04/05/2024
“Systemic sickness” – can an organization or business “feel unwell”?
A good organizational climate is associated with liveliness, a steady flow of energy and information between people and departments, ease of understanding, knowledge, and responsibility. As much as it pains a business owner to see the specialists on important positions exhibit the exact opposite: lack of responsibility, ignoring important information, or even hostile attitudes towards colleagues – this is not uncommon, and often accompanies certain processes. Sometimes it causes significant losses or leads to costly organizational changes. There are also times when management turns a blind eye to unfavorable internal climates, as if there is no chance of changing them.
We often see companies that seem to be internally “stuck”, fixed in a certain state or notice processes that do not unfold properly and do not bring the desired results.
Can the “systemic sickness” be healed?
The systemic-phenomenological approach makes it possible to recognize the reasons why an organization is facing internal difficulties or is not ready for the next step of development. Whether it is entering a new market or introducing a new product or process, changing the management structure, or day-to-day, routine functioning. It is never too late to make the relationships between professionals, managers and departments more lively and fruitful.
What can be achieved
– Identify the potential, or lack thereof, for a particular product, customer or customer group, type of customer relationship
– Discover why certain relationships within the business, between people or departments, or with customers or partners are not working as they are supposed to
– Locate systemic causes of difficulties related to processes or positions held by specialists
– Address to the elements of the system that need healing, find options for changes that will help to adjust the structure to allow more flow of much-needed energy
– Diagnose elements of the structure (positions, relationships, groups, departments) that need to be changed or even eliminated
– Find “systemic holes” – parts of the structure that are not serving the organization’s goals
– Rethink economic problems: money, its inflow or outflow, always reflects the flow of energy and the quality of relationships in the system.
Organizational Constellations allow us to see the underlying structure of what we often call loyalty in an organization. Why someone “likes to be” in a certain type of relationship with others is not necessarily due to personal preference. Sometimes elements of the system unconsciously “substitute” employees for pre-existing parties in organizational dynamics and conflicts, or even replay situations that were not handled correctly in the past.
Systemic interventions used in Constellations provide the means to facilitate much-needed change or unlock the potential that is hidden behind the habitual patterns that support the established structure of relationships.
In working with organizations and businesses, it is not too difficult to find similarities with the human organism as a system, or with how groups and collectives function in general. As we gradually increase the resolution of our tools, we begin to see where healing algorithms can be applied, what conflicts can be handled better, and where new energy can come into stalled, immobile structures. But we also see where this is not possible. In a sense, Constellation can be ruthless to an ineffective and dysfunctional structure.
My background
I have studied Organizational Constellations and systemic coaching with several masters on both sides of the Atlantic, including Jan Jacob Stam, founder of the Hellinger Institute in the Netherlands, perhaps the most influential figure in the field today. However, I view this work as a healing process, roughly the way I work with people.
In terms of working with organizations, I also have the earlier experience of my own – a university degree in industrial and organizational psychology (Lomonosov Moscow State University, 2001), more than 10 years of practice in HR and strategic consulting, including working as an HR director and running my own business – all of which took place before I started building a therapeutic practice.
Technical notes
Organizational Constellation can be set up in person or online, either in an individual format or with the help of a pre-organized group. There are some technicalities to consider before conducting an Organizational Constellation such as confidentiality, the specific request and the preferred form of work, all of which can be discussed in advance during the preparatory phase. It is possible to organize a sequence of sessions dealing with specific processes, parts or problems in the organization.
