Leadership
Leadership
Leadership
J. Whittington
Seeing Client Relationships as Constellations
3 Coaching World | May 2012
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“Constellations are a methodology within this particular
kind of systemic coaching, and systemic coaching is
working in service of the whole system, not just the
individual or team and in service of greater flow through
and in-between systems,” says Whittington.
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For example, often in organizational and executive
coaching you will have someone who is finding difficulty
occupying their authority in their role as a leader. When
you ask them to set up a constellation using physical
objects for themselves and their team, it will often reveal
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Research
The process of creating a constellation can actually be
quite simple. To begin, a coach trained in this approach
will ask someone with a question, challenge or issue
to choose a representative (an object in one-to-one
coaching, another participant in a workshop setting) for
themselves, and then another for each of the other key
elements in the system. These could be other people
they are in relationship to or work equally well when
exploring relationships to money, values or authority for
Constellations are used in one-to-one coaching personal,
leadership and executive coaching as well as with teams
very effectively. Systemic constellations are also a useful
tool in organizational design and development, and in
working to improve organizational effectiveness or what
Whittington calls Organizational flow.
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“It’s a way of externalizing your inner picture of a
relationship, an inner picture you didn’t know you
had until you see it in front of you,” explains John.
“Constellations are a way of visualizing and creating a
3d model of your unconscious and of the way you hold
a particular relationship; one that is beyond mental and
rational knowing, and more about your felt sense, your
embodied experience of the relationship.”
“It’s a process that’s very useful for illuminating what’s
going on at the level of the system,” says Whittington.
“It’s often very surprising what a constellation shows,
because it reveals the hidden dynamics, and the
unspoken, unseen relationship architecture. Beyond the
story, beyond your idea of the relational pattern.”
Benefits
A constellation map can be created with a variety of objects.
Profiles
example. They are placed in relationship to each other,
guided by the coach and using the client’s felt sense
of the relationship. This approach always reveals fresh
information. That’s just the start of a process, referred to
simply as mapping, a full constellation goes much further
and will often lead to a picture of resolution.