Introduction
Kenneth Rice published Learning for Leadership:
Interpersonal and Intergroup Relations
in 1965. The book is a mixture of report of a
process and theoretical reflection on it. The
process later evolved into the so-called “Tavistock”
model of learning through the study of
group relations in conferences. The first of
these was held in 1957, when a conference for
training in group relations was organized by
the University of Leicester and the Tavistock
Institute of Human Relations. Subsequently
conferences have been held at least annually.
They have been sponsored by different bodies
over the years, but they are now widely
known as “The Leicester” or “The Tavistock
Conference’. The pattern of working has been
replicated in many countries and some evolution
in design has occurred (Miller, 1989). Yet,
although books and articles have been produced,
Kenneth Rice’s original work has not
been superseded. Nor has the capacity of such
conferences to disturb settled positions and to
encourage new learning diminished. Someone
who recently attended a conference in the
USA included the following paragraph in his
report to his colleagues:
The thing that intrigues me about the Tavistock
perspective is that it provides an
extremely well developed vocabulary, logic
and (most important) practice for understanding
and engaging with what I increasingly
see as a key dimension of work in the
new economy – the place where the personal
and the organizational, the “private” and the
“public” intersect. At a time when, arguably,
acuity about interpersonal and organizational
dynamics is becoming an important
part of what it means to be an effective manager,
the conference exposed me to a powerful
way of building a kind of insight, a way
that I want to explore further (Howard, 1995).
The writer has grasped the essence of the
approach. There are today many who offer to
teach leadership. Books on the topic proliferate
and seminars abound. Their effectiveness
is evaluated by the measurable impact that
they immediately make on individuals and
organizations. The approach developed by
Rice and his colleagues is explicitly different.
It is founded not on teaching but on learning.