Rediscovering Bion and Rickman's leaderless group projects

Abstract

This contribution highlights the relevance of Conci's paper in understanding the ideas devised by Bion and Rickman during the Second World War. Rickman's letters to Bion, in particular, are read as documents that shed a very useful light on the paper that originated the tradition of the so-called Leicester Conferences: Wilfred Bion's “The leaderless group project.”

Keywords:

• group relations
• leadership
• institutional container
• leaderless dynamics

Notes

¹Bion proposed essentially three types of activity to the military establishment: the two undertaken for the War Office Selection Board, which regarded the selection of officers and non-commissioned officers, and the third being the Northfield Experiment. The first proposal – known as the Regimental Nomination Scheme – was based on the principle that the people best suited to assess an individual's suitability for leadership were not exclusively the said individual's superiors, but also his military peers (hence the proposed reorganisation of officer selection procedures, which would accordingly complement election from above with selection from below; for a description of the outcome of this proposal, see the letters of December 1941 and June 1942). The second proposal consisted in the use of group dynamics as a setting in which leadership qualities could be assessed, a posteriori, on the basis of empirical evidence (in other words, within a social context that was actively real, rather than artificially simulated). This is Bion's true technical innovation: the leaderless group project in its exact meaning. The third proposal – the so-called “first experiment of Northfield” – developed the observations on group dynamics and on leadership, with the aim of producing participation, responsibility, and thought instead of passiveness and mere obedience.

²The text is reproduced in the English edition of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Bion). The official citation for the award of the Distinguished Service Order is as follows: “For conspicuous gallantry, and devotion to duty. When in command of his tank in an attack he engaged a large number of enemy machine guns in strong positions, thus assisting the infantry to advance. When his tank was put out of action by a direct hit he occupied a section of trench with his men and machine guns and opened fire on the enemy. He moved about in the open, giving directions to other tanks when they arrived, and at one period fired a Lewis gun with great effect from the top of his tank. He also got a captured machine gun into action against the enemy, and when reinforcements arrived he took command of a company of infantry whose commander was killed. He showed magnificent courage and initiative in a most difficult situation.”

³“My utter ignorance of fighting, as contrasted with the professional soldier's knowledge, was mercifully hidden from me. I could feel it, but I did not know it; subsequent events conspired to postpone my enlightenment.We were under fire, but I had not the slightest idea where the bullets were coming from. ... Taking four drums of Lewis gun ammunition attached to my waist and a Lewis gun, I clambered clumsily onto the top of the tank and set up my gun under cover, as I thought, ... I was not aware of any danger and therefore experienced none of the fear which might have served as a substitute for my common sense which was wholly lacking. I commanded a good view of the little copse behind the wall, this I proceeded methodically to spray. I soon exhausted almost the whole of my four drums of ammunition” (Bion, 1982, p. 164).

⁴Interestingly, this observation is to be found in one of the last letters in Bion's correspondence with Rickman. The human being, Bion writes on January 24, 1945, “reacts very sensitively to anything, such as being taken prisoner, that reminds him of his fundamental insecurity. Combination with others removes his feebleness – a man by himself could not make a railway engine, but if he forms groups he can.” The problem is, he continues, that “once he has formed his combination, he does not want any inquiry into its nature as that re-awakens his anxiety about his helplessness as an individual” (see Conic's paper, this issue).