Learning from Experience: Group Relations Conferences—Danish Design II1

In this paper the learning concept of group relation's conferences are discussed. The authors have worked with group relations conferences (GRC) in different contexts for many years—mainly as a part of educational programmes for managers and consultants (OPU at IGA Copenhagen, MPO at Roskilde University and NAPSO2). Seen from the horizon of their experience some of the basic concepts in the theories about GRC need clarifying, revision, and development. The GRC is a part of the learning from experience movement and as a consequence it stresses the underlying basis: learning is personal so everyone decides for themselves what makes sense and what does not. This principle sometimes works as a defence against a closer examination of the two questions: do GRCs provide relevant experiences to learn from, and what is it you learn or can expect to learn at a GRC. Here the learning concept of the GRCs presented and discussed and two later contributions are presented: Barry Palmer's theory (Palmer, 1979) and Junell Silver and Ruthellen Josselson's study (Silver & Josselson, 2010). The learning concepts of the GRCs are found to be too general and too far from organisational life. As an attempt to move forward, four new targets for learning and skills that it would be reasonable to seek in relation to GRCs are proposed.