Stuck?: Dealing with organizational trauma

by Philippe Bailleur, Hans Hoegaerts (Illustrator), James Campbell (Translator)

It’s becoming more and more clear that organizations can become stuck due to organizational trauma. For a while now, the way we look at organizations has been moving from seeing them as machines to seeing them as living systems. If a machine breaks down, we can fix it. Wounds to a living system can’t be fixed; but they can be healed.Complexity and speed of change in our society is increasing. We are confronted with huge, global challenges on a planetary scale. Organizations are pressured from all shareholders, environmentalists, legislators et al. The chance of being overwhelmed by organizational trauma and becoming seriously stuck is enormous and often unseen.What should you – leader, manager, consultant or coach – do if you come up against organizational trauma? How do you identify that an organization is stuck? What incidents or conditions induce organizational trauma? What is needed to facilitate healing? And what makes an organization more resilient? Throughout this book you’ll find answers, anecdotes and case studies that answer these questions and help you get to grips with this growing hazard for the corporate world.Drawing from more than 20 years of experience, this book (the original Dutch edition) won the title of Best Management Book of 2016, awarded by the OOA (Dutch Society of Organizational Consultants). Author Philippe Bailleur uses his broad experience in guiding organizational renewal to dive deeply into the field of individual and systems trauma. A popular and respected keynote speaker about organizational development, a key message of his work is “Healthy organizations can be Forces for Good,”: a rallying call for leadership to identify (their own) organizational trauma and deal with it.THE AUTHORAfter graduating from the Royal Military Academy Belgium, Philippe worked for a number of years for the Belgian Air Force based beside Brussels Airport. In 1996, soon after he moved into an HR role, a Dutch C-130 transport aircraft crashed near Eindhoven. The Belgian crew members and all the Dutch passengers died in the accident. Philippe worked tirelessly with the 41 families who were directly affected and many more of their friends and colleagues. As a result, he was invited to train in the field of emergency and crisis a turning point in his career.The 20 years since have been a process of developing not only his professional expertise – Philippe offers skilled and open guidance around issues of communication, leadership, teamwork, group dynamics, creativity, self-management and coaching – but also his personal development, through coaching, therapy and healing work. Every client, whether organization, team or individual, challenged him to improve and grow his knowledge and understanding via many training courses and hours of self-study. In any given year you’ll find Philippe involved • Keynote speaking on organizational renewal, leadership, organizational trauma, coaching, collective intelligence, management innovation, systemic work and . . .• Facilitating organizational development and organizational healing• Training, mentoring and coaching systemic organizational coaches and leaders• Facilitating organizational constellations• Research and writing

339 pages, Paperback

Published June 6, 2018

Reviews

[Bloss ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

This is a fantastic book for anyone who lives with, works with, and loves humans. It could change the world.

There is so much in this book that I’ve noticed working in HR or HR-adjacent positions. I’ve been so inspired by organizations as living systems and a more compassionate and human way of stewarding the workplace. Thanks to this book for the plethora of inspiring solutions and avenues to explore. Reading this made me wish I could do Org Dev/Design consulting!

One thing that could improve this book is its accessibility. If we wanted widespread engagement with it, using plainer language could help take people with us on the journey. Some of the language, terms, and ideas could be quite new to readers in a mass market audience but these are the very folks we’d have to reach to see widespread change. The writing was quite dry and heavy with niche terms at times, I’d love to see what an accessible version might look like. 👀