Coaching: Case Studies in Macro-Micro Coaching

Mary B. is a highly qualified and skillful expert in financial analysis. She's made it nicely up the ladder so far, but now remains stuck at a certain point in her career. The next step is entering the board of directors in her organization. She reckons it's because the board consists only of men and they object to having a woman entering their team.

A systemic constellation reveals quite a different obstacle. Surprisingly for Mary the board shows a welcoming attitude. It's she herself not daring to take a stands there thus belittling her true potential. Mary says: 'I know! I hate this shyness of mine! When I present before the board I always shrink to 2 feet size! What to do?'

We turn towards the micro-system of Mary's 'inner team'. We help her to acknowledge her careful side and open the doors to activate the powerful resources hidden behind it.

In her next presentation before the board she makes a powerful stands and is a invited to become a member of the team.

Macro-micro-coaching uses constellations of 'inner persons' or sub-personalities to make you aware of what hinders you to reach your desired goals and how to go about it.

In addition a practical technique from humanistic psychology called a voice dialogue,* iis applied which allows individuals to become aware of conflicts within themselves, or with others, and to resolve them. The coach speaks with the personality parts involved in the conflict, as if speaking to real, complete people.

In this way, through listening, recognizing, and treating the opposing parts with serious respect, the parts can be brought into a harmonious relationship and aligned in a proper balance

Another example

Mr T is head of a department and is a person with a very strong inner 'pusher'. For him there's only 'get going! and 'hurry up!' and 'work harder!' At the age of thirty, he has already climbed a good way up the career path.

However he has a management problem in that his employees put up a fierce resistance to his leadership style, and others give notice after a brief period of time with him. He does a systemic constellation of the situation, in hopes of improving cooperation at work. The balance of giving and taking is out of alignment. Unconsciously anxious about possibly making too many demands on his employees and driving them away, Mr T takes over everything himself.

In addition, his “perfectionist” personality part insists that he can do it faster and better himself anyway. Without noticing, he refuses to allow or recognise independent performance in his team. This guarantees that the “pusher” and the “perfectionist” in him achieve exactly what he would like to prevent—the employees go elsewhere!

The solution pictured in the constellation is for him to step back, from managing to guiding, from doing to delegating. Mr T agrees with the solution, but his inner governing body does not. Although he says yes, inner objections arise. “You will lose too much time! We won’t get done in time! You have more experience! Don’t put our high standard of quality at risk!” Since Mr T has never met his inner government, he is not consciously aware of this inner dialogue. He only feels torn in a way that he cannot explain.

In this case, the systemic resolution in the work relationship can only function if Mr T gets macro-micro-coaching to give him some room to move. The solution does not depend on the macro-system of the company alone, but on the micro-system of his personality structure.

The micro constellation shows a very strong identification of Mr T with his inner pusher and a neglection of calm analysis and empathy. As he moves away a bit from the pusher he becomes able to embrace both inner capacities. He now listens carefully and calmly to his employees before taking a decision and teamwork improves a lot.

You're invited to join this workshop on optimizing your career through the systemic macro-micro-constellation appraoch.