Organizational Culture || A Rumpelstiltskin Organization: Metaphors on Metaphors in Field Research

A Rumpelstiltskin Organization: Metaphors on Metaphors in Field ResearchAuthor(s): Kenwyn K. Smith and Valerie M. SimmonsSource: Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3, Organizational Culture (Sep., 1983),pp. 377-392Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Johnson Graduate School of Management,Cornell UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2392248 .

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A Rumpelstiltskin Or- ganization: Metaphors on Metaphors in Field Research

Kenwyn K. Smith and Valerie M. Simmons

?) 1983 by Cornell University. 0001 -8392/83/2803-0377/$00.7 5

This paper describes the turbulent development of a new organization and the conditions that gave rise to members of one group describing their collective life in terms of Rumpelstiltskin, an old fairy tale. Theory is elaborated that explores how group-based ambivalence was transformed into deification of the leader, making him the repository of unrealistic fantasies and expectations that, as a result of his being caught in the middle between complex patterns of conflict that emerged from both those above and below him, eventually triggered his dismissal. It is argued that by paying attention to the symbols, tales, legends, and myths that organizational members use to describe their experience, the researcher can tune into operative dynamics that would otherwise remain very covert and inaccessible.

INTRODUCTION

Numerous writers suggest that the major function myths, corporate legends, and cultural patterns fulfill is to provide a system of uniting that which otherwise would be fragmented (Burke, 1954; Benne, 1961; Becker, 1973; Dunphy, 1974). Since the concept of organization implies that subparts can act in a unified way in the interests of the collectivity, it follows that when an organizational myth arises, it may provide the "social glue" necessary for the entity to act as a whole. It also follows that we can see, lurking within or beneath the myth, the cleavages threatening the organization as a whole that might erupt were the myth not present. This, we argue, is one substantive reason why organizational psychology should become more attuned to the functions of myths. They are as much a part of an entity's system of integration as are its goals and corporate strategies.

Another reason is that if we want to understand individuals, knowing only their experiences is insufficient. We need to knowthe meanings each person attaches to those experiences (Ullmann, 1976). This is why psychotherapy is so intensely engaged in the study of each client's personal symbology, in the service of comprehending the meanings connected to each event. Jaynes (1976) helped illuminate the importance of this in his monumental work on the origins of consciousness. He pointed out that an individual's consciousness depends on both the metaphors chosen to represent experiences and the contexts in which they are embedded. To illustrate, Jaynes ex- plored the metaphor "blanket."

In the context of "the thick snow blankets the ground" (Jaynes, 1976), the image is created of a blanket on a bed, with the attendant associations of warmth, protection, and slumber until some period of awakening. All this is captured in the metaphor, which conveys the relationship between snow and earth as being one of sleeping under a protective cover. Had the metaphor been "the snowsits on the ground," this would have spoken about the same thing (snow on the ground), but it would have conveyed the relationship as one of dominating and overpowering, as opposed to protecting and caring. The key to the difference in the relationship between snow and earth in these two examples may be found entirely in the difference between the metaphors "sit" and "blanket." However, the total meaning of the metaphor depends on th context in which

377/Administrative Science Quarterly, 28 (1983): 377-392



it is placed. Before a metaphor is added to a context, it has incomplete meaning. We can see the difference in the meaning of a metaphor when it is placed in another context by consider- ing the statement, "The thick smog blankets the city." Now, no longer do we think of protection, slumber, and warmth; the "blanket" metaphor now means stifling and suffocation. The metaphor has not changed, but the context has. Having changed contexts, the meaning of the metaphor has changed, for the meaning of a metaphor depends on how it is combined with other metaphors in a context (Smith, 1982b).

Of course, simply knowing the metaphors is not sufficient, since experience consists of a complicated interplay among metaphors. What we need are metaphors of a whole network of metaphor/context relationships. We need meta-metaphors. One possible way to think of a meta-metaphor is in terms of myths, fairy tales, and legends. In a way, these are meta- metaphoric tales that provide clues to the inner links that exist among the basic metaphors that have been mapped into existential contexts to give meaning.

In the same way as it is necessary to enter the systems of meaning individuals attach to their experiences, we argue that to understand an organization, we must likewise enter its systems of collective symbolizing. This suggests that in addition to mapping our metaphors and meta-metaphors (theories) onto others' experience, we might include as a major part of our investigatory methodology the tuning into the systems of meaning that surface out of the organization's own ways of symbolizing its experience.

There are many methodological issues yet to be dealt with in implementing this idea, but these are well beyond the scope of this paper. Here, we simplywish to illustrate, through one case study, the richness to be derived from tuning into and exploring, both experientially and theoretically, the emergent symbology of a group, embroiled in a long and overwhelming series of conflicts, that came to describe itself as playing through the old fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin.

THE SETTING

Dexter (a pseudonym) was a newly developing psycho- educational facility for emotionally disturbed children and adolescents. Months before the facility opened, we were approached by the newly appointed medical director, Dr. McAllister, with an intriguing request:

We are in the process of building a facility under the auspices of both the state and the county. We all have worked in state institutions and hate the type of places they become. Here there's a chance to do something different-to build a program not burdened bythe horrors of institutionalization. But deep down I know we will fail. Just like every other place has before us. However, we are going to do everything in our power to ward off those institutionalizing forces. I would like someone from outside Dexter to help document our attempts to fight institutionalization [it sounded like a cancerous disease, the way Dr. McAllister said it] and to record both our successes and failures. That way perhaps future organizations like this might be able to learn from our experience.

This overture came at a time when we were seeking a setting where we could observe, up close, the various developmental crises newly formed collectivities struggled with and, in particu-

378/ASQ, September 1983



Rumpelstiltskin Organization

lar, explore the mechanisms they used to formulate their collective sense of reality, both of themselves as a whole and of other entities with which they interacted. An agreement was reached with Dr. McAllister (Director of Medicine, Training, and Research) and his supervisor, Dexter's chief executive officer, Arthur Meade, and with those in the various levels of authority in the hierarchy of the State Department of Mental Health. In addition, the nine staff members who had already been hired when we were first approached participated in and significantly shaped the agreement reached between us, as outside action researchers, and Dexter. The formal agreement was that we were to be given access to all information except confidential clinical records of the clients, we could be silent observers to all meetings and conversations, except one-on-one therapy ses- sions, and staff members agreed that we could approach them as individuals and ask about their personal interpretations of their and others' behaviors. As new staff members joined Dexter, they all were informed about our general research relationship, and we sought their collaboration. In all cases, staff members agreed, in principle, to our observing public interactions, though individuals varied in their enthusiasm about private conversations. Some went as far as volunteering the dreams they had at night, believing that their individual unconscious life might indicate something about their experience at Dexter, others sought out members of our team for personal friendships, while yet others kept their distance with superficial cordiality. A key element in this contract was that Dexter would provide funds to enable at least one and often two of us to be present as observers every day for the first year. In return, we would offer feedback on a regular basis, using procedures outlined in the organizational diagnosis literature (see Alderfer et al., 1984). At times, our experience in relationship to Dexter became as turbulent as their internal relationships and their interactions with their outside world. For example, after several months, they hit a budget crunch. Our financial agreement with them was the first to be broken. We ended up seeking and obtaining external funding, thereby enabling our research to proceed. Hence, we knew firsthand the feelings of broken promises.

The data on which this one small case is built consist of literally thousands of pages of raw notes of observed interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup interactions, hundreds of hours of interviews with both Dexter staff members and actors in the fifteen years of planning, and perusal of several file drawers of archival data. The full report of this study may be found in Simmons, 1983, and Smith et al., 1983.

As we commenced this study, we resolved that, in addition to mapping the various interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup dynamics as our original purpose dictated, we would attempt to enter, as fully as possible, the various symbols groups and individuals chose to represent their experiences and construc- tions of reality. The Rumpelstiltskin organization, the focus of this paper, is one element of what we stumbled upon.

THE RUMPELSTILTSKIN ORGANIZATION

For years, Lassiter County had believed they needed a residential placement facility for emotionally disturbed children and adolescents. Advocating the building of such a place were the




County Health Department, the County School System, the State Department of Education, the State Department of Mental Health, the local judiciary, a group of private psychia- trists, numerous parent groups, and a variety of social service agencies. For fifteen years, these organizations struggled through the planning process. They shared a similar goal, but all had different views about how it should be implemented, who would be responsible for what, whose children and adolescents the facility would serve (the school's, the court's, the Mental Health Department's), what treatment modes would be most appropriate, what would be viewed as success, and who would pay for what services (Smith et al., 1983). Eventually, Dexter was opened, with none of the above conflicts resolved. They were destined to become incorporated into the early life of this new facility, with built-in cleavages flowing from the following: the County School Board was to operate a 200-student school, paid for in part by county funds and in part by state funds; the State Department of Mental Health was to provide the residential and clinical services, supervised by a professional administrator-who had hig her status but lower pay than the medical director; the principal of the school and the administrator were to be officially coequals while the medical director, the person ultimately responsible for what occurred at Dexter, was to be subordinate; the clinical and residential staff were to be paid on a state salary scale, significantly lower salaries than those offered by the county, who paid the teachers. In addition, Dexterwas born with the assumption that it would be different from other state agencies, automatically setting up, as Sarason (1972) suggested is inevitable, an adver- sarial relationship with other entities it must collaborate with to survive. The selection of the leadership followed an unusual procedure, helping to keep lines of responsibility confused. The medical director, Dr. McAllister, was the first to be appointed. He then participated in the selection of his boss, the chief administrator, Arthur Meade. However, McAllister was given no say in the appointment of the school principal with whom he had to work very closely as a professional coequal, although he was ad- ministratively subordinate. Having the chief psychiatrist subordinate, on any dimension, to the chief educator was a real hierarchical inversion in such a facility. McAllister's capacity to articulate a powerful dream of what Dexter might become had made him a very appealing candi- date. While it was a little unclear what McAllister's dream actually was, even the ambiguities fit the situation perfectly, for the whole planning history had been sustained by a rather uncrystallized dream allowing multiple and somewhat conflicting images of Dexter to coexist for years without turbulence. Dr. McAllister moved into Dexter with a flourish, commencing immediately the task of hand-picking what he described as "the best staff," repeating over and over his dream for Dexter. His rhetoric and charisma created great expectations both for his staff members, who came to anticipate being afforded opportunities they had never imagined, and forthe community, which unrealistically came to believe Dexter would work mira- cles for their disturbed children. The medical director's spirit was contagious. Stirred by his vision, it was easy for all to believe the impossible.





During interviews of new staff members on their arrival at Dexter, virtually everyone reported that his or her interest in working in this new facility had been stirred bythree forces: (1) a weariness of constantly dealing with the restrictive climate of the place he or she had left; (2) the pull of working with Dr. McAllister, who had such a clear vision of what Dexter might become; and (3) the promise of having a lot of influence over what he or she would do and when (e.g., residential workers believed they would be able to choose their hours of work and maybe even get to do therapy). McAllister emphasized a team approach. He did indicate that scheduling of hours would be the responsibility of work teams and that each person could participate in these decisions, but this statement tended to be heard by new employees as "you'll be able to decide for yourself what hours you wish to work" (a gross distortion of what McAllister said).

For months, Dexter staff members, under the direction of Dr. McAllister, worked to build the clinical program. They were exhorted to behave collaboratively, but no mechanisms were put in place for expressing, exploring, or dealing with conflicts of interest. No one thought this was necessary, since part of the dream carried with it the view that no "disagreeable" people had been selected. Everyone was told they were equal. No voice was to be treated more importantly than any other, even though members had different professional identifica- tions, salaries varied greatly, educational levels covered the range from a high school diploma to the Ph.D., and work experience differed markedly. The building of the program, however, depended on resolution of the many conflicts that had been left unaddressed during more than a decade of planning, conflicts that at this time Dexter staff members could not even comprehend, let alone hope to resolve. They floundered.

As the day approached for Dexter to admit its first students, it was evident to everyone that the clinical program was not in place, triggering a delay of several weeks. This was accom- panied by intense pressure from the community and governing agencies for details of the planned clinical program. Dr. McAllis- ter constantly delegated the program planning to his clinical staff, using his dream of Dexter as the only guideline for planning action. It was difficult, however, to translate the dream from the level of rhetoric into actions. When action plans were proposed, McAllister often vetoed them because they did not meet his vision. Attempts to get extra clarity from the medical director, however, only stirred a more vigorous rendering of the Dexter vision. Th is proved to be un helpful, thoug h it normally stirred the staff into trying but once again. As the planning for the clinical program dragged on, people began to express intense blame for who was responsible. Dr. McAllister blamed others. His staff blamed him, though not to his face.

Then the state budget axe fell. Dexter was to be given less money than anticipated. Staff positions would be cut; some already employed might have to take reductions in pay; all would be asked to do the kind of work they'd come to Dexter to avoid. The result? Outrage! They resolved to fight. Under the skillful leadership of Dexter's administrator, Meade, who constantly pulled the strings while keeping a low profile, a network of influential parents of potential Dexter residents was created.




They drew in the media and placed a great deal of pressure on the governor, sufficient in fact for him to give in, restoring to Dexter the funds it needed.

Then the pressure on the clinical staff to finalize their program became overwhelming. The pressure, however, brought nothing but paralysis. The staff, fearful of failure and obviously in a panic, began to express publicly the doubts it had been harbor- ing for months about its leader, Dr. McAllister. At this point, the system started calling for a scapegoat. Too many errors, in the eyes of those in power, had been made. A sacrificial lamb would haveto be someone of high stature-probably McAllis- ter or Meade, the chief administrator. Dr. McAllister was singled out, was made the fall guy, and was eventually fired.

Just before this firing, however, one of the clinical staff members had a turbulent night's sleep. The next day, when she told her fellow staff members at lunch about her restless dreams of the previous evening, they were reminded of the old fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin. During this conversation, they agreed that many elements of their experience at Dexter were analogous to that story. In particular, Dr. McAllister reminded them of Rumpelstiltskin. From then on, whenever someone became excessively frustrated with the medical director or began to wallow in repressed anger over his actions, someone would mention the word Rumpelstiltskin. People would laugh or wince. It served as a tension release.

As outside researchers, we found in the emergence of this tale a rich metaphor for capturing the essence of a very complex set of circumstances in and around this group. Attending to the details of this tale brought into focus dynamics we had not crystallized but that obviously, at some level of collective unconsciousness, Dexter's clinical group was recognizing.

The Rumpelstiltskin tale has four main characters:

The poorpeasant- father of a daughter whom he despairs of marrying off, because he can afford no dowry. This is a hard-working, simple man, who struggles to provide a living under harsh circumstances.

The poor father may be taken as a metaphor for the mid-level administrators in a cumbersome public service bureaucracy who were responsible for creating a new service organization in an environment of increasing demand for service and limited resou rces.

Rumpelstiltskin -a mysterious gnome with the magical power to spin gold out of straw but who always asks a price for his assistance.

This character may be taken as a metaphor for the medical director hired by the administrators to manage the key service- provision group. This leader had a personally powerful presence, had a captivating "dream" of an ideal service organization, but demanded control.

The peasant's daughter - a pleasant enough young woman, dutiful to her father, hard working, distinguished only by her talent at spinning.

The daughter may be taken as a metaphor for the key staff group, dedicated to the leader's dream but privately doubtful and fearful about its ability to accomplish its task.





The king-the typical fairy tale king: rich, demanding, all powerful.

The king may be taken as a metaphor for the environment around the new organization: consumers of the service, community agencies, and various governmental regulatory agencies, all of whom expected "gold" from the new organization.

The unfolding of the fairy tale is presented here alongside the first eight months of this organization's history: 1. father captures gnome 1. administrators hire leaders 2. gnome offers to help 2. leader hand-picks staff group,

daughter spin gold aura of "the best," spews from straw rhetoric about the

"dream" program 3. father brags about his 3. administrators brag about how

daughter spinning gold excellent the new program from straw will be !

4. king hears rumor, demands 4. community and agencies proof, locks daughter demand details of program; in a roomful of straw time to admit students nears

5. daughter promises her 5. budget is cut, staff is asked to first-born son to gnome sacrifice salaries, give more

time 6. gnome spins gold, king 6. administrators give needed

marries daughter, rewards budget dollars to program her father

7. child born, all want to renege 7. time to deliver the program; on deal with gnome staff in a panic, fearful of

failure, doubting leader 8. trio discovers Rumpelstilts- 8. leader is scapegoated, fired

kin's name, he disappears in a puff of smoke

9. all live happily ever after 9. facility opens

To make links between the organizational processes operative at Dexter during the first months, the emergence of the Rumpelstiltskin tale, and the eventual firing of Dr. McAllister, it is necessary to explicate the following three sets of theoretical dynamics: (1) the transformation of the clinical group's ambivalence into what Slater (1 966) referred to as the deification of the leader; (2) the process of triangulation as a device for creating a repository for shared projections; and (3) the transposition of larger system dynamics into McAllister as the leader hired to "resolve the unresolvable."

The Deification Process

Members of the clinical group experienced intense ambivalence both about Dexter, in general, and the staff group to which they belonged, in particular. The ambivalence appeared to emerge from two sources.

The first was that each of them had been attracted by Dexter and was attractive to Dr. McAllister (1) because he or she wished to be part of a team involved in building a new organization and (2) because each wished to be engaged in something different than he or she had been doing in the previous work setting. Hence, each had individually arrived at Dexter with a heightened sense of individuality and desire for togetherness. On being thrown, as it were, into the clinical group on arrival, each experienced the deep ambivalence




common to the beginning stages of all developing groups-the simultaneous wish to be both "a part" of the group and "apart" from the group (Tillich, 1952). The desire for inclusion and fusion also triggered the fear of consumption, absorption, and deindividuation, and the desire to be independent triggered the fear of exclusion, aloneness, and isolation (Smith, 1 982a). In other words, group members were wanting two contradictory things at the same time. Since this was hard to achieve, each hoped that the group as a whole would be able to provide a resolution to the deeply felt ambivalences over individuation and fusion. This was an impossible wish, however, for the group only served to heighten the contradictory feelings by providing a context in which both remained internally salient. Within a short time, whenever the group got stuck, members sought McAllister's help, viewing their problem as one of inadequate guidance from above rather than seeing their own immobilization as a result of their own ambivalences.

The second major source of ambivalence emerged from the tension between what the group "was" and what it "wasn't." To make this point clearly, we need to take a brief detour into the philosophical implications of not and negation.

Every attempt to define something (for example, explicating "this is A") involves concomitantly the definition of what it's not ("this is not A"). The act of separation involves affirmation (this is "A") and negation (this is "not A"). However both "A" and "not A" are part of the same unity, for if there is no "not A" there can be no "A" (Wilden, 1980). In this sense, for an entity to have an identity, it must involve both affirmation and negation within it.

For a group to talk about itself as a group, it must be able to distinguish itself from its context, what "it's not." Then in its relationship with its context (the collective "what it's not"), the group comes to engage in exchanges between what "it is" and what "it isn't." It was in this domain that the clinical group at Dexter was at a great disadvantage. As group members at- tempted to formulate what they were to be (i.e., define this as "A") there was no appropriate other group in their environment to point to as a way of saying "we are not them" (i.e., define "not A"). In lacking appropriate other groups as vehicles for making social comparisons (Smith, 1983) through which it might see its own behaviors mirrored back to them, the clinical group was left floundering. When things went wrong or when group members felt unable to develop clarity on that which seemed obtuse, they were forever caught in the questions of "Is it our fault?" or "Is the task somehow beyond us?" This uncertainty left them feeling especially dependent on McAllis- ter for guidance; yet they also were deeply ambivalent about seeking his help because one part of them feared he may in fact have been particularly responsible for their lack of clarity, and, also, whenever they did approach him for assistance, it didn't help very much.

These ambivalences experienced by the clinical group became very explicitly focused on Dr. McAllister. Group members became split into two camps. Rather than struggle with each other, they took flight from this fight (Bion, 1961) by looking consistently toward the medical director to take their ambivalences away. In other words, their flight from their own fight





became transformed into increased dependency on the leader. The more they struggled internally, the more, as a group, they experienced the hope that their leader could liberate them from their intense ambivalences. Of course, much of McAllister's power was predicated on this dependency of the staff. Unless he could mobilize them in the service of what he saw as critical, he would be rendered ineffective as leader. Hence, as McAllis- terwas made more powerful through the dependency of group members, he was made increasingly the repository of their projected hope that he could free them from ambivalence, fueling their desire for flight. It was a two-way process. The flight from the ever-latent internal fight that resulted from ambivalence was turned into dependency that created the leader's power, in turn heightening ambivalences further and triggering the cycle again in escalated form.

As the clinical group began to sense that maybe McAllister could not lead it out of the mess it was in, this only increased its shared anxiety, heig htening even further the wish for a leader who could liberate. With this dynamic in place, the group was quick to overlook its leader's obvious failures, supporting and sustaining him by increased follower behavior-the exact opposite of what McAllister needed, for the task demanded independence and initiative, as opposed to dependency and compliance. This capacity to influence that McAllister was being given was very tenuous, however, for it was predicated on the unresolved dependencies of the group as a whole. And of course, it eventually got to the stage where the ambivalences and dependencies were so strong there was no way McAllister could satisfy them. At this point, Slater's (1966) deification process had occurred. They had placed their leader on a pedestal so lofty that he was experienced as remote, aloof, uncontactable by group members, and increasingly out of touch with the collective reality of the group as a whole. Once he was caught in this cycle, there was little he could do, because the group members had become victims of their self-generated reality - a reality that McAllister could not comprehend. As a result, if he behaved in concert with that shared reality, it increased his elevation. If he behaved inconsistently with that reality, group members either forgave him for it, because of their excessive dependency needs, or else decided that their "god" was a false god.

Slater (1 966) indicated that if a group is let down by its leader, who was unable to deliver according to the expectations generated by dependent group members, a group revolt is likely, a revolt that will have as its underlying dynamic "let's kill off the leader." Of course, in the event that such a revolt occurs, it is truly a false war. Even if the deified leader is killed, it is not he, as the person, that group members are really struggling to depose. Rather it is he, as the receptacle of their shared fantasies - their hopes that they could be free from their ambivalence - that they are really trying to dismantle. They are focusing on the wrong thing, however, for it is not their leader that needs to be killed. What really needs to be confronted is the intensity of their dependency on him.

At Dexter we observed the above dynamic in operation. The clinical group repetitively took flight by increasing its dependency on McAllister, so that he became elevated to a point

385/ASQ, September 1 983



where he was convinced the staff would be loyal to the end. But then it revolted and started working toward his undoing.

The tensions we have been discussing above generate within a group a dimension that Bion (1 961) referred to as fight-flight. The flight grows out of the group's desire to avoid the paralysis that this underlying paradox generates. The fight grows out of the realization that when the paradox becomes so intense that it cannot be avoided, there is no alternative but to fight. The "false reality" of a group, however, invariably leads members to choose an object that can be made into the focus of the fight, which represents the playing through of a deeper level of flight. This generates a cycle of fight-flight, with increasing levels of penetration into the very fundamentum of the group. Each new flight will generate a new paradox that, in turn, creates a bind that produces yet another struggle. To deal with those tensions, a new repository of greater magnitude or depth will be demanded for the unresolved projections. And the cycle will repeat itself over and over. As the cycle intensifies, so also will the mythological life of the group around the leader intensify. For, each new failure to resolve the tensions at the projected level will extend the conflicts even further and demand a larger-than-life repository for the next level of projections.

Triangulation

While discussing the deification of the leader concept, we referred to the idea of making McAllister the repository of subgroups' mutual projections. The question is how and why does this happen, and in particular how does this projecting serve to keep the subgroups together? To elaborate on this theme we turn to Bowen's (1978) conception of triangulation. When two individuals are in conflict, one of the most effective ways to stabilize their relationship is to draw in a third person, thereby creating a triangle. For example, when spouses are fighting, one of them may take flight from the fight by focusing on the needs of their child. In so doing, the tensions will have been shifted. One parent pairs with the child in an insider duo, leaving the other parent on the outside.

When a triangle is formed by actually drawing a third person into the interaction, there is a shift in the balance of tensions that existed in the original two-person system. A two-person system is unstable in that when tensions arise, the pairing is under threat. However, in a three-person system under tension, the triangle itself is not under threat, since the pockets of tension merely shift locations. For this reason, one very effective way for two-person systems undergoing threatening tension to decrease tension is for the two persons to move themselves into a three-person structure, so that the tensions do not undermine the fundamentum of the ongoing relationship.

One of the most powerful ideas we can build into the notion of triangulation is that two people in an unstable two-person interaction can triangulate not by including an actual third person, but by using their own mutual projections onto a third person or object. What happens in this situation is that the two people who are having.difficulty relating directly with each other will begin to relate indirectly through the interaction of their projections onto someone else. If they can keep altering these mutual external projections to the point of congruence, or at least minimal incompatibility, then they may feel an upsurge





of congruence in their one-on-one relationship. This process enables them to deal indirectly with relationship strains that were too hard to cope with directly. Because this triangulation of mutual projections enables the twosome to feel more comfortable about each other, their investment in reinforcing these projections can become quite strong. When this occurs, their newly consolidated projections onto that third person can become reified and, in turn, transformed into one of the fundamental building blocks of their social reality (Berger and Luckmann, 1966).

This dynamic is seen potently in families that create a problem child in order to keep other dysfunctional relationships stable (Minuchin, 1974). For example, when two parents are fighting, and they feel the tension to be unbearable, they can gain temporary relief from the fight by discussing but once again the behavior of the "problem child" within their family. This will work as a tension reducer in their relationship so long as they both agree in their interpretation about that child. In the event that they don't, they may well end up having a fight about their separate interpretations and eventually move to a compromise version of reality about the child that they can live with comfortably. The child need not even be present in such an exchange. He or she can serve as the third point of the triangle, so long as the parents are able to diminish their direct tension by agreeing indirectly about the child. In other words, the agreement about the child serves as a stabilizing flight from the direct fight in the interpersonal relation between the mother and the father. The object of such a triangle need not even be a person. It can be two adults' mutual projection about a person or about an event or a set of forces that are important. For example, in the family situation, a man and a woman may triangle in their fantasies about their as yet unconceived child. By developing some collective images about how wonderful it will be when they have a family, they will be able to use their mutual projections onto this unborn child to deflect the intensity of the clash between them that they are avoiding.

In exactly the same way that this triangulation process can work to stabilize an interpersonal exchange, so can it be used in group life as a mechanism for "resolving" the type of underlying conflict we observed in Dexter's clinical group. When two subgroups within the group as a whole each espoused a different version of reality, one of the ways they all could take flight from their fight was by generating some images about which they could agree - in other words, by forming a collective repository of their mutual projections. In our Rum- pelstiltskin example, there were a variety of ways in which the ambivalences could be dealt with. Each individual could hang on to the precarious balance of his or her own set of ambivalences, experiencing the split intrapsychically, or individuals could split on the issue of their own ambivalences and take on just one side of it, leaving other members of the group to take on the other side of the ambivalence. When this happens, what is essentially an intrapsychic struggle becomes transformed into a playing out of the subgroups within the group. As noted earlier, this became expressed as one subgroup saying "let's elevate the leader," while the other said "let's knock him off." As they struggled with which of these seemed more appropriate, they ended up taking flight from this fight by agreeing not to decide




which subgroup's version of reality was correct, giving the leader another chance. However, giving McAllister another chance was in fact making him but once again an increased repository of their mutual projections, making their images of him the stabilizing third leg of what otherwise would have been an unstable duality.

By linking together our discussion of the clinical group's cleavages and the function triangulation can serve, we observe what we suggest is one of the major social processes involved in myth making. Jung (1 964: 232-249) pointed out that if we want to look into the collective unconscious, one place on which to focus attention is shared myths. By looking at the paintings on our church ceilings, at our mosque mosaics, and our collective legends we can find images that capture hundreds of years of struggling with those forces that threaten to fragment us. We suggest that by looking at the tales organizations use to capture their experience we can find the same theme. Each character and each event gives clues to the deep tension within; however, we need to treat these tales in the same way we approach a dream. In dreams we find the telescoping of symbols within symbols within symbols through a process Freud (1965: 312- 339) called condensation. This same dynamic of condensation is operative in the manufacture of tales and myths.

The Transposition of Larger System Dynamics

If we return to our Rumpelstiltskin tale, we are still left with the question, why was Dr. McAllister fired? Surely a mild revolt of the clinical group, alone, would hardly have been sufficient to have him deposed. Here, the fairy tale is very helpful. It provides a very direct pointer to the nature of dynamics flowing down from the hierarchy above Dexter, and the role they were playing in interaction with the forces coming from below. While the clinical group had been making McAllister into a repository of their projections as an escape from their inner conflicts, those above had been using the Dexter dream in basically the same way.

As mentioned earlier, intense conflicts had brewed and remained unresolved for more than a decade. In fact, the image of "what Dexter might become" had, in and of itself, saved those otherwise disagreeing agencies involved in the planning from fragmenting completely. The "dream of Dexter" as a constantly available and malleable third leg of triangles had been keeping the system together. The unwritten script went as follows: "We can't deal with our differences at present, but once we build Dexter, our problems with each other will disappear and we'll work well together." In this way, across history the unresolved conflicts of many agencies had been "put into" the Dexter dream. While Dexter remained a fantasy, it kept providing this integrating device. But the moment it was to become a reality, those conflicts were destined to explode. At some level, it appeared that the larger system recognized this reality, for despite the rhetoric of "you must open," most agencies were colluding with having Dexter's opening delayed. To open Dexter meant, at one level, to have the fights that had been avoided for so long.

The real bind, however, was that first the Dexter dream and then subsequently Dr. McAllister, who'd been employed to implement it, were having put into them, as it were, a very





burdensome history of repressed, deeply entrenched conflicts. Then in turn, McAllister's early attempts to implement the dream of Dexter and the inevitable failure, due to the impossible conflicts of the larger system, would be seen as actually responsible forcreating those conflicts. In this way, the larger system that had taken flight from its earlier fights could now fight with McAllister and use this fight as yet another flight from the real issues. Saying this theoretically, the unresolved interorganizational conflicts of the larger system were trans- ported into conflicts between the larger system and Dexter and, in turn, became experienced as having been created by McAllis- ter because of his inability to deliver on the dream (Smith, 1983). This process may have made it inevitable that the medical director, no matter who he was, would get fired (Sarason, 1972).

The Unity of the Tale

If we go back to the tale, we can see the importance of paying attention to the relations among all the elements. No part alone makes sense, separate from its link to the whole. Here we pick up once again the theoretical guidepost that suggests it was the coming together of tension from both above and below that triggered the outburst on the medical director. Dr. McAllister was caught in the middle between the uppers, who didn't know how to handle their tensions, and the lowers, who had en- trapped themselves in a similar bind. Hence from both directions, Dr. McAllister was expected to resolve others' conflicts. Like a typical middle (Smith, 1 982a), he became paralyzed and then was experienced as not knowing what he was doing, eventually being held accountable not only for failing to resolve everyone else's conflicts, but for creating those conflicts.

In the eventual dismissal of McAllister could be seen the "perfect" coming together of the conflicting parties. The uppers had, for months before, concluded McAllisterwould not last, but they refused to fire him fortheir discontents alone. The lowers had long since decided to revolt (for weeks they held council-of-war meetings to plot his undoing) but were slow to launch their attack. Eventually, a member of the upper group made overtures to the lowers to discuss the problem of the medical director. Here, the whole constellation of mutual projections converged. In one way, when the uppers and lowers entered into direct discussions, given the nature of the overall conflicts, they should have ended up fighting with each other. But they didn't. They came together and very calmly agreed that Dr. McAllisterwas the problem, making full closure on their shared projections. Even at the end, Dr. McAllister served to unite. And now they tell stories about what it was like when he was there, with everyone able to agree that if only they'd had a different medical director originally, there would never have been any of these problems.

IMPLICATIONS

There are numerous implications that this study stirred for us, a few of which we mention here as a conclusion to this paper. We've chosen to provide examples of our thinking in three broad categories: (1) implications for how the researcher is to relate to the systems being investigated; (2) implications for exploring the relationship between manifest and unconscious




dynamics in organizations; and (3) implications for leaders in the management of complex processes.

1. Relationship of the researcher and the researched. For literally months, we had been looking for a way both to capture and talk about the emotional dynamics of the group and its relations with its leader and its larger environment. We had come up with a variety of descriptions but all seemed inadequate, for the metaphors we were choosing described only parts of the whole; none of them seemed able to address the relationship between the parts. The special contribution of this fairy tale to our understanding was that it represented the emotional dynamics in a more complex, holistic way than any other system of metaphors had. Often, as researchers, we turn to ourtheories to capture metaperspectives, to give ourselves a broad picture of the whole. In this case, however, our broader pictures were feeling dreadfully inadequate. And yet there, in the symbols and stories of Dexter's members, we found pictures of the whole that were chillingly accurate.

The basic message here is not that we should seek for fairy tales and legends to provide a conceptual frame for our descriptions; rather it is to encourage looking deeply into the particular symbols and stories found operative within the organization and allowing the unity that lies within and beneath those stories and symbols to surface and create, as it were, local pictures of the whole. As holographic theory suggests, we can find pictures of the whole contained within the parts, if only we can develop different ways of looking at the parts. Sometimes abstraction and distance are not the most useful attitudes for formulating global perspectives. Pictures of the whole may also be found close up, by entering the symbols and allowing them to provide, for our exploring, directions that we would otherwise miss.

In our case, we found the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale to be a useful analytic tool. If not, we would have discarded it. It was useful because it enabled us to check the metaphors we were hearing, to search for parallels between metaphors, and to sharpen our awareness of both their similarities and differences. Once the Rumpelstiltskin story had emerged, it occurred to us to check out the utility of other tales, such as Jack and the Beanstalk. But these tales had no value, for we were attempt- ing to map our tales onto their experiences. Rumpelstiltskin worked because it was their tale. By entering it, we learned.

2. The relationship between manifest and unconscious dynamics. Perhaps one of the most complicated tasks the social investigator can take on is to try to capture unconscious processes, because they are not directly observable. They become manifest in surface behavior. The only thing we can physically point to is the overt. The deep structure or unconscious domain remains latent. It's conceptually analogous to noticing the wind as it blows through trees (Smith, 1 982a). We only recognize the wind by its impact on objects that move and behave in the wind's presence. It wouldn't make sense for us to claim that leaves ripple and trees bend simply because it's in their nature to do so. If we want to "see" the invisible wind, we must look to the trees' behavior. Likewise, if we want to plumb the unconscious, we must look at the manifest. But we must look with different eyes, and into the spaces, the gaps, the hollow areas. For here we "see" different things. When the





mime Marcel Marceau takes his invisible dog for a walk on stage, as Marceau's arm jerks back and forth, everyone "sees" the dog straining on the leash, even though there is no dog and no leash. The manifest provides the structure through which we can "see" that which resides in the empty spaces.

Much of the power of the Rumpelstiltskin tale at Dexter was that it provided signposts to the relationship between the manifest and the unconscious. As observers, we could sense that the clinical group was dealing with primitive levels of fear and fantasy. But what were those fears? What were the fantasies? The tale gave us directions in which to look, ideas to speculate on, to play with. It gave us a way to interpret the manifest that previously we lacked. It also gave us a totally different logic within which we could do our thinking. Regular logic was failing to provide us with explanations. Alternative logics we tried to make up didn't help much either. The tale gave us an indigenous logic. When we entered its rules of relationships, the absurd seemed understandable.

3. Implications for leaders in other settings. What could a leader learn from the Dexterexperience and from Dr. McAllister in particular?

First, charismatic leadership has its price. If the dependency of followers is fostered, it may lead to (a) an avoidance of confrontations that subordinates ought to initiate with their superiors, simply because the superiors have certain blind spots that are part of the baggage of their position (Smith, 1 982b); and (b) an undermining of subordinates' capacity and willingness to take initiatives, something the leader needs them to do.

Second, if conflicts are brushed aside by charismatic exhorta- tions to be team players, superficial unity may result, but at the cost of driving the conflicts deeply underground. This increases the probability that they will surface elsewhere in displaced and less manageable forms (Simmons, 1983; Smith et al., 1983).

Third, conflicts of interest are a legitimate by-product of all organizing (Sarason, 1972; Smith, 1 982b). Hence, no matter what images of unity are created, mechanisms for approach- ing, exploring, and resolving conflicts must be built and main- tained. Not to do so generates the belief that conflict is illegitimate and encourages that which should be dealt with publicly to be pushed into the unconscious domains, providing explosive power for future outbursts.

Fourth, that which unifies at one level of the system may be divisive at another. For example, Dr. McAllister's charisma drew the clinicians together. But it also heightened the ethnocen- trism between the school and clinical staff, creating the conditions for which the clinicians felt the need for unity in the first place. His fighting speeches about how Dexter would be different fueled the clinicians' contempt for what other such facilities did elsewhere, diffusing his staff's capacity to separate out the good from the bad in their evaluation of established treatment practices. This led them into the faulty logic of "same equals bad, different equals good," clouding objectivity on everyone's part.

Fifth, organization members who get angry at authority figures

need to confront first the issue of their dependency. To fight




with the leader may be a flight from dependency, triggering a false warthat will resolve nothing, even if it is won.

Sixth, those who would build a new organization ought to be very careful not to transport the unresolved conflicts of the planners into the developing facility, otherwise they may well undermine the very purpose for which they were building a new facility in the first place.

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Organizational Culture || A Rumpelstiltskin Organization: Metaphors on Metaphors in Field Research