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Jun 09, 2018

A Brief History of T-Groups

Ruins by Paul Bowman bowmanpics 36473723700 EDIT

CONTENTS
1. Overview
2. Logistics and Pedagogy
3. Origins, Growth and Decline
4. Personal Experience
5. Research and Literature
6. My Writing
7. T-Group Programs
8. Acknowledgments
9. Miscellany

1. Overview

As a former faculty member for Interpersonal Dynamics, commonly called Touchy Feely, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), I'm occasionally asked about the course and about T-groups, the primary unit in which students work together in the course. My goal here is to compile a set of resources that will allow me to respond to these inquiries more effectively and to document my own experiences and research. The information below is by no means comprehensive, but hopefully it's a useful starting point for further study.

The "T" in T-group stands for "training," a nomenclature that developed in the 1950s, when the founders of the methodology devised various types of groups to serve various purposes. A T-group is an experiential learning model in which the participants and the facilitators (aka trainers) engage each other in an ongoing series of conversations over an extended period of time (which can range from several hours to a weekend retreat to ongoing groups that meet regularly over periods of years.) Members' initial goals generally include such topics as learning how to communicate more effectively, but groups typically progress to more substantive issues as deeper levels of trust and emotional intimacy are established. A hallmark of the T-group process is the absence of a predetermined agenda, which gives participants the both the freedom and the responsibility to decide how to make use of the time.

Stanford's Interpersonal Dynamics course is one of the largest T-group programs in the world--the GSB currently offers 11 sections of the course each year, accommodating a total of 396 students. With roughly 400 students per class in the MBA program and another 100 in the MSx program, it's clear that the vast majority of Stanford management students find the course integral to their GSB experience.

The photo of ruins above--Inch Abbey in County Down--is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that, like so many of my former students, 20 years ago I assumed Touchy Feely was a relatively recent innovation that must have been developed in California, because it seemed so contemporary and, well, touchy feely. But my curiosity about the methodology led me to explore the resources below, uncovering a much longer--and more interesting--history than I'd anticipated when I first took the course as a student.

And to be very clear, I'm certainly not the expert on T-groups. I know many people who know far more than I do, not only about how to teach Touchy Feely or facilitate a T-group, but also about the history of the methodology. But I'm sadly aware of how much knowledge in this field has been forgotten over the last few decades, so I'm determined to document and share what I do know and hope it's of some value.

2. Logistics and Pedagogy

A T-group at Stanford consists of 12 students with one or two facilitators, although groups in other settings can range from 6 to roughly 15 participants. A section of Touchy Feely is comprised of three T-groups, for a total of 36 students and 6 facilitators, taught by a faculty member. The entire section meets as a class for one to three hours each week, and each T-group meets separately for an additional three to four hours. The culminating experience in the course is a weekend-long retreat during which T-groups meet for a total of 17 hours. Quarters at Stanford run for nine or ten weeks, so each T-group spends roughly 60 hours together throughout the course.

One of the defining characteristics of a T-group is that there's no agenda, and it's up to the participants themselves to determine what to discuss. This is modified at Stanford in the context of Touchy Feely, because the course readings provide students with a common set of conceptual frameworks related to social psychology and group dynamics that form a theme for each week, such as "feedback" or "influence." In addition, in most weeks the class and T-group sessions include exercises and activities that serve as inputs to the process. It's my understanding that T-groups conducted in other settings put less emphasis on a shared conceptual curriculum, but even at Stanford the extensive amount of time that groups spend together insures that the participants themselves ultimately choose the direction of the group and the topics of discussion.

(I'm omitting an immense amount of material that could be included here because I've already devoted more time to this effort than I can justify, but resources to explore further on these topics include the first two books listed below in Section 5, Research and Literature, and my Interpersonal Dynamics archive.)

3. Origins, Growth, and Decline

For a thorough discussion of the origins of T-groups, see T-Group Theory and Laboratory Method, a book discussed below, but here's a brief summary: In 1946 psychologist Kurt Lewin was asked by the civic leaders of Bridgeport, Connecticut to convene a series of conversations with community members intended to help ease racial tension in the city. Lewin assembled a team of fellow psychologists and educators to run the program, and one evening after the conclusion of a meeting with community members, some of the participants overheard the staff debriefing the experience and expressed interest in being directly involved in the discussion. This was essentially the first T-group, in which members and facilitators interacted directly and learned from each other in real time.

In 1947 Lewin created the "National Training Laboratories Institute for Applied Behavioral Science" (aka NTL, known today as the NTL Institute) to advance this new methodology, and although he died later that year, his co-founders Leland Bradford, Ron Lippitt, and Ken Benne continued to pursue the organization's mission and initially met with great success. NTL's establishment coincided with a widespread movement in the 1950s to systematically improve the management of large organizations, with a particular emphasis on "labor relations," and T-groups were enthusiastically embraced not only by corporate America and major universities, but also by the U.S. military.

By the mid-1960s articles on T-groups were appearing in the Harvard Business Review--see below--and there was a sense among its leading proponents that the methodology would become a staple of management training and university education around the world. It was at this time that the first version of Interpersonal Dynamics was taught at Stanford in 1968, and the following year David Bradford, the son of NTL co-founder Leland, arrived at the GSB and began the decades-long process of developing what would become known as Touchy Feely into the most popular elective course at the school.

But as with so many idealistic movements of that era, T-groups lost their momentum in the 1970s, and their subsequent decline reflects the methodology's failure as well as its success. Various forms of "encounter groups" and "consciousness seminars" sprouted up at that time (often lumped together under the label of the "human potential movement"), and some of these efforts were directly derived from T-groups. Despite this shared heritage, the means and aims of these latter groups often differed significantly from the original methodology. For example, some programs put intense pressure on members to recruit additional participants, something that I've never witnessed (or even heard of) in a T-group. But in some settings T-groups came to be associated with such coercive practices, and the methodology fell out of favor with corporations and universities (with Stanford being a notable exception.)

At the same time, however, many of the ideas promoted by T-groups with the goal of improving organizational management were becoming increasingly common practices, reflecting the ascendance of Theory Y and the slow-but-steady rejection of the command-and-control model. Fueled not only by sweeping changes in social structures and attitudes, but also by the rise of the knowledge worker, organizational life and management education in the 1970s saw a sustained interest in interpersonal communication, feedback, and group dynamics. My father, a psychologist who completed his PhD in 1975, has said that T-groups and related movements essentially "died of success" as their ideas continued to spread while the methodology itself returned to obscurity.

4. Personal Experience

My own involvement with T-groups began in 1999, when I was an MBA student at Stanford and took Touchy Feely with Mary Ann Huckabay. It's no understatement to say that it was a life-changing experience, which is not an uncommon response among students who take the course. In my case the experience deepened my awareness of my emotions, enabling me to regulate and express them in more productive ways, which allowed me to not only to be a more effective communicator and enjoy more meaningful relationships, but also to just be a more fulfilled person. The course also introduced me to the concept of experiential learning and immersed me in the literature of social psychology and group dynamics, initiating a process of reading and study that has continued ever since.

In 2006 I attended a weekend-long T-group organized by Stanford and facilitated by Barbara Brewer and Dietmar Brinkmann, in order to refresh my memory of the experience and explore whether I should apply to become a T-group facilitator at the GSB. The experience affirmed my interest in the process and later that year I was accepted into the school's facilitator training program. At the end of 2006 I was hired by the GSB to become a member of the school's first in-house coaching staff, and in that role I would facilitate T-groups in Touchy Feely two or three times a year for the next decade, working with such faculty as Carole Robin, Gary Dexter, Scott Bristol, and Richard Francisco, in addition to Mary Ann Huckabay. I never facilitated for David Bradford, but I certainly benefited from his advice and guidance.

In addition to participating in and facilitating T-groups at the GSB 2006-2016, I've had a number of related experiences over the years. In 2008 I facilitated a weekend retreat for eight GSB alumni, the first time this group of men had invited a facilitator to join their annual gathering. In 2010 I co-facilitated a T-group with Carole Robin in the GSB's week-long version of Touchy Feely offered to the public through the school's Executive Education program. From 2009 to 2014 I was a member of a T-group consisting of other facilitators that met monthly. And while my work with the GSB's Leadership Fellows program from 2007 to 2015 didn't take place in formal T-groups, many of the activities that I conducted with small groups of 5-6 Fellows were informed by the methodology.

In 2015 I was asked to join the Touchy Feely faculty, and I taught the course for two years. However, in 2017 I was invited to add a third section of The Art of Self-Coaching, the class that I had launched at the GSB several years previously, and I decided to resign from teaching Touchy Feely in order to focus on my other course.

I estimate that I've spent over 1,500 hours in T-groups, and another 500+ hours facilitating similar experiential learning activities for Stanford MBAs and corporate clients. I'm not involved with any groups at present, but the methodology has had a tremendously positive impact on my personal and professional life over the last two decades, and I'm deeply grateful for the experience. I'm indebted not only to the faculty named above, but also to my many co-facilitators over the years, my colleagues on the school's coaching staff, and the hundreds of GSB students I was privileged to work alongside.

5. Research and Literature

The list below focuses on books and papers related to the development of T-groups and the training of T-group facilitators. It does not include the extensive readings drawn from social psychology and other disciplines that currently comprise the curriculum of a course such as Touchy Feely; to learn more about these materials, see my Interpersonal Dynamics archive, which includes my slides, syllabus, and related readings from the last year that I taught the course at Stanford.

5.1. T-Group Theory and Laboratory Method: Innovations in Re-Education, Leland Bradford, Jack Gibb, and Ken Benne, 1964

This extensive volume, long out of print but still readily available, is by far the best resource on the subject of T-groups that I've encountered.

5.2. The Small Group Trainer's Survival Guide, Birge Reichard, Christiane Siewers, and Paul Rodenhauser, 1992

This book by a trio of NTL trainers (as that organization has historically called T-group facilitators) is the best resource for learning how to facilitate, although it does show its age in sections.

5.3. T Group for a Work Team, Arthur Kuriloff, Yale University and Stuart Atkins, Atkins-Kacher Associates, Los Angeles, 1966

An account of a 5-day T-group with 13 members of a small manufacturing company (12 men, 1 woman; 12 Americans, 1 Swiss; possibly all white, although not sure), facilitated by co-author Atkins and (I think) Jack Gibb, who were both fairly well-known NTL trainers at the time. It's dated in many ways, to be sure--the boss smokes a cigar throughout the T-group--and yet I continue to find it fascinating and even touching.

5.4. Behavioral Science Technology and Organizational Effectiveness, Major Joel Champion, United States Air Force, 1973

This paper discusses various aspects of "sensitivity training"--a common term for T-groups and similar experiences in that era--with a particular focus on the impact within organizations. Champion references the article by Robert House below.

5.5. T-Group Education and Leadership Effectiveness: A Review Of the Empirical Literature and a Critical Evaluation, Robert J. House, Personnel Psychology, Spring 1967, pp. 1-32

House taught at Wharton for many years, but when he wrote this article he was teaching at CCNY's Baruch School of Public and Business Administration and was also with the McKinsey Foundation. Among other topics, House discusses the negative impact of conducting a T-group within an organization.

5.6. Organization Development: Objectives, Assumptions and Strategies, Wendell French, University of Washington, 1969

This journal article covers a wide range of topics, but it talks specifically about T-groups as part of a larger OD effort, including the fact that most groups are "stranger" groups, but some are "cousin" groups from the same company, and some are "family" groups from the same work unit. French also references House's article, noted above, and briefly mentions the potential negative impact of T-groups within an org.

5.7. T-Groups for Organizational Effectiveness, Harvard Business Review, Vol 42(2), 60-74, Chris Argyris, Harvard Business School, 1964

This is of particular interest to me, given my ongoing interest in Argyris' work.

5.8. Advances in Experiential Social Processes, Volume One (1978) and Volume Two (1980), Clayton Alderfer, Yale University, and Cary Cooper, University of Manchester, editors

This hard-to-find pair of volumes compiles a series of papers on experiential learning and related topics in the context of T-groups. Volume Two includes David Bradford's "A Model of Trainer Development," one of the best resources I know for T-group facilitators. It's interesting to note the academic associations of the various authors, which provides a perspective on how widespread T-groups were at the time: Yale, Harvard, Case Western Reserve, University of Cincinnati, SUNY Buffalo, Lunds University (Sweden), UCLA, University of Michigan, University of Ottawa, University of Oregon, University of British Columbia, University of New South Wales, University of Tübingen, University of Paris, University of Sussex. I know that Stanford has been operating T-groups continuously since that era--I have no idea about the others.

5.9. Modern Theory and Method in Group Training, William Dyer, Brigham Young University, 1978

This NTL publication is more practically-oriented than the two volumes noted above, consisting of a compilation of articles aimed at T-group facilitators and organizers.

5.10. Personal and Organizational Change Through Group Methods: The Laboratory Approach, Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis, MIT, 1965

This book's subtitle refers to "laboratory learning," a term often applied to T-groups and similar experiential programs during this era. Schein, a longtime professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, and Bennis, who later served as President of the University of Cincinnati and taught at USC, were both extensively involved in T-groups and have had a significant influence on contemporary management thinking.

5.11. Here Comes Everybody: Bodymind and Encounter Culture, William Schutz, 1971

Not to be confused with Clay Shirky's 2009 book of the same title (on the application of technology to social organization), Schutz's book offers a view of the "encounter group" culture that emerged from the T-group methodology in the late 1960s. Schutz, a psychologist who developed the model behind the FIRO-B personality assessment and later practiced at Esalen, describes this evolution in his Introduction:

The encounter group derived from the T-group (T for training) originated by the National Training Laboratories in 1947. The T-group originally concentrated primarily on group process, that is, on phases of group development, group roles, leadership patterns, and the decision-making process.

About five years later, the T-group began to pay more attention to individual dynamics. The term "sensitivity training" was adopted to describe this development, which began in California, as well as to describe the original T-groups. The term "encounter group" or "basic encounter group" as used by Carl Rogers, has become associated more with the primarily personally oriented T-group, that is, one that focused on the individual. The "open encounter group" [Schutz's model] uses the format of an encounter group, aims at personal growth and realization of human potential, and admits a wide range of other types of activities into the experience if they give promise of enhancing the aims of the group.

5.12. Experiences in Groups, and Other Papers, Wilfred Bion, 1961

Bion was a British psychotherapist whose work did not involve T-groups, but his writing on group dynamics in the 1950s certainly informed the T-group movement.

5.13. The Road to Malpsychia: Humanistic Psychology and Our Discontents, Joyce Milton, 2002

Journalist Milton takes a critical view of humanistic psychology, a movement that emerged in the 1940s and '50s and significantly influenced the development and evolution of T-groups. This school of thought also played a major role in the contemporaneous changes in organizational management and "labor relations" that led to the widespread adoption of T-groups by corporations and universities in the 1960s. While Milton's perspective should be viewed with some skepticism, I find it a thought-provoking critique, even if I disagree with much of it. Here's a brief review.

5.14. A History of the T-Group and Its Early Applications in Management Development, Scott Highhouse, Bowling Green State University (2002)

An outstanding and thorough paper.

5.15. Memories of HRD (Human Resources Development), Robert Blake, Training and Development, March 1995

Robert Blake was a fascinating figure. After earning his PhD at the University of Texas in 1947, he went to London on a Fulbright scholarship and worked at the Tavistock Clinic. There he presumably worked with Wilfred Bion and learned about NTL. He spent the 1950s and early '60s teaching psychology at Texas, working with T-groups at NTL, and consulting to industry before launching a consulting firm with Jane Mouton.

5.16. The Classic T-Group, Matt Minahan and Robert Crosby (2016)

This paper is also available as a chapter in the 4th edition of Practicing Organization Development. Robert Crosby is a longtime facilitator who has offered T-groups in industry for decades--see below.

5.17. Behind the Executive Mask: Greater Managerial Competence Through Deeper Self-Understanding, Alfred Marrow (1964)

A thorough description of the classic mid-1960s, multi-week T-group experience, aimed at corporate executives and intended to demystify the increasingly popular "sensitivity training" process.

5.18. The Practical Theorist: The Life and Work of Kurt Lewin, Alfred Marrow (1969)

An extensive volume that covers the full range of Lewin's interests and activities, Marrow's biography includes a section on "Sensitivity Training - The Origin of the T-Group" (pages 210-214). An executive, psychologist, and philanthropist, Marrow was a friend and colleague of Lewin who engaged him in efforts to improve worker productivity and morale at the Harwood Manufacturing Company (where Marrow was President) and collaborated with him on projects such as the Commission for Community Interrelations, sponsored by the American Jewish Congress.

6. My Writing

In addition to my Interpersonal Dynamics archive, over the years I've written a number of pieces that explore my own T-group experiences, consider dynamics commonly observed in T-groups, or discuss T-groups in the context of my teaching and coaching at Stanford. Most of the pieces below refer explicitly to T-groups or Touchy Feely, but several are merely based on concepts derived from the methodology or the course. The early ones aren't all bad, but I think my writing's improved a great deal over the last decade :-)

David Bradford and Allan Cohen on Supportive Confrontation (2006)

T-Groups, Trust, Leadership and Management (2007)

T-Groups, Feedback and Double-Loop Learning (2007)

T-Groups In India (2007)

Talking About Feelings (2008)

T-Groups, Balance and Boundaries (2008)

How Am I Doing? aka T-Group Feedback (2008)

The Influence Pyramid 2.0 (2009)

T-Groups, Feelings and Management Theory (2011)

Please Don't Validate Me (2011)

Human Velcro (Hooks and Loops) (2012)

Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups (2012)

I Love Myself (Self-Coaching and Acceptance) (2012)

Management as a Liberal Art at Stanford (2012)

We're Leaky (Emotional Signals and Cognitive Dissonance) (2012)

What I Learned in Touchy Feely (This Time) (2013)

Planting a Flag (Thoughts on Teaching Leadership at Stanford) (2014)

Why Change Is Hard (2014)

Symptoms of Group Strength (2015)

Teaching Touchy Feely at Stanford GSB (2015)

Committing a Microaggression While Teaching a Class on Microaggressions (2016)

This Year: A Look Back at My 2016 (2016)

Touchy Feely Feedback from 2009 (2017)

Huddle Up! Building Group Cohesion (2017)

What We Learned in Touchy Feely (and What We're Still Figuring Out) (2017)

Goodbye, Touchy Feely! Hello, Art of Self-Coaching! (2017)

7. T-Group Programs

You don't have to attend the GSB to participate in a T-group. Despite the methodology's retreat from its peak in the 1960s and '70s, a number of programs continue to exist across the U.S. and around the world. The ones I'm familiar with are below, although by no means is this intended to be an exhaustive list:

San Francisco Bay Area

  • The GSB regularly offers Introductory T-Group Weekends that are open to the public, with preference being given to applicants to the school's facilitator training program.
  • Anamaria Nino-Murcia offers T-group Weekend Retreats for startup leaders. (Anamaria served on my staff at Stanford and was a student of mine when she attended the MBA program.)
  • Erica Peng offers T-groups for executive teams. (Erica was also on my staff at Stanford, and she and I co-facilitated two T-groups together in Touchy Feely.)
  • Leaders in Tech is a year-long program for startup founders and executives that utilizes both T-groups and ongoing peer groups. (Carole Robin is the co-founder.)
  • Executive Influence offers T-groups facilitated by Hanna Hart, a coach I know and recommend, and Andrew Molina, a coach who's known and recommended by close friends of mine.
  • Jay Sieff-Haron of Effective Influence/Cross-Cultural Communication offers T-groups for the general public, with a particular focus on diversity and social identity. (Jay and I once served together on Carole Robin's staff, and he's a longtime GSB facilitator.)
  • Stanford's Continuing Studies program offers COM-19, a short-term course similar to Touchy Feely that's available to the public. Note that in Fall 2021 the course will be offered online. (Among the lead instructors is Sue Neville, with whom I co-facilitated a T-group in Touchy Feely.)
  • And the GSB's Executive Education program offers a week-long version of Touchy Feely each summer.

Other U.S. Locations

  • While the NTL Institute is no longer as prominent as it was during the height of the T-group movement, the organization regularly offers week-long T-group programs in Washington DC and other locations. (It's my understanding that NTL also has a presence in the UK, but I can't find any information online.)
  • Crosby and Associates, based in Wilmington, Delaware and Seattle employs T-groups in the context of their work on leadership development and culture change.
  • EQ-HR: The Center for Emotional Intelligence & Human Relations Skills, offers a series of T-group related programs for leaders of faith-based organizations across the U.S.
  • The Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago began offering their own version of Interpersonal Dynamics in 2019. (One of the faculty who pioneered the course at Chicago is Lisa Stefanac, a friend and colleague of mine. Lisa and I were in the same cohort in Stanford's Group Facilitation Training Program in 2006.)

Europe

  • The Austrian Society for Group Dynamics and Organizational Consulting (ÖGGO) offers T-group programs and workshops in a number of locations. It's my understanding that groups are offered in both German and English. (Among the ÖGGO leaders are Liselotte Zvacek, with whom I co-facilitated a T-group in Touchy Feely while serving on Mary Ann Huckabay's staff, and Joachim Schwendenwein, who joined me on Carole Robin's staff one year.)
  • The Center for Social Competence at the University of Graz in Austria offers a range of T-group based courses.
  • TSpace, an organization development and corporate coaching firm in Dublin and London, employs T-groups in its work with clients.
  • Walt Hopkins, a coach and organization development consultant based in Scotland, offers a T-group program in his practice.

India

8. Acknowledgments

Thank you to the 200+ Stanford GSB students who participated in T-groups that I co-facilitated, and to the 72 students who were enrolled in my sections of Touchy Feely.

And thank you to my colleagues in Touchy Feely over the years, including...

  • Mary Ann Huckabay, who was my professor in 1999, who is still my coach today, and who’s been the best mentor anyone could ask for.
  • Carole Robin, with whom I’ve worked in so many capacities, and who has contributed so much to my development as a teacher and coach.
  • My T-group co-facilitators: Agnes Le, Chevalisa Bruzzone, Chris McCanna, Erica Peng, Inbal Demri Shaham, Jimena Galfaso, Karin Scholz Grace, Lisa Kay Solomon, Liselotte Zvacek, Michael Terrell, Saraswathi Ram Mohan, Stephanie Stevens, Sue Neville, and Zoe Dunning.
  • My fellow faculty members, past and present: Andrea Corney, Carole Robin, Collins Dobbs, David Bradford, Gary Dexter, Lara Tiedens, Leslie Chin, Richard Francisco, Scott Bristol, and Yifat Sharabi-Levine.
  • The facilitators on my staff: Agnes Le, Anamaria Nino-Murcia, Chevalisa Bruzzone, Don Hejna, Erica Peng, Kevin Martin, Lela Djakovic, Mark Voorsanger, Michael Terrell, Rich Kass, Sue Neville, and Tuquynh Tran (and our reading coaches: Gabriel Cooper, Jamila Rufaro, Leslie Chin, Norman Tran, Stephanie Stevens, and Sunny Sabbini).
  • My teammates on the school's coaching staff over the past decade, who also facilitated T-groups: Andrea Corney, Anthony Ramsey, Bonnie Wentworth, Chris McCanna, Collins Dobbs, Hugh Keelan, John Cronkite, Ricki Frankel, Sharon Richmond, and Yifat Sharabi-Levine.
  • The many, many faculty and staff members whose efforts have made Touchy Feely possible over the years, including Barbara Firpo, Bryan McCann, Chris Sadlak, Courtney Payne, Ingrid McGovert, Kris Becker, Lara Tiedens, Lynn Santopietro, Mindy Hollar, Nancy Dam, and Sue Jensen.
  • And Paul Mattish, my faculty assistant for Touchy Feely back then and for The Art of Self-Coaching today.

9. Miscellany

Here's a (lengthy and discursive) thread that touches on some of the history above, but adds further information on a number of topics, including how "sensitivity training" was viewed by the establishment in the late 1960s, and the fact that a documentary on T-groups won an Oscar in 1969(!)

Photo by Paul Bowman.