From:
2005
Organizational Constellations Information Sheet
Organisational
Constellations
If you work in an organisation, you know there is the
official organisation chart and then there’s the way things really get done.
Systemic Constellations reveal the underlying relationships in organisations
that are often outside of the group’s conscious awareness. Systemic
Constellations offer a simple quick diagnosis of complex situations, creating a
framework of possibilities within which to work. Systemic constellation work
has proven a highly effective process in over 33 countries worldwide.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SYSTEMIC CONSTELLATIONS?
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY A SYSTEM?
In systems, the behaviour of the whole is different
than the sum of the parts. For example, what a carburettor can do alone and
what it allows a car to do are quite different things.
Scientists speak of this characteristic of systems as
“emergent” properties: something new emerges when the parts function in
a system.
Human systems are no different. Each human system, be
it a family, a business or a community, has an emergent property that we call
an information field. This information field carries the pattern
that describes how the system “really” operates. All of us have a “gut
sense” of how things really work in the systems we inhabit, despite what a
formal organisation chart or our parents may tell us. This “gut sense” is
how we can tune in to the information field that is present in each system.
Even if we have never been told, we know if someone is
missing in our system or has been mistreated. Systemic constellations allow us
to tap into this information field and to see the whole system at once so
that the conflicts and issues immediately become clear. Few other methods
provide such a rapid, clear and complete description of how a system is
actually working.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The process is very simple yet very engaging. The
facilitator instructs the person who is having a constellation done to choose a
representative for each important member of the system—one’s immediate family,
one’s family of origin, or members of one’s work community. When the client uses
her felt sense of spatial relationship to place the representatives in
relationship to one another, the results accurately reflect how the client
unconsciously perceives the system. We have an exquisite sense of the spatial
nature of our relationships to one another as reflected in language such as
“I’m very close to my sister” or “My supervisor and I don’t see eye to eye.”
The client then sits down and observes as the
constellation progresses. The facilitator assists the representatives in
reporting what they are experiencing, and --following the cues provided by their
responses--moves the representatives to find the best arrangement for them.
Though the representatives usually know nothing at all about the people they
represent, they begin to experience body sensations and emotions that belong to
the system they are representing, or sometimes a clear and persistent thought
occurs to them. A representative may report, for example, an ache in her side,
a strong feeling of love, or the idea that “things need to be in alignment.”
Using the information from the system itself, the facilitator guides the
emergence of a resolution for the system. With training, this method can also
be used in a one-to-one setting or as an interview tool.
AN EXAMPLE:
One of the underlying principles of systemic work is that everyone has a right
place for the best functioning of the team. During a recent constellation
for a training institute, the representatives for a supervisor of a special
program and for the manager of the department reported competitive feelings
toward one another. Both indicated that it felt like sibling rivalry. The
tension between these two people within the department now made sense and was
resolved by restructuring the reporting rocedures.
HOW I CAN USE SYSTEMIC CONSTELLATION WORK?