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The central focus of the editors of this volume is organisational consulting in a dynamic world where, as they put it, ‘just standing still means falling behind’. Under this banner they have collected 13 contributions from authors living in Australia, Germany, France and the United States. The editors outline current dilemma's of organisational life in global society, the complexity of presented cases in this book mirroring the complexity that consultants face.
The book was published six years after Obholzer and Robert's The Unconscious at Work, which was designed for people managing and working in hospitals, schools and community care centres (1994). When I started reading, the image had entered my mind that Dynamic Consultation in a Changing Workplace would more or less be its corporate equivalent. Though the first article, by Gutmann and Pierre, was promising, this assumption proved to be false. Whilst there are some strong articles which address the corporate world, most of the articles in this volume relate to non-commercial organisations.
The editors argue that what needs to be developed is ‘a view of leadership and consultation that empowers and creates transformational thinking and living’. They advocate the development of a dynamic systems perspective for both leaders and consultants. The book lives up to this wish. Most contributions discuss the dynamics of continuously monitoring the impact of issues and interventions on life and work: that include success and failure, joy and fear, hope and despair.
I made a personal selection from the articles, mainly based on the impact they had on me.
David Gutmann and Roman Pierre, representing IFSI with their strong ties in the corporate world, provide a brilliant opening article. They build on Schumpeter's concept of ‘creative destruction’ to underscore their thesis that innovation and transformation in organisations is creative