"Someone must have infamized Josef K., because he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong." We know that Kafka's anti-hero is an authorized officer at a bank. However, his alleged offense remains hidden from himself and us. For sensitive personalities, the best prerequisite for surreal, nightmarish events. However, it is clear to organizational consultants: Someone has obviously violated the informal rules of an organization. "Informal rules" are by far one of the most exciting aspects when it comes to analyzing organizational culture. Dealing with informal rules is one of Falko's research interests and his work in the field, alongside power games in change processes (von Ameln, 2016).

Latent, unwritten rules are often commonplace in organizations as unconscious patterns. They are the result of learning from experience, blossom unnoticed, shape an organizational culture and cause friction and conflicts. They influence decision-making processes as well as organizational development processes. If the (formal) rules of cooperation are changed, for example because an organization relies on a different management model and wants to transform itself, this will only succeed if the prevailing latent rules with regard to communication and decision-making patterns are also changed. What is the big result of a transformation if latent rules such as “The boss is responsible for eliminating uncertainties” or “You don’t always have to understand everything” are uncovered and changed? Revealing and changing – how does that work in practice?

Whether it's about cultural transformation, organizational learning or even supposedly "smaller" topics such as optimizing communication between different organizational units - organizational consultants often work on all of this in well-known formats such as small group work, discussions, lectures, etc. All of these formats are cognitively oriented and represent only one side of the coin, if you will. With Falko, we are committed to action-oriented methods in organizational consulting. The aim is not just to “talk about it”, but also to make what makes an organization come alive. Can you, for example, imagine your organization scenically in order to be able to recognize and change its peculiarities? Sure, that takes a bit of courage and the desire to experiment with something new. Just imagine the unconscious parts of your organization: Metaphorically speaking, beyond the “collective cerebral cortex” there are role models, relationship models and thematic thresholds that have not been addressed. These unconscious parts shape expectation structures and thus communication and interaction in the organization and ensure their very own system dynamics. Our thesis: Basically, it can only be advantageous for an organization to playfully confront its “true self” in order to release its constructive power for change. Speaking of power: For organizations, dealing constructively with questions of change also means taking the dynamics of power into account. Even today, at a time when hierarchical dismantling and self-organization are en vogue.

For us, together with Falko, some questions arise in this context: Does a dismantling of hierarchical structures automatically mean that questions of power would play a lesser role in the organizations concerned? Or does power only manifest itself here in other forms? How can organizations be designed in such a way that they can make adaptive decisions in radically changing environments without being hindered by traditional power structures? How can clear orientation and participatory design be reconciled in change processes? How can one find a constructive way of dealing with micropolitical disputes in change processes? And last but not least, self-critically: How can and how should we as consultants react when power dynamics negatively influence the change processes that we accompany?

LITERATURE

VON AMELN, F., HEINTEL, PETER 2016. Macht in Organisationen: Denkwerkzeuge für Führung, Beratung und Change Management, Stuttgart, Schäffer Pöschel.

VON AMELN, F. & KRAMER, J. 2016. Organisationen in Bewegung bringen, Berlin/Heidelberg, Springer Verlag.

VON AMELN, F. Z., RAINER 2011. Musterwechsel in Organisationen. Latente Organisationsregeln als Schlüsselfaktoren gelingenden Change Managements. Organisationsentwicklung, 4, 49-55.