, are not having more impact in systems psychodynamic and group relations theorising and practice. We use our experience consulting with social justice organisations in their efforts to address these global inequities, and our development and adaption of the groups relations model to challenge potential orthodoxies and question resistance to change within the field. At heart, our inquiry is addressed to those of us committed to systems psychodynamic work and to the originating ethos of that work, in a vulnerable global context and to question, as Carson does, humanity’s faith in existing technological and sociopolitical progress.

This article explores the role of silence in a workplace responsible for supporting vulnerable families. The research is based on the assumption that organisational silence exists and investigates how it influences social work practices and affects professionals. Social workers manage a dual role: enforcing institutional authority while building trusting, respectful relationships with families. The project was conducted in a Danish municipality of 50,000 inhabitants, examining how silence shapes work dynamics. The study concludes that collaboration between management and staff is vital for cultivating openness, trust, and courage. It found a lack of shared goals, weak communication, poor emotional alignment, and absence of containment. These issues contribute to dysfunctional mirroring, emotional strain, and basic assumption behaviour. Though several initiatives were introduced, they lacked genuine staff support, leading to miscommunication and resistance. The project underscores the need to understand the radical disruptions in routines and expectations within organisational life. It reveals how both conscious and unconscious emotions can create a barrier between management and employees, reducing dialogue and engagement quality. Intense emotions increase anxiety, making it harder to accept accurate information and causing distorted perceptions–ultimately affecting the quality of care provided to vulnerable families.

What happens when an institution outgrows its container? In 2000, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art announced an expansion project that would consolidate its five existing buildings. By 2003, the plan had been abandoned due to its financial reach. This article explores the legacy of this unrealised project and the possible unconscious dynamics at play that led to this outcome. It also demonstrates the way irrational forces influence the development of the built environment, as well as the way architecture is used to contain anxiety associated with periods of organisational and societal change. I argue that this project's legacy endures as an underexplored and valuable case study illuminating the complex intersection of social systems, leadership, global architecture, urban development, and shifting understandings of the role of art institutions at the dawn of the new millennium.

Socioanalytic research, coaching, and organisational consultancy use methods originating in psychodynamic therapy (Long, 2013). But the purposes and ways that the data is utilised in these different disciplines differ. This article explores such purposes, uses, and some implications for ethical practice. The origins of the methods and their current usage is discussed. This discussion is important for those undertaking socioanalytic, psychosocial, or systems psychodynamic methods in research, coaching, and consultancy.

Twenty-five James Bond films, produced across a period of sixty-three years, are being explored as a meaningful indicator of times to come. The unthought known shows us the way.

This article explores the question in an organisational setting of the interrelationship between vision, delusion, and reality. The urgent need for societal change on a number of fronts, not least in regard to the environment, suggests the importance of advancing the understanding of designing productive societal change efforts from the outset, and, critically, driving adaptations and corrections as efforts unfold. Using a case of an evaluation of an environmental initiative, the dynamic interplay between the driving vision, delusion, and reality as experienced by the consultant, by key client participants, and by important system stakeholders, is described in some depth so as to convey an impression of their workings. Clues to recognising dysfunction, to functioning amidst the circumstances, and to fostering some reconnection with reality are offered. This article closes with some further reflection on additional questions related to the project dynamics and to broader considerations.

The quote in the title is from Eric Miller, and this article—first given as the 2024 Eric Miller Memorial Lecture—considers the questions "What is our kind of consultancy?" and "What might be subversive about it?" Key is curiosity and the capacity to be surprised. A number of ways to retrieve this capacity are described, illustrated by case studies. These include organisation-in-the-mind drawings, role analysis in groups, reflective leadership, and a consultancy exercise designed to break through either/or thinking to find a "third position". All of these require containment of the anxieties unleashed by dismantling existing defences, so that we can begin to consider the possibility of alternative stories. At a societal level, existential anxieties are rising, and so too bipartisanship, as people defend against uncertainty by engaging almost entirely with people who think as they do. One result is that each person's version of "the truth" is constantly amplified in echo chambers and less available to examination, regardless of any evidence. Attempts are described of leaders trying to open up more space for dialogue, but these often meet extreme resistance as they pose a threat both to identity and to the need for safety that can come from belonging to an "us".