Facilitating Organisational Learning: A Psychodynamic Approach

Maria Latumahina
Partnerships Director and Organisational Learning Facilitator, Seventythree Foundation

Seventythree Foundation came into existence in the context of uncertainty and fear of societal breakdown. The COVID-19 pandemic caused social turbulence in ways we are only just beginning to understand. The devastating consequences of the crises we now face, including the widening gap between rich and poor, escalating social conflict and climate change, challenge our ability to remain in genuine service to human flourishing. Together with the civil society and community groups whom we belong to, we share the essential task of liberation: to read our realities with fresh perspective and transform the trajectory of our lives.

In this endeavour, I have the role of facilitating our community of practice in the work of becoming, flourishing and nurturing life. If hope is an essential attitude for radical activism, I would say that it is what keeps us going. The conversations I facilitate work to cultivate power from within and with others; they seek to understand, shape and reshape how we relate to ourselves and the world around us. We encourage each other to remain curious and question the state of the world, where curiosity shapes our sense of agency.  This, in our experience, is the work of organisational learning.

I have written this short article to both reflect on my practice as well as to offer testimony of what organisational learning looks like in practice: what it takes to facilitate and how it differs from individual learning, noting that one does not exist without the other. This is not, by any means, an attempt to impose an ideology of empowerment or organisational effectiveness.  This is a living piece of work; the insights we share are both objective as well as subjective. They draw on our own learning journey of how to better relate to ourselves as individuals and organisations,  as well as with the wider world. 

Facilitating Organisational Learning - what does it mean in practice?

An Organisation is a microcosm of wider society. Exposed to and concerned by historical and contemporary forms of dehumanisation, we have come to realise how an organisation is both rooted in the outer regulating system of the society as well as intertwined with the brokenness of the inner psyche, both individually as well as collectively. We have also come to  understand how the practice of dehumanisation sustains itself both intra- and intergenerationally, and at individual, organisational and societal levels.

I prefer to describe  my role as a facilitator of organisational learning rather than organisational development: learning signifies an active process to make meaning of experiences which then informs appreciation and action. Meaning making encapsulates the capacity to reflect and to analyse, on which rests the very essence of being human and of human development.

My role as a facilitator is to support; to be no more than a container and a holder. Holding and containing are technically different but one cannot function without the other. They are the two essential functions in group dynamics. To hold is to stay present and to stay put; to contain is to enable reflection, receive projections of people’s often unbearable emotional experience, and encourage a process of dreaming.

The role of holding and containing requires  enormous effort to - on the one hand - stay alert, serve and enable whilst - on the other hand - remain fully aware of one’s own position as a servant of one’s own dreams, brokenness and anxieties.

What does Organisational Learning entail? - looking inwards and outwards

In our practice, we set ourselves the task of learning with and from the community groups and civil society organisations we partner with. In Indonesia, this includes partners at national level as well as in the periphery, in remote, rural areas of Papua and Sulawesi. As we delve into their realities and they into ours, we come to realise  to what degree we are in fact strangers to ourselves. Organisational learning, first and foremost, is about getting to know ourselves; to know our calling and how we want to be in this world; to feel the pain of the wounds we cover up.

We do this work of “seeing through”, discovering and defining, by sharing and making meaning of our experiences including our grievances, struggles, hopes and dreams. It offers us clarity in our efforts to discover who we are and where we stand in the struggle to be truly human.

We approach conversations with our community partners with humility and understanding that certain characteristics of the human psyche are inborn and universal. They include our inherent human reactions to universal situations such as fear, anger, love, and hate. In our practice, we learn to confront our shadow complexes, to love and to make peace with ourselves; and to share that experience with others. This focus on being human transcends social status, class and other man-made attributes. It makes our learning mutual.

Beyond consciously identifying and reidentifying, positioning and repositioning, the next level of organisational learning is about unmasking and engaging power.  That includes confronting the historical traces of dehumanising power that make us who we are, and which often manifests itself in the detailed, day-to-day dynamics of our organisations.

Oppression crystallises in our psyche as chronic anxiety and  in feelings of inferiority. We see that legacy in ourselves as well as in our community partners’ own struggle to overcome feelings of shame, anger and despairs. It is a legacy that erodes solidarity, destroys  kinship and undermines people’s sense of belonging. It leaves people without agency; submissive and dependent on outsiders. We encounter the same psychological phenomenon among our civil society partners, just in different forms.

Our partners have shared ample testimony about the ways in which power and oppression colour interpersonal relationships. For that reason we place collective identity and organisational dynamics at the core of our approach to organisational learning. This includes the work we do with our  partners to agree on roles and responsibilities, rules of the game and boundaries on behaviour. This may sound simple but is immensely challenging where the power dynamics at play favour conformity and submission to group pressure. How do we hold each other accountable when power is out of balance?

Responding to this inquiry, Seventythree’s approach embodies a cycle of Reflection, Analysing, Visioning and Action. We favour the steady practice of giving and receiving feedback over preaching an ideal fantasy about justice and equity. From this we have learned that facilitating organisational learning is about getting our feet dirty;  entangling ourselves  with the pain, joy, and happiness of our partners’ journeys rather than look on as passive bystanders or as dispassionate academic observers. Only in this way can  we be present for and with others, sincerely and without judgement. As we reclaim ourselves, we reclaim our right relationships with the wider human communities and even the non-human entities among whom we live.

Our Learning Edge

Psychodynamic perspectives on human relations constitute an important influence on our work in organisational learning. At the same time, however,  we are challenged by the lack of practical instruments and learning infrastructure, including opportunities for additional exchange, coaching and mentoring.

Much of our work with learning partners centres on trying to understand how power plays out in group dynamics; the life-giving function of power as well as the life-killing side of it. Where, however, do we strike the right balance in the life of an organisation? Notwithstanding the effort we have made to root our approach in a deep understanding of man-made, psychosocial trauma and spiritual activism, we long for more support in tackling this question.

On the lack of learning infrastructure, we at Seventythree Foundation understand that facilitating organisational learning well requires more than technical skills. It also requires us to acknowledge the level of complexity involved in transforming organisational attitude and behaviour. It demands mental, physical and spiritual resilience. That kind of resilience only comes from an alliance of like-minded people who share the belief that, if we want to walk far, we have to walk together.