ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses the importance of understanding group dynamics in work sites and describes how the self of the observer-consultant provides crucial data about groups. He then discuss the roles of metaphors, leadership, and the triad of change-loss-grief in regulating the life of organizations. In describing ethnic, national, or organizational cultures, outside interpreter and insider alike can easily slip into reifications and speak as if a group is a self-standing entity, a living organism rather than an association of individual people. At the world community level the conception is very relevant to a better understanding of the deeper causes of the so-called enemy stereotypes, projectively tinged apprehensions of the "other part," giving at the same time an acceptable and guilt-relieved motive for one's own aggressive feelings and actions directed at it. Despite the common belief that decision-making in organizations is governed by realism and rationality, unconsciously motivated hidden agendas affect group thinking, interaction, and action.
