Systemic Consulting

The organisation as a living system

Siebke Kaat and Anton de Kroon

Publisher: Het Noorderlicht

To everyone who allowed us the deepest experience of

what it means to belong and to take your unique place in systems

NUR 770

First edition July 2014

© All rights reserved: -Het Noorderlicht

Translation: Anton de Kroon

Revision: James Campbell

Graphic design: Mirjam Strijbosch

Contents

Preface

Thank you

Introduction

1 Living systems

1.1 An organisation: a living system

1.2 Characteristics of living systems

1.2.1Living systems are focussed on survival

1.2.2 Every system is part of a bigger whole

1.2.3 A system lives by permanent exchange

1.2.4 The parts of a system are in service of the whole

1.2.5 The whole is more than the sum of its parts

1.2.6 The parts display the properties of the whole

1.2.7 Living systems self-regulate naturally

1.2.8 Living systems understand the dynamic balance between preservation and exchange

1.2.9 An organisation: a living system

1.3 Examples

1.3.1 What kind of balance strengthens the whole?

1.3.2 The giant panda: a system at its end?

1.3.2 The beehive as a system

2 The background to the systemic approach

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Systemic phenomenology

2.3 Phenomenology: perception without judgement

2.4 Gestalt therapy: becoming aware

2.5 Insights from family systems

2.6 Family and organisational constellations

2.7 Other influences

2.8 Summary

3 Organisational systems

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Five fundamental needs

3.2.1 The origin must be recognised as the starting point

3.2.2 Acknowledgment of the history is the basis for the present

3.2.3 All that belongs has the right to be a part

3.2.4 In the order of the whole each part has its own place

3.2.5 There is a fair balance between taking and giving

3.3 Self-regulation

Unconscious loyalty

3.4 Origin

3.4.1 Reason to come into being

3.4.2 Guiding principles in an organisation

3.4.3 Questions to explore the origin

3.5 History

3.5.1 The door to the future opens via the past

3.5.2 Remarkable events

3.5.3 Acknowledgement of what came before

3.5.4 Questions to explore the history

3.6 Belonging

3.6.1 Everything that belongs is valued

3.6.2 Belonging no more

3.6.3 The switch to a different system

3.6.4 Questions to explore the belonging

3.7 Order

3.7.1 Place and order

3.7.2 Questions to explore the order

3.8 Balance

3.8.1 Balance between taking and giving

3.8.2 A special contribution

3.8.3 Questions to explore the balance

3.9 Patterns

3.9.1 Identification

3.9.2 Contaminated places

3.9.3 Unavailable places

3.9.4 Non-existent places

3.9.5 Parentification

3.9.6 Recurring patterns

4 The systemic consultant

4.1 Introduction

4.2 When to work systemically?

4.3 Attitude

4.3.1 In service of the whole

4.3.2 Without judgement

4.3.3 Detached involvement

4.3.4 Multilateral partiality

4.3.5 Temporary place

4.3.6 Restrained action

4.3.7 Systemic derailing

4.4 Applied knowledge

4.4.1 Where to start?

4.4.2 Acknowledging the origin

4.4.3 With an eye for the history

4.4.4 Belonging and no-longer belonging

4.4.5 Everyone in his own place in the order

4.4.6 Group dynamics or system dynamics?

4.5 Course of action

4.5.1 Zooming out

4.5.2 Focussed on functions and places

4.5.3 Facts: the healing force of reality

4.5.4 Awareness as an extra source

4.6 Systemic exploring

4.6.1 Symptoms: dire necessity

4.6.2 Problems are solutions

4.6.3 Looking beyond the symptoms

4.6.4 A closer look at symptoms

5 Systemic coaching

5.1 Introduction

5.1.1 Characteristics of systemic coaching

5.1.2 Contracting

5.1.3 Finding the root of the problem

5.2 Common themes in coaching

5.2.1 Repeating patterns

5.2.2 Systems confusion

5.2.4 Preservation and renewal

5.2.5 Letting go by recognising

5.3 Questions to contemplate

5.3.1 Questions about the coach

5.3.2 Questions about the client

6 How managers can contribute towards healthy organisations

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Farewells

6.3 Dismissals

6.4 Giving a new colleague his place

6.5 Breaking-up a team

6.6 New teams

6.7 Combining teams

6.8 Splitting-up a business

6.9 Change of culture

6.10 Reorganisations

6.11 The founder sells her business

7 Looking ahead

7.1 Honoured or excluded?

7.2 Everything where it belongs

7.3 Without the old, the new wouldn’t exist

7.4 How do you choose where you want to belong?

7.5 Acknowledgement for the founder

7.6 What do you want to belong to; openly or anonymously?

7.7 What place do you get? What place do you take?

7.8 In balance?

7.9 The framework within which everything functions

7.10 Who is there for whom?

7.11 A pattern?

7.12 Belonging to those that do not belong

7.13 Acknowledging everything

About the authors

Anton about Siebke

Siebke about Anton

About the (systemic) editor: James Campbell

Our sources of inspiration

The Dutch Bert Hellinger Institute

Het Noorderlicht (The Northern Light)

Preface

In this book Siebke Kaat and Anton de Kroon are walking a new path.

Systemic-phenomenological work originally began with the method called constellations (family and organisational), which is now known far and wide. During the last 15 years constellations have taught us how social systems, including organisations, are put together. The focus, naturally enough, fell upon the quite spectacular method of constellations; the disadvantage here is that the quality of the method depends very much on the person applying it, the facilitator of the constellation. Siebke and Anton have made a complete U turn, by focussing on making the systemic body of thought applicable without being dependent upon constellations. It provides you with a tremendous feeling of pleasure when, with the perfect question or observation, you suddenly feel light streaming into a problem again. Well, you don’t master the art of true systemic perception in five minutes. However, what you can do in five minutes is begin to familiarise yourself with its language.

Siebke and Anton are professionals with broad and practical experience. They are clear people, firmly grounded – not afraid to get their hands dirty - but never just drifting along. Already, for over a decade, they have been using systemic perception in their practices as consultants and, even more importantly, in their everyday lives. Systemic intervention is actually more a deliberate and permanent approach than a temporary tool. You are it rather than do it. In the same way that a craftsman’s chisel becomes a part of him. From the outside it looks as if it is only the hammer that hits the chisel; inside him a very different process is going on. This is the systemic way; the way of Siebke and Anton.

In this book you’ll accompany them and, quite often, they’ll let you go off on your own. Trusting you and certain that, with the systemic compass to hand, you will have a pleasant and helpful instrument to guide you through the forest that is called an organisation.

Jan Jacob Stam

Thank you

Here, in front of you, lies a book on systemic consulting. For us, the authors, it is more than that. It also represents our own development as we grew into becoming systemic consultants. The road we travelled is one without a clear starting point and most certainly without a clear point of arrival. Development carries on.

Thank you to everyone standing behind and beside us.

A great number of experiences, courses, teachers, colleagues, assignments and talks have formed both of us. They provided us with a leg-up when needed and moments of reflection that contributed significantly to our development. Even if we do not name them here, all have their place. We sincerely wish that each one of them recognises a little of their ideas or situations in this book.

In addition there are the people who stimulated us to share our development and our views about our profession in the form of a book.

Participants, in courses we gave, asking us to write down what we were saying, were a stimulus to do just that. Jan Jacob Stam certainly played that role as well; from his intense involvement with the systemic approach he is always inspiring experiments and innovation. At just the right moment he would ask “How are you doing with the book?”

Finally, this book would not have come into existence without support, during the writing process, from the people in our personal lives who gave us the time and space the work demanded and those who read the manuscripts and made valuable suggestions.

Thanks to all the organisations

Our thanks to our clients, the organisations and their people, for whom we worked over a number of years, and where we were able to learn about this living organism called an ‘organisation’.

Innovation and growth come to life via exchange. In trusting to let go of habitual approaches and concepts, the option of renewal is revealed. Through our work we learned new paths and new ways to walk them. All the examples in this book derive from our own practice; they are a small window into a much larger body of work.

How could we, the authors, possibly restore the balance in taking and giving with everyone who has contributed, over the years, to our development and, through that, to this book? The most precious gift is, possibly, that we have nurtured ourselves with what we received and have passed it on to others: organisations, consultants and managers.

With gratitude

Introduction

Consultants are usually invited to work in an organisation when its own managers are unable to find solutions to business problems. Then expert help is brought in - on a temporary basis.

Systemic consulting is uniquely different from any other consulting approach in that it is not the consultant who is the expert, but the organisation itself.

What then is there for the consultant to do? That is what this book is about.

How did it begin?

Systemic consulting is tremendously inspired by the body of thought that underlies working via organisational constellations. Once we learned to facilitate constellations, we started acting from that attitude and knowledge in our day-to-day consulting. Increasingly, we became successful in translating the guidelines for facilitating constellations into forms for our own attitude as consultants. And here, exactly as is the case with facilitating constellations, our awareness was, and is, a crucial source of information. By asking ordinary questions and making ordinary remarks we learned that, together with the client, team or internal consultant, we could gain insight into the way organisational systems react, move and survive.

Nature continues to amaze us. Looking at the exchange among all living creatures we are awe-struck by the individual species and with the beautiful coherence between them all. By delving deeply into living systems, time and again the organisation appeared in our mind’s eye as a specific kind of living system. Both a living system and also an ordinary system with needs, embedded in and dependent upon a bigger whole.

A wish

Via this book, we hope to encourage you to take a systemic view of organisations and to show you how you can contribute towards the vitality of the systems into which you are invited to help.

We are constantly walking two, if not three, paths in this book. Beside the theory we give plenty of examples from our own consultancy practices, in the hope that this makes the theory clearer for the reader and easier to apply in his or her own practice. We also suggest questions to help you begin your own systemic explorations.

Useful as our insights might be, it is important that we help you to find your own answers to the question “That’s all very fine but, as a consultant, what kind of interventions can I make, and what do I need to make them?”

Examples we give are derived from our practice, which is not the same as the practice. For us they are connected to a specific time and space and, at the same time, they are general illustrations. Knowing who, where and when would destroy our message. Our wish is that you let yourself be taken by an all-embracing loving perspective, without any opinion or judgement about organisations and the people who, temporarily, populate them.

Structure of the book

We regard organisations as living systems. Our grasp of what makes a living system, its characteristics and to what degree one can recognise them in an organisation, is what we write about in the first chapter.

In chapter two we give an insight into the various sources of the systemic approach.

In the third chapter we look more deeply into organisations as living systems. We discuss the fundamental needs that must be fulfilled in order to create a perfectly-sound organisational system. We also describe some reaction patterns which organisations might show if one or more of these needs are not met.

In chapter four we encounter the systemic consultant. We start with the basic attitude needed to strengthen organisational systems and continue by elaborating what is so specific about the way the systemic consultant works.

There were two reasons for writing the short, fifth, chapter about systemic coaching. There is its relationship with systemic consulting and the fact that many consultants also work as coaches. As the focus of the book is on supporting and strengthening organisational systems, this chapter, about individual coaching, is quite short.

Consultants usually appear in organisations when something has gone wrong or when managers can’t fix the problem themselves. But the systemic approach really can support the prevention of problems. It is satisfying when every person, carrying out their everyday tasks and duties, contributes easily to the vital energy of an organisation. As this is mainly in the hands of team leaders, managers and directors, chapter six offers some preventive and everyday systemic interventions as tools for these groups.

In the seventh and last chapter we will give you an idea of how to look systemically at the world around you.

Finally

We believe in growth by exchange. This book is a snapshot in time. There is so much more to know about this fascinating, living system called an organisation; we would love to continue our learning by walking the path of systemic-phenomenological work together with you.

So, we invite you to share your insights and experiences with us and with others.

Siebke Kaat and Anton de Kroon

January 2013

Siebke Kaat: siebke.kaat@pragmavision.nl

Anton de Kroon: ak@hellingerinstituut.nl

Linked-in group: systemische kijk op organisaties

1 Living systems

An organisation: a living system

Characteristics of living systems

Example

1.1 An organisation: a living system

In the systems approach the properties of the parts can be understood only from the organization of the whole. Accordingly, systems thinking concentrates not on basic building blocks, but on basic principles of organization. Systems thinking is ‘contextual’, which is the opposite of analytical thinking. Analysis means taking something apart in order to understand it; systems thinking means putting it into the context of a larger whole.

(Fritjof Capra: The Web of Life: 1997)

In this book we look at organisations as living systems and at what a consultant can contribute from this perspective. We are not saying it is the only, or the only correct, way of looking. We just state that this point of view, like any other, has its own values and truths. In this first chapter we examine the characteristics of living systems and investigate to what degree, or not, organisations might share these characteristics. Are organisations really living systems? Are they different to other living systems? To do so, we draw on the insights of systems thinking, as described, among others, by Fritjof Capra in The Web of Life. Systems thinking is an approach that looks at the whole. This means not only observing the individual subsystems but, more importantly, the way they interact with each other and with their surrounding systems, and also looking at their places in the whole.

A clarification of the word system is appropriate here. A system is a recognisable identity, consisting of multiple parts. The word system stems from the Greek sustèma, which means to put together, to compose. A living system is an entity, a whole that is in permanent interaction with its surrounding systems and adapts itself to them in order to survive. A certain amount of instability is needed for change, adaptation and innovation and, thus, for survival. But stability is also needed for this entity to exist. A nice example of a living system is a beehive; we’ll revisit this idea later in the chapter.

We regard organisations as living systems, because you can recognise them as an entity and because they are always interacting with the surrounding world via multiple interacting parts. And, finally, organisations are marked by both stability and instability and by their focus on continuing their existence. In the following paragraphs we examine the various characteristics of living systems and put them into the context of organisations.

1.2 Characteristics of living systems

To understand things systemically, literally means to put them into a context, to establish the nature of their relationships.

From the systems point of view, the understanding of life begins with understanding the pattern.

(Fritjof Capra: The Web of Life: 1997)

Looking at living systems means looking at the system as a whole, at the relationship between the whole and its parts, and at the parts that are the smallest entities. Moreover, any system is a part of a still-larger whole.

A living system is focussed on survival, in which the parts are in service of the whole. The system itself is embedded again in a bigger entity. This complete field of relationships and dependencies is always in motion. And, amidst this complex mesh of movement and connections, a living system has a self-regulating capacity, through which it creates a permanent equilibrium, both in the balance between its parts and in the relationship between the system and its environment. This equilibrium cannot be other than dynamic, as all that lives is subject to constant change.

The most remarkable characteristics of living systems are:

Living systems are focussed on survival

Every system is part of a bigger whole

A system lives by permanent exchange

The parts of a system are in service of the whole

The whole is more than the sum of its parts

The parts display the properties of the whole

Living systems self-regulate naturally

Living systems understand the dynamic balance between preservation and exchang

Here we will describe briefly, and in two different ways, each of these characteristics. First we make some general statements about each particular characteristic. Then we ‘transfer’ the characteristic to organisations by asking in what way is it present in them?

At the end of this chapter we return to the concept of the whole by asking the question, are organisations living systems?

1.2.1Living systems are focussed on survival

Living systems are focussed on survival, growth, and reproduction. Looking at the world of animals, it strikes us that the single parts, the individual insects or mammals, are not so much focussed on their own survival, they exist in service of the survival of the species. Each individual has a place in the bigger whole. This is especially recognisable when looking at animals that depend upon their group for survival. Whether it is a flight of geese, a herd of deer, a school of fish or a colony of ants, each individual’s behaviour always contributes to the species’ best chance of survival.

Are organisations focussed on survival?

Unlike other living systems, organisations have a specific moment when they are founded, when they start up. They have a clear reason for coming into being and a goal that goes further than simply continuing life. An organisation’s origin can be an idea, a desire, a social need or a gap in the market. And, subsequently, a new system comes into being, focussed on specific goals: supplying the market with a special service or product, and ensuring the system survives in order to acquire money for the parts of the system. An organisational system can adhere strictly to its original goals, or just move smoothly to and fro in a bigger whole, dynamically adjusting its goals. It is also possible for an organisation to close itself down. When an animal system begins to lose its vitality, its life force, for example because it can no longer gather enough food, it becomes extinct or divides itself into smaller parts. This dividing is visible, for example, when bees hive off to start a new system in a new location. When an organisational system can no longer supply ‘food’ to its parts, then indeed it can become defunct, it can divide itself. But it can also close itself down and leave the parts with the choice to start a more favourable, new system … or not.

1.2.2 Every system is part of a bigger whole

Many biologists nowadays believe that the whole ecosystem evolves and that this process can really be understood only at the level of the total ecology. … It suggests that any evolution always is an evolution of a pattern of relations between organisms and their environments. It is the pattern that evolves, not only the separate units that show this pattern. … If we try to look at organisational ecology from this perspective, we need to understand that organisations and their environments are engaged in a pattern of co-creation, in which the one evokes the other.

Gareth Morgan: Images of Organization (1986)

Living systems, while distinguishable from their environment, cannot be separated from it. You can distinguish a plant and look at it, but to understand how this plant survives you must consider its environment: the temperature, the amount of sunlight and rain, the soil, the wind, the insects, birds and other animals. By taking into account the environment you understand why this plant has thorns and a bright colour, why it comes into bloom at a given moment, how everything aligns to ensure the seeds will be eaten by birds (that alight exactly when the seeds have ripened), and how the reproduction and continued existence of this plant are interwoven with all kinds of surrounding systems.

Can an organisation be seen separately from its environment?

Of course not, is the obvious answer. The organisation cannot be viewed separately from the bigger whole of customers, cash flow, the buildings and so on. But we are so easily seduced into believing this is possible. How much are you inclined, when reading a newspaper article, or as an employee of a company or an external consultant dealing with a problem, just to zoom in on one branch, one team or one manager? And, conversely, how difficult it is to begin by reviewing the total interaction with the surrounding environment.

1.2.3 A system lives by permanent exchange

Exchange takes place between parts of the system and between the system and the surrounding world. That is the bigger whole with which, in turn, it also forms a system. If, for whatever reason, this exchange stagnates, the system starts to leak life force. All living systems obtain food, water, oxygen and so on from outside the system and convert it into energy. This energy is released by a conversion in which all the internal parts are involved and then waste is set free to be removed. This way there is a continuous flow of exchange.

Organisations and permanent exchange

All kind of things stream into the organisation: goods, people, money, knowledge. Something happens to these things, resulting in a streaming-out of products and services that guarantees a new influx of energy (money). Every organisation is connected with a large and diverse network, where everything is in constant motion. People go in and out, money flows, streams of information spread in all directions; it is fascinating that the vitality of a system seems to be directly related to this characteristic of permanent exchange. The giant panda is an endangered species, particularly because they must eat up to 40 kilos a day of just one kind of bamboo, which enormously increases their vulnerability. Could organisations that depend completely on one kind of energy exchange, for example government funding, also become highly vulnerable?

1.2.4 The parts of a system are in service of the whole

In the world of living systems there is no good or bad behaviour: everyone and everything seems to be programmed to do what best serves survival. Sometimes this needs egoism, sometimes altruism and, sometimes, even self-sacrifice. These are words that lose their familiar meanings. Somehow, everything contributes and judgements are neither appropriate nor useful here. The rabbit that bites its young to death when under threat, seen from the greater whole, is no less functional than the wildebeest protecting their offspring from lions by creating a ring around them.

Are the parts of an organisation in service of the whole?

When an organisational system comes into being, it goes without saying that the parts are in service of the whole and that this contribution is easy and natural. But, over time, parts – divisions, departments, branches, teams, and functions – gradually become increasingly stuck in ensuring their own survival and begin contributing less and less to the whole. You can see this in staff departments, local branches of big companies, a football club’s 1st team and the like. Sometimes the smaller units, the employees, seem to be focussed entirely on their own survival.

It appears to be a unique feature of human systems that we are in multiple systems at the same time. Naturally enough, this causes tension: should my focus be on the survival of my family, my neighbourhood, my country, my department, my organisation, my sports club, my church or another of ‘my’ systems? So, how humans serve the ‘one’ whole is not so obvious.

1.2.5 The whole is more than the sum of its parts

The word community goes as far back as the Indo-European mei, which means change or exchange. Later on mei was combined with the word kom, which means with. So arose the Indo-European word kommein: exchanged by all.

Peter Senge: The Fifth Discipline - The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization (1990)

The properties of the whole are more than the sum of the properties of the parts. Moreover, parts can change while the whole does not change. A waterfall or river is often used as an example: not one drop flows back, so the parts are constantly changing, being replaced, yet you still recognise the waterfall. Even when the flow reduces or when it is frozen, from a picture you will still be able to recognize that specific waterfall.

An organisation is more than the sum of its parts

Probably this is the most crucial aspect of organisational systems. It is highly unlikely that every person, ever employed in a particular organisation, was at work at the same moment, yet the organisation still has a recognisable culture, atmosphere and appearance. Even when you return to your old school after fifteen years and all the teachers have been replaced, you still recognise it. Parts are being sold, mergers take place, people move in and on, sites, products and services change and still company A keeps its character and personality and will be recognised as company A. If your approach to changing an organisation’s culture is by bringing in new blood (from outside the system), can that ever be successful? Does a system really, fundamentally, change when all its people have been replaced?

1.2.6 The parts display the properties of the whole

This means that the properties of the parts only can be understood in the context of the whole. Although no leaf is the same, every leaf of a beech tree is identifiable as a beech leaf. And although no two beech trees are the same, every tree of this species is identifiable as being a beech.

The parts show the properties of the organisation as a whole