The Creation of Settings and the Future Societies

This book is well over thirty years old, but it still provides one of the most profound sets of insights into how groups in new situations are formed and must develop norms and processes in ordet to function, survive and prosper. While qualitative in form, in that it is a narrative account of how groups function, it is based upon the experience and the insights of a clinical psychologist who managed the development of many research and treatment settings in his lifetime.The Skeptical Visionary: A Seymour Sarason Educational ReaderPolitical Leadership and Educational Failure (Jossey Bass Education Series)It can be read in parallel with another book which early on was acknowledged as a classic in the field, by Karl Weick Social Psychology of Organizing (Topics in Social Psychology)(although the first edition, shorter and more focussed than the second, fine though that was, provides the better context for Sarason's monograph). Of course, thirty or so years on, the culture and the times have changed. The conditions whereby a group or institute may be formed and the time frame that will be allowed for it to show its worth and value may now be sufficiently different that direct translation of the lessons learned may be more difficult. But I would advise anyone charged with the task of establishing a treatment, educational or research institution, however large or small, to read this book. I do not think that you would be disappointed. And your staff will be all the better for having such a leader.