Symposium 2026 | Holding the turbulent world at work | Parallel Paper Session 4
Between Certainty and Curiosity: Tending the Organisational Mind in Vortical Conditions
Fred Wright
Fred Wright
Fred has 45 years’ experience in government administration. He has held a range of operational and management positions across justice, disability services and human rights portfolios, including General Manager of the Adult Parole Board of Victoria, Manager of the Disability Forensic Assessment and Treatment Service, and Manager of the Office of the Public Advocate.
He was responsible for the establishment of a successful pilot project that resulted in the creation of an Organisational Ombudsman program in a State Government Department, which at that time was the first of its kind in Australia. Since this program was established, Fred has consulted to the establishment of Ombudsman programs in four other branches of government in Victoria, Australia.
Fred recently stepped down as Chair of the International Outreach Committee of the International Ombuds Association (IOA), and is a former Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Regional Advancement Committee of the IOA. His term recently ended as Chair of the Directorate of Group Relations Australia, a professional association for people interested in the application of group relations theory and systems psychodynamics to organisations, groups, and society.
Fred also recently stepped down from the Board of the National Institute of Organisation Dynamics, which is an educational institute offering programs up to Doctorate level, in the disciplines of leadership, management and organisation dynamics.
Abstract
Contemporary organisational life has moved beyond turbulence into vortical conditions that draw individuals, groups, and whole systems into increasing cycles of anxiety, uncertainty, and reactivity. These dynamics create conditions where defensive cultures thrive, reflective capacity is undermined, and maladaptive responses proliferate.
This presentation draws on forty-five years of public sector experience, including fifteen as an Organisational Ombuds, to consider how organisations can be supported to navigate these conditions.
Whilst Systems Psychodynamic theories promote the importance of negative capability, reflective practice, and emotional containment, this session will explore how these concepts translate to operational environments dealing with real-world challenges, including how they may be integrated into organisational culture. It will further consider the importance of working with the tensions that exist under these conditions, such as between certainty and curiosity, or action and reflection, as the vortex pulls towards a fundamentalism that looks to eliminate difference, punish curiosity, and collapse thinking into a binary split.
This session will also explore the concept of the 'distributed organisational mind' and its differing valencies for both containing and amplifying organisational anxiety, arguing that a healthy system must hold both in tension. It will examine passive waiting and its systemic implications, the role of hope in the containment process, and the necessity of building collective agency, community, and common goals as a balance to the fundamentalist pull of the vortex.
The presentation concludes that navigating vortical conditions requires thoughtful action alongside negative capability, as well as organisational resilience built by nurturing reflective language, fostering hope, and strengthening systemic connections. It also proposes the creation of dedicated roles, such as the Organisational Ombuds, whose job is to tend the organisational mind at the edge of chaos, including holding an optimistic vision of the organisation as it struggles against the calcifying consequences of the vortex.
Presented by
