“Health” is the current word of our society and – so many forecasts of our time – THE topic of the next decades. No wonder; it is our most valuable asset, the most important thing we have.

Organizations are like living creatures and can be affected by diseases. Many of these corporate diseases can be noticed today when you look into the companies. Afflicted by unhealthy organizational system dynamics, there is a lack of lightness and composure, while pressure to perform and burnout are omnipresent.

Unhealthy companies will not survive sustainably! In dealing with “organizational health”, a paradigm shift is needed, especially among managers and leaders.

In many cases, companies are still managed according to the old management theory of the 80s and 90s of the last century. The basic assumptions about economic activity, about what the human being is, what one is allowed to do with him and about the way one deals with each other in economic dealings are still present. Derived from a human and world view of a time that has long since come to an end. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that the old paradigms still predominate in the thinking and acting of most managers.

But the old concepts have long since become obsolete, they fail and are no longer viable. What is needed is a Copernican change in the way healthy organizations think. The organization and the enterprise must be understood completely new and in contrast to the prevailing understanding as “healthy”. After all, systemically holistic corporate health is the basis for long-term success, stable employee loyalty, and any employer attractiveness. Those who disregard these factors will certainly not be able to achieve sustainable corporate success.

Healthy company – what is that?

But above all, a holistically healthy company is not only shaped by these factors:

There are rules and habits in companies and organizations. In their overall construction, they generate “system processes” or “organizational habits”, i.e. rule-based repetitive automatisms. Destructive system processes are such organizational habits (control cycles) that have a self-destructive effect and are capable of causing lasting damage to the organization, even destroying it. Thus, negative energy in the system emanates from them.

For forward-thinking company managers, the following questions must be asked when it comes to the sustainable development of their organization:

1. How are destructive system processes (negative energies) identified in the company?
2. How are the most effective points of intervention identified?
3. How are destructive system processes effectively corrected (“disturbed”)?
4. How are constructive system dynamics (positive energies) released in the organization?
5. How are constructive system processes ensured in the long run?

The aim of systemic organizational development is to answer exactly these questions with the help of various methods of analysis by “mirroring”, “disturbance” and “learning”. These instruments help to positively influence the systemic landscape by breaking the regulatory cycles and promoting insight and willingness to innovate.

Often, the cycles are so well established and internalized that external support is needed to get to the bottom of the questions. Starting with an in-depth analysis of the system processes and dynamics via the conceptual response and implementation of all five concerns mentioned. The methods used here originate from the toolbox of systemic organizational development, which pursues the goal of “disturbing” systems in order to “break them up” for necessary innovations. The following table shows the necessary competencies of managers and employees caused by systemic organizational development.