Psychoanalysis and Management

395 Pages·1994·21.545 MB·English

by  Seth Allcorn (auth.), Professor Dr. Michael Hofmann, Mag. Monika List (eds.)

Contributions to Management Science
Werner A. Muller E ditor
Psychoanalysis
and Management
Psychoanalysis and Management
Contributions to Management Science
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Cutting and Packing in Production
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Michael Hofmann · Monika List (Eds.)
Psychoanalysis and
Management
With Contributions by
S. Allcom, G. Amado, H. S. Baum, M. A Diamond, L. Gruenfeld
L. Hirschhom, M. F. R. Kets de Vries, J. Krantz, J.-P. Lar<;on
H. Levinson, M. List, R. Reitter, H. S. Schwartz, H. F. Stein
A Zaleznik
With 4 Figures
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH
Series Editor
Wemer A. Miiller
Peter Schuster
Editors
Professor Dr. Michael Hofmann
Mag. Monika List
Wirtschaftsuniversităt Wien
Augasse 2-6
A-1090 Wien, Austria
ISBN 978-3-7908-0795-0
CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek
Psychoanalysis and management 1 Michael Hofmann; Monika
List (eds.). With contributions by S. Allcom.
(Contributions to management science)
ISBN 978-3-7908-0795-0 ISBN 978-3-662-12847-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-12847-3
NE: Hofmann, Michael [Hrsg.]; Allcorn, Seth
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Preface
In the last years Europe was dominated hy rapid changes in economic
life. Increasing international competition and the opening of new
markets were the hasis for economic alliances. Many organizations
were forced to merge with others in order to survive during a time of
steady changes in technology. Due to the recession of today,
insolvencies become more and more on this continent. The
consequences are: restructuring of organizations, changes of
organizational hierarchies and reduction of costs and personnel. This
leads to different forms of anxiety of managers and suhordinates, as
well as to greater difficulties in cooperation, which is of specific
importance in times of crisis. W orkers and employees are afraid of
losing their place of work. Distrust and competition between
colleagues lead to the wish for a strong leader who guarantees order
and security. Due to this fact leaders are confronted with many
difficult demands which are stiU unknown to them. Changes in
organizations lead to many fears: rivalry hetween parts of
organizations, processes of defense and regression in groups of
workers may have the consequence that a charismatic leader is asked.
Managers who are not in the position to deal with this new situation
and to understand the unconscious hasis of this behavior will not he
ahle to stand this stress. Due to such a change it becomes more and
more important to draw attention to those unconscious and irrational
ways of behavior which deteriorate a productive cooperation between
the members of organizations.
Gaining a better knowledge for unconscious ways of behavior and
their motivations is absolutely not new. There are already many
interesting and important contrihutions such as papers which deal
with psychodynamic aspects in organizations. Psychoanalytical
concepts and ideas are extremely helpful for the analysis of
organizations and the hehavior of their members. As this fact has been
accepted a small group of pioneers started in 1980 a symposium
which was organized by Professor Michael Hofmann (University of
Economics, Vienna) and took place for the first time in Austria.
This symposium was followed up hy annual conferences, held hy
Professor Leopold Gruenfeld under the auspices of Cornell
University. The foundation of ISPSO (International Society for the
Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations) in 1986 led to an important
forum of discussion which until today is including a great number of
members and professionally interested persons. Each year their
contributions are presented in a symposium. Due to discussions of
case studies and their scientific results the development of this
research work with the aim to understand not only conscious but also
VI
unconscious contents (imaginations, fantasies) makes it possible to
recognize people and organizations much bctter. Working with
fantasy turned out to be more effective than a mere positivistic
approach.
This book has the intention to introduce this research work also to
readers in Europe by specially chosen contributions from leading
psychoanalytically oriented management theorists and clinicians.
These papers which have been published between 1980 and 1992 in
diverse joumals, newspapers and books appear in a collection in order
to demonstrate the development of this specific approach to the
reader. The authors deal with different topics such as leadership,
corporate culture, family business, organizational stress, career
dynamics and so on. AII of them try to win an understanding and
insight into conscious, unconscious, rational and irrational behavior.
This book has the intention to show to scientists, students, managers,
consultants but also to the interested layman the possibility to gain
new perspectives towards human behavior. The purpose of this book
is fulfilled if this knowledge can be practiced in order to achieve
improvements for the cooperation between people in general.
Overview of the Contents
The first contribution "Leadership Styles: The Psychological Picture"
of Seth Allcorn demonstrates a psychodynamic model of leadership
styles which are based on unconscious processes. The model is useful
for understanding the motivations and actions of managers who
experience stress originating from both interna! and externa! sources.
"Psychoanalysis and Organization: A Cross-Cultural Approach" was
presented by Gilles Amado at the 1st Interational Symposium on
Applied Psychoanalysis in 1980. In this paper G. Amado develops thc
idea that the relations between psychoanalysis and organizations have
been shaped by the cultural context in which they took place. In his
second paper "A Clinical Approach to Meetings" G. Amado explains
why meetings may become dysfunctional. The author describes
different symptoms of such meetings and what can be done to avoid
conflicts.
Modern service work in bureaucratic organizations requires
possibilities for acting aggressively in intimate relationships without
anxiety. Howell S. Baum describes in the article "Creating a Family
in the Workplace" a local planning agency where staff created a
"family" to solve these problems. This case offers lessons for modern,
bureaucratic service work. In his second contribution "Mentoring:
Narcissistic Fantasies and Oedipal Realities" H. S. Baum examines
VII
the literature on mentoring from a psychoanalytic perspective. He
describes two common contrasting experiences of mentoring,
harmony between a protege and a perfect mentor and sexuality and
aggressive conflict between the protege and mentor, which are
typically successive stages in mentoring relationships.
Michael Diamond focuses in his paper "The Social Character of
Bureaucracy: Anxiety and Ritualistic Defense" on the analysis of the
social character of bureaucracy. He describes the deeper connections
between the psychodynamics of obsessional neurosis in the individual
and ritualistic practices in bureaucracy. In his second contribution to
this book "Organizational Identity - A Psychoanalytic Exploration of
Organizational Meaning" M. Diamond examines the phenomenon of
organizational identity and its underlying unconscious processes.
The essay of Leopold Gruenfeld "Field Independence/Dependence
Reconsidered" calls for a reassessment of the polarized
unidimensional construction of the field independent/dependent
cognitive style. His paper consists of four parts. In the first part, a
conceptual overview of the global-articulated style is presented with
special emphasis on the domain of social behavior. In the second part,
the application of the field independent/dependent framework to the
study of leadership and teaching style is described. In the third part, a
modified typology of stressed and composed cognitive styles is
delineated and buttressed by findings from Bales' (1970, 1979)
research on individual behavior in groups. In the fourth part, several
methodological issues which appear to retard research on the field
independent/dependent cognitive style are explored.
Larry Hirschhorn explains in his paper "Leaders and Followers in a
Postindustrial Age: A Psychodynamic View" how important it is that
leaders and followers recognize their dependence on one another and
their need to collaborate. The author presents a typology of authority
and illustrates his thoughts by means of case studies.
Manfred Kets de Vries discusses in his contribution "The Impostor
Syndrome: Developmental and Societal Issues" the role of impostors
in society. He shows psychodynamic inferences about the origin and
characteristics of this particular character type and presents the case of
Refaat El-Sayed, a recent example of an impostor in business.
Alexithymia is a clinica! construct which refers to individuals with an
extreme reality-based cognitive style, an impoverished fantasy life, a
paucity of inner emotional experiences, a tendency to engage in
stereotypical interpersonal behavior, and a speech pattern
characterized by endless, trivial, repetitive details. M. Kets de Vries
hypothesizes that there is an interesting parallel between the
VIII
organization man and those people with an alexithymic disposition.
He discusses this in his paper "Alexithymia in Organizational Life:
The Organization Man Revisited."
James Krantz analyses in his contribution "The Managerial Couple:
Superior-Subordinate Relationships as a Unit of Analysis" effective
and ineffective superior-subordinate relationships. His conclusion is
that managers and subordinates must confront their feelings of
dependency and vulnerability in order to work together successfully.
Lar(:on and Reitter view the man - organization relationship in the
context of corporate imagery and corporate identity. The authors
examine the foundations of this imagery and examine how it changes
in time and how its identity can be created or altered. Their thoughts
are illustrated by a study of a french furniture company in the article
"Corporate Imagery and Corporate Identity".
In "Counseling with Top Management" Harry Levinson demonstrates
that consultation with top management is a wide-ranging and varied
task. He shows how important it is that the consultant makes use of
developmental, clinica!, child, family, organizational and industrial
psychology, as well as management theory. In thc paper "Leadership
Anyone?" H. Levinson illustrates his opinion that leaders and
leadership are cultivated by established leaders and other cultivators
and are not "born" as suggested by many. Numerous examples of
politica!, intellectual, artistic and business leadership are presented to
support this view.
Howard Schwartz explains in his first paper anti-social actions of
organizationally committed individuals on the basis of the
"ontologica!" function of organizations. The author shows how the
development of the potentiality for such an ti-social action is built into
the process of socialization for organizational commitment.
H.Schwartz analyses in his second contribution "Narcissism Project
and Corporate Decay" the case of General Motors and describes how
dangerous it can be if an organization loses touch with reality.
By means of a case study of a medical corporation Howard F. Stein
analyses and interpretes the group psychology of response to the
threat of organization dissolution. The dynamics of catastrophic
reaction are explored, and the writer's role as facilitator of
verbalization and expression of group anxiety is described in the
paper "Adapting to Doom: The Group Psychology of Organization
Threatened with Cultural Extinction".
IX
"Power and Politics in Organizations: Pragmatics and Pathologies" is
the title of the paper in which Abraham Zaleznik examines the
differences in the meaning of the concept of power in literature.
As Zaleznik is one of the founders of the ISPSO and an important
pioneer in this movement, the last contribution is dedicated to his
person and research work. "Human Dilemmas of Leadership" is one
of the books which introduced this totally new scientific development
concerning the problem of how to combine applied psychoanalysis
and management discourse. Therefore 1 want to indicate in my paper
how important these basic studies and ideas are still today.
By this collection of papers of different authors it is only possible to
give to the reader an insight into this interesting research work. The
application of psychoanalytical concepts on management is of great
variety and of great hope for the future. Many more interesting
contributions can be expected.
Monika List
Vienna, March 25th, 1994