Seeing the Undercurrent in Organisational Systems

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This month we will hear from Paul Zonneveld, co-author of the book “Emergent: The Power of Systemic Intelligence to Navigate the Complexity of M&A” (Mergers & Acquisitions). In this session Paul will discuss the hearth of the book: the 4 guiding principles to successfully navigate the complexity of mergers and acquisitions and many other situations where groups of people, teams, departments etc. are either combined or separated.

Who is this session for?
Anyone can attend this session. No prior knowledge of System thinking is required. The only thing required is a willingness to engage with different ideas and explore the complexity around you.

About the speaker:
Paul Zonneveld is an executive coach and senior faculty for top team interventions, with over 25 years of international business experience.
He has a unique expertise in understanding systems, enabling him to offer insight into how to manage change and transformation for leaders of small and large organisations, those who find themselves in complex situations, or going through M&A. He teaches system sensibility, system awareness and effectiveness at various institutes, enabling leaders to apply systemic intelligence to their organizational complexity and influence the deeper dynamics driving their businesses.

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#44 Systemic Elegance (with Mieke Jacobs and Paul Zonneveld)

Paul Zonneveld and Mieke Jacobs are the co-authors of the recent book Emergent, which brings a systemic intelligence lens to the questions of how organizations get into and ultimately resolve complex challenges, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions.

Paul and Mieke have both spent decades working with the question of how to help leaders and organizations thrive. What surprised me most about this conversation was the deep attention to history that systemic intelligence brings to these questions of thriving. As Mieke said to me offline, just as human beings store trauma in our bodies, impactful or traumatic events in companies are stored in their visible and invisible structures. These events still show themselves in the internal relations and in the organizational culture.

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Source: mindfulcreative.coach

How to Approach Your L&D Integration Strategy After M&A

Before considering a collective onboarding of an acquired partner, four systemic questions should be asked.
The merger or acquisition (M&A) agreement has been signed and communicated, top leaders have shaken hands, the integration team is established, day zero has arrived. What is the best approach to collectively train and onboard the new employees fast? is often the first question raised to the Learning and Development (L&D) function.

As a result, functional heads, HR, and L&D join forces and start drafting a learning and development swim lane to be added to the tactical integration plan, including technical skill building, vision and values workshops, and leadership bootcamps.

The new kids on the block typically are not involved in the design and get overwhelmed by all the training initiatives. Even if there was initial excitement about the merger or acquisition, they soon may start to feel subject to a hostile takeover. As they lack the company’s history, context, and “do’s and don’ts,” it is unclear which battles they can fight and what not to touch. Most importantly, many of the large training programs turn out to be expensive yet ineffective; well-intended but counterproductive. The new employees do not buy into the new company narrative and become disengaged. Critical talent walks out the door and takes their technology or customer relations base with them.

Click here for full article (4 min read)

Article Author:
Mieke Jacobs and Paul Zonneveld

Source: www.trainingmag.com

The questions to ask when everything is unknown

Systemic intelligence is an indispensable skill for business leaders.
In the chaos of the COVID-19 crisis, the normal executive agenda has been overlaid, leaving leaders facing deep questions they were formally not attending to. In the space of just a few weeks, its become starkly clear that there are no simple solutions in our interconnected world.

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Source: managementtoday.co.uk

How to balance your job, kids and household while working from home

For many parents today, the family home has become their regular coworking space, with the spare bedroom or kitchen table taking the place of a private office. What’s more, working from home now comes with additional challenges in the form of additional babysitting and teaching – making things undeniably difficult. With this in mind, we consulted the experts for their advice on juggling work and family commitments during these tricky times.

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Source: www.spaceworks.com

Navigating the unknown: How to balance long-term goals and daily disruption

Mieke Jacobs and Paul Zonneveld, experts in systemic intelligence, set out their roadmap to navigate through the never-ending complexity and daily change in these unpredictable times.

We live in complex times. Most of our leadership challenges don’t have simple solutions. As David Snowden states in his Cynefin model – where he describes the typical dynamics and corresponding approaches in light of predictability and unpredictability – complexity can be defined by the characteristics.

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Source: www.what-franchise.com

Where best practice meets next practice: THE MOBIUS STRIP

Paul Zonneveld and Mieke Jacobs lead the track Systemic Intelligence and Organizational Constellations at the 2019 NPI. Both have worked with organizations around the world for many years, researching the impact of systemic dynamics, entanglements and traumatic events on large organizations and top teams (as a result of restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, executive leadership transitions, fraud, accidents, transfer of
ownership, etc.)

What they have discovered is that navigating complex organizational challenges with systemic intelligence, using the principles and interventions from constellation work, leads to profound breakthroughs.

The full title of their just-published book is Emergent: The Power of Systemic Intelligence to Navigate the Complexity of M&A (Rethink Press, 2019). While the foundingspark of this beautifully written and compelling guide, was indeed the authors’ work within the
context of mergers and acquisitions, the result is a book that goes far beyond. Emergent is a masterful resource for any complex business challenge where instead of !ghting symptoms, you might discover and work with what the writer Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls ‘El rio abajo el rio’ – the river underneath the river.

Read full article: Emergent_ The Power of Systemic Intelligence MobiusStrip_Fall2019

The Principles of Systemic Intelligence

(from the forthcoming book Mergers & Acquisitions: How to Turn a Forced Marriage into a Loving One)
by Mobius Transformational Faculty Members Paul Zonneveld and Mieke Jacobs

Paul Zonneveld and Mieke Jacobs have worked with organizations around the world for more than twenty years, researching the impact of systemic dynamics, entanglements and traumatic events on large organizations and top teams (as a result of restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, executive leadership transitions, fraud, accidents, transfer of ownership, etc.) What they have discovered is that navigating complex organizational challenges with systemic intelligence, using the principles and interventions from constellation work, leads to profound breakthroughs.

The principles of systemic intelligence 1) Purpose 2) Connection and Inclusion 3) Order and 4) Exchange help us appreciate the deeper whole beyond the distracting parts and symptoms that typically capture our attention and often mis-direct our energy. While these principles are of special relevance to mergers and acquisitions, which is the context of our forthcoming book, systemic intelligence can guide us in any situation where system dynamics are at play including organizations grappling with the full breadth of strategic and operational issues to societal and interpersonal issues closer to home.

Read full artice: Systemic Intelligence article Jacobs Zonneveld MS Strip Fall 2018

2019 saw a record number of CEO departures, what is really contaminating the chair?

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

“The revolving door of management change is spinning fast in the U.K. and U.S. Why are so many CEOs stepping down?”
This is something that Shares magazine recently noted. Board seats, CEO and executive positions, and strategic roles are being filled four or five times in a short time span. Executive search partners are scratching their heads, trying to find the next promising candidate. We need to understand what is really ‘contaminating’ the chair, in order to interrupt this repetitive cycle.

3 views:

  2. Nobody can leave the system unnoticed
  3. A specific place in the system can only be occupied by one person
  4. It was an artificially created seat in the first place. A special assignment – once created and continuously refilled – will lead to unintended consequences later

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Source: Global Franchise Magazine.com

As M&A activity crashes under COVID-19, best practice tips in the current crisis

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disastrous impact on global merger and acquisition (M&A) activity as deal after deal has been put on hold.

The latest figures from data and analytics firm GlobalData reveal that transaction activity in the first quarter of this year was down 26% on the same quarter in 2019. with the crisis already starting to have an impact on deal levels as early as March. The total number of transactions here came in at 1,984, down from 2,339 the month before. The corresponding deal value also dropped from $151.2 billion to $129.9 billion.

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Source: diginomica.com

Recognize that creativity problems can have deep roots

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

‘Just like individuals, organizational systems have an innate capacity for renewal and innovation,’ says Mieke Jacobs, a transformational facilitator, expert in systemic intelligence and co-author of EMERGENT. ‘But creating the right environment to foster creativity, idea generation and bottom-up improvement requires employees to be engaged and feel safe to fail.’

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Source: forbes.com

The Cynefin Framework

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The Cynefin Framework is central to Cognitive Edge methods and tools. It allows executives to see things from new viewpoints, assimilate complex concepts, and address real-world problems and opportunities. Using the Cynefin framework can help executives sense which context they are in so that they can not only make better decisions but also avoid the problems that arise when their preferred management style causes them to make mistakes.

Firms with strong DNA tend to have a strong immune system

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

7 april 2020 Work Place Insight
Firms with strong DNA tend to have a strong immune system.
Mergers & acquisitions should always lead to a cultural identity shift. To do that well there is a need to really get to know the underlying identity of the acquired organisation.
The systemic principles can be used as a lens to look at both players – the acquirer and the acquired – and understand the cultural identity and dynamics on a deeper level.

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M&As: how to make sure a loving marriage doesn’t end in divorce

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

24 maart 2020 The People Space
M&As: how to make sure a loving marriage doesn’t end in divorce M&A integration doesn’t need to end in a crisis, there are better ways to make it a success!
Because long-standing companies might have become blind to their own systemic dynamics that prevented them igniting the innovation or transformation needed, they themselves might be the cause of the unwanted disruption. ‘What is this M&A an excuse for? Is a great question to ask yourself before to start on the M&A path.

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Source: www.thepeoplespace.com

“We used to dance; now we march”: How M&As can kill culture

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

23 maart 2020 Management Today
If you’re not careful, you can destroy the very thing that made the acquisition valuable in the first place. Killing the culture of the acquired partner is particularly common when incumbents try to buy the innovator in their field, the disruptive competitor or the ingenious start-up. When you try to buy something that you miss or have lost along the way, and integrate them into your existing system, you risk killing the very thing you wanted to buy

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Source: www.managementtoday.co.uk

M&A: how to turn an arranged marriage into a loving one

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

16 maart 2020 op Acquisition Daily

Unfortunately, there is no happy pill or medicine to cure all M&A problems, but there are tools you can use to better diagnose the complexity of M&A. To sense, probe, experience and adjust the treatment and recovery plan where needed and identify the elements for a healthy relationship going forward.
The four systemic principles help to identify and understand the symptoms in companies and organisations, leading you to see the underlying entanglements that hold you hostage.

  • Purpose (what is this organisation invited to do (an outside-in perspective)?)
  • Connection & inclusion (who belongs, who does not belong any longer? How do we connect the organisation to the new purpose?)
  • Order and occupying one’s place (what is the new order of things, is everyone in the right place and taking full responsibility?)
  • Exchange (what is the dynamic equilibrium between giving and taking?)

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www.acquisitionsdaily.com

Secret to a happy marriage after M&A

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

25 februari op Acquisition Daily
What are the secrets that help two organisational systems come together in a good way?
What does the systemic intelligence bring to the wedding party?
Looking at both parties and at the newly formed organisation with systemic intelligence allows you to navigate the complexity of merging two organisational systems and to surface the roots of seemingly intractable behavior, illogical resistance to change, persistent roadblocks and underperforming teams.

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Source: www.acquisitionsdaily.com

L&D in M&A: It starts with an honest culture assessment

Emergent - Systemic Intelligence - Mieke Jacobs - Paul Zonneveld

25 februari on HR Dive
When an M&A is being considered, it’s very often a numbers game, and expectations are being drawn on a spreadsheet.” People are the key to a successful M&A, how they’r allowed to relate to what is being lost is fundamental for a smooth integration into a new culture. Systemic intelligence with its four principles (purpose, connection, order & exchange) are a strong your guiding light.

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Source: www.hrdive.com