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In her author talk on World Book night 2022 (Crediton Library, nd), Gabriella Braun noted that although her original conception of this book was that it was for leaders of organizations, she quickly realized she wanted to write a book for everyone—a series of stories about people's lives at work, that illustrated the universal struggles that individuals and organizations experience. In this she has succeeded. This is a humane and generous book that attends to theoretical concepts but always keeps a light touch as it offers insights into the activities that for most of us makes up a third of waking life.
There is an intimacy in the book as we hear about the struggles of people who Braun has worked with, and this intimacy is echoed in the way she uses her own work history and autobiography to illustrate how much our early relationships and experiences impact and influence the ways we bring ourselves into work. The approach is therefore not of a distant and knowing consultant, but one of recognition that to be able to work meaningfully with the messiness of different work environments, one has to be prepared to feel first and use that counter-transference connection as essential information to offer ideas and insights to teams and individuals.
The book is divided into three sections: the first, ‘Human Nature at Work’, introduces what Braun calls ‘the fundamental of our minds’ (p. 8)—referencing key concepts such as Libido and Thanatos, the Unconscious, projective processes, defences and attachment. The second section, ‘Losing Ourselves’, pays attention to the pull of destructive processes and how these can take hold in systems and workplaces. The third and final section, ‘Finding Ourselves’, looks more towards the reparative capacities that can turn organizational difficulties around.
The book focuses on the role of the consultant to help teams, managers and leaders speak to one another, to attempt to look at what lies beneath the surface, unsaid, un-noticed, often denied