Working with Others: Pleasure, pain and gain

Working with others is fundamental to organisational life. It can be fun, rewarding and productive, but it can also be difficult, frustrating and painful. What happens to, and between, individuals and groups in organisations is confusing.

What if we could set up an organisation just to learn about that? An organisation designed to illuminate the complexity of working with others. A place where we an explore and understand how our personalities and past experiences shape what happens. Where we can see the impact of both conscious and unconscious processes on the capacity for thinking and taking action. And what if we could use that understanding to be more effective in working with others in the workplace and in our social and political world?

This is what we will do at the Conference. We will create a temporary organisation to help us understand more fully the complexity of organisational life. We will consider the meaning, limitations and creative potential of working together. 

We will examine issues of authority, role, task, power and accountability; leadership and followership; values, difference and culture.

You will be able to explore the part you and others play, and the impact of group dynamics on behaviour and outcomes. You will gain insights and understanding that will help you at work and in your wider environment.

You don’t need any prior experience and it doesn’t matter what your occupation is. If you are curious about organisations and want to develop your capacity to be thoughtful and effective at work and beyond, we hope you will join us.

There will be approximately 25 members. A certificate of attendance is issued on completion.

What is the purpose?

The purpose of the Conference is to engage with, and learn about, the pleasure, pain and gain of working with others, and increase the capacity for thoughtful and effective action.

To enable this, the primary task of the Conference is to experience and examine conscious and unconscious group dynamics, and our individual contribution to them.

Conference Fee

£505 for general public
£465 for BPF members
£435 for BPF trainees
£465 for three or more participants from the same organisation

The closing date for all applications is 30 September 2015. Early booking is recommended.

What did others say?

Here is what the participants of the last year's conference said about their experience:

‘Life changing experience.’

‘This has been a powerful and challenging three days from which I have derived an awful lot of value. My gratitude to the entire team. I’m sure I’ll be back!’

‘I am increasingly finding ways in which to consider and offer my leadership in organisational contextsthe (conference) was extremely helpful in enabling to work through where and how I might effect shift in conflicted and uncertain environments.’

' I left wanting more.’

'I found the consultants intriguing, challenging, insightful, supportive.’

‘I have been reminded, again, about how important it is, in the current (hostile) climate of cuts, mergers and re-shuffling of teams, to create possibilities of friendly facilitating spaces to meet others and get to know people instead of seeing them in their roles, as it is very easy to fall back into persecuting/persecuted (individual and group) thinking with In and Out Groups that can't make use of the existing structures and pathways and end up isolated, paralysed and don't get the task done.’