BLOG | How organizational constellations transform business

To optimize performance, we already know that we need to feel connected to a higher goal of a company. A higher purpose if you will. Something that tells us to transcend ourselves. This in itself was thought by Victor Frankl to be the ultimate meaning of life. Yet we maintain a fragmented approach to work and doing business. The meaning of life is not a widely utilized perspective when we consider growth strategies and cultural changes within a corporate. It may sound like a philosophical notion, but it is the most powerful force for transformation. Also within you organization.

The times have dawned upon us that we realize we are not separate from each other. This is as far as we might have gone within organizational development. We’ve realized that working together makes us much more creatively wiser. And we come up with all kinds of wonderfully creative sessions. Sparking a creative force for a couple of hours, but never igniting the fire within, at least not for long. To avail of the potential that real connection has, other approaches to organizational development are in place.

Relationships and the quality thereof are widely found to be the most successful platforms for extraordinary performance. Family systems or a network of friends, we have come to embrace that they share the same mechanisms to a group of people forming an organization. They are connected. In many ways. In the arena of systemic organizational transformation this means that our tools to work with the connection between people, within their specific composition, apply.

Particularly as we are becoming more and more comfortable and capable to set up organizations with specific goals that are not only monetary driven, do not need old ideas of hierarchy and want to work towards effects on society as a whole. Organizational constellations – also known as systemic work – is such a tool. Here’s a couple of reasons why they work so well.

Experience led over overthought

Einstein coined the phrase that we cannot solve a problem on the same level it came into existence. And, let’s face it, most of the time we try to (over)think our way out of things. Yet, I’ve seen the significance in the board room of a deep and vulnerable conversation over spreadsheets. Therefore we need effective tools to help us move beyond our mental capacity and explore the area of emotions, feelings and intuition. Because here resides the deep ability to connect. In a constellation we work with the full human experience: emotions, physical sensations and movement, mental approaches, and an intuitive dimension.

Moving to problem solving methods beyond the mind and the mental are very effective as constellations both literally and metaphorically move people. Towards new positions and new perspectives, giving room for the solutions to come forward by themselves. Giving room for alignment with providence and the emerging future. Participants in a constellation are asked what they experience on the level of feelings, rather than what they are thinking. They are asked what natural impuls comes from within, instead of how they think they should relate to one another. Participants actively take part in the whole, their contribution and experience makes any situation shift, and they are for their part responsible for helping the whole to move forward.

Change is always a given, how you show up is determinative

Contrary to popular belief we do not need to apply pressure for change to come about. Change is a natural given. In times of chaos and complexity, change is the only solution. Denying this in a corporate context means to deny the evolutionary characteristics of any organizing principle. When we regard nature as an inspiration we find ourselves tuned into a process that happens by itself, we do not have to do, work, figure to or manage anything. It arranges itself. It is how you show up to co-create with the force of change that is essential. It requires the deep skill of  being fully present in the moment. This is where systemic work and systems thinking overlap. In the here and now.

In change we tend to spend a lot of time in the establishment of change, thus waisting a lot of precious energy. In a constellation change is the energy that draws the whole forward to its optimum at the time of a constellation. The system is at ease and works well if each person has their own unique place (be it within or outside of the organization); the relevant order of things is acknowledged, and; giving and receiving within the system are in balance. A constellation is a very powerful tool to see how to move with the flow of Change and remain open(minded) to what wants to emerge for your organization. By remaining present in the here and now, the intelligence of the system can come forward to cp-create with you.

Deep process facilitation for extraordinary performance

Any change tool can be great to work with, but I more than often see how the quality (not necessarily the same as the success) of the company is as the quality of consciousness of the people that work for the organization. Outside manifestation is always the result of an inside process. However, we deem culture a thing to cultivate just by applying some changes to work processes. Improvement of and moving forward with your organization is actually a soul searching process. The purpose of your organization can only reveal itself when you are prepared to look so deeply into the societal task of your business. Never does it seize to have one, unless it is a dissipative system ready to collapse to make room for new systems. The building blocks of reality as explained by biology and quantum physics provide for effective guidelines for working with the potentiality of any business. Embrace the mind shift. Extraordinary performance requires extraordinary process facilitation.

Photo | ‘Constellation’ | W.P. Andrews