Ochre

offers ways of working with individuals and organisations to enhance relationships, development and change

The Workshop

Places on the workshop are limited and will aim for a balance of people who are at a senior level in different types of organisation.

The workshop is led by Professsor Sebastian Green. D Phil, MA (Social Anthropology), BA (Economics and Political Science) and Colette Green, MIHAP, MICP, MA (Integrative Psychotherapy); H Dip (Psychodynamic Studies). Sebastian’s specialist field of interest is Strategic Management and he is Head of the Department of Management and Marketing at University College Cork. He has had a lifelong interest in the work of Clifford Geertz. Colette has a private, psychotherapy practice in Cork city and runs family systems, experiential workshops based on the work of Bert Hellinger and the theory of object relations. They have both studied the work of Bert Hellinger through the Hellinger Institute of Britain. and at Zist, Germany 2004.

The whole group is involved in the constellation work whether as client or representative or part of the essential holding group within which the work unfolds.

Dates:

Venue:

Fee:

For further information contact

Ochre

presents an Experiential Workshop on

Organisation Culture, Values and Change

“Culture can not be managed by pressing buttons or pulling levers so as to shift it to some desired state. We need to move beyond painting by numbers……”

with Sebastian Green and Colette Green

for people wanting to explore :

  • their organisation’s corporate culture and the difference between the rhetoric and what actually is
  • better ways of leading people and managing relationships
  • why the challenge today is for organisations to create cultures which are fit for human beings rather than human beings who are fit for the organisation culture.

Based on Bert Hellinger’s organisation constellations methodology & the anthropological approach of Clifford Geertz.

Corporate Culture, Relationships and Change

All organisations continually face life-changing events. Sometimes these events are condensed into a short time period such as in the case of merger or privatisation, corporate restructuring, offshoring or business turnaround. At other times they are ‘slow burn’ such as encroaching work/life balance, or problems of morale, succession or staff retention.

All such events or situations throw into sharp relief the organisation’s culture either as a blockage to change or as the target of change. Organisations are generally structured to solve essentially technical/functional problems; as a consequence, there is a tendency to view all difficulties in technical terms. But attempting to solve cultural problems with technical means generally results in failure.

A further issue is that much work on corporate culture starts with an overly simplified and idealized view of what the culture ought to be rather than what it actually is. As a consequence, many attempts by senior managers to change culture so as to enhance morale or promote strategic excellence fall far short of expectations

The solution to both these issues is to develop better ways of understanding what culture really is and the processes underpinning culture change. The work of Bert Hellinger and of Clifford Geertz provide us with a profound way of doing this.

Clifford Geertz

Geertz’s influence on the study of culture by anthropologists is enormous. And his influence on management theorists and consultants is growing. Instead of focusing on culture as what people do, he focuses on what people think, why they think this and the symbols that encapsulate what people see as significant within and across the organisation.

Using Geertz’s approach we can better explore the hidden assumptions and beliefs which support or get in the way of values which capture peoples hearts and minds and drive strategic change. We can see how to overcome resistance to change and how to enhance working relationships and organization commitment.

Bert Hellinger

Hellinger has been heralded as the most significant voice to burst onto the psychotherapeutic landscape in the latter half of the 20th century. We can adapt Hellinger’s method to help reveal what culture is and how it shapes (and is shaped by) behaviour and (openness to) change. Central to Hellinger’s approach is the constellation, a potentially powerful method for enhancing our ability to see below the surface of what is going on in organisations.

Constellations can highlight management or leadership style, people and human resource issues, work/life balance, morale, exercise of power, exclusion and conflict. Constellations can also address corporate or business strategy issues by helping reveal values, beliefs and assumptions about strategic success, about competitors, customers, suppliers and providers of finance and about tangible and intangible resources.