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The Double Task

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The Double Task Approach originated by Harold Bridger

Harold Bridger Lisl Klein Ken Eason Tavistock Institute Bayswater Institute

The double task approach was developed by Harold Bridger at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in the 1950s. Harold’s starting point was that we are all driven to complete our primary task: the currently most pressing one, the deadline to meet, the customer’s order to fulfill, the problem to be solved. But if we are continually obsessed by the current task we can miss the bigger picture: are we tackling the right task, are we going about the best way, why are we not all working together on this?

Harold was fond of saying that, every so often, we need to ‘suspend business’: to stop work on the first task and switch our attention to the second task, that of reviewing the what, why and how of situation we find ourselves in. This switch is a move from a ‘doing’ mode to a ‘learning’ mode, a move to reflecting, gathering evidence and testing assumptions. It can be a challenging process and Harold was particularly concerned to create safe places, space and time for the reviewing processes to be effective. The need for a double task approach is pervasive in work organisations. It exists at all levels of human activity and there are methods to support it at all levels.

  1. Individual counselling We all need opportunities to sit back and ask ourselves deeper questions about our working lives. Sometimes this is about thinking through what has been happening and reviewing it in a cool, rational way. At other times it may be more a case, as Harold said, of ‘listening to your gut’: asking ‘why am I feeling anxious’ and ‘why doesn’t this feel right’. This process can be greatly helped by a skilled counselor who is not judgmental but helps you to explore, to articulate half-conscious thoughts and examine the implications of possible courses of action.
  2. Group dynamics We spend much of our working lives in groups and often groups appear dysfunctional, its members ‘not all pulling in the same direction’. ‘Suspending business’ so that group members can review how they are working together can be very important in helping everyone become more aware of group processes and can be revealing for each person as they receive feedback on their own contributions to the group.
  3. Organisational learning Harold was an organisational consultant and recognized that each organisation had its own double task: to get the day’s work done and to plan how to cope in the longer term with a changing world. It is dysfunctional if the majority of the employees only do task one and a small group have all the responsibility for task two. Harold saw a need for everybody to be involved in task two and there are now many action research and action learning methods that provide mechanisms for everybody to review the consequences of their action plans and, as a result, create a learning organisation continually adjusting to new demands and opportunities.

Commentaries on Harold Bridger and the Double Task

‘ To oversimplify somewhat, what Bridger had in mind was the engaging in an activity – task one – (e.g. a boardroom discussion), and ‘suspending business’ and reviewing the underlying psychodynamics and other processes – task two – affecting the discussion. Thus learning cycles of doing and reviewing can help the orgnisation to function at an increasingly sophisticated, and one might say, more mature level in the work that it does. By so doing we might say that the organisation develops reflective practitioners who, together, create the learning organisation.

In Wilfred Bion’s terms this working in a double task manner helps the group stay in work mode rather than in basic assumption mode. In the work mode the group focuses intently on its task and remains in close touch with reality. Whereas in the basic assumption mode, the group gives way to primitive processes which make it function as if its primary purpose is to reduce the group’s anxieties and avoid pain or emotions that further work might bring. This is not to say that Bridger’s task one is the same as Bion’s work group or that task two is simply basic assumption mode. Rather the common element is that irrational forces below the surface of group functioning can undermine the group’s work. Reviewing and exploring both aspects of group functioning is a means of achieving sophisticated and effective group
work.

Derek Raffaelli (2008) Working the other way In D. Graves (editor) Sense in Social Science: A collection of essays in honour of Dr. Lisl Klein  Graves, Broughton 109 – 122

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Triple Task Double Task Simon Bell

Introducing Triple Task Method

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The Triple Task Method

Triple Task Method or TTM is an empathetic approach designed to help a facilitator gain a deep knowledge of a group or community using three tasks. 
The method assumes that there is a difficult issue for the group or community to grapple with. Task 1 generates the groups answers to troublesome questions about the issue while Tasks 2 and 3 are designed to explore the ways in which the groups function and how this influences their analysis both in terms of what emerges under Task 1 but also in terms of the variation one might see between members of the group and how they are able to influence the dynamic. 
From the perspective of participants, they only consciously experience Task 1;
 Tasks 2 and 3 are largely invisible to them and are employed to help generate
understandings to be shared later.

Task 1

The main element of TTM in the sense that it is the task which is visible to the groups and will provide the insights about troublesome questions (what is the issue? what has been done so far? By whom? Why? How is this assessed in terms of effectiveness? Etc.). For convenience, Task 1 is also subdivided into three main steps: Scoping, developing Visions of Change (VoCs) and planning Desired change:

Task 2

This is an ‘outside in’ review of the group dynamic. In effect, it is the facilitators assessment of the group process using a matrix approach originally developed at the Open University and known as BECM.

Task 3

Is the ‘inside out’ review of the group dynamic – the stakeholders’ assessment of their group process. The three tasks align in providing a unique ‘group signature’ which can be compared and contrasted to the unique signatures of other groups or benchmark signatures. At the end of a TTM intervention a group will have gained clarity about its task and the organisation will have a deeper knowledge of how well groups are functioning.

Project Fear Comic Formations of Terror Simon Bell

The Project Fear Comic

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The project fear comic – find out how fear is weaponised and targeted and how to avoid making things worse! This comic is an easy access point to understand the Formations of Terror (2017.)

Video Link

Bell S. The Project Fear comic
http://open.edu/openlearn/project-fear

Understanding fear – Introducing the Formations of Terror

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Organisations and individuals suffer from fear – probably more than they like to admit. Numerous decisions are made based on underlying fears and anxieties but how can we map out and gain power over fearful things? There are a host of books about fear but, there has been little attempt to methodically and systemically assess how fear emerges and is targeted. In exploring the Formations of Terror or FoT participants set about the methodical assessment of fear as an emergent property. Working from personal experience of fear and teaching by use of examples and case studies, the FoT method will derive the main principles which lie behind the manifestation of fear of all kinds. Using climate change as a specific point of focus, fear is seen to be a major force in problem assessment and analysis and, by accident or intention, a significant confusion to human decision making. By studying the FoT, participants will gain a systemic assessment of the main features of the Paradigm of Fear. Furthermore, they will be able to identify Fear Amplifying and Fear Attenuating systems and learn how fear can be contained, how new social forms can arise and how new behaviours and social qualities can mitigate the Formations of Terror.

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/formations-of-terror-2

The Project Fear comic

http://open.edu/openlearn/projectfear

Find out how fear is weaponised and targeted and how to avoid making things worse! This comic an easy access point to understand the Formations of Terror.

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Measuring and Evaluating – Introducing Imagine

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How the Imagine Approach Captures Context and Leads to Sustainability

The Imagine approach is intended to assist organisations and communities of all kinds to improve their long-term sustainability. It provides a rapid means to:

  • Gain a clear understanding of the context in which the organisation or community finds itself and the challenges it faces.
  • Identify the main indicators which can be used to measure progress made in facing these challenges.
  • Assess the overall message of these indicators and thereby assess the current sustainability of the organisation or community.
  • Consider the current challenges, make scenarios of possible undesirable and desirable futures.
  • Assess progress made in either achieving or remaining clear of these futures in the light of current challenges.

Imagine requires the organisation to invest in no additional capital assets such as software or personnel. It is a facilitated workshop process in which a series of tools are applied to enable local decision makers to map their own context and model sustainable futures. In a series of four half day Imagine events, stakeholders from within the organisation or community come together with a facilitator to engage in the process. Imagine is Rapid, Participatory and Holistic It provides organisations and communities with empowering, evidence-based information … helping them to gain a clear insight into a sustainable future. Rich Pictures (such as seen at the top of the page) are used to map the initial context and amoeba diagrams provide an overview of how things were, are and (importantly) could be. Imagine is not Expert driven, Top down or Exclusive and full of technical language.

 

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Factors Affecting the Move to an eSystems Approach to Remote Care Delivery

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Abstract:
Optimization of care provision, in the future, requires a shift from the current paternal model of dispensing care, to a collaborative model of coaching, supporting and enabling self-care and promoting independence. This will not be appropriate for all people and for all care providers but if resource utility is to be maximized, an approach must be developed that facilitates as much independence and self-determination as each person can safely and capably engage in. This requires that care provision be personalized and include broader engagement, such as social and family connections, as part of a person’s care network.

In order to facilitate a transformation of care providers into care collaborators, communications technology can play a significant enabling role as it has in other eSystems. Ubiquity of such technology across care providers, care receivers and their support networks can underpin new models of care provision. Developing a platform approach for communication and having a menu of interfaces and devices, care services can be personalized such that the technology reflects a person’s specific needs. This novel approach to person-centered communication moves away from a “one-size-fits-all” model and can facilitate combinatorial interventions. However, the move to eSystem- mediated autonomy in remote care provision is confounded by many factors. This paper will discuss the development of just such a communication platform and more than ten year’s experience will be explored in developing combinatorial innovations reflecting personal needs in two care scenarios. Through working with care practitioners and patients the platform has addressed needs in primary, secondary and social care in the UK. The current challenges in scaling the approach will be examined from the point of view of the difficulties in mapping the use of eSystems on to the fragmented nature of current care delivery.

IEEE Link

Hoare A, Factors Affecting the Move to an eSystems Approach to Remote Care Delivery Conference:  2016 9th International Conference on Developments in eSystems Engineering (DeSE), Liverpool, 2016, pp. 7-12.
doi: 10.1109/DeSE.2016.3

Message from the Trustees

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Pursuing a Strategic Vision for the Institute

It is just about a year since we met at the Hallam Conference Centre in London to consider the strategic options available to the Bayswater Institute. Since that time a lot has happened but it is only now coming together in a way that means we can pursue the strategic visions that we discussed. We have been successful in securing a number of contracts in our specialism of health and social care but for some time we were hampered by a lack of funds to take more strategic steps. The situation has now changed, however, and I am delighted to be able to tell you that at long last we have received our inheritance under the terms of Lisl Klein’s will. We now have a firm financial base, therefore, on which to build our future.

I can tell you that, as a result, we have already made two key appointments to the staff. The first is Professor Simon Bell, who will take up the position of CEO of the Institute from 1st September. Simon is well known to the Institute having been its director from 2007 to 2009. Simon is currently Professor of Innovation and Methodology at the Open University and his brief is to significantly broaden the reach of the Institute by developing new partnerships, expanding our professional development portfolio, extending and innovating the ‘Working Conference’ and developing our methods.

The second appointment is Adam Hoare as Executive Director of Sociotechnical Systems. Adam has extensive experience of technology development and implementation latterly working with health and social care providers. He was previously a client of the Institute when he was the managing director at Red Embedded Systems Ltd. It was then that he discovered that what he had been advocating for many years was a sociotechnical systems approach and that we were the place to join in order to really develop that approach. Adam’s role is to open up new lines of work for the Institute and in this capacity he will both broaden our client base and complement Simon in bringing fresh ideas and approaches to the Institute.

Simon and Adam are now working with Bill and Ken to put flesh on our strategic ambitions and to present a new more contemporary image of the Institute (although very firmly rooted in the objectives and values Lisl set out for the Institute). Expect to see a new version of the website in the next month or so. Chris retired as the Institute Administrator last September and Priya Davda is now fulfilling an administrative role for the Institute although we hope she will resume as an active research member of staff before too long.