The Bay Area SoL Community (BASoL) is made up of a diverse group of practitioners, consultants and researchers dedicated to improving our knowledge and effectiveness in practicing organizational and societal learning.

Our next meeting

Title: Experiencing Systemic Group Dynamics

Working with Organizational Constellations to find surprising resolutions to challenging group dynamics

Presenter: Volker Frank

Date: July 24, 2009 10am-3pm

Changing organizational behavior and group dynamics is difficult and serious business - whether you are a business owner, manager, consultant or team player. Even when there is overwhelming agreement about the challenges, there are often as many explanations and suggestions for solution as voices around the proverbial table. We have access to great systemic models and theories that describe behavioral patterns, and yet in practice they often don't help us identify the actions with the most leverage. They are useful when we are looking into the rear view mirror to learn and appreciate what finally made the difference.

In this session, we will explore how the felt sense of stepping into our "appropriate place" within an organization can guide us to resolutions of stubbornly persistent group dynamics and challenges. We will use the organizational challenges and real life situations that participants bring to the circle to surface underlying group dynamics in a non-judgmental and respectful way. Together we will explore how Organizational Constellations allow us to step into the informational field of social systems as representatives and use our experience to provide surprising information about hidden contracts and silent agreements that perpetuate conflict, procrastination, indecision, politicking, sabotage,… At the end of a Constellation, we will experience what the system feels like when the agreements are resolved, everybody stands in their appropriate place and becomes present to each other.

In this session you will

• Experience the informational field of organizations in your own body
• Step into new ways to let yourself be guided by your experience when resolving difficulties
• Create new reference experiences for ways to "read a system
• Let yourself be inspired by the expanded sense of connectedness that the Organizational Constellation approach offers
• Discover the good intentions that are at the root of difficulties
• Learn about the underlying dynamics that create "stuckness" in organization

Bio:

Volker Frank works with small and medium size businesses that face difficulties reaching their goals, managing organizational change, and resolving leadership issues. He supports his clients to increase their effectiveness and ability to learn and adapt quickly to internal changes and external demands. As a former software consultant he focused on how people work, which shaped a conviction that working with social dynamics is key to increasing organizational effectiveness. Today he offers leadership coaching and works with teams and organizations to develop new ways of collaborating, planning and innovating. He is inspired by self-organizing and emergent solutions that bring out the best in people at all levels of the organization.

Website: www.VolkerFrank.com

Our meetings are open to all, and are held at Saybrook Graduate School (www.saybrook.edu). 747 Front Street in San Francisco - a short walk from the Embarcadero Bart station and the Ferry Building.  Saybrook is wheelchair accessible. 

A $20 donation for meeting attendance is requested from those who are not dues paying members of SoL/BASoL.

Stewards Circle:

Elizabeth Doty, Alain Gauthier, Bernice Moore, Ken Homer, Nancy Southern, Sally Stewart, Russ Volckman, Jim Martin,  

Contact Elizabeth to join the mailing list.

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