INTERNATIONAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
Leading Meaningful Change – For Consultants and Managers
Aim and philosophy of the programme
The purpose of the programme is to develop a proficiency in understanding and working with psychodynamic processes that take place when people are engaged in meaningful issues and activities affecting their lives at work, at home, and in society. Working in and working with organisations requires a good enough understanding of these processes to be able to make conscious choices as a consultant, a manager or any other professional active in the management of change or development.
The objectives and design of the programme are grounded in our explicit belief that organisations are not isolated entities but that they derive their value and meaning from their contributions to the wider society. High performance organisations excel on a range of different aspects including economical, technological, communal, socio-political and spiritual dimensions. Developing professional consultants and managers to co-create high performance organisations takes more than training in a set of techniques to increase the commercial success or improve human relations. Genuine professional development calls for an integrated approach based on a recognition of the multi-dimensionality of organisational life and life itself. A professional consultant or manager therefore,is someone who is educated in being able to act and live with the consequences of his/her interventions in all five dimensions. In our view therefore, professional development consists of:
- Mastering a body of knowledge and techniques pertinent to the work of a professional.
- Integrating this body of knowledge and techniques in the personality of the professional.
- Achieving social responsibility in the professional by linking these two layers of competence to the broader societal context.
The programme is designed to develop a proficiency in understanding and working with psychodynamic approach as complementary to other frames and disciplines e.g. organisation development, system thinking, work- and organisational design. Change in an organisation or society interferes with the existing dynamic processes and creates new ones. Working in and with organisations requires a good enough understanding of these processes to be able to make conscious choices regarding the realization of change.
The content of the programme in brief
The programme works with dynamic processes at three (different but overlapping) levels: those occurring among individuals and in groups, those occurring between groups and within organisations, and those occurring between organisations and the larger society.
Participants are always asked to attend to the dynamics occurring in the ‘here-and-now’. Also their own practice is drawn into the programme while reflecting on and understand the ‘here-and-now’ dynamics as they emerge in the programme itself.
Basic tasks and activities in the programme are the following:
- A reflective experience of being a member of a Learning Group. In learning groups members share, compare and find out about individual experiences as a manager or consultant, whilst studying their own group processes taking place in the ‘here-and-now’.
- Learning communities, whose task is to review and explore how the total membership of the programme is working together and how to deal with the identified issues to improve learning.
- Coaching groups, which are formed to practice and enrich participants’ competences in coaching other participants regarding issues and concerns as they emerge in the ‘here-and-now’.
- Lecture-discussions, in which basic theoretical constructs are presented, for example, on (i) the relevance and meaning of a psychodynamic inquiry (e.g. boundaries, holding and containing, transference, projective identification and unconscious processes), (ii) basic organisational processes (like decision making, strategic management, collaborating, leading organisational change under conditions of uncertainty), (iii) formulating problem definitions, making interventions, developing action-research projects, setting up appropriate strategies and structures to facilitate change, (iv) designing innovative teams and organisations, (v)methods and techniques such as socio-technical systems design, soft systems methodology.
- Reading assignments on specific topics relevant to professional development, both individually and in groups.
- A simulation on multiparty dynamics, the purpose of which is to learn to collaborate with different interest groups and to work with the emerging dynamics.
- Consulting support groups. The purpose of these groups is to help participants clarify and learn from an existing, ongoing project and to take it a step further while also develop one’s proficiency as a consultant.
- Joint appraisals in which each participant reviews his/her professional development with a staff member and some participants, and discusses what could be done to continue the professional development process.
Participants who, at the end of the programme, meet the criteria of the programme, are certified. Four dimensions are considered especially important for professional development, namely:
- Capacity to relate, be interested in, and learn from the client.
- Self-reflection and understanding of oneself as part of a social system.
- Inquiry or the courage and interest to explore the context, history and aspirations of client-systems, and to test reality.
- A capacity to work with an approach that combines a psychodynamic, an organisational theory & development and a systems thinking perspective.
Further learning after completion of the programme is possible, through adopting a role of co-trainer or observer in a future programme.
Enrolment
Minimum criteria: Participants are consultants, trainers, managers, action researchers or others active in the management of change. Participants have a university degree or equivalent knowledge acquired through experience and are sufficiently fluent in English.
Further information: can be obtained from Sandra Schruijer – E-mail: info@pro-dev.eu