role contamination: is the poison in the person or the bottle

Role Contamination:

Is the Poison in the Person or the Bottle?

Jane Chapman & Susan Longi

Socio-Analysis Volume 11 December 2009 A considerable body of literature exists concerning the effect of a person on their role, in particular how

one finds, makes and takes up role within organisation and in relation to task and other role-holders (eg,

Newton, Long & Sievers 2006). Less explored, perhaps, is the reverse relationship: the effect of role on

person, and – through person as role-holder – on the organisational tasks and environment. The exploration

here is linked to previous work on role history and on the phenomenon of role and task corruption and

perversity.

Key Words: Role; Role Biography; Role History; Role Corruption

Introduction

This article considers how roles develop their own histories. Roles in organizations are

not neutral, they come with a past! We claim that a history dwells within a role and that

the implications of that history become unconsciously written onto the behaviours,

thoughts and feelings of future role incumbents. How such implications are enacted

depends on several factors, including the capacity of the role incumbent to explore and be

thoughtful about them. Some might be benign or quite positive. For example for the most

part the role of mentor brings with it positive life-sustaining implications. Other roles do

not. We are especially interested in how the interaction between the role, with its implicit

history, and the person, with their own biography of past roles, might at times result in a

corrupt, perverse or what might more colloquially be termed 'poisonous' role. By this we

mean a role that itself might 'poison' or „contaminate‟ its incumbents.

Our exploration is linked to previous work on role history and on the phenomena of role

and task corruption and perversity.ii

A role cannot be seen in isolation. We take the position that role is influenced by and

influences all other roles in a given organisational system. This means that if a role

This document is for use only in EMCCC Module 4 at INSEAD – 11-14 Apr 2013 – by Professor Susan Long. Copying, printing and posting without permission is copyright infringement.

becomes poisonous, all linked roles are affected, as are their tasks. Traditionally, we

might have thought that bad, corrupt or perverse behaviours are the result of bad, corrupt

or perverse individuals. For sure, role holders have a choice where their actions are

concerned and must be held to account. But, in this article, we pursue the case of the

poison being in the bottle as much as in the person. Awareness of this possibility aids in

guarding against its corrupt influence.

The Person or the Role

In Australia we have a relatively new Prime Minister. After many years of a conservative

government, we have elected a Labor leadership. And, more startling yet, for this

country, we have a female deputy. There is a feeling of new hope in the air. As an early

step in his office, this leader wished to unite all Australians through a formal apology to

the indigenous people for past policies involving the removal of children from their

families resulting in what has become known as the “stolen generation”. This was

something the last government consistently refused to do, avowedly because they claimed

the current generation was not responsible for the decisions of the past; but also, others

believe, because of their fear of having to pay compensation.

There is strong support for this apology. At the time of writing, the conservative

opposition, under new leadership, has now joined with the new Government and broken

with its past stance. This reflects a popular movement; many people are tired of what they

see as the mean-spirited approach of the former government, and believe this to have

been characteristic of many of their social policies. The image of government, its role, the

role of the Prime Minister and, as a consequence the role of the Australian people, is

undergoing change. And this is how we generally come to view change; a new person, a

new group can bring change to the role. This is the hope. Similarly, in the United States

President Obama holds this new hope for the Presidential role.

In organisational research, much thought has been given to the ways in which roles are

affected by their incumbents. For instance, researchers at the Grubb Institute in London

have demonstrated that when joining an organisation people tend to go through a process


of finding, making and taking roles.iii

That is, they first have to find and conceptualise for

themselves the system they are entering; then shape the role within that understanding

and according to their own dispositions and valencies;iv

and, finally, take up the authority

and discretion available to that role in the system. In this process the role is moulded by

the person to fit with his or her experience. We expect each new CEO, for example, to

bring his or her mark to the role. Employees wait with hope or in trepidation for what a

new leader will bring and how this will affect their own position. Other ingredients to add

are the social/political context in which the role is enacted and the way that the

organizational purpose is interpreted and taken up by incumbents. These all affect the

way in which a role is developed and changes over time.v

But what of the other side to this picture? How does the role shape and affect the person?

Much as a new comer brings his or her own personal attributes and qualities to the role,

so does a role have an impact on its incumbent. Longvi

describes the role biographies that

people build over their careers and how in each role something new is learned. This

extends back to roles taken in childhood right through to current positions. Each role in

each system adds to the way a person takes up a new role. These roles shape the person

as much as the person shapes them.

We believe that the role itself comes to hold a history. Because of the way they have been

enacted, some roles would be virtually impossible to take up - at least in an officially

recognised way. The Fuhrer of Germany is perhaps an example; as, too, may have been

the role of CEO of Enron. Indeed, some roles are so contaminated that no one wants to

take them up and they become permanent vacancies. It is often about this stage that an

administrator or a receiver takes over.

How Can we Know if a Role is Poisonous?

It is our central hypothesis that roles have histories that can and need to be viewed

somewhat independently of individual role-holders. The more potent the role history, the

greater is the capacity of the role to become „active‟ in influencing succeeding incumbent


(s), other roles and their incumbents and the organisational system-as-a-whole, and even

the social environment, for good or for ill.

All roles have a capacity for potency because they exist, not independently, but in

intimate association with all other roles in the system. A role may be said to be

contaminated when its influence on succeeding incumbents and their systemic colleagues

(roles and people) impacts negatively and persistently on the organisation‟s ability to

carry out its real work.

Below we have posited a list of likely „indicators‟; tell-tales that help decide whether a

problem is as much or more located in the „bottle‟ (the role itself) as in the person (its

incumbent).

Any of the classic flight/fight defences: denial, confusion (lack of clarity),

frustration, dishonesty, subversion, sabotage, anxiety, rage, particularly where

recurrence of any of these sets up a pattern at odds with the usual patterned

behaviour of the current incumbent(s);

A sense in the incumbent that he or she is „driven‟, compelled to behaviour that

perpetuates role and task corruption and results in an ongoing sense-in-role of

being „not themselves‟;

A sense that the role and its incumbent are at the „center of a web‟, almost as

though the role acts as an attractor of organisational and role problems within its

system. (An analogy is where the adolescent in a family system acts out the

aggression, frustration and identity-confusion of the whole family: not necessarily

because s/he is by nature aggressive, frustrated and confused, but because s/he is

the adolescent. The role and all the other roles in the system somehow „expect‟

this.)


The presence of perverse behaviour and attitudes that both centre on and flow

from the role (s) under review. Such perverse dynamics can be identified through:

- narcissism;

- denial;

- manipulation (the collusive drawing in of other roles and their

incumbents);

- objectification (where people become instruments or tools rather than

interacting healthily and enjoyably within their roles).vii

The Founding Role Experience

Because roles draw their potency from their histories, the founding role is critical in

establishing its positive or negative activity throughout its organisational life. Chapman

describes task power and its capacity to influence the ability to work well, both in its

originating and associated systems.viii

Here we look at role power. In our ensuing case

history, the reader will note how the role founder so thoroughly imbued his role with

„Godfather‟–like attitudes and behaviours that his personal pattern became captured in his

role and his role in turn captured his successor.

Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to blame the role founder. The role experience is an

amalgam of influences of which the founder‟s personality is a single. Our organisations

are always systems and always interactive. Thus we can think of a founding role as

becoming influential because of at least four kinds of power:

its founder‟s personality and patterns of behaviour (personal power);

its place within the role structure of the organisation (structural power);

the way it is thought of by its founder, successors and the incumbents of other

roles (the power of the role idea)ix

; and

what it gives to and picks up from a) other roles and role-holders; b) the way task

and boundaries function in the system; and c) the cultural context of its own and

other systems (ambient power).


Case Study

The following case is significantly disguised. It has elements of different cases yet

faithfully represents the dynamics that we have encountered in some of our consultancy

work with organisations. We put it together to demonstrate ideas in this article, while

maintaining confidentiality with our actual clients.

Henry was the founder of a small electronics company. He was entrepreneurial by nature

and gathered a small group of hardworking engineers. While initially they had only an

office assistant to deal with the paperwork, in time they employed a salesperson and later

an office manager.

Henry's style was to lead as if he were the head of a family. In fact, one of his sons joined

the company as a graduate five years after it began. By this time, the company had about

500 employees and Henry had an executive group leading. This consisted of himself, his

operations manager, the office manager and his head of sales. The office manager dealt

with policies and procedures and any human resource issues as well as invoicing,

requisitioning, buying and dealing with company accountants. The company continued to

grow. Eventually it was bought by a larger company, but Henry was kept on as Managing

Director.

Henry's style didn't change. He was used to having his orders carried out without

question. His senior managers had been with him from the early days and he regarded

them as 'mates' as much as employees. Although the company now was part of a larger

group and had specialised divisions for its various functions, its internal systems hadn't

really developed the kind of sophistication that would match the company‟s growth. Real

strategic planning was lacking. In a smaller way, their story was similar to that of HIH,

the giant Australian insurance company that collapsed in 2001x. In that case, the board

rarely questioned the managing director, Ray Williams, or was ignored when it did.

Decisions regarding future directions for the company were made on the basis of hunches

formed by Williams from flimsy information. He led as if he were leading a small group.


So did Henry. You didn't really cross Henry. Basically good hearted, he was stubborn and

believed he knew best.

The company no longer grew. Its profits began to drop. Henry left. He was encouraged

with a departure package. A new man was appointed.

David had a very different approach. He was consultative. His ideas for the further

expansion of the company into new markets were thoroughly researched. He wanted new

and sophisticated systems to be put into all divisions and he wanted across the board

consistency in policies, procedures and culture. He brought in consultants. But his senior

managers, engineers and technicians had their own ways of doing things. David

continued to come up against brick walls when it came to internal change. He emphasised

to the managers the need to change. He linked this quite convincingly to future scenario-

planning internally and in the other companies of the group to which they belonged.

Although he got agreement in meetings, the changes never occurred. Problems kept

appearing. Privately he believed that his senior management was incompetent and would

never be able to take on the changes required.

Underlying this was a culture that had learned to say yes to the boss, but, out of his sight,

to do what had to be done at those times when the imperative from the boss would have

proved disastrous. Under Henry, the leadership role had become dictatorial and big

decisions had been made virtually by him alone. But everyone else, although benefiting

from his successes, had also to survive his mistakes and somehow take up what authority

they had to get the job done. Henry had often stepped outside the role: no longer

managing, but letting personal interests dictate his decisions. He often had conflicts of

interest.

David had wanted the role to be different, but had come up against a culture that had

learned to absorb the leading role rather than work with it. The leading role had become

corrupted.xi

It had failed to develop as it should have when the company grew but the

corruption here was far more than one of inappropriate leadership style and certainly


more than the often encountered problem of company systems and resources growing at a

slower pace than expanding sales and services. Granted these factors were present, the

corruption lay in a role idea (Reed, 1976) that was both anti-task and anti-reality, that is,

counter to the survival and future development of the organisation in its now international

context.

This corruption affected other roles in the system so that senior manager and technician

roles had grown thick skins around them and incumbents were making decisions that

satisfied their own needs rather than fulfilling the larger system task. The entrenched

family-like dynamic and the satisfaction of personal needs rather than the pursuit of the

company‟s real work or purpose lay at the heart of the poison that settled into Henry‟s

original role.

Another way of understanding what happened here is to say that the founding role

experience was so powerful that the role could not be succeeded: it remained „Henry‟s

Role‟.

In response to the lack of „progress‟ he was experiencing, David began to think that the

only way he could get his managers to act differently and take on his plans was to be

more forceful. He was clear that he had the authority to make the changes he wanted. He

exercised it. One day, he began to feel that he was becoming like Henry. Although still

consultative, everything seemed to be easier with the managers if, paradoxically, he went

along with them in many situations and was dictatorial in others. It was if everything in

the system seemed to overtly support change, but nothing changed. The managing

director role, he realised was not one of leadership, but a role that was led and pushed;

cajoled and flattered by the company. The corruption that earlier occurred in the role was

managed and contained by a culture that was now partially crippled by its own

management of that corruption.

Henry was not himself a corrupt person. He did a lot in his founding role that was good

for the company. But the role was corrupted because it entrenched the behavior and a


way of thinking that denied the reality of clearly and openly addressing emergent

problems about what was actually going on in the system. Collusion dominated the

system, the legacy of which forced David and his colleagues (the successor and its

associated roles) to behave „as if‟ they were a family rather than a commercially oriented

focused engineering company. Because it was the leadership role this unreality

dominated the system, forcing David and his colleagues (the successor and its associated

roles) to behave as if it were a family rather than an engineering company.xii

This led to a

defensive cultural adaptation to this role and subsequently to other roles. When David

came, he inherited a role that was itself poisoned and that in turn affected the way he

could find, take and make the role in new ways. This had significant implications for his

tenure of office. Perhaps we might feel sympathy for David. Alternatively we might

scapegoat him, as the parent company eventually did, for not being capable of 'turning

the company around'. But essentially, David was constrained by the system that had

formed around an initially poisoned role.

In our case history, the aspects of role power previously described are demonstrated.

- the founding CEO has a dominate, patriarchal, non-consultative

personality; (personal power)

- he is the top dog; (structural power)

- his subordinates at first „obey‟ his dominance and then subvert it, acting

from a role idea that has him as father (or Godfather) of an extended

family whose other members have to maintain the hierarchy, manage the

boss and preserve the role idea, while satisfying their own personal needs;

(the power of the role idea)

- all significant role holders work together to maintain the fantasy that the

company is a family, even when it is absorbed into a larger organisation.

Note that the CEO is not replaced at the time of the takeover. Indeed, to

have done so would have undermined the company buyer‟s idea of what

they were buying. Thus the total context in which the role was embedded

reinforced the way it was forming. (ambient power)


No individual role-holder has much chance of change when inheriting so contaminated a

role. The poison is not only powerful; it is endemic. It became so from a system base and

– to experience change – must find its solution via total-system effort.

A consultant following the framework suggested below would, in this instance, work

with the system towards re-forming, or indeed, re-founding the original role in order that

successors may take up the positive implications of the founding role and ameliorate the

negative ones.

Guarding Against the Poisonous Influence

In this section, we set out a suggested framework for working with contaminated or

poisoned roles. In this, we also examine those factors that we believe influence whether

or not the poisonous role history is enacted in a current role. In terms of our case, what

are the factors that would lead David to repeat Henry's mistakes despite his best

intentions?

Who Does the Work?

The first step is to examine how the role is being enacted. Role incumbents can work

with – ie. think about and adapt – their own roles to some extent. But to work alone in

and with a contaminated role denies the systemic nature of how the role became poisoned

in the first place. If the role itself is 'active' in impacting negatively on the work of the

organisation then work with the role requires some kind of systemic approach. Ideally a

role consultant can be employed. This brings in an external disinterested party able to see

the role from an uncontaminated perspective. Or a group of incumbents in related roles

can work within the framework suggested here. Leaders and managers can avail

themselves of some system-analytic training and/or development.xiii

In approaching the problem of contaminated roles we give a word of warning: beware of

scapegoating the person-in-role or even the role itself in an isolated fashion. Making the


person or the role on its own the container of system guilt and blame will only lead to

further contamination, both of the role itself and the system-as-a-whole.

Acknowledgement

To work with roles (poisoned or otherwise) requires the acknowledgment that all

organisations are systems and thus completely interactive. They are neither aggregates of

people (employee A + employee B+… etc = the organisation), nor aggregates of roles

(role A + role B +… etc = the division or the organisation). What affects one affects all

the others. If poison is present, poison spreads.

It also requires the acknowledgement that all roles have histories. Through its history, the

role itself can be active in the organisation as well as the role holder. What appears to be

behaviour brought to the role by the incumbent will, to some extent or other, be

behaviour that the role brings to the incumbent, as for David, in our case example.

Further, in founding the role, Henry entered into a collusive relation with his system to

pretend that the CEO was in some way not part of the system but a lone entity super-

imposed on the company. Thus Henry was „boss‟ and was permitted to dictate. While

other managers appeared to obey, they indeed acted quite independently. David‟s chances

of successful change were subverted from the start: not so much by people but by the

spreading poison of a contaminated role.

Too often managers take the attitude of brushing aside the past and focusing only on the

future. They may do this for several reasons. They don't want to be associated with the

mistakes or any negative emotions surrounding the past. They want to be seen as the

bringer of hope for a new future; a new broom. In this focus, perhaps unconsciously, they

want to help themselves and their sub-ordinates to overcome any pain or guilt associated

with the responsibilities and accountabilities for past failures. But acknowledgement and

recognition of the past is required to move on lest unfinished business remains festering

below the surface. We suspect, referring back to our earlier political example, that

compensation to the indigenous people of Australia is an inevitable part of saying 'sorry'.

A process of recognition, even mourning allows this to occur. By denying the past and


only looking to the future, David could not appreciate sufficiently the formal, informal,

stated and unstated, overt and hidden dynamics associated with the role of the CEO. In

turn this blocked him from learning from the system mistakes that occurred prior to his

arrival.

Diagnosis

Acknowledgement of the issue leads to a search for the tell-tale signs. These will

normally occur in repeating patterns of behaviour found in the kinds of anti-task defences

mobilised by a contaminated role: „flight‟ defences, such as denial or avoidance; „fight‟

defences like conflict, subversion or sabotage, destruction of boundaries and acting 'out

of role' with conflicts of interest.

In recognising and understanding the past, the whole system, through its members

accepts accountability. Without such a perspective individuals or individual roles

become increasingly vulnerable to becoming scapegoated as incompetent, unmotivated or

resistant. It may seem an easy solution to blame someone or some one role for all that

went wrong. However, this is rarely satisfactory because the system is then unable to

accept the changes that it needs to make, and the same old bad roles will occur again and

again.

When scapegoating occurs, individuals come to be blamed for problems in the system.

Managers often attempt to isolate those whom they regard as poor performers, either to

protect the scapegoated person (s), or prevent further perceived incompetence. While we

do not deny that some role incumbents may be incompetent, too often this is exaggerated

or brought about by their having to carry some of the ills of the wider system. In our case,

David began to find that he was pushed into colluding with a system set up to defend

against collective action.

Differentiation


We believe that it is important to focus on differentiating the person from their role and

then to look at how the two interact. Useful questions for the role incumbent to ask him

or herself are listed here:

I am struggling with my role. Can I look at the history of my role as well as the

history of me?

Is there any match between recurring patterns in the history of my role and the

patterns in my own „role biography' - that is, the roles that I have taken up

throughout my life?.xiv

Having found a similarity of patterns in the role history and my own role

biography, what choices do I have? Am I doomed to play out the history? Can I

join with other roles to locate and draw on the organisational energy to find, make

and take up role differently? That is, can I re-engineer the role history/role

baggage for myself? for related roles? for role successors?

These questions point at a conscious (i.e. brought to consciousness) process of

studying the difference between what the role brings to the person and what a person

brings to a role; and further, of exploring the options in reshaping the role experience.

We believe, from our own experience as role consultants that it is only in reshaping

the role experience that the role's influence in the system can be transformed. This is

an important point: In our case history, David was attempting consistently to redefine

roles and responsibilities, systems and specifications but his own and his manager‟s

experience of their respective roles remained the same and went on mirroring their

past.

Reshaping the Role Environment

To reshape the role environment, the work focuses on the inter-activity of role-to-role

within the total system. . Evidence of role contamination in the system can be

discerned through the identification of patterns in role behaviour that do not initially


appear to „make sense‟ and where perpetuation of some type of reduced

organisational performance persists. This requires looking at the organisation as a

whole or via genuine representation.

The endeavour can be thought of as a lateral process across the system which flows

from the in-depth process focused on a single role as described through the above

questions. Translated to the system they read:

Can we look at the history of the roles and other structures in the system as

well as the history of this one role?

Are there patterns in the history of interacting roles that throw up problems

similar to those we are currently experiencing?

Are there patterns of experience: recurring ideas, words, feelings and images

that characterise role-holding throughout the system?

Given any patterns, what choices do we have?

Again, it is fruitful to refrain from scapegoating either the primary contaminated role

or its incumbent.

Conclusion

Roles have histories in our organisations and these histories influence newcomers.

When a role becomes contaminated or poisoned the effects of this can spread to

successors and other roles in the organisation. These effects appear despite the intents

of those coming into the role.

Attempts by individuals to guard against these effects - to improve their capacities,

put in better work systems or change the culture - are often to no avail because

organisations-as-systems maintain past practices even though they may be toxic or


dysfunctional. Such practices are entrenched in the history of the organisation's roles.

'De-toxification' can only be achieved through understanding this persistence, its

dynamic roots (that is, why the role developed as it did - what ends it served), the

surrounding collusion from other roles and then attempting broader systemic change.

Role and person interact. A role, from its history can be as active in organisational

life as its holder; in some cases, more so. When negative, this role activity can be

worked with, to de-toxify the role, but only if that work is conducted on and in the

total system. A major lesson implicit in our work on role history is that if new role

incumbents fail to explore the history of their roles, it is to their and the organisation's

peril.

References

Bazelgette, J and Reed, B. (2006) 'Organisational Role Analysis at the Grubb Institute of

Behavioural Studies: origins and development' in J. Newton, S. Long and B.

Sievers (eds.) Coaching in Depth: The Organisational Role Analysis Approach

Karnac, London pp. 43-62.

Bion, W. (1961) Experiences in groups Tavistock Publications, London.

Chapman, J. (1999) 'Hatred and Corruption in Task' Socio-Analysis 2003)Volume 1,

Number 2; and (2003) Organisational and Social Dynamics 3 (1): 40-60.

Gilmore, T. (2006) 'The Psychodynamics of Leadership Exits' Socio-Analysis Vol. 8 pp.

17-35.

Gould, L., Stapley, L. and Stein, M. (eds.) (2004) Experiential Learning in

Organisations: Applications of the tavistock group relations approach Karnac,

London.

Long, S. (2006) 'Role Biography' in J. Newton, S. Long and B. Sievers (eds.) Coaching

in Depth: The Organisational Role Analysis Approach Karnac, London.

Long, S. (2008) The Perverse Organisation and its deadly sins Karnac, London.

Mant, A. (1997) Intelligent Leadership Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

Newton, J. Long, S. and Sievers, B (eds.) Coaching in Depth: The Organisational Role

Analysis Approach Karnac, London.


Owen, N. (2003) Report of the Royal Commission on the Collapse of HIH. Government

Printer, Canberra.

Pitt-Aitkens, T. and Ellis, A. Thomas, (1989) Loss of the Good Authority Penguin Books

London.

French, J.R.P. and Raven, B. (1959) 'The Bases of Social Power' in D. Cartwright (ed)

Studies in Social Power Ann Arbor, Michigan: Institute for Social Research.

Reed, B. (1976) 'Organisational role analysis' in C.L. Cooper (ed.), Developing Social

Skills in Managers. London: MacMillan.

Endnotes

i This article was first published in Organisations and People: Toxic leadership Vol.15 No. 3 pp40-48.

ii Jane Chapman 'Hatred and Corruption in Task' Socio-Analysis (1999) Volume 1, Number 2; and (2003)

Organisational and Social Dynamics 3 (1): 40-60; Susan Long (2006) 'Role Biography' in J.

Newton, S. Long and B. Sievers Coaching in Depth: The Organisational Role Analysis Approach

Karnac, London; Susan Long (2008) The Perverse Organisation and its deadly sins Karnac,

London.

iii

See John Bazelgette and Bruce Reed (2006) in J. Newton, S. Long and B. Sievers Coaching in Depth:

The Organisational Role Analysis Approach Karnac, London.

iv The term 'valency' is taken from the chemical sciences and describes the tendency to join with system

dynamics that are attractive to the role holder or seeker. See use of the term by Wilfred Bion

Experiences in Groups 1961, Tavistock Publications, London.

v We recognise that roles are dynamic and constantly change due to the incumbents‟ negotiation with

others and his/her re-interpretation of the environment and the purpose of the organisation. Thanks to Bruce

Itrvine of the Grubb Institute in London for reminding us of this and its effects on role history.

Susan Long (2006) 'Role Biography' in J. Newton, S. Long and B. Sievers Coaching in Depth: The

Organisational Role Analysis Approach Karnac, London.

vii

Susan Long (2008) The Perverse Organisation and its deadly sins Karnac, London.

viii

Jane Chapman 'Hatred and Corruption in Task' Socio-Analysis (1999) Volume 1, Number 2; and (2003)

ix

Bruce Reed (1976) 'Organisational role analysis' in C.L. Cooper (ed.), Developing Social Skills in

Managers. London: MacMillan.

x Justice Neville Owen (2003) Report of the Royal Commission on the Collapse of HIH. Government

Printer, Canberra. Long (2008) The Perverse Organisation and its Deadly Sins Karnac, London.

xi

Jane Chapman 'Hatred and Corruption in Task' Socio-Analysis (1999) Volume 1, Number 2; and (2003)

Organisational and Social Dynamics 3 (1): 40-60

xii

Gordon Lawrence speaks of R+ and –R when talking of the capacity to stay in touch with the reality of a

situation. Henry moved to –R which led the organization to also move to –R.


xiii

Laurence Gould, Lionel Stapley and Mark Stein (eds.) (2004) Experiential Learning in Organisations:

Applications of the tavistock group relations approach Karnac, London.

xiv

Susan Long (2006) 'Role Biography' in J. Newton, S. Long and B. Sievers Coaching in Depth: The

Organisational Role Analysis Approach Karnac, London.


role contamination: is the poison in the person or the bottle

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Tumor cell-derived exosomes: A message in a bottle

Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum L.)

Meiosis in a Bottle - MDPI

Competent Person Report - HKEXnews

Boston Tritan Bottle - Alert Marketing |

Three and a half centuries of bottle manufacture

HYDRAULIC WELDED BOTTLE JACK - NJC Equipment Hire

Responsible Person List

The effect of dried bottle gourd and pumpkin as

The Poison Pill Warrant - Apothecary and Antidote: Moran v

`No-bottle' vs ´multi-bottle' dentin adhesive - a microtensile bond strength and morphological study

Linking person perception and person knowledge in the human brain

Dangerous Substances, Sleep Medicine and Poison Theories

Poison Control Centers in detecting ADRs

“If my daughter runs away, I will drink poison” - Helda