Alexey Pikulev, business agility coach at Unusual Concepts describes team trust constellations exercise in his recent blog. This exercise is based on the concept of Systemic Constellations.
'Systemic Constellations' is a coaching technique used in personal, team or organization levels to identify a system as a set of elements in relationship to each other. This technique enables one to see a situation or a problem from different perspectives, working with the elements, understanding dependency and revealing influential factors. As a result, participants get a map which help them to better understand the considered system. Applying
Francesco Pimpinelli, Managing Director of SystemAlive in his white paper describes and talks about Systemic Constellations. He mentioned that
‘Constellation’ is a technical term used in human science to identify a system as a set of elements in relationship to each other and ‘Systemic’ approach enables one to see a situation or a problem within its entire context, working with the elements in the current system. Systemic Constellation helps us to understand which elements in the Constellation or relationships amongst its elements are functional and which ones have a disruptive influence and on that basis, it is possible to transform issues and obstacles to bring order and harmony into the system, by changing how the elements operate and relate to each other.
John Whittington, author of the book: Systemic Coaching and Constellations, describes in his book that applying Systemic Constellations in coaching provide great opportunities to discover new solutions, overcome different obstacles and clarify how to reach personal, team and organization goals.
Alexey runs an exercise on team trust. He proposes to use any shapes or figures to create the constellation. He uses hexagons which are based on Team Trust Canvas and describes the most frequently occurring factors that positively influence trust in teams. He facilitates this activity as:
- Each team gets a clear flip-chart which represents the team space.
- Then participants receive a set of hexagons and arrows in order to prepare a system map.
- Instructed teams their main goal is to find out how trust elements will adjust to each other and form a Team Trust Map. They should make an effort to discuss and find a solution as a team. Optionally, they could draw a team boundary or other extra elements and shapes which can help them to build a map.
- Working with a clear flip-chart they choose the first hexagon which could represent their most important factor. Then they find an appropriate place for the starting point for their trust conversation. The next step, they choose an arrow and find a direction which demonstrates a connection or influence to their next factors.
- Choose another hexagon and do the same thing.
- If the team feels that they will meet an obstacle at this point they might put a “Blocker”.