50 Jahre Zukunft des Organisierens
1. Transformationsspiegel (Transformation Mirror)
Transformation gets organizations moving – and with it comes the need to sometimes change perspective. For the Berlin-based artists’ collective Fünfzehn, the change of perspective itself has a transformative effect, which they make visible and tangible in our Metaplan Forum. They are interested in the moment of contemplation that arises from the fact that something changes – perhaps due to an impulse from
outside, perhaps because you yourself are on the move. Unexpectedly, sometimes even casually, new insights, new knowledge, and a new understanding develop. For this to happen, you need to open up, which presents the opportunity to reshape things – and lets you remain open for what may still come your way during the transformation process.
A change of perspective
When an organization is being transformed, it should feel something like this. When you first start, you don’t give it much thought. No transformation label is stamped on a project right from the beginning. Only after a few steps do you realize that you’re already in the midst of the change process and it’s time to consciously perceive, reflect and shape it. To the right, to the left, in the rear-view mirror – everywhere things appear that are undergoing change or just waiting for it. Sometimes, it is difficult to grasp the change, because for that you have to learn to grasp and learn to look at it. An organization rarely enjoys the luxury of stopping for a moment to analyze and
plan the next steps. Rather, it is a productive struggle for the right perspective to recognize the principles of the division of labor, to deconstruct them, and then to consider at which points the divided efforts can be brought together again, i.e., to reconstruct the organization. This experience is made visible by the artists from Fünfzehn in Berlin. The transformation mirror symbolically gives you the opportunity to go through this experience. May organizational design be inspired in this way by art!
I define change as a highly complex process involving the transformation of basic goals within the company and the step-by-step orientation of the people involved in it.
Workshop of Change
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Workshop of Change was a Metaplan format that initiated and accompanied the transformation process from a functional-hierarchical division of labor to more flexible forms of collaboration in organizations. Specifically, it involved the establishment of a pre-hierarchical space in which previously ultra-hierarchical organizations could establish new practices of leadership and collaboration. Will Friedmann describes the implementation of the Workshop of Change in companies as a set of rules for internal reflection: “The concept is represented by a house. You enter it through a sluice where hierarchical behaviors are discarded (e.g., the search for familiar hierarchical structures such as the conference leader). Then the ‘guests’ (participants) go through three phases of ideation. The results of this process end up in the “small step warehouses” before being fed back into the hierarchical system for implementation.”
Exhibition: Metamorphoses – 50 Years – The Future of Organizing
A description of what constitutes Metaplan from a merely internal perspective would be incomplete. That’s why we put together a variety of artistic positions that describe in different ways what constitutes Metaplan.
We’re looking back to ask ourselves what is to come. Welcome to the world of metamorphoses.
“We call our work planning” – questioning the present in organizations.
Between information markets and corridor gossip – experiencing the history of Metaplan in an unusual sound space.
Forms are lost and structures gained – how art can make interaction visible.
Change through attitudes, attitudes in change: how Metaplan ticks – past and present.
Telse Schnelle Cölln’s work
As a metaplanner striving for unambiguity in her statements, Tesle Schnelle Cölln’s art balances on the threshold between figuration and abstraction.
Visualization is the interaction of individual elements for an overall impression – in art and moderation.
From op-art to visual rhetoric – the art of moderation lies in the interweaving of individual elements.
Here, abstract geometric shapes are the basic elements of a visual language, through which communication develops into understanding.