Symposium Panel 2026 | Holding the turbulent world at work
Turbulent Work Today
Dr Mishel McMahon, Larry Hirshhorn and Brett MacFarlane in conversation with Professor Aaron Nurick
Conversation
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 organizational resilience into practical terms. What enables an organization 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 organized? 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.
This 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.
Dr Mishel McMahon
Mishel is a Yorta Yorta / Irish woman, she grew up in rural Victoria. Mishel completed Bachelor of Social Work with honours and her PhD 2018 which revealed principles of First Nations childrearing.
Mishel won Premier's Research Awards for Aboriginal Research 2019, Fellowship for Indigenous Leadership 2019, has worked as Social Work lecturer, Co-ordinator of the Victorian Aboriginal Research Accord, investigator for the Aboriginal Youth Mentoring, a Pathway to Leadership project and lead researcher for Blak Butterfly – Improving First Nations People’s Lived Experience of Emergency Departments project and is currently researching improving Aboriginal self-determination in Australian Child Protection.
Mishel is a poet, a swimmer, author, photographer and would love to learn more about integrative health, combining Indigenous wisdom with bio medical health.
Dr Larry Hirshhorn
Larry Hirschhorn is a founder of the consulting firm CFAR. He is the director of its Dynamics of Consulting Program. He is a founder of ISPSO. He is the author of The Workplace Within and Reworking Authority
Brett MacFarlane
Brett Macfarlane advises complex global organizations on the behavioural enablement of innovation, including central banks, Fortune 500 companies, and leading consultancies. He trained in systems psychodynamics with distinction at INSEAD’s Executive Master in Change and has led innovation at some of the world’s most innovative companies, contributing to over 200 awards and patents. His research focuses on the behavioural patterns of innovation leaders, and his tools—including the Innovation Leadership Map and Emotional Gearing—help leaders improve effectiveness and resilience.
Professor Aaron Nurick
Aaron J. Nurick, Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus of Management and Psychology at Bentley University where he taught courses in Interpersonal Relations in Management, Emotionally Intelligent Leadership, and Social Psychology. He is the author of The Good Enough Manager: The Making of a GEM 2 nd edition (Routledge, 2020) and the editor of The Research Handbook on Emotional Intelligence at Work (Edward Elgar, 2026). He has published articles in several journals, including Human Relations, Psychological Bulletin, Human Resource Management, and the Journal of Management Education. He is an editor of the international journal, Organisational and Social Dynamics, and is a former Board member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. Over his 44 year career at Bentley University, he received numerous awards for teaching scholarship and academic advising, including the Gregory H. Adamian Award for Lifetime Excellence in Teaching in 2019.
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