If you work in a company where the same problems keep coming back even though the people change, you probably know the feeling of helplessness. A new manager arrives, the team changes, a new procedure is introduced, and a few months later everything looks as it did before. Conflicts repeat themselves, cooperation stalls, goals remain unmet.
The usual response is to look for someone to blame: someone is not capable, committed or loyal enough. The systemic view asks a different question. It does not ask only who is at fault, but what is happening in the system that makes this very pattern keep returning.
In the book Codes of Success, Dr Jelena Đorđević writes about organisations as living systems. This is exactly where an understanding of what business constellations can illuminate begins.
The organisation as a living system
The market, as the book puts it, is a living system that constantly reflects the past and present activities of organisations. Organisations themselves are living systems too. Without people they would be no more than a heap of material in one place, and it is people who give them life and purpose.
An organisation is, in other words, a collection of individual energies. Everyone who enters it brings not only knowledge and skills, but also their inner forces: emotional, mental and spiritual capacities shaped by their family heritage. That is why what happens in a company can rarely be explained by a job description alone.
Every employee, wherever they are, manifests their experience and inner resources, which directly affect the destiny of the organisation they work in. (from the book Codes of Success)
When the problem lies not in the people but in the pattern
The systemic approach looks not for a culprit, but for a pattern. The way people work, their productivity, creativity and ability to cooperate can be strongly shaped by unconscious loyalties, conflicts or exclusions within their family systems. When many such patterns meet in one place, they become part of the organisational culture.
Unconscious loyalties are invisible bonds that tie us to the past in an unhealthy way. In a business environment they can lead to self-sabotage or to ineffectiveness in reaching goals, even though everyone in the room sincerely wants success.
The book also gives examples from teamwork. If someone's family had a strong tendency towards isolation, or if previous generations carried mistrust and a fear of betrayal, this may show up as difficulty in delegating tasks, taking on responsibility or keeping healthy boundaries with colleagues. From the outside it looks like a lack of motivation. From the inside, it is an old burden seeking its place.
What business constellations pay attention to
Codes of Success singles out several areas in which the systemic approach is of particular value to organisations:
- The balance of giving and receiving: a fair exchange of value between employees, teams and the whole organisation, which contributes to healthy working relationships.
- Hidden loyalties: unconscious bonds that limit personal and professional growth.
- Leadership: understanding the dynamics of power, roles and responsibilities within the team and the organisation.
- Organisational dynamics: recognising and changing destructive patterns that affect culture and effectiveness.
- Conflicts: every conflict is not only external, but also a reflection of inner conflicts.
In a constellation, these dynamics become visible. Representatives are placed in the space so that they symbolically stand for people or elements important to the issue, and they react intuitively to the relationships within the system. The issue of a constellation does not have to be a family one, it can also be a professional challenge.
The leader and their place in the system
Leadership holds a special place in the book. The causes of underdeveloped leadership skills are often rooted in family dynamics: in a lack of support and trust in childhood, in a sense of inferiority passed down through the generations, or in an unconscious loyalty to the ancestors. If an ancestor abused power, a descendant may unconsciously sabotage their own success as a leader, so as to avoid repeating that mistake.
That is why change in a company often begins with the person who leads it. The book speaks of systemic intelligence, the ability to see the wider causes and consequences of one's own decisions within the organisation and to connect them with their source in the family system. Whoever develops this ability recognises more easily the patterns that repeat within the organisation and sees their own place in the system more clearly.
From insight to change
An insight from a constellation is a beginning, not an end. The book emphasises that systemic self-exploration helps what has been stirred up to be rounded off and integrated. For teamwork, it also offers simple exercises, such as the sentences “I wish to eliminate obstacles to teamwork” or “I wish to eliminate the need for control”, while following the sensations in the body for two to three minutes.
Codes of Success also suggests that organisations introduce regular workshops of systemic constellations and systemic self-exploration. In this way they develop the key skills of their employees and build a foundation for long-term success, in a time that values knowledge about people as the most important resource.
If in your company you see a pattern that keeps returning no matter who sits in which position, perhaps it is time to replace the search for someone to blame with a different question: what is this system trying to show? That question often opens more space than any new procedure.