Who we are

The Chicago Center for the Study of Groups and Organizations is a local affiliate of the A.K. Rice Institute, the national educational nonprofit for Group Relations in the United States. We share AKRI’s mission of deepening understanding of complex social behavior by providing experiential learning opportunities in the Tavistock tradition. CCSGO operates exclusively for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes.

history

The Chicago Center for the Study of Groups and Organizations (CCSGO) was founded in 1989 as an affiliate of the A. K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI). The Center initially served as a platform for governance of local and regional Group Relations Conferences and Group Relations consultants, as an institutional structure to connect the greater Chicagoland Group Relations community with the National Institution and other regional centers.
In the tradition of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, the Chicago Center developed and sponsored Group Relations conferences and other related training programs based on the application of psychodynamic and open systems theories.
In short, the Group Relations or Tavistock model was traditionally dedicated to advancing the understanding of the covert processes affecting leadership and authority within groups and social systems, with particular attention to:

Experiencing the ways in which covert processes in groups and organizations may impede or facilitate the accomplishment of work and goals that affect one’s ability to lead and to follow.
Studying the effects on leadership and followership of individual differences, such as race, culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and age
Learning about the multiple ways in which individuals can more successfully take up roles as leaders and followers, exercise authority and responsibility, and enhance a group’s or organization’s effectiveness.

Group Relations conference provides a powerful and distinctive means for participants to learn from their own experience how to take up authority, leadership, and participation in increasingly responsible, effective and informed ways. Learning about the covert influences social systems can exert advances greater individual and group development as well as greater organizational and social system effectiveness.
Over time, the Chicago Center began sponsoring and supporting ongoing Peer Consultation and Study Groups, conducting training events for consultants and partnering with a variety of organizations to support Group Relations activities and services beyond the traditional Group Relations conference.

For more information about CCSGO governance click here to download our bylaws.