Holding
and Containing
We have recently had interesting
and rewarding conversations with some of our clients
about the part that structure and role plays in organisations.
We find time and again that if there isn’t clarity
around these, people can feel unsupported,
unclear and anxious - which gets in the way of their
effectiveness. Organisational structures and clear
roles perform an important function in ‘holding
and containing’ anxieties that organisational
members will encounter in their work.
Some of our consulting
team have clinical backgrounds – working
as counsellors, family therapists, psychotherapists
before making the move into Organisation Consulting – and
bring some of the thinking from those disciplines into
our work with organisational clients.
The idea
of holding and containment is one with a strong heritage
in psychoanalytic thinking. DW Winnicott
and Wilfred Bion talk about how our need for structure
and role clarity is but an adult expression of a much
earlier need for containment provided by the mother
for her child.
When we work with clients, we aren’t
delving into individual childhoods to explain their
behaviours at work. However, the principles of psychodynamic
theory help us understand that our role as consultants
is partly to “hold and contain” for our
clients – creating
that containing space in which our clients can think
with us about the issues and concerns facing them in
their work. We can then, together, work towards insight
into their situation. Would you like to find out more
about our work in this area?
Click
here to read a
recent
case study »
Developing a clear understanding at
a leadership level about the role of anxiety in organisations
- and especially the positive role that holding and
containment can have on that anxiety – can help
leaders impact on the way people feel about work. Thinking
about organisational work in this way frees leaders
to see that they are not personally responsible for
everything that is happening in the workforce. In all
groups there are things going on at a level that cannot
be rationally understood, or easily measured. However,
the anxieties that arise from these forces can be contained. It’s
another skill for the leader to acquire in the complex
task of leading organisations and one that we, at Consultancy
Works, are very interested in helping them develop. |
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Our Team Grows
We
are
thrilled
to
welcome
Peter
Hyson
and
Erica
Packington
into
the
organisation
as
staff
consultants.
Peter Hyson
Peter
is an experienced OD practitioner with over
15 years experience working with leadership
and organisational change.
Erica Packington
Erica is a specialist in virtual and distance working. She is working with
us at the same time as undertaking her Masters in Organisational Consulting
at Ashridge |
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New
Business Year, New Big Project
We have recently
won a major public-sector project ….
final details are still being discussed
with the client, so more details next time! |
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What
we’re watching
We
recently bought a copy of “Can
Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS?” on
DVD from the Open University.
Rotherham General
Hospital lets Gerry Robinson and a BBC camera
crew loose, showing us a fascinating example
of consulting in action. The programme shows
just how complex bringing about change really
is – and how effective good leadership
can be. |
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Process
consulting to change leaders
The best consultants have mentors
and consultants of their own to help them make
sense of the complex issues their work brings up.
Work of this sort has generally been the preserve
of consultants and psychoanalysts, but it is clear
to us that leaders and managers can benefit greatly
from similar opportunities. Increasingly,
leaders have to influence across complex stakeholder
groups and the better they understand the way in
which they interact with these groups, the more
effective they are likely to be.
In September
2007 we brought together a group of senior leaders
involved in organisational transformation to form
a Consultation Group. The six session
series was run over six months. The intention was
to provide a reflective space for participants
to develop their thinking about the way in which
they worked in groups, based on well-established
psychoanalytic and organisation development frameworks.
The role of the two facilitators – Jane Linklater
and Angela Rosenfeld – was to help the group
see and examine the dynamics and unconscious processes
of the consultation group itself.
The powerful
advantage of this approach is that members learn,
in a ‘safe’ space, more
about their personal influence on the dynamics
of the groups with whom they work, allowing them
to bring that awareness of themselves into many
different situations.
Working in a Consultation
Group shares similarities to working within an
Action Learning set. Both use the dynamic of “many
to many” knowledge
and interaction to create a powerful learning environment.
The difference between action learning and our
approach is that we actively look at what is going
on in the here and now of the group - including
what is going on between members. The benefits
of working with an active awareness of group dynamics
is that group members each have the chance to work
on their own underlying patterns and behaviours
that might be influencing their experience in the
group situations they face back at work.
Interested in finding out
more? Call Jane on 0114 2585718, or Click
here to read an example » |
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