NIODA/ISPSO Symposium 2026: Holding the Turbulent World at Work

Social dreaming is a method of sharing dreams and associations to explore the social realities they may express, rather than the personal meaning of an individual’s dream. Across daily matrices, participants are invited to consider what the collective dreaming may reveal about the social, organisational and political realities entering the symposium and how turbulence is experienced, carried and held in contemporary working life.

What becomes visible—and what disappears—when war, ecological breakdown, technological acceleration and political fragmentation are framed as turbulence?
In this opening dialogue, Simon Western and Otti Vogt begin with the familiar image of an aircraft encountering rough air. The metaphor presents turbulence as an external and morally neutral force: leaders are asked to navigate, organisations to become resilient, and individuals to adapt. Yet the discourse of turbulence has important limitations: organisations and political systems frequently co-create the very turbulence they claim merely to suffer from, while its benefits, risks and harms are distributed profoundly unequally.

Drawing on systems psychodynamics, Lacanian discourse theory, Eco-Leadership, critical realism and moral philosophy, Simon and Otti explore how turbulence unsettles authority, role and identity; how it can mobilise fantasies of control, perpetual acceleration, or authoritarian rescue; and how some actors may unconsciously enjoy, manufacture or profit from the disorder. They also examine how purpose, agility, psychological safety and systemic coaching may create conditions for greater insights while simultaneously perpetuating systems whose underlying governance systems, ownership models, and power structures remain morally defective.

The conversation proposes moving beyond the containment of anxiety towards responsibility and practical wisdom: seeing the deeper mechanisms shaping a situation, imagining alternatives, judging what the common good requires and acting across personal, organisational and political levels. It leaves participants with several unsettling questions: Whose turbulence—and whose normality? Who is making the weather? What if the aircraft is functioning perfectly but flying towards the wrong destination? What should be held—and what must be allowed to break? And how can generative holding lead to responsible action?

Moderated by Susan Long.

Social dreaming is a method of sharing dreams and associations to explore the social realities they may express, rather than the personal meaning of an individual’s dream. Across daily matrices, participants are invited to consider what the collective dreaming may reveal about the social, organisational and political realities entering the symposium and how turbulence is experienced, carried and held in contemporary working life.

This panel focuses on the meaning and consequences of turbulence: what happens when the conditions in which organisations operate change so rapidly and unpredictably that established plans, roles, structures, and ways of working can quickly lose their usefulness? How do leaders make long-range plans when the future is so uncertain? What organisational designs enable role holders to adjust what they do and how they work as circumstances change? Do organisations, for example, increasingly come to resemble projects, with roles changing rapidly as tasks are taken up and completed?

These developments also raise questions about authority. What happens to authority when neither leaders nor followers can rely on established knowledge about what comes next? When expertise can quickly become obsolete, when those lower in a hierarchy may know more about an emerging technology than those above them, and when decisions must be made before their consequences are known, how do leaders exercise authority, and how do others authorize them to lead?

These questions challenge us to translate the idea of organisational resilience into practical terms. What enables an organisation not simply to withstand turbulence, but to adapt to it while sustaining the relationships, commitments, and capacities on which effective work depends? And might the very adaptations intended to create resilience—continually changing roles, structures, technologies, and staffing—generate turbulence of their own?

Turbulence also has a psychological dimension. How do anxieties arising from broader developments—the future of jobs and work, for example—affect how leaders lead, how people take up their roles, and how work is organised? AI brings many of these questions into particularly sharp focus. What happens to work when AI dramatically amplifies people's capabilities—for example, when apps that once required teams and long development cycles can be created rapidly by far fewer people? Is this accelerating increase in productivity constructive, destructive, or both? For example, people can establish enterprises with far fewer people and less capital and yet produce viable products or services.

Our session is intended as a springboard for exploring these and other questions as we wrestle with the turbulent settings in which we now work and live.

This panel will be moderated by Professor Aaron Nurick

Social dreaming is a method of sharing dreams and associations to explore the social realities they may express, rather than the personal meaning of an individual’s dream. Across daily matrices, participants are invited to consider what the collective dreaming may reveal about the social, organisational and political realities entering the symposium and how turbulence is experienced, carried and held in contemporary working life.

Social dreaming is a method of sharing dreams and associations to explore the social realities they may express, rather than the personal meaning of an individual’s dream. Across daily matrices, participants are invited to consider what the collective dreaming may reveal about the social, organisational and political realities entering the symposium and how turbulence is experienced, carried and held in contemporary working life.

Social dreaming is a method of sharing dreams and associations to explore the social realities they may express, rather than the personal meaning of an individual’s dream. Across daily matrices, participants are invited to consider what the collective dreaming may reveal about the social, organisational and political realities entering the symposium and how turbulence is experienced, carried and held in contemporary working life.

The third containment panel brings together Dr Vusi Vilakati, Tiago Mendes and Dr Rica Viljoen in a shared conversation that both reflects on and extends the themes emerging throughout the symposium. Drawing from diverse psychoanalytic, organisational and cultural perspectives, the panel will explore how the concept of containment has evolved across traditions and how it may help us engage the turbulence of contemporary organisational and societal life.

The richness of psychoanalytic thought lies in its multiple schools and traditions. From the work of Klein, Winnicott, Bion, Jung and Graves to contemporary systems psychodynamic applications, containment has been understood in different but complementary ways. This conversation will explore these intersections while also crossing traditional boundaries between theory and practice, individual and collective experience, and organisational and societal realities.

Dr Vusi Vilakati brings an African consciousness and organisational leadership perspective, exploring positionality, relationality, story and the historical and cultural contexts shaping leadership and organisational life in Africa.

Tiago Mendes contributes scholarly insight into the development of psychoanalytic concepts and the continuing relevance of containment across traditions.

Dr Rica Viljoen brings a lens of inclusivity, emergence and multicultural engagement, drawing on Jungian thinking and Spiral Dynamics to explore how containment can create spaces where differences are held creatively and new possibilities emerge.

Together, the panel will seek not only to contain the conversations of the symposium, but also to open them outward towards the wider challenges, tensions and opportunities shaping the world of work, leadership and society today.

This panel will be moderated by Thomas Mitchell

Social dreaming is a method of sharing dreams and associations to explore the social realities they may express, rather than the personal meaning of an individual’s dream. Across daily matrices, participants are invited to consider what the collective dreaming may reveal about the social, organisational and political realities entering the symposium and how turbulence is experienced, carried and held in contemporary working life.

The closing plenary offers the opportunity for all participants to reflect on, share experience of and learnings from the 2026 NIODA/ISPSO online Symposium. It will be led by the Symposium Planning Committee: Susan Long; Aaron Nurick; Thomas Mitchell; Sally Mussared and Belinda Cashel. The Symposium will be closed by Sally Mussared (NIODA CEO) and Alexandra Gerny (ISPSO President).