First published as: Blount, A. (1986). Changing realities in the firm. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 4,
no. 4, 40-52.
Changing Realities in the Firm
By
Alexander Blount, EdD
ABlountEdD@gmail.com
Abstract
This article begins with a brief formulation of the ideas underlying systemic therapy. There follows
a description of the central approaches presently utilized in the practice of systemic therapy. The
largest part of the work is an exposition of one case in which the techniques of systemic therapy
were used to resolve conflict between high level managers in a large Corporation. An assessment
format was used to redescribe the situation in a way that transformed it and resolved the conflict.
The work is intended to show the applicability of the technology of systemic therapy to one common
type of problem encountered in large organizations. It is not expected that in itself it will enable
the reader who is a family therapist to confidently attempt interventions in companies, any more
than reading an article would enable an organizational development consultant to do family
therapy. It is hoped, however, that the discussions will clarify the central processes involved in
using this technology in either setting. The discussion begins with a brief formulation of the ideas
underlying systemic therapy. The largest part of the work is an exposition of 1 case in which the
techniques of systemic therapy were used to resolve conflict between high level managers in a
large Corporation.
The Power of Description
Every description represents an act of creation. A new description gives new meaning, new form,
even new reality. By “description” I mean the distinguishing of an entity or phenomenon by an
observer in the attempt to communicate that distinct perception to another even if the other is the
observer himself/herself. Remarking internally that it is a nice day is as much a description as
communicating the perception to another person. This process of creation is the 1st order of the
power of description. Further, every description involves the creation of new reality in a larger
sense. The new reality is made up of the world as it existed before the description, plus the
existence of the description itself. This is the 2nd order of the power of description. Not only is
each description a new form in the world, it creates a new world by coming into existence. The
existence of the description is something which will affect the describer and the recipient of the
description.
These are not new ideas. They are part of a long tradition of thought recently articulated by such
people as G. Spencer Brown and Gregory Bateson. Spencer Brown described the act of
distinguishing as the primary act of creation. He used the idea to develop a “calculus of indication”
in a book entitled The Laws of Form (1969). Bateson said that the basic unit of “mind” is the
perception of a difference (1972). He talks of a “difference that makes a difference” which is “news
of a difference” passing along a circuit from one perceiver to another. A perceiver is anything that
responds to that difference. It could be one neuron in a nervous system or one person in a
conversation. The study of the way patterns of difference moving along a circuit produce regular
patterns in the system as a whole is what Norbert Wiener named “cybernetics”.
When applied to families as systems, cybernetics is perhaps most eloquently embodied in the brief
therapy model of the group of Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto (Watzlawick, 1974). They
have rigorously focused upon the sequences of interaction in a family, looking for the circularity
which maintains the larger problematic pattern. Behavior “A” leads to “B” leads to “C” and so on
which ultimately leads back to “A” again. The therapist creates interventions to break the cycle,
forcing the family to find a new sequence of interaction. The cybernetic description of the family
opened up a technology to therapists, the technology called “strategic therapy.”
As therapists worked in this method, many began to feel the need to understand the experience of
the therapist as part of the analysis upon which the therapy was built (Blount, 1982). It seemed
that there was a fundamental gap in the approach if one could only understand the family as a
system and never approach the family-plus-therapist with the same analytical tools. This was a
reflection of ideas in other related areas.
It was the Milan Associates who pioneered the development of a therapy built on an analysis which
included the therapist. Their therapy, which evolved out of the work of MRI group, is called
“systemic therapy.” It is therapy built on description. It might be said to be “meaning driven.”
Through “circular questioning,” the therapist attempts to organize information in the family in new
ways. The therapist searches for contingencies in the family which are normally never articulated
in words. For example, “how would it change Mom and Dad's relationship if Billy suddenly got
better grades than Susie?” or “who in the family would be least worried if Sam stopped drinking?”
Questions are based on relationship, rather than on qualities of individuals. By eliciting
information in new ways, and by eliciting information which the family had never consciously
articulated, the therapist is able to create descriptions of the family situation which are
unprecedented in the family’s experience. These new descriptions must fit the “facts” as the family
presents them.
The focus on description is central in the Milan Associates article on their technique,
“Hypothesizing, Circularity, and Neutrality” (Selvini-Palazzoli, et al., 1980). Hypothesizing is
seen as the most important activity of both the therapist and team in their attempts to be helpful to
the families. These hypotheses are inevitably neutral because they are circular in their formulation.
They identify mutually maintaining patterns among people, rather than finding one person to be
the cause of the problem.
One convenient way of understanding how systemic therapy works can be to conceptualize the
hypothesis of the therapist as a probe to which the system (the family) must accommodate. A probe
is an intrusion by an observer into a previously unobserved area. I use the particular word because
it highlights the fact that the intrusion inevitably affects that which it is meant to observe. These
meanings or hypothesis are re-descriptions of the experience or interactions presented by the
family. These re-descriptions, if they are comprehensive and precise enough to adequately fit the
contingencies of interaction which the members of the family bring to the therapy, create a new
reality.
This new reality changes the world for the team and the therapist as well as for the family.
Systemic therapy is based on an epistemology which compels us to face the realization that every
phenomenon we describe can be legitimately re-described. This epistemology is characterized by
a recursive interaction between describer and described during which each episode of description
triggers a different experience of reality and a different set of contingencies from which to
formulate subsequent descriptions. It is the expectation that the team as well as the family will live
in a slightly different world after a new description of the contingencies of their relationships is
delivered to the family, assuming that the new description adequately fits the phenomena which
the family has experienced. This expectation distinguishes systemic therapists from other
practitioners in the field. It is an expectation built on the implementation of the “cybernetics of
observing systems.” To put it in the terms used here, it is an expectation based on an understanding
of the 2nd order of the power of description.
Central to the systemic approach is the notion that meaning and behavior are aspects of what is
actually one inseparable process. As systemic therapy attempts to find new meanings, to redescribe
an entire interactive pattern of behavior, so that the people involved come to different
understandings of their situation, and therefore choose different behaviors in the future. It is
assumed that each new behavior supports the new meanings, eliciting in its turn new behaviors
from the others involved. When the therapist offers the re-description, s/he does not expect to
predict or control how this incredibly complex process will unfold. While this approach, rooted as
it is in 2nd order cybernetics may seem antithetical to the goal-oriented nature of large
corporations, the fundamental nature of its divergence seems to make it extremely powerful for
developing options in these systems.
Changing Realities in the Firm
My work in private industry began at the request of the president of a company in New England.
(All names have been changed and identifying information about the company has been changed
so that the industry is not identifiable beyond being involved in manufacturing.) He suspected that
someone trained as a family therapist, who worked as an administrator in a large organization,
might have new ways of looking at problems which could be useful to his company. The company
in question was a manufacturing firm which was doing several hundred million dollars per year in
business, and was part of a parent company which did business in the billions each year. The
president was an intellectual man who prided himself on being a forward-looking manager,
building for the long-range future of the company without sacrificing the “bottom line” in the
present. I will call him Peter. Peter told me that the Operations Manager of one manufacturing
plant had asked to be reassigned within the parent company, because he felt he could no longer
work with his boss, the Vice President for Manufacturing. The Operations Manager (Owen)
oversaw one manufacturing site employing several hundred people. The VP (Vic) was responsible
for a manufacturing operation that had locations in several states. Peter liked Owen and felt that
he was a rising star in the company, even if he sometimes “lacked maturity.” Peter was concerned
about the viability of Vic in his position. He believed that the operations manager's assertion that
the VP had been giving direction to his (Owen’s) direct reporting managers inappropriately. Peter
said that the VP just wasn't a “people person,” and that this problem could make it impossible for
him to stay in his position for very long, despite his excellence in the field of manufacturing. There
had been a previous problem in which one of Vic’s subordinates had complained because he felt
unsupported by the VP's managerial style.
My consultation was described as an assessment. If re-description can be the central mode of
affecting change, the assessment will be the central tool. In working with people toward some sort
of change, most are expecting the change to come in the actions which are taken following the
assessment. People tend to cooperate much more openly with the assessment stage of any process
than with the “change” stage, especially if they might have to be doing the changing (see Blount,
1985).
I met with each manager separately in order, I said, to be sure I had clarity on each person's point
of view. It was my plan to wait to assemble the players involved (OM plus VP, and OM plus VP
plus President) until I had a re-description developed which could make the meeting occur within
the “new reality.” If we met in the old reality, we would have to develop a solution in the room.
We would have to focus on the problem as it was originally defined, in a situation as originally
defined, and any change would have to come because one or more people changing or promising
to change behavior publicly. That process, in which the change is clearly being sought out of the
interaction of the participants in the present, is usually called “therapy.” It tends to put people in
business in an uncomfortable role and to undermine their feelings of being enfranchised as highlevel managers. If we located the remedy for organizational problems in improving the flawed
personality of the manager, we thereby create a net of attributions which can hamper the manager
and the company.
In my first interview after meeting with Peter, I met with Vic. He was a powerfully built man with
a quiet, self-effacing manner. He seemed somewhat out of place in the elegance of the corporate
headquarters building. One could easily have imagined him with his sleeves rolled up, solving
problems on the floor of a manufacturing plant. Vic told me that he was at a loss as to how to
rectify the situation. He had been busy in labor-management negotiations all spring. The first he
knew of the problem with his Operations Manager was when Owen announced that he wanted to
be transferred. This happened during a meeting in which Owen said he felt unsupported and
undermined by Vic. The V.P. described the meeting as frustrating for him because he felt his
subordinate’s intensity of frustration and wanted to start a problem-solving process. Owen had told
him that the problem was beyond solving and that he wanted out. For his part, Vic felt that he had
been very patient with the Owen. Since he took over as O.M., the details of the manufacturing
process in his plant had begun to be inadequately attended to, in Vic’s opinion. The amount of
scrap generated in a month in the manufacturing process had gone up dramatically. He felt that
Owen was very good at winning the loyalty of people close to him in the hierarchy, but that he
didn't have the stomach for laying down the law so that the hourly workers would produce
optimally. More than anything else, Vic was frustrated with the O.M.’s inability to implement
Quality Circles in the plant that he managed. Quality Circles are groups of workers meeting
together to discuss how the details of manufacturing process can be done better. The Quality Circle
movement was central to the company as a whole. Vic took it as a personal affront that Owen, the
man with all the fancy words about human relations, had not pulled off organizing Quality Circles
when most other areas of the company had done so.
Owen, the O.M., was in his mid-30s. He looked much more natural than his boss in the mandatory
dark suit of a manager. He gave the impression that he was someone who was putting his time in
at the plant getting the experience he needed before moving to the place where he belonged, the
higher reaches of corporate headquarters. Owen described a series of frustrations in his attempts
to work with Vic which culminated in the meeting in which he asked to be reassigned. He said that
he could never get a meeting with Vic. He had clear ideas about what good management was. He
felt a good manager should regularly check in with his direct reporting managers. He said Vic
never did this with him. When he happened to be at the corporate headquarters, he would pass Vic
in the hall, and they would exchange a few words. He saw that Vic seemed to be happy with this
type of interaction, while he felt slighted by it. Owen recounted that some of the managers who
reported to him had asked him point blank who their boss was when they had received reprimands
from Vic for one problem or another that existed in the plant.
In discussing Quality Circles, Owen said that he supported the concept, but he objected to the
creation of a whole new management apparatus around the attempt to start the process quickly in
the company. Part of the implementation of Quality Circles required a committee made up of
people from all levels of the company which oversaw the process. Owen felt this second tier of
management was inefficient and inappropriate.
Owen was strongly committed not only to good management but to his own learning about
management. He was particularly bitter that Vic had been unwilling to let him “make my own
mistakes” when he took over as O.M.
Because I have learned that everyone involved in the situation needs to be part of any change in
meaning, I asked both men how they saw Peter, the President. Vic saw Peter as a man basically
committed to the bottom line. He believed that personally Peter might have been interested in new,
more open styles of management, but in his position as president of a company within a parent
company he had to deliver or lose his job. Owen saw Peter as a man committed to the viability of
a company over the long haul, someone who understood about new styles of management and who
was looking for people in his image to take his place as he made his inevitable move up the
corporate ladder. Each manager felt that Peter would eventually side with him. Owen, however,
felt that it was inappropriate to ask Peter to side with him against a vice president, so he had asked
for a transfer.
At the end of approximately 3 hours of discussion with each manager the document below was
written. Both Vic and Owen were given two weeks to look over the document. Then I met with
them together for the first time. I said that I wanted them to see my assessment and react to it
before I sent anything to Peter. They both felt that this was fair, and that it took seriously the need
for the protection of each person within the company. I also wanted a chance to assess the effect
of the report, the “probe,” to see if a discernible new reality had been created. If it had not, I wanted
to refine the fit between my re-description and the facts in light of the reaction of both men to my
assessment.
Notice that in the beginning of the description, both men are described as very cooperative. I was
determined that anything they did would be defined as part of a pattern of cooperation. If they
were congratulated for being invested in the process, they would be more likely to be invested in
the new description and in what I recommended. The substance of the report was designed to create
a picture of what was hoped for in the outcome, that they both would still be seen as dedicated
employees.
Each difference which the managers saw as personal, I defined as being in service of the
Corporation. People can change something they are doing to achieve certain ends if they believe
that the behavior is no longer achieving the wanted ends. They are much less likely to change
something they are doing which they or others define as part of who they are.
Not only do the men need to be defined as serving the company, but their disagreement needs to
be defined as in the service of the company. That way if they give up what they are doing, they are
helping and if they keep it up, they are helping. This gives the President a way of reacting to the
disagreement that would make him able to work with both men, even if they cannot stop fighting.
This required some analysis of the climate of the company as a whole which I was not hired to do.
By offering an analysis built on the perceptions of the people, I was able to comment on the
company as a whole and still be true to my mandate and to my commitment to a negotiated reality
rather than an objective reality.
It is crucial to remember that the re-descriptions offered have to fit every detail of the situation as
all three men have experienced it. Pollyanna-like generalizations about how we are all in this
together simply further polarization. My pessimism at the end of the report comes from my “true”
reading of the situation, and from my experience as a strategic therapist of how effective good
pessimism (restraint) can be when people begin to make productive changes. It helps them
experience the changes they are making as their own, made in spite of outside skepticism. Here is
the exact text of my initial report to Vic and Richard Owen:
This consultation to date has involved an assessment of the difficulties that have arisen between
the Vice President of Manufacturing (Vic) and one of his Operations Managers (Owen). The
assessment has involved a meeting with the President (Peter) for an overview of the situation and
additional meetings of between 2 1/2 and 3 hours with each of the men. The present report is
intended to provide a summary of my understanding of the situation, and to be the focus for future
discussion. My meetings with both men were characterized by a willingness to compromise and
accept blame by each, where it might be judged that they personally had been mistaken or had
something to learn. The only times that each showed a determination toward his point of view was
when he believed the good of the company was at stake.
That Vic and Owen have differing styles as managers is something they have both known and have
discussed with each other for some time. Each of them tried to be supportive of the other person’s
style in our discussions. There was a value that tolerance of diversity of styles was a good thing
for the company, though there were aspects of the other person's style that each one found hard to
justify from their understanding of what was in the best interests of the company. I think it is
important that I define the way I understand each of these styles, since that understanding is
central to the analysis that is offered here.
Vic is a trouble shooter. He is, by everyone's account, extremely skilled and experienced in all
aspects of manufacturing. He has a right to expect to be able to solve almost any problem that is
brought to him. He believes in his own competence and in the competence of the people he works
with. The way he demonstrates this belief is to let other people take care of their own areas without
interference from him. Leaving someone alone to do their job is the highest compliment he can
pay. His style works because over the years he has developed trusting relationships with his
subordinates. He knows that they will come to him with problems. In fact, with people he has
worked with for a long period of time, he knows that they will come to him with situations that
might possibly become problems. In this way he is aware of all aspects of the operation that he is
managing, while giving maximum support through maximum autonomy to those working beneath
him.
If a troubleshooter has concerns about a person working beneath him, he has two choices. One is
to tell the person what to do, to take away their autonomy while they learn the ropes. The 2nd way
is to keep an eye on the person's progress from a distance and try to stop him from making any
irreversible mistakes while at the same time staying out of his day-to-day work life. From this point
of view, it would be helpful in maintaining the subordinate’s autonomy to do whatever small things
the troubleshooter can do to keep the subordinate’s area running smoothly while not taking over
the area or telling the subordinate how to approach problems.
In the troubleshooting style, communication is most effective when it is from the bottom up. It is
the people who are below who should know what the problems are and should bring them to the
troubleshooter early. It is a style that seeks to overcome all the problems and therefore inevitably
sets a goal of no mistakes for the troubleshooter himself and for those who work with him. The
strengths of the troubleshooting style are that it is highly efficient, it makes subordinates feel
trusted, it is built on competence rather than personality, and when it goes well, it engenders a
high degree of trust up and down the line. Weaknesses of the troubleshooting style are that it makes
it difficult to assess what mistakes or inefficiencies in the short run might lead to greater flexibility
and greater efficiencies in the long run, and it is it has difficulty planning for the growth and
development of the subordinates outside of the competencies required for the particular job that
they are in at the time.
The effectiveness of the troubleshooting style is assessed easily and quickly by results in terms of
successful manufacturing and distribution output. If output is down or costs are up, it calls for
action up and down the chain of command because it is a problem for everyone. The effectiveness
of the entire hierarchy can be assessed by the success of the manufacturing operation at any given
time.
Owen is a system builder. He is very adept at team building and generating an environment in
which people want to work. His main concern is with the long-range development of management
systems that will provide flexibility in the future for the areas he is managing. He believes that
personal development and satisfaction of employees is central to their long-term productivity and
to the flexibility in the organization. He is ready to tolerate a certain level of inefficiency in the
present if he believes it is clearly connected to building for the future efficiency. When a
management decision is made, he is always as much or more concerned with how the decision was
made than with what the actual decision is.
The communication pattern which a system builder sets up runs best when the primary direction
for communication is from the top down. It is in this direction that each manager monitors the
progress and work of the managers below him. This is the direction from which long-range
planning is initiated. This is the direction of the flow of communication when the higher-level
managers are showing support for the people who are under them. Whereas in the troubleshooter
style, results build trust and a good working team, in the system builder’s style, a good working
team that has trust builds good results. The strengths of the system builder model are the obvious
ones of increasing long range flexibility in the company, attending to the feelings and comfort level
of employees, great awareness of and control over patterns of communication, and the setting of
a general tone which encourages personal development and assumes that company growth will be
intimately connected with the personal growth of employees. The weaknesses of the system builder
model are generally that it has difficulty responding quickly to short-term problems. It can lead
to ambivalence in a manager between productivity and the feelings of employees. It can sometimes
lead to the entire chain of command being sensitive to employees’ feelings in ways that heighten
employees’ expectation of emotional gratification on the job. This can thereby lead to greater
turmoil during times when employees are asked to do tasks that are inevitably not gratifying.
Interaction of the two styles: Each of the two styles described is capable of organizing an entire
hierarchy of working relationships successfully. In addition, both men are also committed to
situational leadership, to responding with whatever type of leadership a situation demands.
Because of their styles, there are some situations which they tend to analyze quite differently. This
difference in the way they perceive particular situations is the center of much of the problems I
have been discussing with them.
Just a few of the differences will serve to show how incredibly hard it is for these two styles to
overlap. When Vic does not contact Owen regularly for scheduled meetings, he experiences that
as support for Owen’s autonomy, while Owen experiences it as a lack of interest and support.
When Owen does not call Vic off and on to report potential developing problems, Vic experiences
this as showing that Owen was refusing to use the resources at his command to keep on top of
those areas that he is managing. Owen, on the other hand, experiences this as his (Owen’s)
showing his willingness to be responsible for new areas and to make his own mistakes. When Vic
calls someone who is now below Owen on the manufacturing chain of command, he experiences
this as trying to keep results good for everyone while Owen learns the ropes. He knows there are
problems inevitably and since Owen is not calling him to check with him about them, he tries to
solve a few of the problems without horning in and telling Owen what to do. His assumption always
is that when Owen starts handling the problems himself, he (Vic) will inevitably no longer need to
be involved. Owen, on the other hand, experiences these actions as undermining his authority, and
showing lack of trust in his ability to learn to do the job affectively. He sees making mistakes as
part of the learning process rather than as something that needs to be fixed from above.
The interactions of the two styles can sometimes lead Owen and Vic to positions that would seem
the opposite from the ones that they might be expected to take. Quality Circles is a “people
oriented” process, and one might expect Owen to be centrally committed to it and that Vic would
have reservations about it. In fact, it is a source of tension with Vic wanting the process to go
forward more quickly, and Owen having reservations. Vic is committed to Quality Circles because
it is a way of getting a whole new process of problem solving going in the company. Owen has
reservations about Quality Circles, not because of the circles themselves, but because of the
complications which administering them causes in the upper management systems. He believes
that it is more important to have these kinds of relationships develop naturally within the usual
management structure, rather than to create an an extra management structure and push Quality
Circles into existence. His failure to implement them is a testimony to his commitment to the longrange flexibility of the management systems. Owen is willing to take the heat for not having quality
circles in his area rather than to force them to occur in ways that seem unnatural to him.
This problem is a further example of the difference in styles. Owen assumes when a manager like
himself is not implementing a policy, the manager above him will want to meet and discuss all the
reasons for his taking that action. Vic, on the other hand, assumes that when a manager is not
implementing a policy, he is suspect as a team player because he is so clearly standing in the way
of problem solving in the company. This makes Vic assume that the manager himself has become
a problem to be solved.
One final example of the interaction of the two styles occurred when Owen raised the issues that
he did with Vic originally. From Vic’s perspective, this was the point at which problem solving
would logically begin. Intense anger or frustration would simply be the beginning of a process
through which a solution was reached. For Owen, however, the lack of contact up to that time had
convinced him that the problem was beyond solution. In his model, it would not make sense to
simply get angry with someone, further damaging the possibility of a positive relationship. This
means that at exactly the point that Vic is ready to start working, Owen assumes that the problem
is unsolvable.
Even now, with the intervention of Peter asking both men to return to some process of problem
resolution, the outlook is not positive. In their meetings together in the future, I assume that Vic
will see Owen’s upset feeling as a problem to be solved, and will do his best to solve this problem.
Owen will experience Vic’s attempt to solve the problem as not a personal enough commitment to
a style of communication that he thinks Vic needs to make. It is my assumption that this will lead
to a situation of growing frustration for both men. Vic may think that Owen is standing in the way
of their solving the problem that is between them, and Owen may feel that Vic is missing the point
about what they need to do.
Organizational climate for resolution: The focus of this assessment has been too narrow to make
any statements about the actual climate of the organization as a whole. There are, however,
perceptions of the organization that are held by the people with whom I have had discussions
which may contribute to making the resolution more difficult. If either management style was
clearly preferred by the company and necessary for contributing to the company, there would be
an implicit message toward resolution in the context within which both men have to struggle for
some kind of solution. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. The company is presently
perceived as going in the direction of a more “people oriented” company. It is attempting to build
new management systems to provide for greater flexibility in the future, so that it can be a more
truly market driven organization. This would seem to indicate that there was an implicit message
in the company toward Owen’s style of management. The company has the freedom to build these
systems, however, because the new management team has produced results. It has been a fast and
successful problem-solving effort, along with changes in market conditions, that have turned
around the company's profitability, and thereby preserved the mandate for the new approaches. It
is the dual nature of the organizational climate which is likely to support Owen perceiving that
Peter as basically interested in the development of management systems and the education of
managers, while Vic just as reasonably may perceive Peter as interested in results problem-solving
and the bottom line.
The men I encountered in the meeting after they had the above document for two weeks, were
relating very differently from the relationship which had been described to me in my meetings
with both of them separately only a month before. Much of what they said is described in the
second part of the assessment report below. They both were very insistent that no matter how
much a person who had spent so little time with them happened to be right, I was wrong about one
crucial detail: whether or not the situation was workable. They insisted that they could work
together. I “deferred” to their judgment but said that Peter would not believe that was the new
situation without a chance to be personally involved.
The above report, with a part called “Stage 2” describing the meeting with Owen and Vic, was
sent to all three men. This was Peter’s first view of any of the process which had been going on
since he gave me the introduction to the problem. Here is the text of stage 2 paragraph:
Stage 2:
I met with Vic and Owen on 6/14 to discuss the first stage of the report. I expected there might be
areas which each would ask me to change. Neither asked for changes. Vic said he essentially
agreed with the report as it stood with the exception of the pessimistic conclusion. He was much
more hopeful for him and Owen being able to maintain a workable and productive relationship
despite their differences in style. Owen said he agreed generally with the description of his style,
that he would not have conceptualized Vic’s style as the report does, but that if the report was as
accurate about Vic as it was about him, he had some rethinking to do. He said he planned to use
the report as a tool to help him understand those actions of Vic’s that disturb him in the future. He
also was unwilling to accept the pessimistic nature of the conclusions.
In my first meeting with the two men together I was struck by both their candor about their past
and present differences, and their determination to work as a team. Vic was clear that he had great
respect for Owen’s system building and would only push him to a different approach if he felt it
was absolutely necessary. Owen was clear that he wanted to be listened to and he wanted to know
why he was being asked to do things in a certain way, but that if Vic finally required a particular
action from him, he would deliver. Both men helped to educate me to the pervasive nature of the
difference I saw between them in the company as a whole. Both felt that the same difference existed
between Peter as a system builder who is often required by pressures for “Corporate” for
immediate results. This causes him to move faster in a problem-solving way than he would like
to. If Vic and Owen are right, then their difference may be much more important than I originally
imagined. The difference in their approaches may provide the highest level within the company at
which a balance can be sought, a balance which is crucial to the optimal functioning of Metal
Products within the United Industries Corporation. If this is the case, it would be crucial that Vick
and Owen continue to keep their differences clear, that they remain candid about their
disagreements and that they only present a united front to Peter when they are sure they have
reached agreement. Peter, for his part, may find occasional incidents in which an issue between
Vic and Owen, that they have been able to resolve, will provide a direction for him in working
more smoothly with Corporate. It will only take a few such incidents to make the effort which Vic
and Owen have expended pay off for the entire company.
Approximately one month later after my meeting with Vic and Owen together, I met with Vic,
Owen, and Peter. At this meeting Peter seriously questioned the turn around that had occurred, and
needed to be satisfied by both his subordinates that things had continued to go well. Owen said
that he was a bit embarrassed to report how well things were going with his boss. Neither man
could explain exactly how or why the change had occurred, but it seemed natural to both.
I asked if they were willing to highlight their differences for the sake of the learning of the company
in its need to understand how to relate to the parent firm. They strongly requested that they be
allowed to go on working well together. They did not see anything to be gained by highlighting
differences which they believe were not legitimately a problem. The president, looking a bit
confused, agreed to their requests. I took no credit for the change. After all, I had not even finished
the assessment process when they fixed the problem on their own.
Note on the dangers of description: If a good re-description can change the reality being
described, a re-description of the re-description can possibly undo the process. This article
represents a re-description of the re-description which was given to Peter, Vic and Owen. It puts
the assessment in a new context. What if they see it? Is it ethical to ever describe one’s work
publicly when using this approach? This is very real concern. I believe that this article can be
written for the following reasons: should the article circulate beyond this Journal, it would be well
over two years after the consultation that any of the participants might see it. By that time the new
reality would be the only reality, and they would rightly judge that all the theorizing about the
power of description was invented to take credit for something that happened by chance around
the time of my consultation.
Conclusion
This case exposition has been one small example of the power of the methodology of systemic
therapy when applied to an organizational context. The specific case depended for its success upon
my being able to hear the situation from all the people involved in defining it, and re-describing
the situation in ways and in language which the participants found fitting. Different methodologies
would be necessary to use this method in a slightly larger scale. It is my opinion that there is a
limit to the scale to which a re-description can effectively be applied using the method of collecting
the existing description from the players. A re-description without a fit to the micro data of
people’s experience is propaganda.
The re-description must arise out of a process in which people whose experiences being
redescribed actively participate. In the long run, especially when the consultant continues to have
contact with the people involved, the re description becomes reality for everyone. It becomes more
accurate, or more “true,” than the description which was so painful in the 1st place.