Posted on March 18, 2014

The Gestalt approach implies that every company must “attack” its environment in order to develop and survive. It is necessary to understand the word “aggresser” according to its Latin etymology “adgredi” meaning to approach a subject, to undertake something , to approach someone, to engage in a struggle … and which we summarize by the notion of “going towards” ‘get in touch’. Thus, to develop, private enterprise must “go towards” its markets, its competitors, its partners … In the same way, to develop, the public company must “go towards” its population, its territories.

Let us remain in this dynamic of contact and commitment as a source of growth to illustrate our conception of organizational development. 

Organizational development: a question of form

Since the Sumerian era (3000 BC), the progress of agriculture and irrigation has produced major upheavals in the structure of civilizations by increasing population concentration. To defend the territories – and probably thanks to the good advice of consultants organization  J – regular armies are thrown organized entrained, standardized, columns of heavily armed infantrymen called phalanges . Fighting in tight lines, usually on 8 to 12 rows, these rows of highly trained professionals formed a block and won many victories against less structured opponents.

About 3000 years later, the Romans, drawing lessons from the weaknesses of the phalanx , reinvent their way of fighting by constituting the handles(“handles” in Latin), a kind of mini phalanges. These smaller and more mobile units, able to adapt their shape to the various combat situations (training in a tortoise to protect themselves from arrows, in a square to confront enemy lines, in a circle to protect themselves in case of enemy overflow) thus performing better in all circumstances and on all forms of land.

Approach Gestalt OD to thrive in adversity

Contact, commitment, creative adjustment of the shape of the phalanx to that of the Roman manipulator constitute 3 key factors for the success and the power of Rome. These 3 processes stimulate the ability of businesses to prosper in adversity. These are fundamental aspects of our approach to organizational development called the Gestalt OD approach .

Organization: a living organic unity

Our approach considers any company as a living organic unity. It is also called a “legal person”. For us, the company has a spiritual dimension represented by its values. She also has a heart that beats to the rhythm of her social life. When it invites its members to take an interest in their development, or when it values ​​creativity and innovation, encourages constructive conflict resolution, pride, a sense of belonging, a company is emotional .

Our design is the antipodes of models that compare the company to a machine, an inert object. The company is alive and well, on the contrary. It is for this reason that it has the capacity to develop, to get in contact with its environment.

Organizational Manager: Adopt-Adapte-Adepte

Regular field training, the very good physical condition of the professional soldiers and a seamless discipline transformed a handful of infantrymen into a formidable offensive coalition.

We draw inspiration from this millennial recipe to inspire the manager.Through our intervention-training, we invite the manager to adopt our organic conception of the company, then adapt it to his “field” and finally, in turn, become an Adept of the Gestalt OD approach.

Above all else, the role of the manager is to preserve the balance of functioning of his unit in spite of the constraints that are external to him (homeostasis). A good “organic” manager is therefore a well-minded manager.

To boost its “handles “, it relies on its provisions to anticipate, to mobilize, to encourage, to help, to organize … A well-ensuring Manager uses emotional intelligence and thus foster the emergence of a well-doing system.

Added value of our organic approach

For a techno-manager, an organization is analogous to a machine that must be operated according to pre-established rules and procedures. The organization entrusted to it ends up behaving like a machine operated by a group of executants. As with any machine, production is generally consistent with objectives as long as the environment remains stable and predictable.  

The madness is to behave the same way and to expect different results said Einstein. In keeping with this idea, we believe that organizations must reinvent themselves constantly and we encourage the expression of the emotional intelligence of executives to stimulate the development of companies.

An example

We advocate regular implementation of the process group to improve the efficiency of the company. This original practice gradually leads the participants towards a wider awareness of the problems to be solved in order to give an appropriate shape to their organization. For example, it was during process group sessions that a company chose to set up the “kifoirpé”. Any mistake that adversely affects the performance of the team must be fairly compensated by the person (s) responsible for it. This formula encourages the responsibility and autonomy of the members of the same team .

What kind of problems does this approach solve?

Our approach helps our clients to solve any problem of organizational effectiveness. Instigators of constructive energy, we offer our expertise of human behavior as well as that of reading hidden processes.     

Through our exchanges with the client system, we establish an experience that, together with its experience of the problem to be solved, allows it to better perceive, understand and act positively on the levers relevant for change and thus learn new lessons . We help our clients create a new reality. Since it is always the customer and he alone who will have to live in this new reality, we know that the process of change must remain under his authority and responsibility.

By helping our clients acquire new organizational development skills, we are empowering ourselves to solve organizational problems.

An example

As an experience transfer program for a company weakened by a vacuum in its age pyramid was introduced, I noticed two types of behavior. The youngest of the participants, eager for knowledge, developed a constructive attitude, adopted the concepts experienced in training sessions and began to appropriate them by adapting them to favor the transfer process. The oldest of these, experts, who carried the knowledge to be transferred, developed a strong resistance which manifested itself in the following way: systematic criticism of program, management, HRD, content, duration and frequency work sessions, etc.

This experience, combined with the experience of HRD, led to a re-examination of the program. It was no longer a matter of carrying out a long- term experiment but rather of securing the constructive contribution of the elders. The company discovered that this was one of its weaknesses.

This coincidence is not fortuitous because the words “manager” and “manipulate” have the same root: the hand. When the well-behaved manager takes over his well-behaved team, then this “manipulate”, made up of a handful of professionals, becomes a formidable coalition.