Organisational coaching

Overview

I have worked with a wide range of organisations, from companies to associations to non-profits and intentional communities. In my work I focus on supporting individuals and teams in their transition to new ways of collaboration, participation, relating and being. To do so I utilise the full range of my expertise in agile management, coaching, mediation, psychology, neuroscience and mindfulness practices. Depending on the needs of the organisation the coaching process can consist of

• Establishing a culture of psychological safety, trust and accountability

• Implementing healthy communication habits, effective meeting practices and decision-making techniques

• Navigating complexity and creating clarity and alignment regarding vision, mission and values

• Guiding the transition towards becoming an agile organisation with an iterative-incremental workflow

• Facilitating effective retrospectives to become an adaptive and learning organisation

Why I am interested in healthy collaboration

My academic background is in psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. While working in research labs, for-profit and non-profit organisations I again and again had a sobering experience: I saw well-meaning, highly intelligent people having difficulties working together in constructive ways. This was mainly due to a lack of processes and structures necessary for healthy collaboration. I realised that these structure are at least as important as the content you are working on. For that reason I trained and now work as a coach, mediator and agile manager. I became particularly interested in psychological safety, sociocracy, the agile mindset, iterative-incremental workflows, decentralised organisational structures, collective intelligence and decision-making, compassionate systems theory and transformational leadership. I now apply and explore these practices in my work as an organisational coach and in my function of helping organise and run a self-organised, cooperative coworking community in Berlin-Kreuzberg. My main aim in these projects is to create a working model of the kind of changes we would like to see in the world and then scale it.

Organisational challenges in the 21st century

We are living in a VUCA world which stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The rate of change is faster than ever. This fosters unprecedented opportunities but at the same time poses serious challenges for organisations. The main challenge is to react quickly to rapidly changing circumstances and markets. This is true for businesses, NGOs and even schools and universities. This concept is not new to the 21st century. In fact, the challenge of adaptability is built-in to our live-world by evolution. Not the strongest survives but the most adaptable. The basic evolutionary rule of adapt or die applies in nature as well as organisations! The whole of humanity is becoming painfully aware of the importance of adaptability as we are facing complex crises in almost every domain, from global pandemics to climate change. The problems we face encompass all aspects of organisations: leadership and organisational structure, governance and decision-making, communication and relationships, creativity and innovation, meaning, purpose and values.

Becoming a mindful and regenerative organisation

Thankfully, the solutions to these aforementioned challenges we face as organisations and as humanity as a whole are becoming increasingly clear. One part of the solutions comes from the study of nature which had billions of years to come up with viable solutions to similar problems. Understanding and copying natural systems, especially superorganisms such as ant colonies, beehives or mycelial networks, can provide various solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems.

Another strand of knowledge comes from the sciences, in particular psychology, sociology, systems science, cybernetics, neuroscience and philosophy. The combined research of these fields has distilled clear answers to these challenges. The scientific method – observation, hypothesis, experiment and evaluation – has proven to be powerful in solving all kinds of problems. The scientific ideals of openness, curiosity, scepticism and systematicity are worthy companions in any endeavour. I use the scientific method and ideals every step of the way.

Inspiration

My work is inspired by a number of sources, among the most important are Sociocracy 3.0, Laloux’s “Reinventing organisations”, “Agile Organisationsentwicklung” by Bernd Oesterreich and “Regenerative Leadership” by Storm and Gilles. In terms of methods, I draw on numerous tools from systemic coaching, mediation, psychology, design thinking, agile management, mindfulness-based approaches, project management. The methods I use depend on what is appropriate for the situation and what the client feels comfortable with. Some of the methods I often work with are: Retrospectives, SWOT analysis, design thinking sprints, mind mapping, analysing and improving meeting practices, feedback practices, workflow analysis and more. I also use methods from my experience as a meditation teacher, such as short moments of silence, guided meditations and reflections.

Get started

If you are interested in working with me, fill out the contact form below.