How Technologically Mediated Interaction Risks Collapsing a Reflective Space in the Workplace: An Organizational Leadership Case Study

Abstract

The growth of technologically based forms of interaction in organizational life call for us to take a more self-aware posture toward our devices. The case of a leadership group is offered to demonstrate how important information can fail to fully transfer across a technological interface. The experience of the other is flattened by a technological partition that can be unconsciously enlisted to distance participants from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings evoked by work. The case study demonstrates the importance of maintaining a reflective space (Winnicott) for collaboration and describes how shared physical presence within this space contributes to resolving the frustrations inherent in tasks like those that challenge group leadership. Alternatively, a reliance on a technological interface is susceptible to being unconsciously enlisted in the creation of a social defense (Menzies) as, in this case, a consultant and the team members collude in a flight from their respective tasks (Bion).

Keywords:

• frustration
• leadership
• organization
• reflective space
• social defense
• technology

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Byron Woollen

Byron Woollen, PhD, is the founder of Podia Consulting, a firm that specializes in organizational and leadership effectiveness. He also maintains a psychotherapy practice with a specialty in issues related to work–life balance, work-related stress, and career anxiety. Dr. Woollen contributed “The Failure of Risk Management in the Financial Industry: The Organization in the Mind of Financial Leaders” to Towards a Socioanalysis of Money, Finance and Capitalism: Beneath the Surface of the Financial Industry (Routledge, 2012).