Observing, Understanding and Changing Decision Processes
Workshop · 2 Days · With Systems Theory
How do organizations decide -- and why differently than they think?
Teams and organizations make decisions constantly. The ability to decide is essential for their survival. Those who want to improve this ability are well advised to regard it as a complex social process.
Those who can observe, understand and describe decision processes can also change them effectively. This workshop delivers a compact overview of the current state of organizational, decision-making and systems theory -- as we use it in our work as team coaches and organizational consultants.
What You Will Learn
Decisions as a Social Process
You learn to see decisions not as isolated acts, but as processes that emerge in social contexts -- shaped by power, interests and organizational routines.
Questioning Common Thinking Habits
You develop a critical eye for prevalent approaches and methods in organizations -- and understand why well-intentioned interventions often produce the opposite effect.
Leveraging Complexity and Uncertainty
You develop ways not just to tolerate complexity and uncertainty, but to make them productive for decision processes -- rather than reducing or ignoring them.
Consequences for Leadership and Teams
You understand what implications a systems-theoretical perspective has for leaders and team members -- and how they can use it effectively.
How the Workshop Unfolds
Observing and Understanding
Changing and Shaping
“Everything could be different -- and almost nothing can I change.”
— Niklas Luhmann
Who Is This Workshop For?
This workshop is NOT suitable for people looking for simple recipes. We work with complexity, not against it.
What Should You Bring?
“Rules are resources that must be actualized in action. They do not determine -- they enable and constrain.”
— Günter Ortmann (paraphrased)
Practical Information
Pre-Sensing and Post-Sensing
The workshops are accompanied by two online sessions:
The Pre-Sensing session gives us the opportunity for a first introduction and to build a shared foundation. We clarify organizational questions and align expectations.
The Post-Sensing session supports reflection on the experience after a few weeks, exploring what has proven useful in daily work.
Interested? Register now.
Who Leads the Workshop
Falk Engelmann
Thinks in systems, works with people. For over 18 years, he has been accompanying teams and organizations in understanding their own patterns -- and intervening where change is actually possible.
Reto Kessler
Combines systems-theoretical thinking with the practice of agile organizational development. As a coach and consultant, he accompanies teams and leaders in shaping decision processes more consciously.
Questions about the workshop?
Or book a 30-minute conversation directly:
Schedule a conversation (30 min)Also of interest:
Navigating complexity effectively Organization beyond the agility dogmaTheoretical Foundations
Decision as a Social Process
Decisions do not fall within individual minds -- they emerge between people. Organizations decide through communication, routines and structures. The individual decision is the exception, not the rule.
Organizational Rationality
Organizations act rationally -- but according to their own logic. This logic does not follow the intentions of individual persons, but the structures that have developed over time.
Contingency
It is neither necessary nor impossible -- it could also be otherwise. Organizations develop strategies to deal with this openness -- yet every strategy itself creates new uncertainty.
Complexity as a Resource
Complexity is not a problem to be solved. It is the precondition for organizations to respond differently to different situations. Those who reduce complexity reduce their capacity to act.
Second-Order Observation
Those who observe how others observe see what those others cannot see. This ability is the key to changing decision processes -- because it makes blind spots visible.
Function and Equivalence
Every structure in an organization fulfills a function. Those who understand the function can search for functional equivalents -- for other solutions to the same problem.