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Hearts Over Diamonds: Serving Business And Society Through Organizational Psychotherapy
Many organisations have embarked upon the Digital Transformation journey. 95%+ are destined to fail. This is down to many factors, but not least because organisations believe transformational change can be managed. Hearts over Diamonds presents a completely different approach to transformational change. One with a much lower risk of failure.
To my knowledge, this is the first book ever written about Organisational Psychotherapy. Thanks for taking the time to have a look. This is a short book. And intentionally so. It’s not that Organisational Psychotherapy is a shallow domain. But this book just lays down the basics.
This book aims to inform three distinct groups of people:
- Senior managers and executives who might find advantage in hiring and engaging with an Organisational Psychotherapist.
- Folks who might have an interest in becoming Organisational Psychotherapists themselves, either within their organisations or as e.g. freelancers.
- Folks within organisations who might find themselves involved in some way in their organisation’s engagement with one or more organisational psychotherapists.
We’re all busy people, so I guess you may be curious, or even a little concerned, as to whether this book will provide a good return on the time you might spend reading it. I’ve tried to arrange things so that you can quickly answer that question.
I intend this book to be easy to understand, and to that end I’ve used as much plain English as I can muster. I guess some folks find the whole idea of Organisational Psychotherapy somewhat intimidating, and fear the ideas here will “go over their heads”. Let me reassure you that I’ve tried to make this book common-sensical, friendly and down-to-earth.
To my knowledge, this is the first book ever written about Organisational Psychotherapy. Thanks for taking the time to have a look. This is a short book. And intentionally so. It’s not that Organisational Psychotherapy is a shallow domain. But this book just lays down the basics.
This book aims to inform three distinct groups of people:
- Senior managers and executives who might find advantage in hiring and engaging with an Organisational Psychotherapist.
- Folks who might have an interest in becoming Organisational Psychotherapists themselves, either within their organisations or as e.g. freelancers.
- Folks within organisations who might find themselves involved in some way in their organisation’s engagement with one or more organisational psychotherapists.
We’re all busy people, so I guess you may be curious, or even a little concerned, as to whether this book will provide a good return on the time you might spend reading it. I’ve tried to arrange things so that you can quickly answer that question.
I intend this book to be easy to understand, and to that end I’ve used as much plain English as I can muster. I guess some folks find the whole idea of Organisational Psychotherapy somewhat intimidating, and fear the ideas here will “go over their heads”. Let me reassure you that I’ve tried to make this book common-sensical, friendly and down-to-earth.
145 pages, ebook
First published November 14, 2018
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31 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 8, 2021
Good introduction to organisational psychotherapy, and the only one available as far as I know.
I have had the privilege of working with Bob Marshal, and I can now better understand his way of working.
I believe we still have a long way to go before this therapy becomes mainstream. It would help us to get there if there are more books on the topic … in particular, self help books on OT may warm more organisations towards this idea.
I have had the privilege of working with Bob Marshal, and I can now better understand his way of working.
I believe we still have a long way to go before this therapy becomes mainstream. It would help us to get there if there are more books on the topic … in particular, self help books on OT may warm more organisations towards this idea.
February 29, 2020
A well written short and concise description of what Organizational Psychotherapy is and how it can help organisations and leaders come to terms with problems they are facing. Although Im not what is considered this books target audience (that would be leaders, managers or person taking part in Organizational Psychotherapy) I enjoyed reading the book and learning what Organizational Psychotherapy as an idea has to offer.
October 8, 2024
This is book written by Bob Marshall of the https://flowchainsensei.wordpress.com/ blog. I've followed Bob's work for a few years now and often dip in and out of his writing and thinking. Most of the time I find him incredibly insightful, and at other times much of his work doesn't resonate (the spell of articles that seemed produced by AI was a bit of a turn off).
In any case, if you do nothing else after reading this review, have a look at the blog because it's very good and he has a great sense about why organisations struggle and how to work and be different. (it's no secret but the hierarchical structures we see in most organisations are completely ineffectual in delivering value quickly, cheap and aligned to the planet and people on it).
He has written a few books, often they are heavily discounted, free or pay what you want so it's easy to get into if that's your thing.
'Hearts Over Diamonds' serves as an introduction to 'Organisational Psychotherapy'. I've been interested in the concept of organisations having a psychology (rather than a culture), probably in part from being across Bob Marshall's work, and whilst people may look at services, process, technology and demand etc when understanding what is happening, I find that the relationships between people and how they think about themselves and each other is far more worthwhile in studying.
This book introduces what an Organisational Therapist may do, what clients may expect and what is involved. In some respects it serves as a primer, perhaps for prospective clients (maybe those the author wants to attract). In this respect it feels as much like a brochure, rather than an introduction. Even though it says it is a guide for existing and prospective Organisational Therapists and their clients I never got the impression there is enough in here for someone to get started.
Perhaps the most interesting thing in the book was the tools, theory and methodology sections, drawing on systems thinking, coaching and psychotherapy. Many of which I was aware of and others I am not. I never got the feeling though when I was finished that I would dip into the 'things an organisational therapist' may do. Maybe it's me as a reader already swamped with enough theory and practices to last me a lifetime. So I am not sure the book has worked for me and I haven't got much out of it, which is a real shame.
That said, my daily life is spent observing and watching and noticing the 'heart' of where I work, why things happen in the way they do and when. It's a troubled organisation with a troubled 'mind' even though it means well. What also startled me, but goes without saying in the book, is that the author really doesn't think you can help large organisations with hundreds of employees without a team of therapists. For those of us who work in organisations numbering thousands you can see how hard it is going to be to shift the mindsets in organisations which are old, large and with baked in ideas about how things are done.
Maybe not for me this one, but hopefully others will get value out of this.
In any case, if you do nothing else after reading this review, have a look at the blog because it's very good and he has a great sense about why organisations struggle and how to work and be different. (it's no secret but the hierarchical structures we see in most organisations are completely ineffectual in delivering value quickly, cheap and aligned to the planet and people on it).
He has written a few books, often they are heavily discounted, free or pay what you want so it's easy to get into if that's your thing.
'Hearts Over Diamonds' serves as an introduction to 'Organisational Psychotherapy'. I've been interested in the concept of organisations having a psychology (rather than a culture), probably in part from being across Bob Marshall's work, and whilst people may look at services, process, technology and demand etc when understanding what is happening, I find that the relationships between people and how they think about themselves and each other is far more worthwhile in studying.
This book introduces what an Organisational Therapist may do, what clients may expect and what is involved. In some respects it serves as a primer, perhaps for prospective clients (maybe those the author wants to attract). In this respect it feels as much like a brochure, rather than an introduction. Even though it says it is a guide for existing and prospective Organisational Therapists and their clients I never got the impression there is enough in here for someone to get started.
Perhaps the most interesting thing in the book was the tools, theory and methodology sections, drawing on systems thinking, coaching and psychotherapy. Many of which I was aware of and others I am not. I never got the feeling though when I was finished that I would dip into the 'things an organisational therapist' may do. Maybe it's me as a reader already swamped with enough theory and practices to last me a lifetime. So I am not sure the book has worked for me and I haven't got much out of it, which is a real shame.
That said, my daily life is spent observing and watching and noticing the 'heart' of where I work, why things happen in the way they do and when. It's a troubled organisation with a troubled 'mind' even though it means well. What also startled me, but goes without saying in the book, is that the author really doesn't think you can help large organisations with hundreds of employees without a team of therapists. For those of us who work in organisations numbering thousands you can see how hard it is going to be to shift the mindsets in organisations which are old, large and with baked in ideas about how things are done.
Maybe not for me this one, but hopefully others will get value out of this.
March 29, 2024
This is a very clear explanation of the concept of Organisational Psychotherapy, with pointers for those engaging in the process. I've never seen this attempted first hand, but I'm familiar with some of the techniques discussed. It's an interesting idea to assist a whole organisation towards an understanding of its current and desired state.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews