Group Dynamics and Organizational Politics

Catalog description

This course is also known as “The Power Lab at Penn.” This intensely experiential course is designed for those providing group and institutional leadership at any level of a human enterprise, managing work groups, chairing committees, serving on special task forces, conducting support groups, offering legal services, teaching in classrooms, facilitating groups in clinical settings, etc. Participants will focus on two topics: (1) an in-depth understanding of group dynamics while they are in action, and (2) the organizational relationships between groups that are in a powerful position, groups locked in a powerless state and those caught in the middle between the powerful and the powerless. Prerequisite: NPLD 7910 or by permission of instructor. Course Structure: NPLD 7850 is 1 CU, 72 hours intensive and partially live-in power laboratory which runs from Friday morning to Sunday evening. The lab is an experiential event designed to enable participants to explore how they hands the dynamics of different types of “power” and “powerlessness”. People in positions of power rarely have the opportunity to live through what it is like to be powerless or to see clearly what impact their exercise of power has on other. Moreover, those who are classically powerless do not usually get to experience what it is like to be in a position of power. This event is designed to bring into our fields of vision the organizational dynamics that are all pervasive but which usually fall into our collective “blind spots”. NPLD 7850 offers you the opportunity to learn about power as you enact and create it and can give you insights into these inter-group dynamics that can reframe and invigorate your understanding of organizations and your life within them.