This document discusses system trauma in organizations and how systemic workers can help address it. It defines individual, collective, and system trauma, with system trauma referring to relational wiring between organizational parts. The quality of this relational wiring impacts employee well-being, organizational performance, and ability to adapt. Systemic work aims to care for and heal this relational fabric upstream through non-reactive, trauma-informed approaches. This can help organizations develop resilience and become regenerative living systems. The challenges are developing corporate language around these issues and linking relational problems to performance to gain leadership buy-in for such work.

1. Curiosity for
Systems Trauma
Philippe Bailleur

2. 20
dingen die
je wil lezen
voor je
je organisatie
naar een
levend systeem
transformeert
Het nieuwe organiseren, ook in België
Livingsystemscoaching.be
Philippe Bailleur - Anne Billen - Hans Hoegaerts
systeemverandering
in de
zorgsector
Tilda Duchamps & Philippe Bailleur
Trainer - Coach - Systemic Worker - Org Dev - Org Trauma
0 13 16 24 28 35 49

3. What kind of questions are in the room?

4. “Our pull towards
juicy healing work,
could be our biggest
enemy in working
with trauma.”
“The ’how to’ is
irrelevant if we can’t
open corporate doors
for doing the work.”

5. Opening the
corporate world
for the
phenomenon of
system trauma.

7. Individual
Trauma
(parts)
Collective Trauma
(shared by several
parts)
System Trauma
(relational wiring,
connecting tissue
between parts,
cfr. fascia or
nervous system)

8. “And so, we lift our gazes not
to what is between us, but
what stands before us.”
Amanda Gorman
(cfr. Ya & Ba)

9. Challenges
companies
are having.
Where can
systemic
workers
make a
difference?

10. What and where is the added
value of systemic work for
companies?
What and where is the added
value of systemic work when
there is system trauma?
What will help or limit us -
systemic workers - to bring our
work to the corporate world?

11. “The limits of our
language mean the
limits of our world.”
-
Wittgenstein

12. Organizations as
Living Systems
Resilience
Regenerative
Life Force is Flowing
Life Force is Stuck
Degenerative
Rigidity

13. We see strong parallels between
what it takes to create healthy
attachment in children and what
leads to healthy relational wiring
in organizations.

14. The deep 'assumptions’ about
leadership open or close the door for
working with and/or taking care of
the relational wiring of organizations.
But why would leaders start doing
that?

16. The capacity to deal with complexity, a fast changing world,
overwhelming events (cfr. COVID-19) and the the - so-called -
absorptive capacity grows with the density and the quality of
the relational wiring of a company.

17. Organisation B
Organisation A
The quality of the relational wiring has an immediate impact
on the wellbeing of the workforce and, the output (product,
service, quality, …) of a company.

18. Conway’s Law (1967):
“Any organization that designs a system (= a product, service, software, …)
will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's
communication & collaboration structure.”
“Companies ship their org chart.”

19. This system has a bottleneck
If those folding lines
won’t be managed a
SILO-dynamic will
unfold, exactly what
board members try
to overcome
nowadays.
The information & know-how
of this ‘sub-system’ will not be
available for the development
of collective intelligence.

20. Ventral Connections Sympathetic Connections Dorsal Connections
Ventral, Sympathetic or Dorsal Culture
nurtured by leadership behaviour

21. So, the relational wiring of a company is becoming a
strategic asset. Working in a trauma-informed way is
about taking care of that relational fabric - beyond
housewifery - as if it’s an entity, a body crucial for strategy
execution.

22. Looking for patterns

25. Working in a trauma-informed
way with companies is about
‘upstream’ care
&
‘downstream’ healing
of the relational wiring.
In service of people,
organizations & society.

26. Challenges
companies
are having
Where
systemic
workers
can make a
difference
• Developing sensitivity for the relational wiring
in and around companies.
• Developing ‘corporate-proof’ language.
• Linking ‘wiring issues’ with performance issues
and/or recurring ‘problems’.
• Knowing how to support healing of this
relational wiring, knowing that wiring is
between people, teams, functions, … even
concepts and artefacts of a company.
• Supporting companies with salutogenic org
design, because there is such a thing as
‘Trauma by Design’.

28. Let’s stop seeing only the dark in trauma.
Let’s start looking for the light behind trauma.
cfr.
BA & YA

29. And there is much more to share about this topic:
• Check the book “Stuck”, available on AMAZON.
• Via www.traumainorganizations.com you can
download a free pre-read and you’ll get some
extra content on the topic of TiO.
• But for now, thanks for helping to …
• open corporate minds for this topic.
• develop this emerging field.
Philippe Bailleur