In his book Fields of Connection. The Practice of Organisational Constellations, Jan Jacob Stam explains the case of a company founder who, in his old age, wanted to retire from the company he had founded, a large and very successful business. He also wanted to take his wife on a world cruise. However, there was a step missing, and he did not know exactly what it was—something he wanted to materialise in some way.

When his case was set up in an ‘organisational constellation’, it became clear that his wish was, as Stam explains, to introduce his wife to his successor and the employees of the successful construction business he had created. The constellation facilitated that much-needed and emotional ceremony of succession and farewell to the company: “He proudly stood next to his wife’s representative and in front of the representatives of his successor and the employees. He introduced himself and thanked the workers for what they had done for the company. He turned to his successor and said, ‘You can take over. I entrust it to you. You can lead the company on the basis of what I have achieved.’ The man was shining, the employees were shining, and the successor was so moved that he could not say anything.” (Stam, 2014, p. 75, translated into English for this article by the article´s author).

I was moved by the extent to which a succession in a company follows the same systemic dynamics that we observe in inheritance and in regard to abundance, as Brigitte Champetier de Ribes has often shown to so many of us who have been lucky enough to train with her, from her extensive experience with New Family Constellations.

Thus, it can be seen that in a couple relationship, the abundance of a man depends on the woman’s respect for him and that an inheritance will not flow until the heirs honour and respect the woman who made the man’s wealth possible, while it is actually fruitless to try to resolve the matter through the courts.

This means that the succession could not flow until the successor and the workers of that company honoured and paid their respects to the woman who had made all that wealth and success possible. It was not enough for him alone to pay tribute to his wife with the great journey he was planning; he needed much more for her, for his company, for his successor and his employees. The company’s legacy had to reflect his wife’s support and respect for him, for the woman who had been by his side every step of the way.

Here we see the importance of knowing the family systemic dynamics of inheritance in order to understand what happens in a succession in this other organisational context, which is but a projection of the dynamics that govern relationships in the family system.

This is an example of the very effective, and may I say beautiful and moving way, in which systemic movements, or constellations in fact, facilitate such deep and deeply needed dynamics of acknowledgement, bringing to the level of consciousness that which would otherwise remain unseen and blocked, and thus bringing about a resolution to a specific problem.

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