Member-only story
If you ask me to describe something to the opposite of this pandemic lifestyle, I would like to tell you about my experience at a 3-day conference. It was called “Leadership, Authority, and Vulnerability in Groups and Organizational Systems,” where everyone becomes members of small and large groups to “live the group experience, guided by facilitators somewhat.” The conference lasted for three consecutive days, from 9 am to 9 pm each day.
This conference was part of the course requirements for an organizational psychology course, “Group Dynamics,” I took at Teachers College of Columbia University. It is a core course for the Organization Psychology program while also open to those (someone like me!) who desire to understand how groups work; it is easily popular among MBA students who aspired to become effective leaders. Each semester, a conference was held on-location at the university, where most of the students who take the course takers attend, joined by attendees from other organizations if there are empty registration slots. In the 3-day conference, we were members of small groups and large groups; we experienced leadership, disagreement, choosing a group, negotiating, and navigating groups with people who are different or the same from ourselves, in the bones.
