Case #7: Change Management in half the time with Systemic Constellation
- Marco Schlimpert
- Aug 25
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 3
Are you the Hero fighting against the windmills?
How often have you felt like Don Quixote fighting windmills or running into rubber walls trying to implement change in your organization?
As a board member of an international industrial corporation with responsibility for 2,400 employees and their families, I launched a complex transformation program with great enthusiasm. We had everything: a precise project plan, a clear organizational structure, a compelling "why," and even full support from senior leadership. Yet something strange happened.
After the first few months, we sensed an unconscious resistance in the system. People nodded in meetings, but actual implementation stalled. Enthusiasm remained absent, and change energy dissipated in daily routine. It felt like hitting a rubber wall that absorbed all efforts and subtly bounced back. Excuses followed about why the new organization wasn't working, but rarely were there solutions for how to actually make it function.
Do you know this feeling?
The Brutal Truth About Change Management
The uncomfortable reality I needed to acknowledge: 70% of all change projects fail. Not because of poor planning. Not because of lacking resources. They fail because we only understand half the equation.
Change always has two sides – a rational and an emotional one. Most companies focus exclusively on the rational side. That's the easy part: creating urgency, establishing a coalition, developing a vision, enabling the organization, implementing quick wins.
These checklists ensure that a change project gets attention. But attention is not the same as resonance in the organization.
What I Had Overlooked: The Emotional Dimension
In my transformation program, I overlooked the emotional side of change – the more difficult part that cannot be replaced by PowerPoint presentations or Excel spreadsheets.
A good project plan alone is not enough
A compelling "why" alone is not enough
A clear vision alone is not enough
Even support from above alone is not enough
Without emotional connection, without genuine relationship and authentic meaning, a change project will not generate sustainable engagement.
The Moment of Truth: What a Systemic Constellation Revealed
Desperately searching for answers, we took an unconventional step: a systemic constellation. We positioned representatives for "the change," "the existing organization," "the leadership," "the employees," and "success."
What emerged was eye-opening:
The representative for "the change" stood isolated on the edge, while "the existing organization" had a strong connection to an element we called "the company history."
The insight hit us like lightning: The company had experienced painful failures with previous change initiatives in the past that had never been properly processed. This hidden dynamic unconsciously blocked our current initiative.
How Do I Create Resonance? The Solution Lay Not in More Management, But in Less Ego
The answer was surprisingly simple yet so hard to accept: We had to acknowledge and honor the past before we could shape the future.
In a 7-Generations Workshop, we developed the milestones, stories, and special events – both successes and failures that had made the company what it was today. Without them, we wouldn't be here.
Afterwards, we worked together on the challenges awaiting us in the future and what it takes to master these challenges. This created a shared identity, the foundation for any sustainable change. Without knowing "Who are we?" no picture can emerge of "Who and how do we want to be in the future?"
This seemingly simple step untied a knot that no sophisticated management tool could have solved.
The energy in the system changed noticeably. The initiative gained momentum. What had previously seemed like Sisyphean work suddenly became a pull of transformation.
Finally, the moment came to develop the deeper meaning. We answered four questions based on the IKIGAI principle:
What are we particularly good at?
What do we love to do?
What do we get paid for?
What does the world need?
The questions are posed to encourage spontaneous answers. It's not about rational correctness (ego), but about that information that comes immediately (intuition). After collecting the answers, overlapping responses to each question are summarized. This creates the shared purpose of existence. The larger the group, the better the results.
The Elegant Way: From Hero to Understanding
There is a more elegant way than fighting windmills: the path of understanding and acknowledging the current situation and transforming potential resistance energy into energy for change.
Because: People can and want to change. When trust, deep meaning, and framework conditions are designed so that people can unfold.
This approach actually accelerates change: Through precise and systemic understanding of past development through the current situation to future developments, resources are deployed strategically instead of being wasted in unrealistic transformation attempts.
Systemic constellation makes hidden resistances and potentials visible early and thus avoids costly detours. As an exploratory constellation, it even makes future developments visible today.
What This Means for You
Unlike traditional change management processes that address the visible symptoms of an organization, systemic transformation processes work at the source of these symptoms.
They involve all employees from within in shaping the change process and embrace the differences and conflicts at the interfaces of the organization. This creates creative tension – similar to an orchestra where different instruments and playing styles come together to form a harmonious whole.
Because motivating people for a change management process doesn't work – it's a myth. Systemically unfolding people in a change management process, that works. Only this way do they jointly create sustainable mythos, motivation, and market growth for the company.
The Choice Is Yours
Sustainable change requires courage – the courage to engage with the emotional dimension, the courage to be authentic, and the courage to truly engage with people and see them as enablers rather than cost factors.
The courage to take new paths with new methods, like systemic constellation.
You have the choice: Either continue fighting against rubber walls with traditional methods, or win the hearts of your colleagues with authenticity and systemic methods.
Change and innovation succeed through the same human principles. Established methods only recognize the obvious aspects. Fundamental breakthroughs emerge when we design change processes not only with rational analysis but also with intuitive insights.
The decision is yours. I have already made mine.
Ready for the Next Step?
Discover why systemic constellation is the ideal complement to your change management projects in your company. It helps your organization not only reveal hidden hurdles in the change process but also think through various future scenarios and thus foresee the most likely future – long before it appears as reality.
As an experienced expert in leadership transformation and mentor, I support you in identifying the blind spot and successfully implementing your change project in a short time. It requires only: Open Mind, Open Heart, and Open Will. And systemic constellation in the form of exploring hidden hurdles and future events.
Together, we create "Clarity beyond Strategy."
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