This introduction to systemic organisational consulting addresses a readership from a wide range of professions. The authors, consultants with the renowned Vienna-based Königswieser & Network GmbH, describe their integrated approach to business and systemic process consulting for the commercial and non-profit sectors. The book contains chapters that deal with the basic principles of this approach, the specific kind of systemic intervention, consulting in difficult situations, as well as the future of organisational development and consulting. It is complemented by articles focusing on topics including personnel cutbacks, corporate governance practices, and executive coaching at the individual and team levels. "We have experienced many different consulting approaches and forms of management training in the past, but the work done by Königswieser & Network was truly remarkable. It is largely thanks to them that the employees involved in the project in our organization are now highly motivated, raring to go and brimming with enthusiasm." Wilhelm Braun, Eurovia Services

This book shows the underlying thinking of experienced consultants deciding how to position themselves in organizations, seeking to enable organizational change to occur and redefining their relationships with their clients over time and according to organizational need using a systemic lens.

This book discusses how systems thinking and approaches can aid management consultants in navigating the complexities of client advisory in current realities. It thereby brings to the forefront aspects of holism, flexibility and responsibility - the keys to success in today’s world. Management consultants are called in to offer an independent expert view of an organisation/ a situation and are expected to address some of the most pressing problems businesses face. The client does not exist in a silo, but in a complex environment that lies at the intersection of a range of internal and external factors that are often unseen and unpredictable. The organisation itself presents an alien territory that the consultant is expected to acclimatise to within a very short period of time, and come up with solutions that “insiders” would not have been able to visualise. The book presents a range of ideas, concepts and reference cases that are relevant and topical for consultants in their daily work. It argues that systems thinking allows holism and flexibility in management consulting – while holism is about the ability to encompass the environmental and organisational complexity, flexibility is about the ability to think creatively and adopt different approaches to accommodate this complexity. With commentaries, case studies, conceptual models and perspectives that cut across multiple industries, sectors and countries, this book is a valuable resource for academics and professionals alike. The book’s inner pages and its page on Springer.com contain additional comments providing perspectives of clients, industry experts and academia.

All You Need to Become an Successful Coaching Supervisor This book provides you with the theory and practice on how to succeed in the rapidly growing fields of coaching, mentoring, and consultancy by thoroughly explaining the fundamental principles, formal standards, and skills necessary to become an effective supervisor.

The new edition of this influential and bestselling book is concerned with how people come together to achieve a productive purpose. Survival and success in business and social terms have always depended upon our ability to form and sustain social organisations. People have a deep need to be creative and to belong. By creating positive organisations we can fulfil these needs and build a worthwhile society. One of the failures of organisations is precisely the lack of efficient and effective social organisation, which is what this whole book is about. Poor social organisation, including poor leadership, are major drivers of poor productivity and lead people to give up or retreat into a minimalist approach of just doing what is needed to get by and survive. The authors provide a language for developing, discussing, thinking and working with propositions about organisations and management. They do not tell you what decision to make but rather present tools to help you consider, analyse and predict the consequences of your decisions. This new edition is much broader in its application areas – public, private and not-for-profit sectors. It contains new models and propositions with regard to types of social organisation, domains of work and the nature and use of authority. It contains a range of new case studies, and throughout looks at how these ideas can be used to achieve an organisation’s purpose while encouraging creative working. It is not a book about fads or fashion but an integrated approach that offers the user the benefit of foresight.

The volume is based on the presentations and discussions from the Fifth European Conference on Management Consulting sponsored by the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management, which took place June, 2011 at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference theme – Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants – attempted to capture the highly ambiguous social status of this young and emerging profession. Management consulting does not have professional standards or accreditation criteria like those found in medicine or law, there are low barriers to entry, and a broad range of tasks are undertaken in the name of consulting. As a result, a crucial aspect of what constitutes such a loosely defined profession is the identity of its members. The professional identity of management consultants is continuously developing through the interplay of how consultants are seen and valued by clients as well as in the larger society, and how consultancy firms and consultants identify and position themselves. This theme includes a variety of topics, ranging from the interaction between consultants and their clients, consultant rhetoric and self-presentation, and the plethora of books, media and public discourse on consulting, to human resource policies and practices, knowledge development activities of consultancy firms, career and life stories of consultants and consultancies, and consulting associations, accreditation bodies, and education programs. All of these factors contribute, either directly or indirectly, to identity construction in the field of management consulting.

A Systemic Approach to Consultation discusses the application of systemic thinking to work within organizations. The authors draw on their experiences of consulting with teams, departments and whole organizations in both the public and private sectors. They describe their work as an integrated approach called Development Consultation, which focuses on the beliefs and behaviors in the wider system which makes it difficult for organizations to manage their own processes of change. The authors then discuss the way they formulate systemic problems and the interventions, particularly the interviewing technique, which they have used in numerous case examples. The book is intended as a handbook for professionals from any discipline who are engaged in consultation work.

Written for students and professionals alike, Making Sense of Change Management is the classic text in the field of change management. It is aimed at anyone who wants to understand why change happens, how it happens and what needs to be done to make change a welcome rather than a dreaded concept. It offers considered insights into the many frameworks, models and ways of approaching change and helps the reader to apply the right approach to each unique situation. This completely revised and fully updated new edition includes new chapters on managing change in tough and uncertain times and the deeper skills of becoming a true agent of change.

This book sets out to explain how the reflexive inquiry model can be adapted to research so that consultants can continue to evaluate their work and learn from the process. It draws out some implications of the principles, arguments, models, and tools presented for undertaking research.

First published in 1987. These Collected Papers, covering a period of almost 30 years, will allow the reader to trace the developing thought of one of the world's seminal family therapists and theoreticians.