The Primary Risk

Abstract

In the Tavistock tradition, we understand anorganization by first identifying its primary task. Weask, what is this organization set up to do, how is itorganized to accomplish this objective, and what unconscious dynamics limit or distort itsmembers' ability to do their work? This approach whilepowerful, does not help us understand organizations thatlive at strategic junctures in their life cycles. In these situations, the task is to choose atask. We need a conceptual framework to help usunderstand the psychodynamics of organizing and decidingin these situations. The following article develops the concept of the “primary risk”to explain how organizations behave in these situations.It links the primary risk to the psychoanalytic idea ofambivalence and the gestalt idea of the figure/ground relationship. It draws on case material toilluminate its concepts.