Dear Prospective Participant,
Organizations and those in the public service navigating the COVID-19 era continue to grapple for the third year with both the complexities and opportunities offered through virtual experiences and new technologies.
In 2022, the Caribbean joined the rest of the world in reducing COVID-19 restrictions while managing the safety of its citizens. Leaders, however, are now also faced with new economic challenges due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, changes in the global financial system, global shortages with disruption in the supply chain and the impact of climate change.
In this new, networked environment, boundaries of past formal structures of organizations are blurring, thus shifting organizational culture. How do leaders manage the boundaries of their own role relationships and their anxieties, while juggling the multiple demands of the internal and external work role, in an unpredictable and changing environment?
Whether it is political leadership challenges, economic collapses, organizational and professional change, many are wondering:
- What is the best way to lead and motivate my team?
- How do I manage my anxiety and the stress caused by the uncertainty?
- How can I survive in this situation?
- How can I be more aware of the internal and external dynamics that influence my role?
- When is the right time to take new action?
This experiential working conference is leadership intensive for those keen to understand and develop a deeper understanding of Leadership and Authority. It is the type of learning that will add value, make a difference and challenge the leaders of tomorrow to face themselves today — especially their assumptions about leading and following in organizations. This type of learning goes below the surface of what we know, courageously faces what we yet don’t know and is needed now more than ever.
I look forward to working with you in our 5th Group Relations Conference, delivered by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations with Caribbean Group Relations Consulting, where we will explore New Leadership in a Networked World and its impact on Organizational Culture.
Mary Fullerton
Conference Director
Caribbean Conference 2022
About
In a Group Relations Conference, we create a temporary organisation that is set up to study its own behaviour as it happens. The temporary organisation is headed by a Director and the staff team that is appointed by the Director to work with the members of the organisation.
The staff do not manage the members, they work to provide consultancy in the form of working hypotheses about what may be happening in the conference events. These hypotheses are available for testing and review. In this way, we create a “Working Conference” where members are actively engaged in exploration, not sitting back being filled up with the opinions and findings of speakers, as they are in a traditional “conference”.
Primary Task
To explore the exercise of leadership and authority in a networked world through interpersonal, inter-group and institutional relations that develop within the conference, as a temporary organization in its wider context.
As an active inquirer, members of the organisation will have the opportunity to explore their own assumptions, feelings and attitudes towards leadership in general, and the leadership of this Working Conference in particular.
Since 1957, the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations has been providing a unique framework within which senior and aspiring senior leaders are able to learn about themselves and the ways that groups and organisations affect them in taking up their roles.
You are invited to join a global network of those who have had the courage to lift the lid of leadership and study how and why things are the way that they are, here in the Caribbean.
There are issues of power, faith, belief, history, skin colour and class that have left scars and challenges in people in all over the world. How can these scars be harnessed as resources to transcend and expand our capacities to lead and follow?
Benefits
This Conference is for anyone interested in developing a deeper understanding of managerial and leadership processes in organisations.
The Conference provides a structured context of different systems and sub-systems in the “here and now”. It explores the dynamics of leadership, presence, authority, change, dissent, collaboration and transformation as they arise and unfold.
Participants may come from private and public organisations and includes Business Leaders, Consultants, Board Members, CEOs, Managers, Clinicians, Administrators, HR, Marketing, Production and Financial Professionals, Public Sector Managers, Local Authorities, Political, Diplomatic, NGOs, Religious, National Security, Educators, Activists, Researchers, Team Leaders, Medical Professionals.
Benefits to participants include:
- Identifying personal characteristics while exercising leadership and the effect on others
- Exploring competition, rivalry and what lies beyond immediate awareness that remain hidden in everyday interaction
- Understanding how you influence or are influenced by others and the ensuing consequences – intended or unintended
- Locating and managing resistance to change in yourself and others
- Developing skills and sharpening insights into how strategies take shape when groups function
- Recognising how phenomena such as alliance and coalition formation affect the understanding of the group, by the group; and how it shapes motives and power bases
- Developing a capacity for creativity and interpersonal relationships and building better team performers
- Inspiring strategic thinking and improving the capacity to lead in turbulent times
- Recognizing the barriers to communication
Benefits to organisations include:
- Increased capacity to lead and manage in a rapidly changing and complex environment
- Enhanced leadership and communication culture, inspiring higher levels of responsibility, accountability, productivity and profitability
- Inspiring healthy interpersonal communication among the leadership and general staff
- Assisting department leaders to align their departments’ goals with the macro objectives of the organisation
Registration
Caribbean Group Relations Consulting & The Tavistock Institute present
Organization Culture Boundaries:
Exploring New Leadership in a Networked World
Dates
17th to 19th November, 2022
Venue
Online
Caribbean Participants
TT$2,800.00
Early Bird Discount:
Less $TT500.00, if paid before 25th October, 2022
Former Caribbean Conference Participant Discount:
Less TT$500.00
Discount for two or more persons from the same organisation:
Less TT$300.00 per participant additional
International Participants
US$475.00
Early Bird Discount:
Less US$50.00, if paid before 25th October, 2022
Former International Conference Participant Discount:
Less US$50.00
Closing Date for Applications
Friday 28th October, 2022
Register Now
Payment Options
Remit payment by Bank Transfer to:
Account Name: The Buzz Ltd.
Bank Name: First Citizens Bank Limited
Bank Address: 44-46 Maraval Road, Port of Spain
Bank Account No.: 1654712
Remit payment by Cheque to:
22 DeVerteuil Street,
Woodbrook,
Trinidad and Tobago
Make cheque out to: The Buzz Ltd.
Refunds & Cancellations
50% Refund for cancellations made before 20th September, 2022
No Refunds for cancellations made after 10th October, 2022
Please note: We suggest that if you are living through particular personal difficulties that you consider postponing your attendance to next year as the conference is designed as a learning event and is not a substitute for personal psychotherapy.
Conference staff
Conference Directorate
Mary Fullerton
EMBA,TIHR (P3C), (DBL)
Conference Director
Director of Caribbean Group Relations Consulting Ltd; Organisational Consultant/ Accredited Leadership Coach; Partner of The Buzz Limited; Founder/Director of non-profit ADHD Foundation of Trinidad and Tobago
Leslie Brissett
JP, PhD
Associate Conference Director
Group Relations Programme Director, TIHR; Magistrate, FE Governor, ISAAC member, BPC; UK
James Walker,
MEC
Conference Operations Manager
Business Unit Leader at Heritage Petroleum Company Limited; A leader in the diversity, equity and inclusion and is the Executive Sponsor for DEI at Heritage; Currently working on a project to codify the practice of DEI at Caribbean organisations; VP of Student and Schools Affairs at the St. Mary’s College Past Students Union; Former Lecturer at COSTAATT, former Consultant at McKinsey & Company UK; A kaiso writer and singer, performed for several years at the London Calypso Tent.
Conference Staff
Mary Fullerton, EMBA,TIHR (P3C), (DBL)
Director of Caribbean Group Relations Consulting Ltd; Organisational Consultant/ Accredited Leadership Coach, Partner of The Buzz Limited; Founder/Director of non-profit ADHD Foundation of Trinidad and Tobago
Leslie Brissett
JP, PhD
Group Relations Programme Director, TIHR; Magistrate, FE Governor, ISAAC member, BPC; UK
Urban Hudlin, OP, MSc, MA, TIHR (P3C), (DBL)
Director of Caribbean Group Relations Consulting Ltd.; Director of Veritas Consultancy; Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Dublin; Dominican Priest
Keith Lequay, PhD
Organizational Psychologist; UWI Lecturer; Certified Group Relations Consultant; GRC staff experiences in South Africa, USA and Caribbean.
Yaro Fong-Olivares, M.S.
Executive Director, Center for Women and Business, Bentley University; Leadership Psychology PsyD candidate, William James College; M.S., The New School; B.A. Barnard College. Organizational Development leader with a focus on racial justice, equity, and inclusion; Past President, Executive Committee, New York Center; Member, Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems; Co-Creator, Group Relations International; Certified Consultant, AK Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems.
Michelle S. May, DLitt et Phil
Clinical psychologist (Health Professions Council of South Africa); Professor: Department of Industrial & Organisational Psychology, Programme manager: Doctorate in Consulting Psychology (University of South Africa); Director (2002-2014): Robben Island diversity experience. Director (2021): Online GR Conference (The Institute for Leadership and Transformation)
René Molenkamp, MDiv, PhD
Co-founder and Executive Director, Group Relations International; Fellow, AKRI; Leadership Consultant at INSEAD, Judge Business School at Cambridge University and IMD; Professor of Practice, University of San Diego.
Kathleen Stroud, M.A.
Leadership and Organizational Analyst; Director Leadership Core Ltd.
How staff work in the Conference
While staff and members are both participants, the conference accords them different roles.
The staff members of the conference are allocated to each of the events in the role of consultants or in the role of collective management to work to the primary task of the event and to the task of the conference as a whole.
This they do through the offering of working hypotheses and other forms of interventions.
The staff work constantly trying to make sense of their own experiences and what is happening for members.
It is expected that staff hypotheses and interpretations will also create the possibility for individual members to reflect on what they represent to the group, what they are taking in from the group and what they are contributing to the group, particularly in terms of what may be happening unconsciously and in ways that are more hidden.
Previous Participants
- Office of the Prime Minister – Trinidad & Tobago
- Catholic Education Board of Management – Trinidad & Tobago
- Heritage Petroleum Company Limited – Trinidad & Tobago
- Ministry of Gender and Child Affairs – Trinidad & Tobago
- COTT – Trinidad & Tobago
- R.C Archbishop of Port of Spain – Trinidad & Tobago
- University of Richmond- USA
- Odyssey Consultinc Limited – Trinidad & Tobago
- A. K. Rice Institute – USA
- ACNJ – UK
- Antilles Episcopal Conference – Trinidad & Tobago
- Archdiocese of Port of Spain – Trinidad & Tobago
- Arrow Group – Abu Dhabi
- Broadcasting Commission – Jamaica
- Independent Researcher/ Consultant – UK
- iTutortt – Trinidad & Tobago
- Jacobs & Jacobs – Peru
- New York University – USA
- Prins in Communicatie – The Netherlands
- Private Practice – USA / Trinidad & Tobago
- RtL Consultancy – Hungary
- Schenectady City School District – USA
- Society of African Missions – Afrikahuis
- Society of St Vincent de Paul – Trinidad & Tobago
- Tavistock Clinic – UK
- The Nursing Council of Trinidad and Tobago – Trinidad & Tobago
- The Second Chair – UK
- University of Pennsylvania – USA
- University of South Africa – South Africa
- C.F. International Marketing – Trinidad & Tobago
- Caribbean Catalyst Inc. – Barbados
- Dr. Bob LLC – USA
- FT Farfan Ltd – Trinidad & Tobago
- Guardian Shared Services Ltd – Trinidad & Tobago
- Piarco Air Services Limited – Trinidad & Tobago
- Providence Girls’ Catholic School – Trinidad & Tobago
- Sandstone Consulting Limited – Trinidad & Tobago
- St. Joseph’s Convent, St. Joseph – Trinidad & Tobago
- St. Joseph’s Convent San Fernando – Trinidad & Tobago
- Synapse Psychological Services Inc. – Barbados
- TECU Credit Union Co-operative Society Limited – Trinidad & Tobago
- The University of Trinidad and Tobago – Trinidad & Tobago
- TRINRE Insurance Company Limited – Trinidad & Tobago
- UWI School of Business and Applied Studies Limited – Trinidad & Tobago
- Agricultural Development Bank of Trinidad and Tobago
- Beijing Jiaotong University, Counselling Center,
- Ministry of Education
- RMC Counselling – USA
- Trinidad and Tobago Association of Psychologists
- Therapy and Beyond – T&T
- The Buzz Ltd
- University of Central Missouri – USA
- UWI-Arthur LokJack GSB
Sponsoring Institutions
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations is a not-for-profit, UK based organisation which applies social science to contemporary issues and problems.The Institute is engaged with evaluation and action research, organisational development and change consultancy, executive coaching and professional development, all in service of supporting sustainable change and ongoing learning.
Caribbean Group Relations Consulting Ltd.
Caribbean Group Relations Consulting Ltd. was created to provide services in the areas of, organisational change and transformation to organisations, consulting in public and private sectors. Our members work as Consultants, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists, and Organisational Psychologists. Caribbean Group Relations Consulting Ltd., is working to develop and apply the field of Group Relations and Systems Psychodynamics in the Caribbean.