On The Balcony Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian: The Hidden Life of Groups
When Your Team's Anxiety Is Actually the Answer
Season 2 continues looking sideways — exploring frameworks that stretch Adaptive Leadership into new terrain.
In this episode, Michael Koehler sits down with Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian, a psychoanalytic psychologist and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Candice's work focuses on systems psychodynamics — a field that helps us see the hidden life of groups.
The conversation explores what lies beneath the surface of organizational life: the unconscious patterns, projections, and anxieties that shape what happens in teams and organizations long before anyone names them.
What's fascinating is that this work sits in the background of Adaptive Leadership itself. Systems psychodynamics was one of the practices that informed Ron Heifetz's early teaching — and it remains a place where many practitioners go to sharpen their ability to consult with groups in real time.
This episode feels like stepping behind the curtain of Adaptive Leadership — into the terrain where authority, anxiety, and imagination meet.
What You'll Explore in This Episode:
What systems psychodynamics is — and why it matters
How this field helps us understand the hidden, unconscious social elements in groups that are highly impactful but intangible. The dynamics that shape whether work actually gets done.
When anxiety is data, not disruption
Why the distress in a group — the tension, reactivity, and discomfort — isn't something to manage away, but vital information about what the group actually needs. Learning to read anxiety as a signal rather than a problem to solve.
Group relations conferences
A unique learning experience where the content is the live experience of the group itself. No talks, no papers — just studying what emerges in real time as people navigate authority, roles, and group dynamics.
Consulting without memory, intent, or desire
A practice from Wilfred Bion about meeting groups with spaciousness and openness — not inserting your agenda or expectations, but listening for what the group actually needs in the moment.
The intersection with Adaptive Leadership
How systems psychodynamics deepens the practice of reading the "heat map" — understanding what the anxiety in a group is actually about, which tells you what the group needs. Anxiety isn't random noise; it's a compass pointing toward the adaptive challenge.
Why this work matters now
The origins of systems psychodynamics in studying authoritarian regimes and the Holocaust — and why these insights are resources for navigating the rise of authoritarianism today.
The role of the consultant as instrument
How practitioners open themselves as channels through which hidden, unconscious dynamics can surface and be named. When the group triggers you publicly, that's not about you — it's telling you how high the distress is in the system.
Quotes from This Episode:
"We're carrying all this stuff, and my stuff dances with your stuff dances with the third person, and it creates this whole thing in and of itself."
— Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian
"These unseen forces are born from our individual histories, assumptions, and feelings, which merge to create a powerful collective dynamic that is highly impactful, but difficult to see."
— Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian
"Everything is data. So if this group has found a way to trigger me in a way that actually makes me publicly reactive, that tells me that's how high the distress is. It is not about me."
— Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian
"To lead effectively, we must learn to see these hidden dynamics not as personal attacks, but as vital data that reveals what the group truly needs to make progress on its most important work."
— Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian
"You are paying attention to this stuff not to navel-gaze, but because you're trying to get work done. You're trying to understand more clearly what might be impeding progress."
— Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian
"The experience of the group is the content of study."
— Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian
"Your instrument of self, of body, of energy, of spirit has to be in some relative open space — open a channel — so that these hidden, unconscious things can travel through you to be known."
— Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian
Links & Resources:
A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (Group Relations Conferences)
https://www.akriceinstitute.org/
Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian's Faculty Profile
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/directory/faculty/candice-crawford-zakian
About Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian:
Dr. Candice Crawford-Zakian is a psychoanalytic psychologist and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she teaches in the doctoral program "Practicing Leadership from the Inside and Out" alongside Michael Koehler and Dr. Lisa Lahey.
Her work focuses on systems psychodynamics and group relations — helping individuals and organizations understand the unconscious dynamics that shape group life, authority, and leadership. She is also a musician, singer, and songwriter, bringing a creative lens to her practice.
Candice came to this work after a transformative experience at a group relations conference while working in the startup chaos of XM Satellite Radio. That week-long conference changed the trajectory of her professional life and sent her back to school for psychology.
Next Episode: Dr. Mary Gentile on Giving Voice to Values — bridging the gap between what we believe is right and what we actually do.
New episodes drop every two weeks.
KEY NOTES:
This episode complements Episode 1's focus on individual development (Immunity to Change) by exploring group-level dynamics. Together, they show how personal and systemic forces interact — why change is hard both internally and in the systems we inhabit.
The practice of "consulting without memory, intent, or desire" offers a powerful counterpoint to more directive leadership approaches — creating space for groups to discover what they actually need rather than what we think they should do.