Work and Business Constellations are for business people and professionals who suspect that their work-related stress or difficulty with decision-making have complicated origins and cannot be fully resolved with greater effort or more information. If you feel that hidden dynamics may be preventing you from being your best at work, then work and business constellations are a great way to gain insights that lead to real resolutions.
Some common scenarios that may be resolved with work and business constellations:
- Not meeting your goals. You are working hard but getting nowhere. You struggle repeatedly with challenges that appear to be out of your control.
- Difficult relationships. Specific dynamics with your boss or a subordinate, miscommunication, or lack of clarity with business partners.
- Difficult high-level decisions like partnering with other organizations, risky investments, merging, hiring for key positions.
- Personal career issues such as feeling drained and stressed, being continually overlooked for promotions, or a repeating pattern of setbacks just when success seems imminent.
Some constellation results:
- A professional career transition. A mid-level manager was wondering if her next step would be finding a better job or starting her own business. Leaving the safety of her current job felt frightening, and every option she explored was making her anxious. However, she was so bored with her current job that remaining there felt like death. Constellations helped her find clarity and a grounded strength in moving forward on her newly chosen path where she created work that mattered to her.
- A small business owner was struggling to keep his business going. In the constellation he recognized how his business was an attempt to make life better for his ancestors in Europe, who had struggled to survive. He was able to directly express his love and connection to them and keep that movement separate from his business. Now the business can serve his clients today, which he can do extremely well.
- Family business. A father had worked very hard to build a family business and wanted very much for his two daughters to build on his success and take over the business. However, neither of his daughters was very happy at this work, and the situation created a lot of stress in the family. In the constellation, he learned that his older daughter would rather pursue a different career, while his younger daughter kept making mistakes in order to not compete with her older sister. When he could revise his expectations and allow his older daughter to follow her dreams, the younger daughter could step up her efforts and shine. The family business grew stronger and flourished.
- A Professional in middle management was caught in an impossible situation where he needed to reconcile what his boss demanded of him and what it took for his team to work well with other departments. In the constellation, he learned that only his boss had authority to make the higher level trade-off decision, and he recognized what he needed to acknowledge to his team. He was able to apply this awareness as he was working through the challenges with the others at work, and he began to enjoy his job again.
- An Executive leader of a nonprofit organization was struggling to create alignment in her management team, and conflict had created a dangerous financial situation. In the constellation she observed her bias about certain services and functions seeming more critical than others and the consequences her bias had for the people they served and for their donors. When she included the larger context of the organization’s mission, the members of her team could relax and re-focus their efforts. The organization moved through the financial crisis and clarified the services that have priority.
What you will learn:
- Gain a direct sense of what it feels like when you are at the effect of the group dynamic and social field. Experience how you can adjust your inner stance, access inner clarity and strength, and bring your full personal power to your work.
- Understand your hidden loyalties and how they are not serving your goals and dreams. Learn how to include the loyalties in constructive ways and move towards your dreams at the same time.
- Gain insight into challenging relationships and how to clear things up. In constellations we often learn what is really important to us and the other person.
- Know your best options for difficult decisions. Recognize which choice feels most grounded, alive, and motivating to move towards.
- Identify and shift the underlying structure of persistent patterns. Learn whether your challenges are related to your current work situation or are an expression of a family loyalty that you are likely to recreate no matter where you work.
What happens:
We meet as a group with 15 – 20 participants. Each participant who would like to be the focus person for a constellation briefly describes their situation in a sentence or two. This provides a sense for the facilitator of which constellations will serve the experience of the group best for the evening.
We usually set up two or three constellations in an evening where participants support each other by volunteering as representatives in each other’s constellations. The learning for all participants is supported by witnessing the dynamics and resolutions in other people’s constellations in the way it translates to their world.
Being a representative is a transformational experience that opens us up to the surprising connections we have to others. Even just being there as a witness can provide insights and transformational shifts. And, of course, being in the focus seat gives us direct experiential access to the specific situation that is challenging.
About the Facilitator
Volker Frank facilitates our Work and Business Constellations evenings. Volker has over ten years of experience with constellations, having trained as a facilitator in the Bay Area and and in Europe. Volker combines his wide-ranging business experience as a high tech consultant with a deep understanding of social systems and NLP Marin’s unique flavor of understanding of what it means to be human. Volker travels around the country and internationally to facilitate workshops and to train others in organizational constellations. He also is co-founder of the coaching and management consulting company Emergent Horizon, where he helps small and medium-sized businesses to be successful.
Logistics
The constellation evenings are held at the Best Western Novato Oaks Inn on Freeway 101 in Marin County, California. The hotel is approximately 20 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge (click for directions).
These evenings are from 7 – 10 PM on designated Saturdays. The cost is $45 per person, whether you are having your constellation done, or not. Please pay at the door, we accept checks or cash, no credit cards for these evenings. See Calendar for dates.
We are always happy to answer your individual questions. For further information or to discuss how constellations might assist you in your unique circumstances, please call Shannon at 415.499.0639 or email with any questions. Shannon@nlpmarin.com
See Calendar for dates.