Paradoxes of Group Life: Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics

Applying Paradox

In the last part of this book we are concerned with the implications of a paradoxical perspective on group life, for both the thinking and actions of leaders, consultants, managers, and group members. We have clustered the implications into two areas: (1) what new insights can be developed about how groups move from one condition to another when a paradoxical perspective is adopted; and (2) what actions become possible for an interventionist skilled in the art of paradoxical thinking, when working in an organization with groups that repeatedly paralyze themselves internally or that gravitate toward interactions with other interdependent ...