Inherited Systems
Emerging Selves
A Message from the
Conference Director
Dear Prospective Participant,
Our experience of work and leadership is shaped by what we inherit; from early encounters with authority to patterns formed within families, cultures, and institutions. These influences shape how we take up roles, how we speak, how we follow, and how we lead.
Yet they do not determine us. We are not bound to repeat what we have inherited. With awareness, we can develop new capacities to respond to the complexity and uncertainty of today’s organisational life.
In many workplaces, leadership challenges are not only structural or strategic, they are also relational and systemic. They emerge in how we engage with authority, difference, conflict, and change. This calls for a deeper examination of how past experiences shape present responses, and how we might approach situations with greater openness perhaps even, as Wilfred Bion suggests, “without memory or desire.”
Group Relations Conferences offer a distinctive opportunity to explore these dynamics through lived experience. Working within a temporary learning organisation, participants engage directly with issues of role, authority, boundaries, and task as they unfold in real time without the constraints of existing hierarchies.
This experiential approach enables learning that is both immediate and applicable. Participants begin to recognise patterns that influence decision-making, collaboration, and leadership effectiveness within themselves, their teams, and their organisations.
Set in Singapore, a meeting point of cultures, perspectives, and rapid transformation, the conference provides a rich context for engaging with intercultural and organisational complexity.
While much in our external environment remains uncertain, we can develop our capacity to use ourselves more consciously in role: to listen, to think, and to find our voice within the systems we are part of.
We invite you to join us in this shared exploration, both experiential and reflective, within the learning space of this temporary organisation.
Dr. Eliat Aram,
Conference Director together with Conference Staff
About the Conference
The conference is designed as a temporary learning organisation in which staff and members come together to study leadership, authority, and group dynamics as they unfold in real time.
In every organisation, inherited patterns shape how we take up roles, exercise authority, and respond to uncertainty. These patterns — formed through personal experience, organisational history, and broader cultural contexts — are often not immediately visible, yet they have a powerful influence on how work gets done.
Throughout the conference, participants take up a variety of roles within different types of groups, each with a defined task and boundary. The primary method of learning is experiential. Rather than relying on lectures or written materials, participants engage directly with emerging dynamics and reflect on their experience in the “here-and-now.”
This approach enables participants to examine both the visible and less visible processes that shape organisational life. Alongside formal structures and rational decision-making, there are often underlying dynamics — such as anxiety, assumptions, and unspoken expectations — that influence behaviour, relationships, and outcomes. These dynamics can shape how authority is exercised, how roles are negotiated, and how collaboration succeeds or breaks down.
The conference design is grounded in the Group Relations tradition developed at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. It integrates psychoanalytic and systems perspectives to explore how individual, group, and organisational dynamics interact in complex environments.
This inaugural conference, held in partnership with the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, builds on this tradition within a contemporary intercultural context, bringing together participants from diverse professional and organisational backgrounds to explore shared organisational challenges.
The insights gained are directly relevant to leaders and professionals working in environments characterised by complexity, cultural difference, and rapid change.
To study the dynamics of leadership, authority and voice within the temporary organisation as they emerge in the here-and-now, and to examine how inherited systems influence these dynamics.
The Experiential Learning Method
No traditional classroom format
The conference does not follow a traditional training format. There are no lectures, case studies, or prescribed solutions.
Structured around group events
The programme is organised around a series of group events, each designed to explore different dimensions of organisational life.
Supported reflection
Participants work directly with emerging experience while staff consultants help surface and make sense of the underlying dynamics.
Through immersive experiential learning, participants strengthen their leadership presence, develop systemic awareness, and build the capacity to lead more effectively in complex organisational contexts.
What Participants Are Saying
This was a highly impactful experience that deepened my understanding of both individual and group dynamics, and how they influence leadership in practice.
I gained greater self-awareness and the ability to operate more effectively under pressure, particularly in complex group settings.
The experience provided unique insights that I have been able to apply directly to my leadership and organisational context.
Who Is It For?
This conference is designed for professionals seeking to strengthen their leadership capability in complex and evolving organisational environments.
It is particularly relevant for:
- Senior leaders and managers navigating complexity, authority, and change
- Entrepreneurs and founders shaping organisational culture
- Human resource and organisational development professionals enhancing their impact
- Consultants, coaches, and facilitators working with teams and systems
- Public sector and non-profit professionals engaging diverse stakeholders
Whether you are leading a team, influencing without formal authority, or working across boundaries, this conference offers a unique opportunity to strengthen how you take up leadership in practice.
No prior experience of a Group Relations Conference is required. What matters is a willingness to engage, reflect, and learn from experience.
For returning participants, each conference offers new insights, as every temporary organisation creates a different learning environment.
What Will You Gain
Individual Leadership
- Greater clarity in how you take up authority and influence
- Improved decision-making under pressure and uncertainty
- Increased self-awareness of how your behaviour impacts others
- Ability to navigate ambiguity with greater confidence
Team Dynamics
- Deeper understanding of team dynamics under pressure
- Ability to work more effectively with conflict and difference
- Insight into how collaboration succeeds or breaks down
- Practical ways to intervene in real-time team dynamics
Organisational Insight
- Understanding of underlying factors that influence decisions and outcomes
- Greater clarity around roles, boundaries, and accountability
- Insight into why change and transformation efforts stall
- Ability to lead more effectively within complex systems
Conference Staff
Conference Directorate
Dr. Eliat Aram, Ph.D.
Eliat Aram is the CEO of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London, UK. Her group relations career spans almost 30 years of Group Relations Conferences. Issues of leadership, authority and learning in a complex, nuanced world are of daily concern, challenge, and excitement for her. She has shaped, influenced, and often directed the Tavistock Institute’s flagship Leicester Conference since 2007; directed the AK Rice Institute annual residential conference from 2016–2018, Teachers College Columbia University’s Fall GRC since 2013, and directed conferences in Lithuania, Argentina, China, Russia, and Kazakhstan. She has also taken up staff roles across the UK, India, South Africa, France, The Netherlands, and Israel, developing deep sensitivity to local context and cultural complexity.
Sonali Bhattacharya
Sonali is an ICF-PCC-certified Leadership and Systems Coach, helping leaders navigate complexity and organisational anxiety. She is the Founder and Chairperson of Group Relations Singapore. Trained in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approaches, Sonali works with leaders to uncover unconscious patterns that shape behaviour, decision-making, and effectiveness. Her work integrates individual, group, and organisational dynamics to support more conscious and effective leadership. With prior experience in engineering, counselling, and human resources, she brings a rare blend of analytical rigour and deep emotional and systemic insight.
Dr. Victor Gan
CH Victor Gan has a broad interest in physical, mental, and spiritual health from both individual and social perspectives. He practices family medicine in Singapore and has experience in public health policy and infectious diseases, including recent faculty work for the MSc in Infectious Disease Emergencies at the National University of Singapore. He has extensive experience facilitating group encounters, especially in interreligious settings, and has led sociological research on interfaith relationships. Trained in psychoanalytic theory and group relations in the United States, alongside a graduate degree in religion at Yale, he has participated in international group relations conferences and served as consultant, including at the recent INSEAD 2026 GRC.
Consultants will be taken from the following pool
Dr. Winnie Fei, Ph.D.
Dr. Winnie Fei is an academic leader affiliated with Tavistock Institute China and a Singapore-based specialist in group counselling and therapy. She holds a PhD in the Psychology of Religion from Peking University and is a certified Tavistock consultant. She has been instrumental in introducing Tavistock methodologies into China through internationally aligned training programmes. With over 10,000 hours of group counselling experience and more than 1,000 hours in group relations conferences, she brings deep expertise in leadership, authority, and group dynamics. She has also served as a consultant at the Leicester Group Relations Conferences in the UK.
Dr. Ming-Hui Daniel Hsu, Ph.D.
Dr. Hsu received his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from New York University and is licensed as a psychologist in both New York State and Taiwan. He taught in a graduate counseling program in New York before returning to Taiwan to focus on clinical work and the development of group relations practice in Chinese-speaking contexts. He has served as consultant in GRCs across New York, London, Tel Aviv, Beijing, and Hong Kong, and has led several conferences and consultant training programs in China and Taiwan. He is Founder and Chairperson of Group Relations Taiwan and Director of Dayin Counseling Services in Taipei.
Milda Autukaite
Milda Autukaite holds an MSc in Organizational Psychology and certifications from the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. She is a Principal Consultant at the Tavistock Institute, a teacher and supervisor at Vilnius University, and a co-founder and board member of the Lithuanian Group Relations Society. Based in Vilnius and London, she brings nearly 20 years of leadership experience in the financial sector together with deep practice in consulting to groups, leaders, and organisations. Group Relations has had a significant impact on her life and leadership, and she continues to explore how voice, inheritance, and emerging selves meet in organisational life.
Rachel Kelly
Rachel is from the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, based in London, United Kingdom. She is a Principal and Trustee at the Institute. Her roles include curating TIHR's new office, and serving as a Group Relations consultant and an Organisational Development & Change consultant. She has been at the Institute for nearly 20 years and has served on staff in various roles at 17 Leicester conferences and other GRCs around the world. She is currently developing an introductory Online Learning course about Group Relations on the FutureLearn platform. She also practices the Alexander Technique – an indirect Zen practice for enhancing movement and being through studying the psycho-physical, which brings the unconscious to consciousness. She has found that the Alexander Technique correlates closely with Group Relations and she uses it in her work at the Institute.
Kartikeyan V
Kartikeyan V is a leadership consultant, executive coach, and group facilitator with over 35 years of experience across corporate and consulting contexts. A former HR Director at Texas Instruments India, he spent two decades in senior leadership roles before moving into consulting and coaching, where he has worked for the past 17 years with leaders and organizations across sectors. He is a co-architect of the Transformative Alignment Map (TAM) framework, a distinctive approach to understanding and working with human systems, leadership dynamics, and organizational change. His work integrates organization development, group relations, and human process facilitation, with a strong emphasis on deep systemic insight and experiential learning. Kartikeyan is the author of the acclaimed book The Good Boy Syndrome and co-author of Discover the Alchemist Within, and is engaged with writing his third book Intimacy in Urban India. He has been actively associated with Group Relations since 2014, serving in administrative and staff roles across multiple conferences.
Conference Information
Catapult by CapitaLand, Rochester Commons
1 Rochester Park, #02-06
Singapore 139212
(Near Buona Vista MRT)
24th – 27th September 2026
Non-Residential
9 AM - 6.30 PM daily
Non-Residential (Accommodation is not provided)
Lunch and 2 coffee breaks with refreshments are provided each day
Applications are now open.
Because the conference is designed as an immersive learning environment, places are limited.
Early registration is recommended.
Organisations may sponsor participants as part of leadership development initiatives. Invoices can be issued upon request.
Closing date of the application: 31st August 2026
Conference Fees
- Standard Fee: SGD 2,400
- Early Bird Rate (until 30 June 2026): SGD 2,100
- Group Rate (3+ participants, until 30 June 2026): SGD 1,900 per participant
- Group Rate (3+ participants, after 30 June 2026): SGD 2,100 per participant
Cancellation Terms
Cancellations received by 20th August 2026, 18:00 Singapore Time are 100% refundable.
Cancellations received by 31st August 2026, 18:00 Singapore Time are 50% refundable.
No refund will be given on cancellations received after 31st August 2026.
For enquiries and corporate sponsorship arrangements, please contact:
Sponsoring Institutions
GROUP RELATIONS SINGAPORE
THE TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RELATIONS