About Systemic Coaching
The name “Systemic Coaching” is the latest denomination of a set of management tools that have evolved along the last 40 years, and specially in the last 12. As a
new, non-consolidated discipline, it is called by various different denominations, such as Systemic Consultancy.
Systemic Coaching was born as a result of the application of the knowledge on systemic laws and human sub-conscious behaviour patterns, coming from the psychotherapy world, to the business
context.
In its spirit, Systemic Coaching uses these tools in order to diagnose and solve business problems, as well as to provide for planning and strategy assessment.
Systemic Coaching uses several tools, the most famous of which is Organisational Constellations.
Applications
The access to the hidden tacit knowledge existing in any organisation, and any manager's mind, allows Systemic Coaching to provide for solutions and estrategic guidance in a wide spectrum of
areas, such as:
Strategic issues
- Serious conflicts between departments or organisations
- Making strategic decissions
- Definition and revision of business strategies
- Mergers / Expansion
- Outsourcing
- Communication issues
- Cultural Change
- Mid/Long term projection
- Organisational transformation
- Adaptation to the Global Crisis situation
- ...
HHRR
- Serious conflicts between people or departments
- Personnel related decisions
- Head hunting, recruitment, and keeping Human Resources
- Stress and work environment
- Motivation and Leadership
- Communication
- Competences and capacities
- Staff reductions, lay offs
- Impact of company mergers
- Trans-cultural issues
- ...
MKTG and SALES
- Setting the price schema
- Selecting Mktg strategies
- Customer management
- Finding what your customers want
- Relating with partners
- Identity/Image
- Sailing along turbulent markets
- ...
OTHERS
- Finance management
- Investment selection
- Maximising operational profitability
- Managing providers
- Project-level related issues
- ....
Brief history
- In the 60’ and 70’ there is a shifting from the analytic thinking to the systemic one, mainly at the psychology world, thanks to psychotherapists such as Gregory Bateson
- In the 70’ and 80’ systemic thinking starts to be introduced at organisations. Here, the contribution of the MIT (Massachussetts Institute of Technology) is significant.
- In the 80’, the English biologist Ruppert Sheldrake develops his Theory of the Morphogenetic Fields, which later on is used to explain the internal functioning of some aspects of Systemic
Consultancy.
- In the 90', Bert Hellinger (famous German psychotherapist) gives the first shape to the tool of Organisational Constellations, as an adaptation of his existing Family Constellations Therapy.
- In the last 12 years, Organisational Constellations start to be introduced at public and private organisations, leaded by Gunthard Weber. Other researchers, such as Jan Jacob Stam, Matthias Varga
von Kibéd, and Oscar Rodriguez help the continuous development and awareness of this field.
- In any case, Systemic Consultancy and its tools still remain an elitist discipline. It is mostly yet unknown in most European Countries, except Germany, the source country, where some awareness
on Systemic Coaching is starting to been achieved.
Main Bibliography
- Ser Jefe: una guía práctica, desde la sistémica. Oscar Rodriguez (2010). Ed. Bubok. ISBN 978-84-9916-697-1
- Fields of connection: Systemic insights into work and organisations. Jan Jacob Stam (2007). Ed. Carl Auer Intl.
ISBN 978-90-77290-08-8
- Systemic Coaching: a Target-Oriented Approach to Consulting. Nino Tomaschek. ISBN 978-3-89670-545-7
- Invisible Dynamics: Systemic Constellations in Organisations and Business. Horn, Klaus P & Buck, Regine
(2005). Carl Auer (translated by Colleen Beaumont). ISBN 978-3-89670-491-7
- Systemic Consultancy in Organisations. Konigswieser, Roswita & Hillebrand, Martin (2005)
Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlage: Heidelberg. ISBN 978-3-89670-499-3
- Groups, experimental learning and action research. Kurt Lewin.
- A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (1981). Rupert Sheldrake
- The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988). Rupert Sheldrake
- The Evolutionary Mind (1998). Rupert Sheldrake
- Seven Experiments that Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (1994) (Winner of the Book of the
Year Award from the British Institute for Social Inventions). Rupert Sheldrake
- Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals (1999) (Winner of the Book of the Year
Award from the British Scientific and Medical Network). Rupert Sheldrake
- The Sense of Being Stared At, and Other Aspects of the Extended Mind (2003). Rupert Sheldrake
- The fifth discipline. Peter Senge
- The Organisation of Self-Organisation. Foundations of Systemic Management. Fritz B. Simon. ISBN
978-3-89670-447-4
- Praxis der Organisationsaufstellungen: Grundlagen,
Prinzipien, Anwendungsbereiche. Gunthard Weber (Hrsg.).
- Seeing Systems: Berrett-Koehler. Oshry, Barry (1995)
- Das unsichtbare Netz. Erfolg im Beruf durch systemisches Wissen. Matthias Varga von Kibed
Complementary Bibliography
SYSTEMS THEORY
- Bertalanffy, L., (1950) The Theory of Open Systems in Physics & Biology, Science, 3: 23-29
- Bohm, David (1992) Thought as a System, London: Routledge
- Emery, Fred (1981) Open Systems Thinking, Harmondsworth: Penguin
- Gladwell, Malcolm (2000) The Tipping Point, London: Little, Brown & Co
- Midgley, Gerald (2000) Systemic Intervention, London: Kluwer Academic/Plenum
- Oshry, Barry (1995) Seeing Systems, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler
- Senge, Peter (1993) The Fifth Discipline, London: Century Business
FIELD THEORY
- Doerhman, Margery (1976) Parallel Process in Supervision & Psychotherapy Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 40:1
- Lewin, Kurt (1997) Resolving Social Conflicts & Field Theory & Social Science Washington: American Psychological Association
- McTaggart, Lynne (2001) The Field London: HarperCollins
- Parlett, Malcolm (1991) Reflections on Field Theory, British Gestalt Journal, 1: 69-81
- Parlett, Malcolm (1997) The Unified Field in Practice, Gestalt Review, 1:1, 16-33
- Roberts, Arthur (1999) The Field Talks Back, British Gestalt Journal, 8:1, 35-46
- Watts, Duncan J (1999) Small Worlds, Princeton: Princeton University Press
- Wheeler, Gordon (2000) Beyond Individualism, Cambridge MA: GIC Press
NATURAL ORGANISING STRUCTURES/ORDERS
- Beck, Don & Cowan, Chris (1996) Spiral Dynamics, Oxford: Blackwell
- Bohm, David (1995) Wholeness & the Implicate Order London: Routledge
- Fritz, Robert (1996) Corporate Tides San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler
EMBODIED KNOWING
- Abram, David (1997) The Sensuous World. London: Vintage
- Agor, Weston (1989) Intuition in Organisations. London: Sage
- Cappon, Daniel (1989) Intuition. Toronto:Bedford House
- Harman, Willis (1988) Intuition as the code word for global transformation. Geneva:19.02.88 Institute of Noetic Sciences Conference
- Parikh, Jagdish (1994) Intuition. Oxford: Blackwell
- Kelemann, Stanley (1981) Your Body Speaks Its Mind. Berkeley Center Press
- Nuernberger, Phil (1992) Increasing Executive Productivity. New Jersey: Prentice Hall
- Spinelli, Ernesto (2001) Embodied Theories. London: Continuum
NEW SCIENCES
- Bohm, David (1995) Wholeness & the Implicate. Order, London: Routledge
- Capra, Fritjof (1983) The Turning Point. London: Harper Collins
- Laszlo, Ervin (1996)The Whispering Pond. Shaftesbury: Element
- Prigogine, I. & Stengers, I., (1984) Order Out Of Chaos - Man's New Dialogue With Nature, New York: Bantam
- Sheldrake, Rupert. The Presence of the Past, London: Fontana
GENERAL ORGANIZATIONAL
- Conklin, Jeffrey & Weil, William (1997) Wicked Problems 3M website
- De Geus, Arie (1997) The Living Company, Cambridge MA: Harvard Business School Press
- Krantz, J. & Gilmore, T., (1991) Understanding the dynamic between consulting teams and client systems, in Kets de Vries (ed) Organisations on the Couch, Oxford: Jossey-Bass Nevis, C.,
(1987), Organisational Consulting: A Gestalt Approach Cambridge MA: GIC Press
- Nevis, Ed (1996) Intentional Revolutions San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
- Rubenstein, M. & Firstenberg, I., (1999), The Minding Organisation New York: John Wiley
- Stacey, Ralph (1992) Managing the Unknowable San Francisco: Jossey Bass
- Stacey, Ralph (1996) Complexity & Creativity in Organisations San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler
- Trist, E., (1979) New Directions of Hope: Recent Innovations Interconnecting Organisational, Industrial, Community & Personal Development, Regional Studies, 13:439-451
- Wheatley, Margaret Leadership & the New Science, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler
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