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2025 – "Stone Skills". The difference between process-based and expert consulting
Speech at VIII CONFERENCE on Organizational Development in the Gestalt Approach VEGI-INTAGIO-2025 "GROUPS. TEAMS. ORGANIZATIONS"
One can learn a lot from experts in their field. For instance, one could attend a cooking master class given by a chef at the city's best restaurant… But, unfortunately, everyone later returns to their own kitchens and continues to cook familiar dishes from familiar ingredients. Unlike this (expert) approach, a process consultant working with the Gestalt approach will come to your "kitchen" and help you become aware of how you cook your soup!
The monks from the "The Story of Stone Soup" fairy tale are, of course, process consultants! They arrive only with stones, and they leave with them.
In my presentation, I will talk about the theory and practice of using the organizational development seminar "Stone Soup". The seminar is based on the Cleveland Model.
A few slides about myself. My name is Alexander Koptyakov. I recently turned 45, and I am at something of a peak in my life.
For the first 12 years, I developed Hard Skills – I was a programmer. To use culinary language, I was cooking individually.
Then I mastered Soft Skills as a manager – you could say I was managing the kitchen.
After studying Gestalt at VEGI with Konstantin Pavlov, I began developing Salt Skills – that is, mastering a leadership position in my organization, minimizing managerial influence and managing experience.
And for the past few years, I have become a consultant and mentor not only in other departments (finance, logistics) but also outside the organization where I still work. Today, I have developed two seminars: one, "Letter from the Future," based on the Belfast Model, and the other, "Stone Soup", based on the Cleveland Model, with which I visit other people's "kitchens"! I have named these skills Stone Skills. At the end of the presentation, I will definitely explain why I chose this particular name.
So, to back up what I'm saying. Writer. You can find about nine of my books in Russian and English. They cover management, psychology, and philosophy. There is prose and poetry. The latest books include material on Gestalt and Organizational Development.
Engineer.
Hard skills – Soft skills – Salt skills – Stone skills
Specialist – Manager – Leader – Consultant
My career as a specialist began in 2002 with the development of a database for the startup Ultimate-Guitar. At the time, I was the only programmer there, and now it is the world's largest online archive of guitar tabs, chords, and lyrics, with a multi-million audience of musicians.
Next, I worked for 11 years as a software engineer in the Gas Industry. Today, incidentally, is the 60th anniversary of Oil and Gas Industry Workers' Day! I congratulate everyone involved on the holiday!
The following 11 years were spent at an international chemical company, where I was already mastering the roles of manager and leader.
Somewhere between these companies, or rather, parallel to working at them, I spent 5 years as the owner of a children's development club based on the Montessori method.
And finally, my current stage of development, as before – parallel to my main job – is practicing the role of a process consultant for organizational development using the Gestalt approach: this includes conducting strategic sessions, mentoring, and external consulting.
So, consulting practice as of now. Some figures:
– The workshop "Letter from the Future" has been conducted 29 times.
– The workshop "Stone Soup" has been conducted 8 times (the seminar was developed this year)
– 15 sessions were group sessions
– 22 sessions were individual sessions
– 151 people participated in group sessions
– 22 people participated in individual sessions (correspondingly)
– 33 sessions were online
– Only 4 were in-person
– 27 workshops were conducted in Russian
– 10 were conducted in English
– 22 seminars were conducted within the organization
– 15 were external consulting
I have developed a standard scheme for a year of mentoring:
– First meeting: To establish the mentoring relationship, plan regular meetings, and contracting.
– Second meeting: "Letter from the Future" workshop to set strategic goals and annual objectives.
– Third meeting: "Stone Soup" workshop to explore the mentee's "kitchen" and find ways to apply elements of the Cleveland Model to increase productivity and efficiency.
– Following this: Bi-weekly meetings in the Montessori format. The mentee chooses any topic from a prepared list of my expertise. I follow the mentee's choice, share theory, practice, and personal experience, and facilitate dialogue.
Now I invite you to attend a condensed version of the "Stone Soup" workshop. There will be a theory block, as well as exercises. You will try some of the exercises yourselves. Let's go!
The Cycle of Experience. Also known as the Cycle of Contact. An important quote from Edwin Nevis that will be useful to us later: "A method of establishing strong contact that permeates the countless boundaries of subsystems is necessary for the healthy functioning, survival, and growth of an organization."
Contact is always contact with reality. Moreover, contact is typically not singular, but repeated multiple times. Here are a few quotes from the great Russian physiologist, Prince from the Rurik dynasty, Alexey Ukhtomsky:
– The tragedy of man is that he has no portable, convenient, and handy 'criterion of truth,' other than the real test of his expectations in a direct confrontation with concrete reality. <…>
– An old dominant is renewed either in order to make do with old experience in the face of new data, or in order to reintegrate the old experience according to the new data. <…>
– However, in the process of creation, what is obtained is not an immediate, exact, and adequate snapshot of the objects of reality, but only a kind of trial approximation, which only in further practice, by means of repetitive adjustments, becomes an increasingly adequate reflection of the regularities of the environment. <…>
– Our knowledge of the chronotope is always a trial project of a forthcoming concrete reality based on preliminary signs. The truth or falsehood of the project is decided by concrete verification.
Kurt Lewin. We will look at Field Theory in connection with the Cycle of Experience. Here is his quote and famous formula: "In principle, it is generally agreed upon that behavior (B) is a function of the person (P) and their environment (E): B = F(P, E) – and that P and E in this formula are interdependent variables." (the person and the situation in which they find themselves).
We'll also touch upon the hodological space introduced by Kurt Lewin. On the left, you see a comparison of the spaces of free movement for a child (top) and an adult (bottom). Accessible regions of activity are unshaded, and inaccessible regions are shaded. In the same physical space, more regions are accessible to the adult, though some (like sucking a pacifier, children's travel fares, and so on) become inaccessible.
Looking at these same spaces, you could also imagine, for instance, a city through the eyes of a resident (top), whose regions of activity are connected to home, work, a few shops, and social institutions. And below, the same city, but through the eyes of a tourist, exploring the city using a guidebook.
Different psychological representations of life space lead to different behaviors.
Now let's do an exercise: Drawing-scheme
Take a blank sheet of paper horizontally and draw two areas: one on the far left edge and one on the far right edge. On the left, write "Kindergarten". If you didn't attend kindergarten, write "Infancy". On the right, write in your current situation: your job title, role in the company, or current life situation.
Done? Now, for those who remember the fairy tale "Easy Bread", imagine on the left a grain of wheat and on the right, bread on the table. The grain cannot instantly turn into bread; it needs to pass through intermediate situations, such as planting, ear of corn, sheaf, storage, flour, oven, and only then the bread on the table.
You now need to do the same thing: schematically draw the areas that you passed through on your life path from kindergarten to your current situation.
You have 5 minutes for this exercise, then break into pairs with your neighbor for another 5 minutes and show and talk about what you came up with. All in all – 10 minutes. You may begin.
…
Done? And now – a small additional task.
Draw at least two more areas to the right of your current situation. And fill them in. These will be a few alternative forecasts for your near future. Two minutes for this exercise, and we will continue. This is for you; you don't necessarily have to show it to anyone.
We are moving on to the Cycle of Experience. Although we are process consultants, we shouldn't forget that increasing the productivity and efficiency of the Client-System is linked to achieving a result. I've placed the result at the end of the contact.
The Cycle of Experience has a total of 7 stages. Let's represent them as 7 areas and color them in the colors of the rainbow, starting with the Red Contact.
Full Contact – Assimilation – Withdrawal – Sensation – Awareness – Energy mobilization – Action.
Contact is not a point on the curve; it's a segment on it. You can imagine contact as a melody, the result of which will only come when it has been fully played out.
This is perfectly described by Kurt Lewin's formula: Result = Result of the Behavior Program, which is a function of the System and the Situation.
After the Contact phase of the Cycle is complete, the Assimilation stage begins. Did we get the result? What is the quality of the result? What new information was learned about the Situation? What new information was learned about the System? Should the Contact be repeated? Or are the Contact and Result good enough to not repeat and to remember them?
Next in the Cycle is Withdrawal and the memorization of the acquired experience for the future.
And now we are back at the initial stage of the Cycle of Experience – Sensation. If at the Contact stage we have everything we need – an idea of the Result, a Behavior Program, an understanding of the Situation, and the System – then at the Sensation stage, the preparation of all necessary elements for Contact is just beginning.
At the Awareness stage, clarification occurs.
At the Energy mobilization stage, the Behavior Program is even prepared.
It would seem everything is ready – contact can begin! But no. I will share a real-life example. Once, I started to sense a lack of money. Being aware of the situation and understanding myself as a System that is not capable of stealing, I defined the desired result as a salary increase. Developing the behavior program, I prepared a list of my achievements over the past year and decided to approach my manager with a request for a raise. So, at that moment, I had everything: an understanding of the situation, my capabilities, the desired result, and a program to achieve the result. And what did I do? Exactly – I started waiting for the right moment when the boss would be in a good mood!
Usually, at the seminar, we do a few exercises in subgroups at this point.
– Exercise №2 (example): Assign a rating of importance (1-10) to each stage of the Cycle of Experience to achieve an effective result
– Exercise №3 (example): Take a topic of your choice from the list (or your own topic) and discuss what is happening in the System regarding this at each stage of the Cycle.
Next is an exercise to continue exploring how processes occur in the Client-System's "kitchen." Remember the quote from Edwin Nevis: "A method of establishing strong contact that permeates the countless boundaries of subsystems is necessary for the healthy functioning, survival, and growth of an organization." So, I propose a brainstorming session for the subgroups – to list all the processes, distributing them across three areas: Functioning, Survival, and Growth.
After the areas are filled with factual information, an additional exercise is suggested: to redistribute the listed processes within their own area, treating the area as a range.
– Frequent – Rare
– Acceptable Risks – Major Consequences
– Short Projects – Long Projects
It is important to note not only that different processes have cycles of different durations and forms, but also the crucial fact that all of them are happening in the Client-System simultaneously! Even if they are at different stages at any given moment.
If expert support is needed, I recommend the following directions for further development:
– Service Management for Functioning
– Risk Management for Survival
– Project Management for Growth
Let's do one more small exercise together. Take a sheet of paper, perhaps the same one. And write your full name (First Name and Surname) on it. Right now.
Done? Now, raise your right hand, those of you who wrote with your right hand. Lower it. Now, raise your left hand, those of you who wrote with your left hand. Please lower it.
Now write the same thing again, only with the other hand.
Done? And the final third task. Write the same thing, but with both hands simultaneously. Try not to do it with one hand while the second one is just formally present. Both hands need to be equally involved in the writing.
We have now arrived at the Myers-Briggs Typology, which was created based on Jung's typology.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is designed to determine one of 16 personality types. It includes 8 scales, grouped in pairs.
I propose viewing each scale as a scale: Left-Handed vs. Right-Handed. This is not about good or bad; it is about which hand typically acts first, automatically, and with better quality.
Now let's return to the Cycle of Experience and see how it might be connected to the MBTI typology. This is a working hypothesis.
The Scale of Orientation of Consciousness:
– E (Extraversion) – orientation of consciousness outward, toward objects
– I (Introversion) – orientation of consciousness inward, toward the subject
Where is attention during contact – on the Situation or on the System? I have placed this same scale for Action: some people initiate contact when they are ready, others when the situation is ripe. The same applies to the Assimilation stage: after contact, some try to answer the question, "Who is to blame?" while others ask, "What is to be done?"
The Scale of Way of Orientation in a Situation:
– S (Sensing) – orientation toward material information
– N (iNtuition) – orientation toward intuitive information
The Scale of Basis for Decision Making:
– T (Thinking) – logical weighing of alternatives
– F (Feeling) – making decisions based on emotional ethics
The Scale of Way of Preparing Decisions:
– J (Judging) – rational preference for planning and pre-ordering information
– P (Perception) – irrational preference for acting without detailed prior preparation, orienting more by circumstances
If you have taken this test, you have a 4-letter code, and you can easily see your orientations according to the Cycle of Experience.
But, of course, it's much more interesting to look when there is a pair, a group, or a team. On the one hand, if people have different preferences at the same stage of the Cycle of Experience, this can be a source of conflict. On the other hand, if everyone ends up on one side of the scale, in that case, there will likely be mutual understanding, but as a whole, as a team – there will be an exposed vulnerability on the opposite side of the spectrum. Because situations vary, and if one team member is uncomfortable at a certain stage, a team with internal diversity can present a more suitable candidate outwardly and be more effective as a whole.
So, why did I label process consulting with the term Stone Skills?
The fact is, I conduct seminars in Russian and English. And I have to adapt them to the context.
In European and Asian cultures, there is an analogue to the Russian fairy tale "Porridge from an Axe"; it's the fairy tale "The Story of Stone Soup." Process consultants are like the monks, and instead of an axe, they come to the village with stones, cook soup from these stones and everything the villagers contribute. Then they all eat the soup together. And then the monk-consultants leave.
By the way, these stones can be left with the Client-System when departing. Let them continue to cook something delicious themselves!
2024 – "Other People's Children". About managing the Cycle of Experience in an Organization
Speech at VII CONFERENCE on Organizational Development in the Gestalt Approach VEGI-INTAGIO-2024 "GROUPS. TEAMS. ORGANIZATIONS".
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The Conference on Organizational Development in the Gestalt Approach, annually organized in September in St. Petersburg under the auspices of VEGI-INTAGIO, is a unique specialized space. I was physically present at the fourth (in a row) conference in 2021 and at the body level I remember well the cozy Indigo Hotel with a hall that accommodates the table number of participants – 70 people. Is it a lot or a little?
In any modern passenger plane there are approximately that many people sitting by the window – 70 people! Each of you is flying on your own unforgettable journey, but here and now we are together, each of you is sitting by the window, the flight attendants are concerned about your safety and comfort. In about two hours, tea, coffee, and drinks will be provided.
Dear passengers! Fasten your seat belts. Put your mobile devices in airplane mode. During ascent and descent, please remain seated. If you have any questions, raise your hand and hold down the flight attendant call button.
And finally, the most important safety rule that will be useful to you in life too. In the life of a consultant, coach, trainer, owner, leader, manager. In the life of an ordinary person. The rule says: in the emergency situation of cabin depressurization, first of all, put on a rescue mask for yourself! Then put masks on your children, and only after that, if necessary, put masks on other people's children…
So, let's take off! As we gain altitude, I will tell you about three success stories from my practical work in the field of organizational development.
The first success story is a prepared and conducted strategic session using the “Letter from the Future” model. I already talked about this model in last year’s speech and announced plans to use it for a strategic session. Now I want to share one methodological clarification.
The “Letter from the Future” model completely reproduces Sean Gaffney’s Belfast model, with the only difference: filling in the square (What to stop? What to keep? What to change? What to try new?) is done twice: first at a point in time in the future 10 (or 5) years from now, and the second time (immediately after the first) at a point in time in the future 1 year from now.
It was an intuition that fully confirmed its practical effectiveness. But I will say honestly – it turned out later that a hundred years before this, the method of "perspective" was already successfully used by Anton Makarenko in his work collectives (children's colonies).
Makarenko introduced the concept of three perspectives: short-term perspective, mid-term perspective and long-term perspective. “To educate a person means to educate him in promising paths. The methodology of this work consists of organizing new perspectives, using existing ones, and gradually substituting more valuable ones.”
The second success story is mentoring. In 2023, I was awarded the title of International Expert in Information Technology and Cybersecurity.
At the awards ceremony, the participants were discussing lively that the honorable duty of an expert is to pass on knowledge to colleagues in their field. But then there was a silent pause when I asked: “What is the difference between passing on knowledge and passing on experience?” Someone said that knowledge can be passed on, but experience cannot. I liked the thoughts of the lady who gave the example of the birth of a child: it is impossible to pass on this experience, but an experienced woman can support a woman who is giving birth for the first time.
Ultimately, I decided to become a mentor in my professional field, to take on mentorship over several mentees. At the same time, I set myself the task of acting as a “classical teacher” (transmitting knowledge) as little as possible, and to follow the mentee’s interests more. Giving advice when a question is formed, there is an urgent need.
And here I was trapped! After the first few meetings, where we discussed all the “hot work topics”, my mentees began to lose interest in our regular meetings, even to the point of canceling the next meeting with the wording “There are no questions yet, nothing to discuss”. On the one hand, as an expert with twenty years of experience, I can offer many topics, but I restrain myself, waiting for the initiative from the mentee to support what is important to him (her) in their current situations, and not what seems important to me. On the other hand, young specialists do not even know what they can ask. But a methodological way out of the impasse was found!
Based on my knowledge, skills and experience, I compiled a list of topics for discussion. At the same time, to purely professional topics (industrial IT), I added topics on management, leadership and organizational development. Auxiliary materials made up 1-2 slides, and I randomly placed the topic headings in the form of cards on one slide, with which each mentoring meeting now begins. In the center of the slide, I placed a real photo of a Montessori class (at one time, my wife and I owned a developmental children's center for 5 years).
Now, every time at the beginning of the meeting, the mentee independently chooses any topic from those offered on the cards and we discuss it. On one of the cards it is written “Any other topic”. As a result:
– each meeting is filled with energy around the topic, chosen as relevant for one reason or another;
– the mentor follows the interest shown, filling it with examples from his own experience;;
– this allows not to give a big lecture, but to outline the main points, to conduct the meeting in a dialogue mode;
– the material (prepared in advance and always available), in the case when the discussion takes up the entire meeting, remains for independent study;
– current experience shows that some topics can be discussed several meetings in a row, until the interest changes – this is decided each time by the mentee.
Maria Montessori: “Based on the fact that the free atmosphere at school gives the child the opportunity to express his natural inclinations, and it is for this purpose that we have appropriately prepared the environment and teaching materials (objects with which the child has to work), the teacher cannot limit his actions to observation alone, but must move on to the next stage of work – to the experiment.”
Which I fully confirm. Freed from the need to transmit knowledge in a monologue mode, the mentor can allow the energy of the mentee's interest and his/her stories to take up more space in the meeting time, and devote time to observation, use phenomenological interventions and propose experiments.
The third success story – Organization of service delivery.
In 2021, I was offered a mission to implement and lead the Industrial IT (OT) and Cyber Security Services in the APAC.
12 countries, over 130 different plants. The main product being implemented is OT equipment for secure remote access, 24/7 data collection in the global cloud and the use of artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency of chemical plants.
Situation at moment of arrival: constant customer complaints; unresolved incidents that lasted for weeks; IT support teams from Europe that did not interact with each other and did not understand the specifics of industrial enterprises in Asia.
But, I arrived in Kuala Lumpur already armed with the tools of the Gestalt approach to organizational development!
The result of two years of work on building a service delivery:
– Zero incidents not resolved within the service agreement time;
– Transferring new, previously exotic (for industrial field) technologies and services into the routine category;
– Best Employee of the Quarter Award for Customer Centricity;
– And finally, a phrase from a top-level leader: “Let’s do it all over the world like Alexander did in Asia.”.
I will highlight the key source of success: differentiation (separation) of the client experience into: RUN / PROTECT / GROW with constant integration.
Gordon Wheeler (book “Gestalt Reconsidered. A New Approach to Contact and Resistance”): “Conservation and growth are fundamental, inseparable poles or polar dimensions of contact.”
We often collect feedback from the client in an attempt to improve the Customer Experience (CX). It is important to understand that the same client can have three different types of interaction (contact) experiences with a product or service provider..
I will give a simple example that is understandable to every driver:
– Buying a new car in a showroom – is an one experience;
– Regular car maintenance – another experience;
– Road traffic accident – third experience.
One customer, but three different types of situations that are actually related. For example, a customer's experience at a car dealership might be improved by reducing the price of a car without airbags, but then that same customer's experience in an accident would be significantly worse.
And each time these are not just different types of experience, but different cycles of experience and, accordingly, different times of cycles, different mindsets!
RUN – support of current services for Customer (cycles: year, quarter, month,.);
PROTECT – customer support during a crisis (“no time”, “faster!”, “ASAP”, …);
GROW/CHANGE – implementation of changes (project cycles: time, money, results).
In reality, all three types of customer experience cycles are present simultaneously, overlapping each other. But understanding these types, differentiating them, and integrating them on the service provider side allows you to become a source, if not of ideal mutually beneficial cooperation, then at least of tolerable mutual survival.
If you are an organizational development, change management, or crisis management professional, learning cycles in an organization may be an important focus for you.
Examples of working with experience cycles in organizations include:
– CX – Customer Experience;
– UX – User experience;
– Continuous Improvement;
– Agile project management.
Even the simple act of putting things in order during operating cycles (when time has a fixed price) can reduce the time of crisis cycles – when time is expensive and continues to become more expensive with each new delay.
It is important to note that understanding the Cycle of Experience is fundamental to organizing and managing any experience.
If you are a knowledge management specialist in a company, then the area of proximal development for you may be the topic of experience management in the organization.
Dear passengers! Please take your seats. We are beginning our descent. Descending from the heights of practice to the foundations of theory. We will descend quickly, so some may have popped ears!
Based on the cultural-anthropological initiative – the book “Other People’s Children”, based on the synthesis of three areas of human research:
1. Russian thinkers from philosophy, physiology, psychology and pedagogy;
2. Gestalt approach in organizational development;
3. Information technology and cybernetic systems.
Alexei Ukhtomsky: “The ability to maintain one's resilience in the face of experience, and then the ability to expand one's resilience through the enrichment of experience, are the two great achievements of life.”
Kurt Lewin: “There is nothing more practical than a good theory.”
So let's refresh the basics regarding the cycle of experience.
On the slide you see the classic model of the cycle of experience, developed within the Gestalt approach to development in organizations. Sometimes the cycle of experience is called the cycle of contact.
Edwin Nevis: “The contact cycle describes the basic process of awareness that the counselor must deal with both in himself and in others as he carries out the work at each stage of counseling.”
It is important that we are not talking about an “experience curve”, but rather about a repeating cycle of experience. Therefore, let us depict it as a closed circle of the cycle.
The cycle of experience is usually considered starting with “sensation”.
Why don't we shift the emphasis in our approach from the gestalt of perception to the gestalt of behavior?
The cycle of experience can be simplified:
1. Preparing for contact
2. Contact (behavior in the situation)
3. Analysis of results -> 1.
At the beginning of this summer, when I was re-watching a recording of Matsuev's performance of Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 2, I had an insight that contact is not a point in the cycle of experience, not the pianist's first touch of the key, but the entire concert! At moment 1 (in the cycle of experience), contact is already prepared in the performer's psyche.
Recently Denis Matsuev was asked backstage about Tchaikovsky's concerto: – "You've probably played it a thousand times…", to which Matsuev replied: – "No, no. The 324th time was just now…"
The repetition of cycles of experience is similar to a recursive (self-invoking) computer approximation program, where with each new execution of the program, the internal function describing the external situation based on a finite set of points describes it (the external situation) more and more accurately.
Let us now look into the human soul, into his nervous system. But first, let me offer you a primary abstraction.
Imagine an egg.
The white perceives the outside world. It “feels” light, heat. And through the layers of white, light and heat reach the yolk. The yolk, it turns out, also “feels” the outside world.
The paradox is that the outside world for the yolk is the white… (The yolk does not directly come into contact with the outside world)
And the paradox of paradoxes is that we can also claim that the yolk, in turn, is the external world for the egg white! The white has two boundaries with the external world: the external one with Genesis, the internal one with the yolk.
So, we get a three-part architecture of the human psyche:
1. Area #1 – preparation and implementation of human behavior;
2. Area #2 – direct acquisition (and storage) of knowledge about the surrounding world and about oneself (“egg white”);
3. Area #3 – indirect acquisition of knowledge about the surrounding world and about oneself (“yolk”).
Alexander Luria: “This (third) block is located in the anterior parts of the brain and includes its frontal lobes: it does not provide the tone of the cortex, does not receive information from the outside world, does not process or store it. It is connected to the outside world only through the apparatus of the second block and can work successfully only if the first block provides the necessary level of wakefulness of the cortex.”
Area #3 is the deepest layers of the psyche, where the most complex objects are stored and processed. And what is the most complex object for a person? That's right – another person! Other people "live" in area #3. At the same time, these people constantly accompany their behavior with speech.
Lev Vygotsky: “The use of a sign, which is also a means of autostimulation, leads a person to a completely new and specific structure of behavior, breaking with the traditions of natural development and for the first time creating a new form of cultural-psychological behavior.”
Have you ever heard of the Vygotsky-Luria Circle?
In 1924, the so-called “Vygotsky-Luria Circle” began to form. The group included psychologists, educators, psychiatrists, physiologists, and neurologists. Film director Sergei Eisenstein and German-American psychologists Kurt Lewin and Kurt Koffka were also members of the circle on its periphery.
In addition to Kurt Lewin, the members of the “circle” were his students who moved to Moscow (Gita Birenbaum, Bluma Zeigarnik). Other famous participants can also be mentioned: Nikolay Bernstein, Leonid Zankov, Alexey Leontyev, Daniil Elkonin.
The attention of the Gestalt approach to human experience as the basis of behavior, as well as the cyclical nature of obtaining and changing experience, largely corresponds to the thoughts of Petr Anokhin about the cyclical nature of the universe as the basis for the origin and development of life on Earth. For him, this formed the basis of the theory of the Anticipatory Reflection of Reality.
Pyotr Anokhin: “The process of reflection unfolds in such a way that the external object is assimilated by the organism through a continuous series of physical and physiological processes, i.e. is reflected first in its structures and then in consciousness. This order of development of the reflection processes leads to the natural conclusion that, in essence, this process is formed from stage to stage in accordance with the information transmission theory. .
From this broad point of view, the primary nervous substance and the central nervous system in general can be considered as a substrate of high specialization, which developed as an apparatus for the maximum and fastest advancement of successive and repeated phenomena of the external world.”
Do you remember? At the moment when the musician initiates contact, the concert is already prepared. The main thing is to guess in advance what kind of concert it will be and to take the right notes. Before moment No. 1 (on the cycle of experience), the choice of behavior scenarios in the upcoming situation occurs. The struggle of dominants according to Ukhtomsky takes place.
Alexei Ukhtomsky: “I began to designate the dominant focus of excitation, which to a significant degree predetermines the nature of the current reactions of the centers at a given moment, by the term "dominant". In doing so, I proceeded from the conviction that the ability to form a dominant is not the exclusive property of the cerebral cortex, but a general property of the centers; so that one can speak of the principle of dominance as a general mode of action of the central nervous system.”
Let's back to Lev Vygotsky.
Lev Vygotsky: “<…> awareness and arbitrariness of concepts, these underdeveloped properties of spontaneous concepts of a schoolchild, lie entirely in the zone of his proximal development. Scientific concepts transform and raise spontaneous concepts to a higher level, implementing their zone of proximal development: after all, what a child can do today in cooperation, he will be able to do independently tomorrow.”
It is surprising, but the “yolks” (deep levels of the psyche), isolated directly from interaction with the world, interact with each other through signs (speech).
There is no reliable evidence that the concept of KSA (Knowledge – Skills – Abilities) was proposed by Lev Vygotsky. But there is no doubt that it was done by one of his students or followers.
Experience is always personal, individual, but knowledge is always shared!
70% of employee learning and development occurs through work experience, 20% comes from learning from colleagues and friends, and only 10% of learning occurs through formal training.
But the main paradox is that in 99% of cases, employees act based on personal experience.
Critical for the first experience:
1. Support employees during the first experience (in the zone of proximal development);
2. Do it slower, but correctly! The speed of movement will come later. “When the bones have grown together, the plaster can be removed.”
I would define ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) as a zone where knowledge already exists, but there is no (or little) skill, and skills are still completely absent.
What else does a specialist in managing cycles of experience in an organization need to know about development?
Phases of development: Understanding -> Repetition -> Forecasting -> Design.
First phase – the ability to reflect the situation of the external world in the internal structures of the psyche (when interacting with the external world).
Second phase – the ability to remember a situation in the internal structures of the psyche, and also to repeat it, changing the internal state in accordance with the chain change of the situation in the external world.
Third phase – the ability to recognize (and predict) a situation at its very beginning (or even before it begins) and effectively change the internal state, getting into the rhythm of the external situation.
Creation – the post-development phase – the creation of something new, something that has not yet existed in the world).
There is no development “in general”. There is an experienced mastery of interaction with the outside world in various situations and the accumulation of knowledge about the world and about oneself!
In their organizational development, a Group, Team, Organization can reach the zone of creativity, where added value and resilience in crises begin.
Knowledge management professionals can help you move from underdevelopment to development.
Let me repeat. There is no development “in general”. There is an experienced mastery of interaction with the outside world in various situations. For example, personally, as a manager, I am now in the creative zone, but as a violin student, I have barely crossed the line between underdevelopment and development – there is a long way to go in development!
Experience management specialists can help to approach the creative zone within the framework of development. This is the maximum that a consultant can do for other people's children (and for their own, too).
Creativity is something a person (group, team, organization, civilization) does independently.
In conclusion, let me present two definitions:
Organization is a small civilization.
Human is an image, a carrier and a source of development of his/her civilization, whose behavior is determined by con-sciousness, personal experience and creative experiment.
The flight is over. Thank you for using the services of our Gestalt OD company. See you next time!
For those who have not found or have not had time to read our board magazine: you can find it for free at www.litres.ru , author: Alexander Koptyakov.
2023 – "Salt Skills"
Speech at the VI conference on Organizational Development in the Gestalt approach VEGI-INTAGIO-2023 "GROUPS. TEAMS. ORGANIZATIONS"
Very often behind the theory of the author lies his life experience, background. The background – “back ground”, “traveled ground” with footprints like on the cover of the book “Gestalt Reconsidered” by author Gordon Wheeler. So, studying the author's background allows us to better understand the figures born from the background.
I am 43 years old, of which I have been working in Industrial Information Technology, Human-Machine Interfaces and Cyber Security for more than 20 years. For the first 12 years I was a software engineer, then for 8 years I was a manager for the development and implementation of new technologies. Recently I received the status of an international expert in this field.
In my case, the allocation of three phases of development of a specialist in an organization can be explained by the occurrence of two successive growth crises with an interval of 10 years.
The first crisis happened after working 10,000 hours at Gazprom Automation, when I realized that as an engineer I can solve any technical problem, but the result is always multiplied by the efficiency factor of the management, which can be less than 1. As the saying goes: if you are criticizing – offer something! And I went to study management. Knowledge multiplied sadness, and the next 10,000 management hours I worked out in another, international company – Air Liquide (World leader company with a 120-year history).
The second crisis happened, when I realized that I lacked the skills to solve a problem that one of the senior managers outlined. He said: “Alexander, the problem with our company is not that we have stupid people. On the contrary, our problem is that we are all smart and experienced, and everyone has their own opinion and decision on any question.” If to translate into the Russian cultural code, we were in the situation of “The Swan, the Pike, and the Crab” (fable by Ivan Krylov).
And then I went to study the Gestalt approach in organizational development at the Eastern European Gestalt Institute by Konstantin Pavlov.
So, two crises – three phases of development. And I designated them as
“Hard Skills”, “Soft Skills” and “Salt Skills”.
Why exactly salt? Salt is a symbol of minimization of managerial impact. Every organization, and every department, has its own “internal kitchen”. In the “Hard Skills” zone, someone is peeling potatoes, someone is washing the dishes. In the “Soft Skills” zone, all ingredients are mixed in the right proportions and volumes to receive a finished dish – a product or service. So, in the “Salt Skills” zone, it is decided whether the dish will be tasty: whether the customers will lick their fingers, whether they will additionally add salt, or after the first test they will no longer touch the dish, and they will no longer order it, or even begin to ignore this organization (or department).
So, the experience of practical application of the principles of the Gestalt approach in the organization.
Autumn 2021. A case of Sean Gaffney's Belfast model to accompany changes in a commercial organization. The topic is more relevant than ever for the corporate segment – "Work Life Balance”. Carte blanche from HR in support of bottom-up initiatives. 7 seminars were held, in total 78 people took part. Recording is voluntary, online format, with collaboration on electronic jam boards.
2021 and 2022. For two years in a row, I participated as a mentor in a career contest for young professionals. An adapted model was born – “Letter from the Future”. The essence of the approach: the participant is required to write a letter to himself from the future describing what he has achieved in 10 years. Before writing a letter, the Belfast model square is filled in / worked out. At the same time, what is important, the participant filled in the square twice. The first time at the moment after 10 years, the second time at the moment – after 1 year. Both fillings were carried out in one meeting and this was stipulated at the beginning: “we fill in twice:
First, answer the questions – what to stop, what to keep, what to change, what new to try, thinking about life in 10 years, and then answering the same questions, but reflecting on the specific achievement of goals already after 1 year.
Although, according to Kurt Lewin, the "future" is in the "present", experimentally it can be seen that the “far future” of positive valence seems more likely feasible. For example, the percentage of those who answered yes to the question “Can you learn to play the violin in 10 years?” will be higher than those who answered yes to the question “Can you learn to play the violin in 1 year?”. This means that fantasies about the distant future are less limited and more energetically charged.
At the same time, it was extremely important to repeat filling in the Belfast-model square of the second time, discussing the goals for 1 year to designate the Zone of Proximal Development (according to Lev Vygotsky) and specific steps towards the implementation of long-term goals (in 10 years).
The first contestant (a young guy who had just graduated from university) won the finals of the competition with his letter from the future and received an invitation to work. Six months later, I again took part in the next similar career contest and tried the same approach. The result was similar: energetically charged long-term goals with specific targets in the Zone of Proximal Development. In this case, with the second contestant – it was a woman 30+ and we filled in the first square of the Belfast model at the time of the future in 5 years (the second – also for 1 year). The choice of 5 years instead of 10 was made by me subjectively and still requires separate reflection.
At the end of September 2023 year, according to the “Letter from the Future” model, I will conduct a strategic session on the development of Industrial Information Technologies (Operational Technologies) with the top management of the organization in which I currently work (the number of participants is 15 people).
In addition to studying the programs of the East European Gestalt Institute and applying them in practice, I am a member of the Gestalt OD association and have been actively involved in the “Discussion Club” project for several years, where we read and discuss books on organizational development in the Gestalt approach.
Spring 2023 year I convinced the management to organize a Discussion Club in our department. Globally, since 2023, the company has an agreement with one of the online platforms, according to which each employee can take any courses at any time. The format of the Discussion Club, which was launched, involves monthly online meetings for 1 hour, where employees discuss one of the online courses completed by everyone. Any employee can suggest a topic for the next discussion. In this case, there is a division into subgroups of 3 people for 15 minutes, where each of the participants can speak. Then everyone returns to the general meeting for reports from subgroups and joint discussion and comments. When splitting into subgroups, a recommendation has been introduced to gather together with those with whom they have not yet communicated in previous discussions.
Formally, a regular meeting has been introduced to stimulate and control learning. In fact, a safe environment has been created where, one way or another, working issues are discussed according to the topics of the chosen courses, but important decisions are not made. This allows to gain personal experience, speak out and be heard by those employees who are usually silent at work meetings. This is especially valuable for new employees. The entire company has already become interested in this practice, and I began to share my experience in organizing and holding a Discussion Club with colleagues from other departments.
Here are a few more examples of the application of Gestalt principles that have helped and continue to help to achieve effective collaborative results in the complex and diverse environment of a large organization: homeostasis, multiple realities, integrity.
– First principle – Homeostasis. Isolation and designation of fundamental polar poles – RUN and CHANGE (preservation and growth). Recognizing the value of dedicating development teams to complement existing teams responsible for supporting operations. Banal fact: if one person is required to produce results and improve the process, then all planning and implementation of changes will be postponed to quiet working hours, that is, NEVER.
– Second principle – Multiple realities. It happened way out of the impasse, when instead of reaching the goal called “we need to find a common language”, it was suggested to respect different languages of different functional units, as they use them for internal effective cooperation within each other. Banal fact: the salvation of a drowning person depends on his ability to ask for help from the rescuer in the language of the rescuer.
– Third principle – Integrity. The loss of efficiency of the organization occurs when different departments are considered as carriers of partial highly specialized knowledge that limits areas of responsibility. High efficiency due to specialization within departments is offset by losses during transitions between them. The solution to this problem was the transition from dividing the organization into parts to considering any subsystem as a projection of the whole system onto a given unit. An explosion of efficiency occurred when information from different departments began to be collected, connected with each other, and the overall result began to flow back to the departments. Banal fact: An increase in efficiency in an organization occurs not when employees are protected from “extra information,” but when employees see all the processes taking place in the organization holistically and understand their role in them..
Finally, I would like to return to the term “Salt Skills” and discuss the topic of new leadership and new leaders.
Personally for me:
– “Hard Skills” is about Specialization and Activity
– “Soft Skills” is about Management and Communications
– “Salt Skills” is about Organizational Development
Chief-cooker has the skills to organize processes in such a way that it works out edible and tasty, so that it turns out varied, so that new dishes appear on the menu.
– “Hard Skills” is about applying knowledge
– “Soft Skills” is about knowledge management
– “Salt Skills” is all about experience management
As a specialist I am an expert in industrial IT and Cyber Security. One of the most important processes in cyber security is backup and recovery.
As a person I feel like a backup copy of the Russian Orthodox Civilization. I think in Russian, through the Russian language I absorb the accumulated joint cultural and historical knowledge, turning it into personal knowledge, then into skills. Some acquired skills are confirmed by personal experience, some unique skills are born from personal experience. After a certain age, there was a need for the opposite process – backing up the accumulated personal experience back to the Civilization.
Any organization is a small civilization. With its own language, religion, culture and education. The accumulated knowledge of the effective interaction of the organization with the external environment can be stored in policies, standards and operating procedures, but real skills are always unfolded on human media that absorb, apply, correct and transmit narratives.
Organizational consulting can be one-time, that is, it can be some kind of one-time recording of “best practices” into the RAM of the client system. Fast, but not reliable. At the first reboot, the RAM is cleared and new consultation is required.
If the client system requires a long-term effect and mastery of self-support, then the consultant is faced with the most important task – to identify real leaders who perform the role of transferring experience in the organization (often, the role is not formalized in any way), and to lay down in them, in these leaders, the principles and organizational development skills. This, in my opinion, is organizational consulting in the Gestalt approach.
Let me tell you one last story about how we were able to identify natural leaders in an organization. In 2016, I was appointed manager of a transformation project to transfer people and processes from Microsoft Office to Cloud technologies. Russian division, more than 500 employees throughout the country. This is in 2020, after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was no need to explain to employees why they should break old habits, and most organizations moved online within a few months. In 2016, accompanying such changes was not an easy task. And an idea was born – we announced a contest for caring for colleagues during changes. All employees were asked to vote using a simple form – indicate the name of the person who helped understand and apply the new technology and choose from two options:
1. I asked and received help
2. I was offered help.
This is how we got a list of winners – employees who spread knowledge around themselves and helped their colleagues master it. Guess what we rewarded them with? … As a reward, we sent them as the first pilot group for external training in cloud technologies at a training center. We understood that they would return and continue what they were doing naturally – supporting people around them during changes, but now with new knowledge.
And in conclusion, for all the leaders of organizational development, I will give three pieces of advice and one quote:
1. Salt is necessary for the body to maintain water balance and acid-base balance.
2. When cooking, taste carefully and slowly first, and only then add salt to taste..
3. Don't rub salt in the wounds…
Quote:
5:13 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
5:14 You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.
5:15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5.
Thank you.
2022 – "Work-Life Balance" – The Belfast Model – Case #2
WHY
This short text is written to share with colleagues image-illustration, which was born during application of Sean Gaffney's Belfast model. The topic is more relevant than ever for the corporate segment – "Work Life Balance". Well, how not to think about bicycles when it comes to balance?
WHAT
Here is the illustration:
Balance depends on the System and the Situation
HOW
Here are some questions, suggestions for reflection and statements in groups that were raised during a series of seminars:
– If we imagine the organization as a bicycle that we ride, then until it completely falls down, we have not lost balance, but the amount of effort to maintain this balance may vary. And then it is of interest to study the forces that are applied in the organization (the “people-bicycle” system) to maintain the optimal state – the state of balance (Joseph Melnik's Theory of Optimal Existence of Systems).
– The balance and amount of effort to maintain it depends on the design of the “people-bicycle” System (organization) itself and the external Situation. If one corresponds to the other, then the forces are applied efficiently (minimum costs, maximum results). Any crisis can be viewed as a discrepancy between the System and the Situation. Imagine a tricycle, which is forced to participate in a multi-kilometer race! Or imagine the amount of effort it takes to balance a two-wheeled track bike that has been told to stay in one place for a long period of time (which has happened to many organizations and people since the start of the pandemic)!
– Not only can an entire organization be thought of as a particular type of bicycle, but different departments and divisions within the same company can represent different bicycle designs. There is also a place for one-wheeled business developers trying different directions of movement. There is also a place for two-wheeled production workers, pulling the company towards the intended goals. There is a place for tricycle staff, steadily holding the tradition. It is good if there are four-wheeled bicycles that take care of the development of riders. Each design relates differently to the same changes that can happen throughout the organization.
– Of course, there is some sense in understanding how the organization was arranged before. But it makes much more sense to take a sober look at the situation “here and now”, to analyze how the current design corresponds to the changed situation, how much excess forces are spent on maintaining balance and is it time to change the bike? Or to pull off the highway onto a less busy street? Or to rebuild an existing bike to suit the situation?
WHAT ELSE
From trying to “find the lost balance” during the workshops, people move on to learning “how did we get to the current balance and what can be done about it?”.
Why do we have a hundred-kilogram weight to the right of the bike? Will all the problems of the organization be solved if we just get rid of it? Or does it compensate for the other hundred-kilogram weight on the left? Maybe we can replace both of them with one-kilogram ones, keeping the same balance and it will become easier and more fun to ride?
2021 – "Letter from the Future" – The Belfast Model – Case #1
WHY
This text describes a real case of using Sean Gaffney's Belfast model. The model was applied partially, with adaptation. But the author of the text (who is also the author of applying the model in a modified form) is hope that he will not be condemned by a demanding reader, since at the time of application he himself did not suspect that he was using the Belfast model, but simply intuitively chose one of the working methods from the corporate training course of Change Management.
WHAT
A career contest for young professionals took place in 2021. The two-month competition included a general training course for all participants, individual mentoring during the project, a semi-final and a final with the opportunity for nominees to present themselves and receive a job offer from companies participating in the competition (jury members, sponsors, observers).
I volunteered to be a mentor and chose a participant with a profile I understood – Information Technology (IT). Looking ahead, I’ll say that Mikhail (this case is published with his approval) reached the final of the competition, won in the “Best Presentation” nomination and received a job offer.
Here are a few important points that determined the approach to mentoring (the approach was formed during the entire career contest):
– Having more than twenty years of experience in IT (from the student bench to a high-level manager), I understood that this was my experience, which happened in my time and in my environment. Therefore, instead of the stories “how it was for me”, it was decided to focus on the Mikhail and his situation;
– Mikhail has recently completed his studies (higher education) and was on the verge of big changes – a new life and professional career and he had no real work experience in commercial organizations;
– Many of the young contestants adapted their presentation to fit their own image of the “specialist that large commercial organizations need”, which was evident in the way they described their experience, choosing “important” points, and not indicating “unimportant” (from their point of view);
– Few of the contestants linked their hobbies/passions to what they would have to apply in the future in the workplace, thereby depriving them of the energy in the way they described the positions they were applying for.
In fact, the role of a mentor was reduced to helping in the “reassembly of reality”, in which Mikhail found support in his past (up to the current moment) and boldly, but realistically, looked into his future (and saw something there, set long-term and short-term goals).
HOW
I roughly understood what would happen at the final of the competition: the participants would try to “sell themselves” (in the good sense of the word) to potential employers, so I suggested that Mikhail chose a non-standard approach and turn the situation around 180 degrees.
The suggestion was to go out at the final presentation and read a letter that “supposedly came the day before from himself in the future”. In this letter, “future Mikhail” writes that the competition ended successfully, he was offered an excellent job in a wonderful company, with which he has been continuously growing and developing for 10 years. The letter describes what from his school and student life helped him realize his talents and potential, develop his talents. The letter also described positive changes in his personal life and realization of old dreams (thanks to a stable and high income).
The main idea of this format was to force potential employers not to look at the contestant in terms of “suitable or not suitable”, but on the contrary, to think about their company in the context of “suitable or not suitable” for the role of that wonderful organization that has been growing and developing for decades, revealing such talents as Mikhail.
All that remained was to write such a letter. At this stage, I chose to fill in the box for analyzing goals from the Belfast model (all goals: for professional and personal life):
– STOP – which will completely disappear from life;
– KEEP – what will remain unchanged;
– CHANGE – what will remain in life, but will change;
– NEW – that there will be a completely new one, which was not there before.
At the same time, what is important, Mikhail filled the square twice. The first time at the time of 2031 (in 10 years), the second time at the time of 2022 (in 1 year). Both fillings were carried out in one meeting and this was agreed at the beginning: “we fill in twice: first we answer the questions STOP / KEEP / CHANGE / NEW, thinking about life in 10 years, and then we answer the same questions, but thinking about specific achievement of goals in 1 year”.
Although, according to Kurt Lewin, the "future" is in the "present", it is experimentally seen that a "far future" of positive valence seems more likely to be feasible. For example, the percentage of those who answered positively to the question “Can you learn to play the violin in 10 years?” will be higher than those who answered the question “Can you learn to play the violin in 1 year?”. This means that fantasies (an image of the future) about the distant future are less limited and more energetically charged.
At the same time, it was extremely important to repeat filling in the Belfast model square for the second time, discussing goals for 1 year, in order to designate the Zone of Proximal Development (according to Lev Vygotsky) towards the implementation of long-term goals (in 10 years).
After this exercise, Mikhail wrote the “Letter from the Future”, which he presented at the final of the competition, and which now lies in Mikhail’s writing/mental desk and checks the life trajectory, directing it to the next decade.
WHAT ELSE
In addition, it can be noted that initially Mikhail applied for the position of a database analyst, but during the conversations it turned out that he has a hobby/passion for animation and video editing. At that time, this was expressed in the creation of congratulatory videos for friends on their birthdays. As a result, Mikhail not only made a presentation in the form of a cartoon accompanying his speech as a video sequence (instead of slides), but also, having received the job offer of an industrial IT assistant, launched an internal corporate startup to help employees present their ideas in a video format, created in six months more than 16 videos, two of which became winners of international competitions (within the company).
Six months later, I again took part in the next similar career competition and tried the same approach. The result was similar: energized long-term goals with specific targets in the Zone of Proximal Development. In this case, the contestant was a woman 30+, and we filled in the first square of the Belfast model for the future in 5 years (the second – also for 1 year). The choice of 5 years instead of 10 was made by me subjectively and still requires separate reflection.
I see no obstacles to using a two-phase approach when working with groups (other than the need for more session time). The standard model describes a single filling of the STOP/KEEP/CHANGE/NEW square. However, the experience of constructing two points (after 10 years, and then after 1 year) through which the line “Letters from the Future” passes, gives optimistic expectations for the successful application of this modified approach to support changes in social systems of various sizes. The author of this text encourages the reader to this experiment (with the hope of feedback and further discussions on the development and applications of Sean Gaffney's Belfast model).
