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JOCM
26,3 An organisational change
approach based on Gestalt
psychotherapy theory and
458
practice
Received 8 August 2012
Revised 12 November 2012
Marie-Anne Chidiac
24 January 2013 Relational Change, London, UK
Accepted 24 January 2013
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to expand understanding of how Gestalt psychotherapy
theory and practice can support the facilitation of change management efforts in organisations.
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I am grateful for the support I received when I wrote this paper. My thanks go to Professor Paul
Barber, Nicky Burton and Dr Sally Denham-Vaughan who have been a supportive and inspiring
Journal of Organizational Change team of Gestalt OD practitioners and have generously commented on early drafts of this paper.
Management
Vol. 26 No. 3, 2013 In particular, thank you Paul for your challenging me to stay with Gestalt’s counter-cultural
pp. 458-474 nature and not try to make it too respectable; to Nicky for your relentless search for clarity of
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0953-4814
meaning and applicability and last but not least, to Sally whose encouragement and
DOI 10.1108/09534811311328533 co-facilitation of a workshop on this topic has helped flesh out aspects of this emerging model.
Organisational development based on Gestalt psychotherapy theory Change based on
This article stems from my life-based action research as an organisational consultant in Gestalt theory
the field of OD since the 1990s and how encountering Gestalt Psychotherapy theory and
practice has fundamentally modified and shaped my OD practice. Initially schooled in
the notion of organisational change as a process that can be created, planned and
managed, I was soon to discover as a young consultant on a large transformational
project, that total control of a change situation was a myth. Turning to Gestalt theory 459
and practice clearly supported my presence and “use of self” as a practitioner. Yet more
than that, it also offered me a framework from which to view organisational change and
development that is more relational and constructionist than objectivist in orientation.
What is interesting however, is that theoretical OD orientations to which I was
initially introduced to as a young consultant are still very much at the heart of many
OD practices today. These are mostly based on behavioural, positivist and open
systems theories that helped shape the formulation of OD practice in the 1950s and
1960s. This is somewhat intriguing given the emergence in the last decade of new OD
practices which as highlighted by Marshak and Grant (2008), are not necessarily
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Gestalt and OD
Robine (2011) highlights that although early Gestalt Therapy theory contains
numerous references to a modernist mode of thinking, it also introduced new ideas
based on field theory and a notion of self that is fluid and emerges in contact with the
environment. This places Gestalt psychotherapy theory at the heart of what is called
“postmodernism”. The latter is a turn away from the subject, from individualism to a
more intersubjective frame of reference.
In line with social constructionism, meaning is therefore co-created and as stated by
Robine (2011, p. 42) “there is no other reality that that which we construct in
relationship”. This epistemological stance is revolutionary in the world of OD as it
deconstructs the myth of objectivity and places the organisational practitioner at the
heart of the co-construction of meaning as he/she leads change. This can be seen in the
writings of many Gestalt writers such as Nevis (1987), Critchley (1998), Barber (2006,
2012) and Gaffney (2010a,b).
Unlike however some deconstructive aspects of postmodernism, Gestalt
Psychotherapy theory is a phenomenological hermeneutic process. According to
JOCM Madison (1990), the philosophical discipline of phenomenological hermeneutics comes
26,3 “after postmodernism” and is based on the work of phenomenologists namely
Heidegger and Gadamer.
What Gestalt psychotherapy theory offers therefore is not just the refuting of
Cartesian dualism and positivism but a more fundamental epistemological shift in that
meaning is found as we are constructed by the world while at the same time we are
460 constructing this world from our own background and experiences. This is at the heart
of Gestalt’s view of Self and I will therefore first outline how this applies to an
organisation and then provide a summary of the main Gestalt OD principles.
Figure 1.
The organisation as self –
a wave analogy
.
The seawaters below the wave (or id function) are the less visible internal Change based on
dynamics of an organisation. Usually less in awareness and not articulated by Gestalt theory
the organisation.
.
The seabed (or personality function) is the more “sedimented” ways of being of
an organisation which are linked to the prevailing narrative and culture.
The metaphor shows how the shape of the wave, i.e. the resulting behaviour and action 461
of an organisation, emerges as a function of both the dynamics within the
organisation’s internal and external environment and the ingrained narrative and
culture of the business. And so, poor awareness of the organisation’s id function – in
terms of internal dynamics (swirls in the seawaters) as well as external influences
(underwater currents) – will result in a “desensitised” organisation and one that is not
able to adapt to its changing environment.
The CEO of a privatised public sector organisation which was starting to lose its
dominant position in the market encouraged his senior managers to launch a flurry of
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change initiatives. Rather than focus on “sensing” their internal and external position
and take account of their existing resources and capabilities, the resulting action was
disconnected and largely based on their historical narrative: “how things used to be”.
In this case, the seawaters were shallow and the attention mostly on “doing” with the
wave mostly influenced by the shape of the seabed, or the organisation’s sedimented
and ingrained ways of being.
Encyclopedia Britannica is another example of an organisation that suffered from
poor awareness of its id function. It was slow to react and adapt to the changing
environment – only stopping its weighty 32-volume print edition recently to focus on
digital expansion amid rising competition from other websites such as Wikipedia.
After 244 years of publishing its Encyclopedia, it was not easy for the business to shed
the prevailing narrative and often entrenched organisational memory. As
Govindarajan and Trimble (2011, p. 110) highlight, “deeply rooted memory may be
great for preservation, but if it is not tamed sufficiently, it gets in the way of creation”.
Being aware of a changing environment is not always enough for an organisation (and
its leadership) to take action. Attending to emergent needs requires a supportive
environment, a topic that will be explored later on in this article.
Whilst poor attendance to an organisation’s id function reduces adaptive capacity,
an entrenched narrative or culture will also prohibit change to be sustained. On change
projects, this lack of sustainability often means old behaviours return a few months
after the end of the project - once the change team has disbanded and leadership
attention has moved away. Returning to the wave metaphor, it is easy to see how the
contour of the seabed affects the shape of the wave. If the seabed is too fixed and
sedimented, it will be difficult to sustain change in resulting action and behaviour. The
elasticity of an organisation’s culture and dominant narrative is linked to its ability to
learn and experiment with newness.
At Google for example, employees are encouraged to innovate. The Google
“70-20-10” rule directs engineers to spend 70 per cent of their time on core business
tasks and 20 per cent on related projects, but allows them to spend 10 per cent of their
time pursuing their own ideas (Jaruzelski and Dehoff, 2010). This rule has been pivotal
to Google’s success as it has encouraged employees to experiment and develop new
products that might never have seen the light of day.
JOCM Although many authors make the link between a strong organisational culture and
26,3 performance (Denison, 1990; Kotter and Heskett, 1992; Truskie, 1999), Alvesson (2002)
warns of the dangers of objectifying culture by assuming there are key attributes that
can be applied to fix organisational cultures. As depicted by the wave metaphor,
resultant action is a function of both the seabed and the sea-depth. In other words, the
interrelated aspects of self-functioning need to be considered as a whole, and cultural
462 adaptability as well as fit to internal/external pressures and market needs will
determine organisational performance.
The Table I summarises the key differences between a classic and Gestalt OD
approach.
within private sector organisations. The impact of the approach was evaluated through
post-project reflection and dialogue with key members of the client organisation
providing a heuristic evaluative method.
This research has led me to recognise the need for change efforts to foster and grow
the following capabilities within the organisation:
.
Sensing – as the stance or activities that track and stay responsive to the
organisational environment and id functioning.
.
Supporting – as the stance or activities that enable emergent change and a move
to action (ego functioning). In Gestalt, emergent and planned approaches are
viewed as a dialectic rather than a polarity.
.
Sustaining – as the stance or activities that assimilate and embed change.
Attending to the adaptability of the organisation’s personality functioning as a
way of ensuring sustainable change.
JOCM As shown in Figure 2, these three organising abilities rely on a fourth: the
26,3 instrumentality of the OD practitioner or change team as a whole. By this I do not only
mean the knowledge of the change facilitators but their presence in the client system
and how their use of self as instruments of change is an integral part of the change
intervention. Indeed the “use of self” as a consulting instrument differentiates Gestalt
OD theory and practice from other intervention orientations (Stevenson, n.d.). Nevis’s
464 (1987) seminal book Organizational Consulting: A Gestalt Approach, explores in detail
the key skills of an organisational consultant. I shall therefore not expand further on
this aspect of Gestalt OD in this article but highlight the primacy of this skill to a
Gestalt OD practice.
Sensing
Sensing is the ability to read and carefully track the organisation’s current
environment. It is an on-going action enquiry into the organisation’s id function
through the various phases of the change project.
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Figure 2.
Core Gestalt OD
capabilities
financial and process measures) or external measures (e.g. Competitor analyses, Change based on
industry benchmarks, etc). It is important to bring forward what might be relevant to Gestalt theory
the change process at hand. Deciding what data is relevant is part of a co-diagnosis
phase activity that is not to be confused with objective diagnosis in which data are
assumed to reflect or mirror an underlying objective reality. Rather, it is a co-enquiry
which heightens awareness of the multiplicity of realities and provides the ground for
further dialogue and discussion. 465
Gestalt draws extensively on the personal or subjective data which is crucial to
track throughout a change project. At an organisational level, this means setting up
regular “sensing” mechanisms and/or interventions that run in parallel (but
co-ordinated with) other project interventions. These need not be resource intensive
and could for example include tracking the mood of key stakeholders of the change
through regular contact; running “barometer events” which are regular but informal
gatherings that offer glimpses of the “rumour mill” and what people may be concerned
about; or even providing an open space in which informal dialogue about the change
project can be supported.
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Some of these activities are often viewed on large projects as part of the remit of the
“communication stream” and yet, it is precisely the sharing of these activities that binds
large project streams together and allows for the responsiveness needed to inform the
next change intervention. In a Gestalt informed project, there is no separation between
project and change management activities as the emergent nature of this approach
means that responsiveness is a key aspect of how the project is managed.
The CIO of a newly merged pharmaceutical organisation was looking for support to
provide a focal point for IS integration activities, project manage integration teams to
meet business milestones, and manage escalation processes. This initial remit included
little “sensing” type activities as the pressures of tight timescales were such that the
client’s focus was mainly on meeting integration deadlines.
Sensing activities were therefore introduced gradually and in a low-key manner. An
open project room showing the progress of merger activities was set-up and people
were invited to regular lunchtime sessions on various aspects of the merger. Comments
and feedback from these sessions, and informal barometer groups, were gathered and
presented to the leadership team as part of the regular reporting on integration
activities.
What was interesting is, how figural this type of sensing data became in leadership
meetings, and the energy generated during related discussions. As the alignment of
integration activities started to take shape, the figure of the leadership meetings shifted
and more extensive sensing activities were authorised. These included the design and
delivery of a series of less structured interventions (such as roadshows, Q&A sessions
and barometer groups) to help the organisation recognise and voice the feelings of loss
that are part of any merger situation. The feedback from these fed into the design of
new integration activities such as leadership development workshops, and the forming
of an internal network of change agents.
As with most organisations, what is obvious and focused upon is the ego aspect,
what is said and especially what is “done”. This project however showed how
attending to the unnamed dynamics (id function) and culture of the legacy
organisations in the merger (personality function) provided a greater impetus for
change and newness within the IS function.
JOCM Finally, an essential aspect of “sensing” the organisation is attending to the internal
26,3 process of the change team and leadership team. Being part of the field and actively
engaged in the change effort, the team dynamics (at leadership level or within the
change facilitator team – if different) often hold important data mirroring part of the
organisation’s own process. Allowing time to explore and re-visit the team process is
not only a source of data, but allows for a more integrated and thus supportive and
466 holding presence in times of change.
Supportings
The Supporting capability focuses on creating the “right” conditions for emergence
and change. The importance of “Supporting” activities is best understood in light of
Gestalt’s theory of change also known as the paradoxical theory of change (Beisser,
1970). The theory holds that it is only by being wholly and authentically aware of what
“is” and of what is going on, that a person or organisation can change. The theory
states that all attempts at effort, self-control or avoidance to achieve a goal are unlikely
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to bring about change. Change is seen to happen spontaneously and naturally, while
stuckness and loss of movement is seen as the unnatural block. Thus trying to “force
change” is seen as increasing the likelihood of heading off in an unnatural and
in-authentic direction that will eventually, sooner or later, lead to increased tension,
strain and stuckness. We can see this in many examples of top-down change
programmes in organisations which fail to mobilise and engage people as they aim for
disconnected future plans, rather than stay with what is most figural to key
stakeholders. The well-known metaphor of organisational change as a “burning
platform” (Conner, 1993), supposedly lit by leaders to “motivate” followers to jump and
embrace change, stems from that over-emphasis on leadership visioning. Key
stakeholders of change need to connect the proposed change with where they are now
and what this means for them.
However for this “paradoxical” change to emerge, a healthy contact with the
environment is needed. In other words, there needs to be either enough internal support
and/or a low risk environment. Those two elements of support are clearly linked and,
are both a function of the situation. In a change environment for instance, the ability of
people to speak up, have their voices heard and needs met, is linked to how receptive
the organisation is to that behaviour – will they be judged, side-lined or listened to?
Change projects therefore need to attend to aspects of internal and environmental
support. This can be addressed in a multitude of ways such as:
Leaders facilitating emergence whilst maintaining the momentum for change. What I
have consistently witnessed in my organisational work is the correlation between
successful organisational change and the quality of leadership. So, alongside my belief
in an emergent bottom-up approach to change, I hold the importance of the leadership
role to bring about change and maintain momentum. Emergence does not imply a
leaderless organisation – quite the opposite. Effective change relies on leaders who can
facilitate the emergence of new ideas and listen unthreatened to “what is”. Pascale and
Sternin (2005) in their article in the Harvard Business Review, encourage leaders to find
groups of people who are doing things differently and “fan their flames”.
In the initial stages of a change project in a biotech organisation, one of the biggest
challenges to setting up a series of dialogue sessions with employees was to overcome
the anxiety of the newly appointed CEO who feared “moaning sessions” and an
increase in the sense of dissatisfaction. The more fluid agenda and structure of the Change based on
dialogue sessions was anxiety provoking to a leader used to more planned and Gestalt theory
predictable interventions. It was essential to work closely with the CEO and his
leadership team and develop their own capability to support the uncertainty of an
emergent type of change before expecting them to engage with dialogue sessions. Key
to designing and delivering emergent interventions in organisations is the need to
support leaders to overcome the paradigm of the old style top-down leader who is in 467
control of the change process.
Working alongside leaders to manage the change process and surface emergent
organisational needs and direction, is often seen as adopting contradictory approaches
to change. Consultants traditionally sit at either polarity of the planned versus
emergent continuum. Building that bridge is however a key aspect of working as a
holistic gestalt organisational consultant- both strategic and emergent.
Fostering connection and dialogue. Individuals feel supported mostly when they are
in relationship and feel understood and met. Fostering that sense of connection is
therefore an essential aspect of support and motivation in organisational change.
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Today, this is possible through virtual forums as well as face-to-face opportunities for
dialogue. Many large scale interventions such as Open Space (Owen, 2008) and World
Café (Brown and Isaacs, 2005) can facilitate this type of dialogue and connection.
A deeply collaborative and co-created change process. The Gestalt OD practitioner
does not lead but facilitates the change journey. This is similar to the therapist who
does not take responsibility for making change happen in the client, but supports the
client to regain their response-ability. The organisation must therefore not be allowed
to abdicate its responsibility in making change happen – either to its leadership or a
change project team. Adopting a transparent, collaborative and co-created approach
provides both the impetus and support for change. Chan Kim and Mauborgne (2004),
refer to this as tipping-point leadership. The theory of tipping points hinges on the
insight that, when the beliefs and energies of a mass of people create an epidemic
movement towards an idea, fundamental change can happen.
I was asked once to take over the leadership of a change project which had “stalled”.
The client was unhappy with the lack of results shown so far. What struck me upon
meeting the client is how dis-empowered and frustrated people seemed. I spent much of
my initial few days just listening, working phenomenologically and focusing on
building a working alliance where possible. It is only as a held several conversations
with individuals at all levels of the organisation, in which I listened to impressions and
concerns acknowledging them as valid realities, that a slow shift started to occur. I was
able to pull together with the client project lead and his team a co-created plan that we
each had to “sell” to our respective organisations. This was a defining moment for the
project as a whole and which enabled it to go forward. Although this meant a delay in
the project of several months compared to initial projections, it was the pace with
which the organisation was comfortable and was unanimously approved by the board.
Although many consultants talk of “client buy-in” and “partnering” as did my own
organisation at the time, very few really understood how to engage the clients
effectively in a co-created way forward. Gestalt psychotherapy theory provided me
with a way of doing this, a method for working phenomenologically and dialogically
with key client figures, sharing my observations and supporting them to regain a sense
of ownership for the change taking place in their organisation.
JOCM Balancing risk and support in every intervention. It is important to maintain a
26,3 holistic focus in designing change interventions. By this I mean, attending to all the
cognitive, political, emotional, spiritual/values base dimensions affecting change
stakeholders. Key questions to consider would be:
.
What is the political layout? What are the leadership behaviours?
.
What is the emotional aspect of the change? (Loss, fear of redundancy, etc).
468 .
How is the change understood, or made meaning of, by the various stakeholders?
. Are there predominant character styles, moderations to contact or values that
need to be taken into account?
.
What is the language of change? How is the change communicated and how is it
received?
Sustaining
Organizational change is defined as a difference in form, quality, or state over time in an
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The action research process which is at the heart of OD can be glimpsed in these eight
phases and also in the five phases which I propose in Figure 3 as being more congenial
to a Gestalt perspective of organisational change. These can also be linked to the
Change based on
Gestalt theory
471
Figure 3.
The iterative action
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research cycle
Conclusion
This article has provided an overview of a Gestalt informed approach to organisational
development and change. As well as highlighting the importance of the practitioner’s
own presence and use of self, three interrelated capabilities – Sensing, Supporting and
Sustaining were identified. These emphasise the need to track and stay responsive to
the organisational environment; to ensure the right amount of support and challenge is
present in the change effort and finally, to provide a focus on experimentation and the
embedding of learning for sustainable change.
This study not only strengthens the case for emergent approaches to be used in
organisational change but also has two key implications for scholars and practitioners.
JOCM
26,3
472
Figure 4.
A Gestalt informed OD
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cycle
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Therapy Now, Colophon, New York, NY.
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Matter, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA.
Chan Kim, W. and Mauborgne, R. (2004), “Tipped for the top: tipping point leadership”, INSEAD Change based on
Quarterly, Vol. IQ8, pp. 3-7.
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for OD and HR, Kogan Page, London.
Chidiac, M-A. and Denham-Vaughan, S. (2009), “An organisational self: applying the concept of
self to groups and organisations”, British Gestalt Journal, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 42-49.
Conner, D.R. (1993), Managing at the Speed of Change, Random House, London. 473
Critchley, B. (1998), “A Gestalt approach to organisational consulting”, in Neumann, J.E. et al.
(Eds), Developing Organisational Consultancy, Routledge, London.
Denison, D. (1990), Corporate Culture and Organizational Effectiveness, John Wiley & Sons, New
York, NY.
Freedman, A.M. (2006), “Action research: origins and applications for ODC practitioners”,
in Jones, B. and Brazzel, M. (Eds), The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and
Change, Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA.
Gaffney, S. (2010a), in Maclean, A. (Ed.), Gestalt at Work: Integrating Life, Theory & Practice –
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Further reading
Chidiac, M-A. and Denham-Vaughan, S. (2007), “The process of presence: energetic availability
and fluid responsiveness”, British Gestalt Journal, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 9-19.
Dr Marie-Anne Chidiac, B.Eng, MBA, MSc (Gestalt Psychotherapy), DPsych, UKCP registered
psychotherapist, EAGT-GPO, is an organisational consultant, psychotherapist, coach, trainer
and supervisor. She has a background in consulting, having worked with board level executives
and led major change management programmes both in the UK and Europe. In addition to her
clinical work in private practice, she currently works within both public and private sector
organisations to facilitate change and coach leaders and teams. She is co-founder of Relational
Change, an organisation that works to develop relational skills in individuals, teams,
organisations and communities. She holds a D.Psych in Public Works with a focus on the
synthesis of Gestalt psychotherapy and organisational development. Dr Marie-Anne Chidiac can
be contacted at: mac@relationalchange.org
1. Clark Michael Personal Social Services Research Unit, London School of Economics and Political Science,
London, UK Denham-Vaughan Sally Independent Consultant and Co-Founder of Relational Change,
London, UK Chidiac Marie-Anne Independent Consultant and Co-Founder of Relational Change,
London, UK . 2014. A relational perspective on public sector leadership and management. International
Journal of Leadership in Public Services 10:1, 4-16. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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