Concerning the Nature of Human Systems and the Consultant's Role

The opportunity for service as a consultant to large organizations, to small groups, and to individuals has led the author to observations concerning similarities in human systems regardless of size, in terms of the relationship between subparts or subsystems that make for collaboration and health or for imbalance, stress, and dysfunction. It is along interfaces between parts that human organization within one man or among nations is welded, bonded, and linked or stressed, damaged, and broken. Every boundary offers opportunity for collaboration or competition. The role of consultant to an organization is to use himself freely as a diagnostic and, if necessary, healing agent to release forces that move toward balance and health. This article describes the processes the consultant uses to help the client system externalize disruptive tendencies and move toward collaboration.