Looking
after the individual while looking after the whole – a
win-win situation.
Connections in business, and any other interpersonal
system, typically happen on a non-verbal level.
Systemic organisational and business consulting
looks at the hidden dynamics in organisations.
To find out more read this page or follow the links:
We are consciously ‘unconventional consultants’ and
approach organisational development from a
different angle.
| What
is a systemic approach to consulting? |
|
As an executive or manager
you generally have, or can take, little time
to follow trends and concepts in organisational
development, as getting your head around such
theories takes time. So, when under time pressure,
are you tempted to turn to ‘quick
fix’ solutions offered in the consulting
market? These solutions might satisfy your need
for action, but do they solve the problem?
In a parallel to a good action movie; where the
hero rides into town, saves the people from immediate
danger and destruction, and then disappears into
the setting sun; the ‘heroic’ consultant
flies in, gives a powerful presentation and leaves
behind big documents and an even bigger bill. You
might be left wondering what that was all about.
If the recommended solution does not yield the
expected result, you might wonder whether you did
something wrong. If the recommended solution does
work, what will you do with the next problem? Hire
another consultant? Instead of repeated crisis
remedies, why not focus on long-term improvement
of the situation as a whole?
Systemic organisational consulting is not
about giving you advice and telling you how to
do things. Expert advice is only possible
if the exact problem has happened before in an
identical context. Almost invariably your situation
will be different. In other words:
- Systemic organisational
consulting is not a
proposal for an expensive change project
- The systemic
approach does not promise
to quickly untangle the ‘central problem’
- We don’t provide
the solutions or serve recipes for success
As has been said about economic
development aid in the third world: helpers undercut
the capacity of people to help themselves. This
is also true for organisations and businesses.
Ever heard the Chinese proverb ‘give a man a fish and he
will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he
will eat for a lifetime’?
Systemic organisational consulting is about
supporting organisations, teams and individuals
to help themselves. In
other words:
- The systemic approach is customised
consulting
- You organise yourself with our guidance
- We construct
a framework – you develop ‘your’ processes
- We treat employees as the experts
- We use only
carefully chosen interventions
Systemic
organisational consulting goes beyond following
processes and procedures, it looks at the bigger
picture. As humans we form part of a system,
with complex relationships; links between cause
and effect are, more often than not, invisible.
From research in biology and ecology we have learned
that everything is interconnected, forming a network
of smaller and larger systems. The smallest interference
eventually has an effect on the whole system. This
phenomena inherent to any living organism, differentiates ‘life’ from ‘machine’.
Learning and adopting the systemic approach is
not easy, since it is ultimately a question of
attitude and therefore involves far more than basic ‘know-how’.
Many words are used to attempt to describe the
phenomena that give insight into the functioning
of a living organism, which is so fundamental to
every organisation or any other system:
- systemic
attitude
- systemic view
- systemic understanding
- systemic
awareness
- systemic intelligence
Essentially, systemic organisational consulting is consulting with
awareness - ‘systemic
awareness’.
It is the quantum
leap from ‘doing’ to ‘being’.
Instead of forcing a change, we stay with ‘what is’. Our methodology
uses a ‘phenomenological’ stance. We
follow with fascination the phenomena of the living
organism and, strangely enough, change starts to
happen without effort and performance improves.
Our many years of experience as consultants, trainers
and facilitators have shown us not only how difficult
systemic organisational consulting can be to learn,
but also how effective it can be.
By adopting a ‘systemic view’ of situations,
we gain a deeper insight into complex relationships,
and gain a ‘systemic understanding’ that
includes whole organisations, teams, individuals
and processes.
We aim to initiate, guide and support towards long-term results. Our
programs and conferences are interactive, workshop
based, communicative
and experience oriented.
We use interventions
that invite communication
about communication.
In your organisation, we first examine existing
processes - what is
there - and establish,
with your help, which
of them works. It does
not make sense to ‘fix what ain’t broken’.
Only then, together,
can we build on that
base.
A systemic attitude to
consulting takes your unique circumstances into
account. It
does not follow a
predetermined path
with signposts and
lots of others travelling
in the same direction. Systemic organisational
and business consulting is an adventure – an
adventure into un-chartered waters with corresponding
risks and hurdles on the way, where:
- Interventions
might fail; But, ultimately the venture can bring
you big success.
Just
like the maritime explorer Christopher Columbus,
who on proposing to the King a new route from Europe
to the Orient, sailed into the un-chartered waters
of the Atlantic ocean - a systemic attitude led
him to go beyond the known world of his time. He
took risks and nearly failed. In the end he discovered
a ‘new world’, the Americas.
Columbus, by crossing the Atlantic Ocean, was not
following a well-worn path.
Systemic organisational
and business consulting similarly goes beyond the
well-worn.
Going into depths, heights and further dimensions,
some unknown to us, also brings to light the dark
side of systems and of human individuals. Emotions
such as: anger, fear, conflict, etc might erupt.
Ambivalence is another human trait often seen in
business. There is nothing wrong with this, and
the roles that these emotions play need to be considered
in order for an organisation to be able to grow.
The skills we use to successfully supervise such
situations do not just come from the tools
and techniques we deem appropriate,
nor from our psychological training, but largely
from our ‘emotional maturity’ and our
many years of experience in personal development – our
ability to stay present in challenging situations.
| A
networked way of thinking |
|
A business does not only operate according
to its self-declared tasks and goals. However
you may choose to define a particular goal
or a strategy ,
it is also defined by invisible laws powerfully
operating for the benefit, or the disadvantage,
of your business. If not acknowledged, these
laws can fester in the underground as hidden
dynamics.
Examples of events that can have an effect on the
success of a project as well as the whole company,
are:
- Secrets in the company that have
not been dealt with
- Founders of the company that
are not respected
- An acquisition where
the culture of the acquired company is not respected
- Unfair dismissal
An organisation, even if it is
a business entirely focused on profit, is a networked system of
employees, products and tasks. Employees
are people – with
feelings. They can sense if the system is out of
balance, possibly without being able to verbalise
that sense. Less experienced staff members
might react inappropriately. As an example, employees
can generally tell where the attention of their
boss is focussed:
- Is it focussed too much upwards,
towards the upper management
- Is it focussed too
much down, onto the employees
- Is it focussed outside
of the system, maybe on a new job or on private
issues
As systemic organisational
and business consultants, we address these issues
specifically in team
and leadership facilitation with delicacy
and care. Family events might have an undue effect
on the performance of an employee. In family
businesses the
influence of family dynamics is even stronger.
Family dynamics are stronger than organisational
dynamics and non-family employees need to know
that they cannot understand or solve these family
issues, and that there could well be a ‘hidden
management’ exerting influence, such as:
- Brothers
and sisters who are not working in the family business
but who feel responsible for the company
The systemic attitude is
changing the way we think, moving away from a
single focus to a networked way of thinking.
As systemic organisational and business consultants,
we do not just take into account the viewpoint
of our client. We also look at how the organisation
around the client flourishes, how the employees
of the organisation flourish, how organisations
flourish with each other and how society flourishes.
A networked way of thinking invites:
- Reflection
and feedback
- Experiencing before following a theory
Systemic
consulting does not just look at people and their
relationships with each other either. A
networked way of thinking takes into account
all levels of information gathering when
trying to find a solution:
- Rational intelligence
- Emotional intelligence
- Collective intelligence
- Social intelligence
- Systemic intelligence
Systemic organisational consulting
accepts the need to include the overall
context and
processes in deliberations. A certain meta level
is introduced to facilitate this.
| So,
what do we do really? |
|
By consulting to organisations and businesses
systemically, we are moving away from a
simplistic quantitative attitude towards a more
comprehensive qualitative approach to consulting.
The focus is not on how many processes, departments,
employees etc, but on what is needed and what works.
We start our involvement with your organisation
with a comprehensive systems
analysis,
that does not just focus on the organisation charts
and stated objectives for shareholder profit, but
includes:
- Qualitative interviews
- Information between
the lines
- Acknowledging what exists
- You deciding what
is worth keeping
- Focus on the positives
We use systemic tools
and techniques to
help improve the functioning and performance of
your organisation in areas such as:
On an interpersonal and individual level, we also
offer systemic consulting services to:
Coaching is person oriented consulting. In
organisational development
it is used as an intervention
to improve performance
in an individual as
well as a team. Systemic
coaching takes the
systemic dynamics in
the organisations into
account while working
with individuals and
teams.
Personal transformation includes issues
of career as well an individual’s
background,
such as family history
and culture. Only
if we are clear with
the past, can we
move wholeheartedly
into the future.
And above all make
the best of the opportunities
offered to us in the present.
We base our approach on the systemic constellation
model that can be applied to:
As systemic organisational and business consultants we aim to help
stabilise your system.
We focus on everyone
that is part of your
organisation with
respect, for the
benefit of the organisation
as well as the individual. Organisations
being task oriented systems, above all we include your task, your goal and
your clients to help strengthen your position in the market.
|
