What is Systemic Consulting?

1
What is Systemic Consulting?

• A Post Modern Approach to
• Organisational Development
• Sarah Lewis Jemstone Consultancy

2
Brief Background

• Family therapy - Milan School
• Families as systems
• Psychology - Social Constructionism
• Psychology - Social Constructivism
• Post Modernism
• Organic metaphor for organisations
• Organisations as systems
• Sense-making and meaning making

3
Some Key Systemic Ideas

• We see what we talk about
• Reality is socially constructed
• Its a multi-verse not a universe
• Meaning is context bound
• We live in communication
• Language contains moral order
• Organisations are networks of conversation
• Information lies in difference
• We seek always to make sense and to go on

4
What are the implications of this for
organisations?

• The main task of management is meaning making
  and creating possibilities to go on
• Organisations are networks of conversation in
  which accounts are created
• More than one account can exist, none is the
  truth, all may be true
• Conversation/communication contains moral order
• Affect action through communication

5
The Raw Materials

• Stories lived, stories told, stories not yet
  told
• Voices
• Systemic connections
• System positions
• Context
• Language, talk, communication, conversation

6
The Creation of Change

• Creating, playing with, connecting accounts
• Playing with voices
• Playing with positions
• Explorations of meaning and purpose
• Separation of domains of conversation
• Exploration of systemic connections
• Articulating context

7
Methodology and Stance

• Working with metaphors
• Identifying strange loops and paradox
• Appreciative enquiry
• Coordinated management of meaning
• Domains of conversation
• Curiosity
• Reflexivity
• Systemic

8
Strange Loops and Paradox
We dont have a leader We have a leader We are
a cooperative We are not a cooperative We are
equal We are not equal We need a leader to
survive We dont survive if we have a leader
9
Coordinated Management of Meaning
Cultural System
Coordination How we coordinate with
others Meaning How we make meaning We make
meaning together All speech acts are embedded in
multiple contexts
Organisation
Family Myth
Life script
Relationship
Episode
Speech Act
10
Domains of Conversation
Sensitivity and sensibility Both/and -
coherence Considerations of fit Ethics Elegance,
beauty and form Make judgements Consider
purpose Eloquence
Convergent Structure and order Purpose,
obligation, entitlement Adviser Strategy Modernist
mind set of certainty Acting as if know
exactly what is going on
Aesthetics How does it feel?
Production What shall we do?
Divergent Move around the system Creative
hypotheses Be curious Refrain from
advice Connecting fragments Metaphors
Explanation What does it mean?
11
Appreciative Enquiry
Discover and Value What is
Dreaming (envisioning the future) What might be
Declare (co-construct the future) What will be
Design through Dialogue What should be
12
Reference

• Cooperrider, Sorensen, Yaeger and Whitney (eds)
  (2001) Appreciative Inquiry. Stipes USA
• Hammond (1996) The thin book of appreciative
  inquiry. Kodiak Consulting