Creating a new business, or a good relationship, adapting to covid induced changes to our lives and organisations, whether it is in business or in our personal lives, creating is a piece of cake, right?
- You decide where you want to go
- You assess where you are in relation to that goal
- You create a plan to get from A to B
- And then you execute the plan, while adapting to changes
If it is this simple, why then is it often not easy at all?
The body of work called Structural Dynamics has a bunch of tools and practises to remove the fog and design and implement change where we want it.
It is true magic work, only without the magic.
I guess that’s why I love it. It bypasses the success formula’s, the mindset changes that experts say are required, the need to adopt the right belief system or the latest Change Management hype.
It cleans up our act, reconnects us with reality, our vision and our values. Puts us back behind the steering wheel while at the same time giving us the role of adventurer, finding our way as we go, as fluently as possible adapting to change. This goes for big companies, entrepreneurs and individuals in work and life.
Reality is a creators best friend
Structural Consulting is a very clean process. We work with an one thing only and that is reality. The reality of what you want to create and current reality in relation to it. My job is to help you remove the fog that clouds your view on reality. This goes both for organisational teams and entrepreneurs, as well as for people with a personal goal. Reality is like a language that you can become fluent in. And being fluent in reality is simply the very best basis for creating your vision in life or business.
Reality is that which is still there when you stop believing in it. It doesn’t have anything to do with Truth (with a capital T) or with subjective perception which can make two people look at the same thing and not see the same thing. Reality is simply what is.
It is sometimes quite unbelievable how hard it is for us humans to see and state the obvious. Yet, it is also how our brains are wired. We more often than not avoid harsh truths and beat around the bush until we can’t any more. We can know these bits of reality as a string of words that plays in our brain. But that is not the same as knowing it solidly. When we know something solidly our actions change. Not our minds but our actions show us what parts of reality we see clearly or avoid.
When we know a piece of reality solidly our actions can change accordingly
We humans have a tendency to make things complicated. We add models and concepts and theories and formula’s. I prefer stripping things down to their bare bones, so that we can clearly see what we are dealing with, make well informed choices and enjoy the ease of simple and clean. Because we humans have second tendency besides making thing complicated. We tend to want to create. Create an inspiring business which also pays our bills, create fruitful relationships, create health or a better world. Humans are makers. We can’t help but create. And sometimes it’s mess, misery and adventures in frustration that we create. Without wanting to. Reality is the friend you need to channel all your energy into creating what you do want.
Structural Dynamics consultancy makes use of the insights into structure as defined by Robert Fritz. A structure is a set of elements that relate to each other and combine into being a whole which generates predictable behaviour.
A car is a structure of which the wheels and the engine and the battery and the fuel tank are just a few of the elements. Elements that work together and generate predictable behaviour. If the wheels are aligned the structure has predictable behaviour A, namely being able to drive straight. If the wheels are not aligned the structure has different predictable behaviour: driving into the guard rail. Unless you keep the steering wheel not straight but a bit to the left.
Companies are structures in the same way. We often see them try their very best, yet not get where they want to go, or not fully. This is where structural consultancy comes into play. We look into the underlying structure that causes that undesired outcome and design a new structure, one that predictably gives us the very best chances of reaching our goal.
Structural thinking is based in the principles of creating, making something come into being. To make something come into being we need to be very clear about our current working reality. We won’t be able to make the apple pie if we don’t check the cellar and see if we have the apples. I won’t be able to drive to the city of Utrecht if I don’t know that I am south of it and need to go north to get there. Simple as that.
Too simple?
Well, it is and at the same time I see it happen all the time and on all levels of society. People like you and me but also companies or governments set out to create something while being half clueless about their current reality. We are driven by an urge to fix things and not very often stop and look at what we are actually dealing with and what might be causing it.
I relearned the truth of this lesson recently when I finally succeeded to quite smoking (after 25 years and many (temporary successful) attempts. The trick? I found a course which did one thing only and it did it very well: it taught me a piece of reality that I wasn’t fluent about: the reality of how sigarets are designed to work in our bodies and minds and about the industry behind it and how it gets us to smoke and keep smoking. I should write an article about that one day 🙂
Do you want to book a session for yourself or do you have a question? Then please contact me, I love nothing more than share fluency in
