How can our business access the benefits of business constellations?

There are three principle ways of working with business constellations and experiencing the insights and clarity that they can offer.

1. Open workshops. Business leaders from different industries gather in a confidential environment to illuminate pressing issues. Within the workshop each gets a opportunity to explore, in some depth, their business issue. It is common for powerful insights about business, leadership and organisational health to emerge when working on your own business issue but also whilst supporting or observing the work of others. The open workshops also provide an opportunity to hear about the underlying principles of organisational health and experience a range of systemic perspectives as well as the opportunity to experience practices that you can take back into your business.

2. Private workshops. For businesses who have a number of significant organisational, leadership or other systemic issues to explore and/or who prefer to do the work in complete privacy for commercial reasons. Available in half and full day workshop modules.

3. One to one coaching. Constellations are also very effective in one to one settings where organisational, leadership or other systemic issues can be explored with a senior executive and a systemically trained coach using table top or floor based applications of constellations.

How do systemic issues arise?

Human systems are governed by forces that ensure their effectiveness and vitality. When they are disturbed, or ignored, business and the business of leadership can become unwittingly entangled in the self-righting dynamics and the natural order and flow of leadership and organisational health is disrupted.

It is the attempts to ignore or side step these underlying balancing principles which causes imbalances and entanglements in the system. Once out of sorts the system tries to right itself and calls individuals or groups of people into service of the need to correct and find balance again.

A constellation can surface these dynamics and reveal new paths to enduring resolution, bringing resolution to the whole system.

What informs this way of working?

Constellations are underpinned by simple truths that have been found to balance successful human systems. Key amongst them is that everyone and everything has a ‘right place’ in their organisational system. The purpose, the roles and all the people. A place where they belong. Each different but equally valued. When we experience being in that ‘right place’ we feel ready to bring our best selves to our role and can then function with clarity and purpose, in flow.

All human systems hang like a child's mobile, in delicate balance. The winds of change can easily disturb one part, which in turn influences and affects every other part. The constellation of relationships changes and causes an imbalance. The sense of being in the ‘right place’ is lost.

The unspoken awareness in the system demands balance and redress. The system calls people - individuals in family systems, leaders and teams in business systems, into the service of the need to redress the balance. This creates numerous cultural, communication, leadership and motivation issues. 

It’s the job of a constellation to identify - and then point towards a resolution - these complex issues, bringing renewed clarity and fresh resources to all in the system.  So that all can find their place.

Where does this approach to resolution come from and what underpins it?

The approach was originated in Europe by systemic specialist and philosopher Bert Hellinger and applied to family and other intimate systems. It has now been experienced by many thousands of people in Europe and across the world.

Hidden loyalties, identifications and entanglements have been revealed in minutes, building a reputation around this approach as something that can very quickly get to the underlying dynamics and free up a system, releasing fresh energy for enduring change. The principle of acknowledgment runs through this work and supports people to really look at ‘what is’ before trying to move to resolution.

Life within an organisation - with founder dynamics, matrix reporting, multiple hidden loyalties and the need for constant change - can often be  more complex than a family system. Investors, staff, shareholders, former employees, suppliers and customers make business systems more complex as the interaction with many other systems on a daily basis creates a constant need for re-balance.

What happens in a workshop?

This way of looking at business and organisational issues takes place in a group setting. The workshops are small and there is explanation, demonstration and time for questions before the work starts and throughout the day.

The group sit in a circle and, under the guidance of the facilitator, use the space in the centre to set up each constellation. To begin each piece of work the person who is bringing an issue briefly describes, to the facilitator, the difficulty or challenge the business, leadership team or organisation is facing. [This can be done privately before hand if required.] The facilitator then assists them in the selection of group members to represent the elements of the system being explored. This concept of representation of somebody or something else is central to this way or working and is explained and experienced in opening exercises and throughout the day.

The issue holder guides each representative to stand in relationship to one another in a way that resonates with their deepest inner sense of the relationship dynamics. As a result a pattern is created, an external picture of an inner, often unconscious, image. This is the start of a constellation and, even at this early stage, often reveals fresh insights about the organisational system being explored. The form of the rest of the constellation depends on the issue, the representatives’ feedback, the facilitator’s observations and the kind of solution available.

During the constellation the facilitator gathers information and insights from the representatives - they will experience distinct and precise sensations. As the dynamics gradually become clearer, the facilitator works with the representatives to bring reconnection and resolution to the whole system. The process of a constellation - lasting from a few minutes to over an hour - and the new image of resolution provides the issue holder with new information for action and change. Combined with the post-constellation discussion and processing the issue holder leaves with insights,  fresh energy and resources for resolution.

As an observer you may be invited to take part in other people’s constellations as a representative. It’s very common that someone else’s work will resonate and that through their constellation you will clarify a business or leadership issue of your own.

What about confidentiality?

At the start of the workshop the facilitator will discuss and agree an appropriate confidentiality framework with the whole group. In addition it is possible to constellate issues ‘blind’, where almost no information is shared in the group and the facilitator works with only the basic information and towards a resolution.