CBODN: About - Interview

Interview with the June 2008 Program Presenter:

Harrison Snow

How did you get interested in the topic?

It was one of those things where a flyer shows up from no where and you get the hit that "yes, go." The flyer was about the first workshop that Bert Hellinger held in USA on family constellation work. His work is very well known in Europe but not here. This was about 6 years ago.

It pretty much knocked my proverbial socks off, which, is not that easy given the range of things I done with personal growth over the last 30 years. I did have the thought right away that this stuff would be amazing if we did in organizations, but how would you pull it off? Then at the last Hellinger workshop I went to 2006 I found a book describing how you could do constellation work in an organization. Two weeks later I was on a plane to Holland to attend an international conference on organizational constellations. It was an amazing conference and it convinced me this process is going be a major OD tool in the US sometime in the not too distant future.

What links do you see between topic & OD?

There are many. The most basic is that the information we need about a system, in the form of insights or new understanding, is there when we set it up in a constellation. We are making non-physical information physical. We don't know exactly how it works or why but it does so we use it.

Why should someone attend your workshop?

One aspect of our work in OD is exploring the hidden dynamics of a system and to use what surfaces to help bring it into balance. Organizations are systems. When they are out of balance the stress levels go up and the performance goes down. Often a big part of the imbalance is structural.

It does not matter who is in charge, if the economy is tanking and sales are way down, morale is going to be down as well. But there is a lot of power in acknowledging what is, facing facts and taking responsibility for your part and accepting what cannot be changed. When that happens, the possibilities for what can be changed or shifted start to emerge.

How do you use or approach topic with clients?

Mostly it is the iceberg model of what is below the waterline takes up the most space and holds the biggest potential for movement. So now my assessments are more multi-dimensional. I may say or do things or more important invite the client group to say or do things that generate a positive shift. But there is no need to discuss the constellation theory behind the words. If the words resonate deeply enough that is enough of an explanation.

Please share an example of the impact of topic on you or a client.

At the last OC workshop I led there was a member of a nonprofit board.

The board was considering a new strategy; should they try to grow and shift their focus in that process of growth or stick to what they had been doing? There were significant risks and rewards with either strategy. The issue holder (the member of the board) chose representatives for the key players that were a part of this system; i.e., the board, clients, stakeholders and donors. The representative were positioned at various angles to each other by the issue holder in ways that felt to him how they related to each other in real life. One of the key points that emerged from the interaction of the representatives was the importance of keeping the donors involved and connected if the new growth strategy was going to succeed. The issue holder reported he looked forward sharing the insights he gained from the process with the board and seeing the impact those insights would have on the decision making process. Other examples would be related to gaining insights around career decisions, learning from negative feedback as a leader or resolving conflict between management and staff in an organization.

What advice would you give to other OD practitioners on incorporating topic into their work?

Check OC out on the internet or at a conference. You will be hearing and seeing more about it in the next couple of years.

What books, articles, or practices would you recommend to someone who wants to learn more about topic?

There are not a lot of books on the topic yet. You can find a couple written by Europeans (mainly German and Dutch) that are available in English.

Take a look at, Invisible Dyamics, by Klasu Horn and Regine Brick, or, Systemic Consultancy in Organizations, by Roswita Konigswieser and Martin Hillebrand.

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