How to explain the systemic constellation method to students?
It might be difficult to find words to explain the systemic constellation method to people who are not familiar with the method. What do you explain and what do you leave out? What is the minimal information that people need to know in order to be engaged in a workshop?
In our experience with working with students, we have come to the conclusion that students only need a short introduction into the systemic constellation method and that the setting and the attitude of the trainer is more important than being complete in your content information about systemic constellations. In general, it seems that the more you explain in advance, the more worried or sceptic the students get. An explanation of what systems are or what defines a constellation is not necessary. Details about technical aspects can also be addressed during or after the workshop. It’s more important to get started and let them experience the workshop.
The following text is a literally example of a text that has been used to introduce a workshop for students. It follows directly after the welcome and introduction of the setting and the trainers.
“We understand that you are currently part of a project team. Today we will have a workshop together to have a look at how your team functions and how things are going. A team can be seen as a group of people working together. Every group of people develops a way of working and habits.”
“You can think of the many other groups of people you are part of besides your project team, like your family of origins, your school, sport clubs, the people you live with in your student house, etc. All these groups of people have different characteristics and rules and you behave differently in these groups. For instance, you probably act differently among your family that when you are on a night out with friends. You do not have to think about that, you just know how to behave and what to do. Most of these characteristics and so-called rules are implicit and informal. This means that they are not spoken out, but you tend to know how to behave anyway. People say things like ‘this is how we do things here…’. We humans can deal with all this very well and we are designed for it. From the moment that we are born, we live among other people.”
“What we will do today is to explore the characteristics and informal rules in your project team. This means we look at habits, structures and roles in your team. For instance, which habits are helpful and which are hindering? You may or may not have an issue in the collaboration, that’s not so important. We want to offer you this opportunity, to improve your collaboration or help your project.”
“In order to do this, we will use a certain method: a constellation. This method is often used in business settings. This is a type of live visualization of your project team. For this visualization we will use your colleague students. That way everybody in the team has a look at the same picture of the team and the collaboration. We all have pictures in our mind, but this method allows us to share this picture. It is not so much about how everybody behaves and we will certainly not judge on what is right or wrong, it’s about exploring together, share views and try different perspectives. It’s very normal that you are puzzled at this moment, it will become clear when we start. You can ask as many questions during the workshop.”
To give structure for the students, provide some practical information like:
- we will be doing this together, as 1 group (no subdividing into smaller groups)
- every team will get their turn
- we as trainers will be here together during the workshop and we will keep an eye on the time
- there will be 2 trainers: 1 trainer will supervise the constellations.
“As a last note, we want to emphasize that everything we do today, we do for you. If you have any questions, or if you feel we take a wrong direction somewhere: please say so! Make it known when things don’t feel okay. Look, observe and feel free to experiment. There is no right or wrong. There will be no assessment. It is not an exam. We will not record anything and will not provide feedback to others outside of this room. Everything that will happen or that will be discussed here is confidential.”