Understanding Problems, Enabling Decisions
Workshop · 2 Days · For Teams and Leaders
Why are some problems solved -- and others not?
Organizations consist of people with different perspectives, interests and rationalities. What one department sees as an urgent problem appears to another as a minor issue. What counts as a solution here creates new conflicts there.
This workshop provides tools to understand these dynamics -- and to use them productively. Instead of searching for "the problem," you learn to observe how problems are constructed. Instead of expecting "the solution," you develop the capacity to act under uncertainty.
What You Will Learn
Actors and Local Rationalities
You learn to make the perspectives of those involved visible -- and to understand why behavior that appears irrational from the outside is perfectly logical from the actor's point of view. This changes how you read conflicts.
Problem Construction
You develop a sense for how problems emerge -- not as objective facts, but as constructions by actors with different interests. This enables you to ask more precisely: Whose problem is this, actually?
Contingency and Uncertainty
You develop strategies for maintaining the capacity to act under uncertainty -- rather than waiting for the one right solution. From routines to trust to deliberate improvisation.
Decision Contexts -- Sorting Decisions
You learn to distinguish which decision belongs at which table -- operational, coordinating or strategic. This prevents everything from being discussed everywhere and creates clarity in daily work.
How the Workshop Unfolds
From Understanding...
...to Shaping
“Only those questions that are in principle undecidable, we can decide.”
— Heinz von Foerster
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.
Questions about the workshop?
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Schedule a conversation (30 min)Also of interest:
Strengthening decision-making capacity Applying iterative approaches with substanceTheoretical Foundations
Local Rationalities
Division of labor leads to different local rationalities and diverging interests. Perceptions and interests guide the actions of actors. This creates tensions and conflicts that organizations must navigate.
Reality as Construction
Every person perceives the world through their own lens. This lens is shaped by experience, position, information and context. From this, different realities emerge. Those who can reconstruct these constructions well create spaces where people don't argue pointlessly over positions.
First-Order and Second-Order Realities
First-order realities are physical properties -- measurable and uninterpretable. Second-order realities are descriptions -- this is where meaning is assigned. Distinguishing between the two is key to reconstruction and thus to shaping a shared picture.
Contingency
It is neither necessary nor impossible -- it could also be otherwise. The future is open, but not arbitrary. Organizations develop strategies to deal with this openness -- yet every strategy itself creates new uncertainty. That is why there is no single right answer, but rather a deliberate engagement with different approaches.
Double Contingency
Two actors -- Alter and Ego -- must act without knowing what the other will do. Each decides based on what they assume the other expects. Both orient themselves by expectations of expectations -- creating an uncertainty that cannot be resolved, only worked with.
Decision Contexts
Not every decision belongs at every table. There are operational contexts -- the daily work. Coordinating contexts -- where divided work is brought together. And strategic contexts -- where what counts overall applies.