Ispso 2012 workshop final

Reflexive Intervision: Discovering What a Client Really Wants

Carole Eigen PhD & Philip Boxer PhD

Bridgewater Professional Associates

June 4th 2012

Copyright (c) 2012 Bridgewater Professional Associates LLC 1 4th June 2012

INTRODUCTION


Bridging two systems of meaning: psychoanalytic and strategic frameworks

• The psychoanalytic – Psychoanalytic training

– Family Systems training

– Director PhD program/ clinical

supervision

– Director Group Relations conference

– Leadership Learning Systems

• The strategic

– Engineering

– MBA

– Strategy Research

– Lacanian training

– Consulting practice

• Quest for practical tools and methods that combine psychodynamic and systems theory to effect organizational change processes.

• Reflexive Intervision – reading between the lines


Reflexive Process: what does it require of the consultant?

• The willingness:

– To tell what I am struggling with instead of what I figured out

– To recognize that there is something problematic about the way I am engaging with the problem

– To question the very frameworks of meaning that determine what I assumed to be true

– To be committed to tolerate and explore this disquieting impasse while working with the client system


Outline of the day

Timing Session Comment

09.30-10.00 Introduction

10.00-11.00 Reflexive intervision case A case study used to introduce the main concepts

Break

11.15-11.45 Describing wigo Situating reflexive intervision within the client context

11.45-12.00 Application to case situations Trying out the concepts in your case situation

12.00-13.15 Lunch

13.15-13.45 Reviewing case wigo’s Discussing case wigo’s in 2’s/3’s and plenary

13.45-14.00 Governing metaphors and ‘gaps’ The ideas behind reflexive intervision

14.00-15.00 Reflexive Intervision in practice I Successive rounds of the process

15.00-15.30 Break

15.30-16.00 Reflexive Intervision in practice II Successive rounds of the process

16.00-16.30 Review of Intervision in Plenary Discussing the issues and questions raised by ‘gaps’

16.30-17.15 Planning next steps Making it matter, build, be practical and be valued

17.15-17.30 Review of the day


REFLEXIVE INTERVISION - A CASE EXAMPLE


THE META-THINKING ABOUT HOW THIS ALL WORKS


We will be working with four questions using some particular concepts

1. How does the consultant work reflexively with their intervention?

– Speaking-and-listening, understanding what-is-going-on, reading governing metaphors

2. How is the consultant’s intervention positioned in relation to the client system?

– Five layers to describing the consulting relationship, parallel leadership systems

3. Will the client system allow learning to emerge in the consulting process? Single loop, double loop, and triple loop learning

4. How is the client system currently understood to be engaging with its world in terms of its behavior?

– Its primary task, primary risk, implied domain of relevance and ‘ceiling’


WORKING REFLEXIVELY

How does the consultant work reflexively with their intervention?


The Action Learning Project

What is actually driving their processes in the Agencies?

what-is-Really-going-on

Stakeholders implicitly determine what is allowed to happen

Government’s Disability System: sponsoring system-of-meaning

what-is-going-on (wigo) for participants

Quality Advisor as Mary’s sponsor

Workshop participant’s sense of their experience: speaking truths

Mary’s way to observe and intervene:

listening to the speaking


Thinking beyond what is said

(emergent) Governing metaphor

Mary’s what-is-going-on

Mary speaking truths about her case

Carole listening to Mary’s speaking

wigo with its implicit organizing principles (the ‘theory-in-use’)


… to get at wiRgo with its unconscious drivers

speaking/listening (the ‘espoused theory’)

Observing/listening is always ‘outside’ the

system itself

+1

Approximating to the ‘whole’ dynamic…


The Parallel Process and the Governing Metaphor

• Parallel process emerges both in the wiRgo relation and in the governing metaphor

(emergent) Governing metaphor

wiRgo/ the unconscious

Carole listening to

Mary’s speaking

Mary’s speaking about her case

+1

Sponsoring/ Stakeholder system




Participants’ wigo

wiRgo/ the unconscious

Mary’s wigo


THE RELATION TO THE CLIENT SYSTEM

How is the consultant’s intervention positioned in relation to the client system?


Four parallel leadership systems

agencies

Persons with disabilities

15 workshop participants

Mary’s leadership

Carole ‘behind-

the-mirror’

5

Agencies intervening

4

Participants intervening

3

Mary intervening

2

1

Reflexive Intervision


How was the consultant’s intervention positioned in relation to the client system?

Carole ‘behind-the-mirror’ 1 Reflexive intervision

Mary’s leadership 2 Mary intervening

Participants’ interventions 3 Participants intervening

The Agencies as their client systems

The Agencies’ customers – people with disabilities

4

5



EMERGENT LEARNING

Will the client system allow learning to emerge in the consulting process?


To what extent will parallel process reverberate through the four systems?

The wiRgo fault line – the relation to what is being unconsciously ignored


Agencies’ wigo

wigo in the lives of

persons with disabilities

Mary’s wigo


The scope of the learning system

wigo in the lives of persons with disabilities

This is what happens in practice…

The client system does what it does

This is how the client system’s business model is applied

It worries about how it does it

… leading to a difference to expectations

Single loop

This is the model

shaping the way the client system does

‘business’ It worries about who it is being in a market

Double loop

These are the issues raised by

questioning this model in its practice It worries about

how it is serving a customer’s interests

Triple loop

Agencies’ wigo


Mary’s wigo


UNDERSTANDING THE CLIENT SYSTEM ‘WIGO’

How is the client system currently understood to be engaging with its world in terms of its behavior?


Primary Risk…

supply-side (client system)

demand-side (the client system’s customers in their contexts-of-use)

The risk that the alignment between the client system’s

behaviour and what the customer wants is not right

primary risk

People with disabilities Agencies


Primary Task…

identity: what is shaping the way things can work

viability: the way things

work in practice

primary task

The definition implicit in the client system’s behaviour

Actual behaviors ‘on the ground’

The rules, systems & procedures etc constraining what happens

‘on the ground’


domain of relevance

The definition of relevance implicit in the client system’s

behaviour hierarchy

edge

Domain of relevance…

The things the Agencies concern themselves with

What gets ignored


… to distinguish what is getting ignored

The ‘HOW’

The ‘WHAT’ The ‘WHO-for-WHOM’

The ‘WHY’

domain of relevance hierarchy

edge

identity: what is shaping the way things can work

viability: the way things

work in practice

primary task

supply-side demand-side

primary risk

Carers’ behaviors

Response to situations involving

people with disabilities

Agency Management

shaping behaviours

Community/ Family/ life history contexts shaping demands


What is not being addressed explicitly in the behaviour of the client system – where is their ‘ceiling’?

II single loop

III double

loop

IV triple loop

The ‘HOW’

The ‘WHAT’

The ‘WHO-for-WHOM’

The ‘WHY’

Carers’ behaviors

Situations involving people with disabilities

Agency Management

Community/ Family/ Life history contexts

I

Above their ‘ceiling’

Can be addressed explicitly

Demand for increasingly differentiated behaviours


DESCRIBING YOUR OWN CASE SITUATION


1: behind-the-mirror

2: consultant leadership

3: intervention on client system

4: client system

5: client system customers

The ‘HOW’

The ‘WHAT’ The ‘WHO-for-WHOM’

The ‘WHY’

domain of relevance hierarchy

edge

primary task

primary risk


UNCOVERING GOVERNING METAPHORS AND ‘GAPS’

The ideas behind reflexive intervision


‘Gaps’ create risks

• Is the listener placing too much dependence upon one account of what is going on? – Is one person’s version of the story being bought into, as though he or she knew and

could give a total description of the problem situation?

• Is the listener assuming that there will be a right way to interpret the presented problem? – Is a particular frame of reference being accorded unquestioned authority?

• How is the listener ‘drawing the line’ around what is or is not relevant to the problem? – Who is part of whose problem, and is the listener able to formulate what is relevant to

the problem in a way which includes himself or herself?


‘Gaps’ create risks

Errors of perception: Too much dependence on one account of the

detail?

Errors of interpretation: Putting the details together into a picture that is in some way inconsistent

with all the details

Errors of intent: Attributing intent in a way that ignores the influence of his or her own interest, or the

interests of others (emergent) Governing metaphor

Mary’s what-is-going-on

Mary’s speaking about her case

Carole listening to Mary’s speaking



REFLEXIVE INTERVISION

The plus-one exercise - attending critically to the ‘speaking-listening’ dynamic


Presenting a Problem Situation

• Speaker role Task: presents a problem situation in his/her case which s/he currently experiences as

problematic ( 5 minutes without interruption)

• Listener role(s) Task: asks clarifying questions to which the speaker replies, in order to make sense of

what is problematic about the situation (5 minutes of dialogue)

• Plus-one role (listening to the listening) Task: creates a metaphor to describe the assumptions being made (a) about how the

situation has been understood, and (b) about what this implies might have been/is being ignored or left out.

(5 minutes without interruption)

• All together Discuss the ‘gaps’ this implies


LEARNING BY DOING

Actioning learning as a creative response to ‘gaps’


Actioning learning to mitigate risks

• To be effective in addressing ‘gaps’, an actioning learning also has to satisfy four criteria:

– It should matter: there should be an identified client and sponsor for the project to whom it can relate and report.

– It should be practical: the project should be based on data and the result of the project should produce ground-level consequences, i.e. produce a tangible effect.

– It should 'connect': the project should build on or take account of existing structures and 'culture', i.e. it must take notice of what is possible.

– It should add value: the outcome of the project should be to give the organisation an ‘angle’ or leading edge over the way it creates value for its ‘customers’


ENDS

For further reading, see reflexiveintervision.wikispaces.com


Reflexive Intervision A Case Example

Mary Burgess & Carole Eigen PhD


The lived experience of being victimised

• There is risk of re-enacting a disabled person’s role where this intersects with previous experiences in the system

• The consultant feels victimized in entering the system

• The consultant’s role is disabled • Systemic contagion: everyone gets to feel

disabled in a ‘disability system’ • By culling out the learning, trauma is converted

into new learning


THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT


The Starting Point

• The client was a government department that funds services for people with a disability

• The consultant had a task to assist 15 ‘at risk’ agencies to create a network to be well prepared for an external quality audit

• The department wanted an action learning project of 10 x 3 hour sessions over six months with one ‘practitioner’ from each of the 15 agencies

• The agencies provide services to people with a disability


The emerging difficulties

• The department contact seemed overly controlling, trying to cut the contract fee, no money for catering or a venue – the consultant becomes angry, feels victimised

• The selected practitioners seemed polite but disengaged – like the way disabled people interact with services they don’t trust

• The consultant feels she’s lost her touch and has no energy for this project


The decision to engage a Supervisor

• The concept of asymmetrical demand presented resonated strongly with her own experience of the disability system:

“Systems need to develop the agility to take up a role in the lives of people, not the other way around” (Eigen C & Boxer P)

• The consultant decided to seek supervision for this difficult project


THE REFLEXIVE INTERVISION PROCESS

Using counter-transference to discover ‘what is going on’ across four leadership systems

The split screen journal

Espoused theory vs. theory in use


What is required for reflexive intervision?

• A consultant-client contract that enables emergent learning

• A consultant-shadow consultant contract based on ‘accompaniment’

• A working model of the consultant-client system that considers : – The enterprise stakeholders. – the designated client system – the demands of the people the client system is set up to serve. – The position of the consultant .

• A reflexive model that enables systemic parallel process to emerge and be utilized


The consultant’s client system State funded Disability Services: Quality Advisor

practitioner

agency

agency

agency

Persons with disabilities

agency

15 agencies:

Primary task: readiness of their Agencies for

quality audit


Mary


The leadership dilemma: center vs edge

Demands from persons with disabilities

Government’s Disability System

Quality Advisor

practitioner

agency

agency

agencyagency

15 agencies:


Mary


The challenge for leadership

The leadership in the client system must find a way to hold the tension between satisfying the government requirements for quality assurance AND keeping alive the actual needs of the person with a disability Then everyone can feel that they are collaborating to make a difference



Stakeholders implicitly determine what is allowed to happen

What is actually driving their processes in the Agencies?

Quality Advisor as Mary’s sponsor

Government’s Disability System: sponsoring system

what-is-going-on (wigo) for participants





The Parallel Process

• Using the parallel process to uncover what is being ignored

Sponsoring system-of-meaning

Workshop participants speaking ‘truths’

Mary listening

wigo for participants


Governing metaphor

wiRgo/ unconscious process

Carole listening

Mary speaking ‘truths’

+1

Mary’s wigo

The Reflexive Process

wiRgo/ unconscious process


MARY’S EXPERIENCE WITH THE CLIENT SYSTEM

Parallel systems


The Project Consultant Experience

First transition: Into Reflexive Consultancy

Phase 1: Sense of relief and excitement

End Phase 1: Beginning of real engagement


Finding the place to focus

Project Activities

• System-consultant’s work begins

• Consultant writes about her experience of the project

• Workshop 4 of 10 has yet to take place

WIGO

• Consultant feels supported by the supervision

• Practitioners aren’t engaging with the action learning method

• Consultant feels useless with the group


The intervention (1)

• Your task is to help practitioners get the most out of the system for their clients (people with a disability), and their organisation, not compliance


Beginning of Real Engagement

• The consultant shifts focus onto the practitioners and their task in Workshop 4

• They undertake two peer audits in Workshops 5 & 6 in their organisations talking directly with people with a disability

• A practitioner names the Quality Manual a ‘monster’

• The Quality Advisor is in the background not the foreground of the project


The Project Consultant Experience

Second transition: Opening up Pandora’s box

Phase 2: Looking at data

End Phase 2: Wanting to turn a blind eye


End of Phase 2 Getting Stuck

Activities

• The system-consultant explores the consultant being squeezed in the project

• Some practitioners have dropped out of the project

• The Quality Advisor comes to a session and talks at the practitioners

The Dynamic

• The consultant is back to lethargy & immobilisation and not writing

• The CEO of the service hosting the second peer audit stops coming to sessions – never returns

• The Quality Advisor wants a conference to ‘look good’ at the end of the project


Struggling to face reality

• A sense of disintegration – the practitioners won’t

work in action learning mode, the consultant gives up on it in Workshop 8

• The Quality Advisor wants the consultant to report on the practitioners and their agencies

• The consultant wants to work with the individual practitioners who have dropped out

• Something can’t be faced - this is true in all parts of the system

System-consultant makes two important interventions


The interventions (2)

• Is working individually with agencies part of your brief?

• Where do you want to be with the Quality Advisor at the end of the project?


The Struggle: to avoid or face reality

Third transition: Struggle to avoid or face

reality

Phase 3: Discovering what is possible

End of Phase 3: Facing the real work of the

system and agencies -


Giving up control

Sense of disintegration

• Practitioners own process more & consultant feels more useless with them

• Consultant not writing and cancels another skype session with system-consultant


The intervention (3)

• The use of writing to discover what is not known about the system itself is particularly scary because ones 'self' becomes a medium that gives up control in order to gain systemic perspective. Just as the system struggles to maintain its identity and protect itself from trauma, we risk not confronting that parallel trauma in ourselves.


Breaking through

Activities

• In the final two workshops the practitioners plan how to continue their work

• They refuse to present their learnings, instead present a proposal for growth of their network

Dynamic

• The consultant helps the practitioners get what they want

• The Quality Advisor also becomes helpful to the practitioners instead of wanting them to make her look good to the system


The big picture – with hindsight!

3rd Transition: Struggling to avoid or face reality

PHASE 3: Discovering what is possible END: Facing the real work of the system and

the agencies

2nd Transition: Exploration – opening up Pandora’s box

PHASE 2: Looking at data END: Wanting to turn a blind eye

1st Transition: Relief – no longer alone

PHASE 1: Sense of relief & excitement END: Beginning real engagement


WHY WORK REFLEXIVELY?


Quality Advisor

practitioner

agency

agency

agencyagency

15 agencies:


Mary

Four parallel leadership systems

Mary intervening

Participants intervening


Mary’s leadership

Reflexive Intervision

Carole listening

+1


Why work reflexively?

• Consultants who work in complex systems tend to be captured by the way the stakeholders constrain what it is possible to accomplish.

30

wigo in lives of persons with

disabilities

Agencies’ wigo


Mary’s wigo

Reflexive process challenges the consultant to discover and to question

what is being ignored

Copyright (c) 2012 Bridgewater Professional Associates LLC 4th June 2012

To what extent will parallel process reverberate through the four systems?

The wiRgo fault line – the relation to what is being unconsciously ignored


Agencies’ wigo

wigo in the lives of

persons with disabilities

Mary’s wigo


ENDS


Ispso 2012 workshop final

Business

stakeholders

parallel process

wirgo fault

consultants

parallel leadership

action learning

governments

gaps create