The Design Principles of Organisational Psychotherapy Some ten years ago now, I began to design an alternative approach to helping collaborative knowledge work organisations become more effective. Typical approaches then in use included: Consultancy Improvement and/or change projects (most often, focussed on one or other part of an organisation, such as sales, manufacturing or product …
Fundamentals of Organisational Psychotherapy By popular demand, I’ve put together this post, which sets out some of the fundamentals of Organisational Psychotherapy (n.b. by no means all of them). Note: This is a work in progress: I keenly invite your comments and questions. Fundamental: The Nature of the Problem The Marshall Model proposes that organisational …
Testbash Dublin and Organisational Psychotherapy As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m just back from presenting an interactive session on Organisational Psychotherapy at Testbash Dublin. Some folks seemed confused as to the relevance of Organisational Psychotherapy to testers and the world of testing, so I’m happy to explain the connection as I see it. (And …
Ten Reasons You Don’t Need Organisational Psychotherapy You don’t need Organisational Psychotherapy if: you’re already realising the maximum potential and engagement of your people your perspectives and assumptions about business are bringing you as much success as you need right now your organisation’s culture is strong, positive, healthy and fully supportive of your objectives …
Organisational Psychotherapy and the Bottom Line The core of the Rightshifting message is: For those interested in bottom-line results, the results of the holistic (Synergistic) approach always dwarfs the results of the Analytic approach. A system of local optimums is not an optimum system at all; it is a very inefficient and ineffective system. Because …
Organisational Psychotherapy In the Field Preliminary Results We in Organisational Psychotherapy propose OP as a means for improving the “health” and social dynamic of an organisation. An improvement which translates to real bottom-line benefits through i.e. an uplift in performance (a.k.a. effectiveness, productivity, throughput). One of the reasons I’ve dedicated my time largely to a …
The Heart of Organisational Psychotherapy My organisational psychotherapy practice draws inspiration from a number of individual psychotherapy schools and traditions. But none more so than Carl Rogers and Client Centred Therapy – more recently also known as Person Centred Therapy. At the heart of my approach, drawing on Rogers, is seeing the focus of Organisational …
The Organisational Psychotherapy Approach To Agile Coaching What’s the point of an Agile Coach? I guess the most common answer would be “to make development teams more productive”. After all, Agile Coaches cost money, and they don’t do much in the way of development work themselves. If they’re not a “force multiplier” for one or …
Why The Future of Humanity Depends On Organisational Psychotherapy The future of work is collaborative knowledge work. Most, if not all, brawn (pink muscle) will be supplied by machines, robots and other mechanical automation, augmented by software to control the mechanical parts. Increasingly, software will also subsume the work of individual specialists, experts and other single …
The Business Case For Organisational Psychotherapy I’m 99% certain that 99% of the people I meet have 99% of no idea what an organisational psychotherapist does, and moreover, the value that such a skill-set can bring to knowledge-work organisations. In an attempt to clarify my value proposition in my own head, so as I might just be …
Individual vs Organisational Psychotherapy My recent post on My Organisational Psychotherapy Toolkit turned out to be rather longer (more content) than expected. I had been meaning to include a paragraph or two on the challenges of adapting common therapy techniques – designed and tailored to the individual – for therapy related to the organisational psyche. …
My Organisational Psychotherapy Toolkit When in a day of meetings last week, at one point we each introducing ourselves in a round-robin fashion. I naturally explained my chosen and preferred role these days – that of Organisational Psychotherapist. Given the room was full of software folks, I expected a few blank faces. What I did …
The Nine Principles of Organisational Psychotherapy The core premise of Organisational (Psycho)Therapy is that flourishing organisations are great places to work, and because of this, highly effective at pursing their chosen purpose. Definitions “Psychology is more of the ‘let’s figure out what is going on’ (scientist) and psychiatry is more ‘let’s treat whatever is going …
Organisational Self-Therapy [Note: I regard this post as incomplete. I’m publishing it now in the hope that getting some feedback will encourage me to finish it.] For some years, DIY seemed all the rage. I’m not so sure that’s true in home decorating any more, but it does seem to be increasing in popularity in …
Getting Started as an Organisational Psychotherapist A number of folks have asked me recently about my suggestions for getting started in Organisational Psychotherapy, i.e. as a practitioner (a.k.a. therapist). This post sets down a few pointers in that direction. Blog Posts and Books I’ve written many posts over the past five years and more exploring …
Agile Coach to Organisational Psychotherapist My thanks to Beatric Düring for her recent Twitter question: “If I wanted dive deeper into org psychotherapy – what would be crucial knowledge I would have to acquire working as an agile coach? Where can I draw the line requiring professional psychotherapy education/training?” Is it feasible to transition from …
Ten Tips for Organisational Therapists There are many different schools of psychotherapy, and many of those transferrable to organisational psychotherapy. I have a great fondness for the approach of Carl Rogers (person-centred, or client-centred therapy). From that perspective, here’s ten top tips: Set clear boundaries. For example, regarding confidentiality, voluntary participation, etc. . You may also want to explicitly rule …
On Becoming An Organisational Psychotherapist People occasionally ask me what it would take for them to become an organisational psychotherapist. Eager to help, I might jump at the chance to answer the question. And that would be a mistake. How could anyone provide an answer to that question in a way that would be useful? Socrates …
The Organisational Therapist’s Experience Carl Rogers wrote some inspiring, insightful, beautiful prose describing the experience of individual therapy, from the perspectives of both the therapist and the client. I have here re-cast his description of the Therapist’s Experience to describe my own feelings when working with an organisation – as its organisational therapist. The Therapist To the …
Six FAQs Explored Recently, Adelbert Groebbens (@agroebbe) made an observation on Twitter to the effect that getting other people to understand what we’d like them to understand is a fool’s errand. He illuminated the point with a reference to my Six FAQs post. Al Shalloway expressed his disagreement with many of the points therein. This …
