Corporate Consultancy - Providing Added
Value in a Complex Environment

Commercial Objective

  • The commercial objective of OPUS Consultancy Services is to provide added value to the existing knowledge and skills of those employed as managers and leaders of organisations.
  • Through applying and developing awareness of beneath the surface, mainly emotional dynamics, client organisations become more aware of the part that emotions play in decision-making and change.
  • Going beyond taking things at face value ensures a more complete and deeper understanding on which to make key decisions that may have a considerable impact on organisational results.
  • Having a deeper understanding and awareness of the way that individual and group dynamics affect leaders and managers (and sometimes whole teams, departments or organisations) will increase productivity and profit in the private sector and increase commitment and exemplary service in the public sector.

The OPUS Approach

  • Since our foundation in 1975 we now have over thirty years experience of working in the field of understanding organisational and societal dynamics. Over that period we have developed a unique approach that is based on experiential learning that involves taking a reflective approach.
  • What we mean by a 'reflective approach' is this: as individuals, we may consider what is inside and what is outside ourselves. Our reaction to external events is in part determined by our internal world - the psychic prism through which we observe external events. But we are at the same time influenced by that external world. To take a reflective approach means having awareness and understanding of both internal and external levels. That is, an ability to consider the impact of both levels: to go beyond the obvious external level, what we might refer to as taking things at their face value, and to reflect on the part that the internal level is having on any circumstances.
  • This is the understanding that we seek to make available to client organisations. The ability of our own consultants to work with this interplay of internal and external data is due to our own capacity for reflection and understanding of the way our emotions affect our decision making. This is mainly developed from experiential learning, especially group relations learning; the intensive study of groups, as groups, as the study happens.


Overview

  • All organisations, large or small, well managed or badly managed, local or global, are affected by societal and organisational dynamics. Given the unpredictable circumstances currently experienced, all organisations are vulnerable to a wide range of largely unpredictable changes as members of societies throughout the world struggle to develop a new way of life.
  • Whether as members of societies or members of organisations a typical response to such uncertainty and vulnerability is to employ unconscious defence mechanisms to deal with the unbearable experience.
  • This sort of data is not normally available to Senior Managers and Executives who like anyone else are susceptible to unconscious and emotional responses. A result is that decisions are made while being totally unaware of the contribution of these beneath the surface dynamics.
  • Decisions that are seemingly based on logic may be in fact far removed from logic. Indeed, the very purpose of the beneath the surface dynamics that develop may be to deny or avoid the logical approaches.
  • If, a senior management team in taking a crucial decision were persuaded that they should ignore financial data, we would find it unbelievable. Yet, ignoring the dynamics of the team can be an equally unbelievable action leading to equally disastrous consequences.
  • The same values that we put on say, financial data and competitor analysis should be put on the understanding and analysis that we supply in terms of societal and organisational dynamics. Indeed, we might go further and say that these dynamics may act to nullify the value of all other data.
  • In terms of Corporate Social Responsibility, whether we are talking about ethical marketing, ethical management behaviour, ethical trading, environmental concerns, diversity or other issues an awareness of the 'business case' is important. One of the important outcomes of such activity is trust which in turn results in added value.
  • However, without an equal awareness of the way that individuals and groups behave when they experience unbearable thoughts and emotions as a result of anxieties arising from an unpredictable environment, they may quickly prove to those concerned that they are not ethical and destroy any trust. Being a mainly emotional phenomenon trust is hard to get and easy to lose. When trust is lost this will quickly reverse any value added. And recovery will be slow and painstaking.
  • The essential element in any business case is an understanding of organisational and social dynamics — taking a reflective approach and having awareness and understanding of both internal and external levels. That is, an ability to consider the impact of both levels: to go beyond the obvious external level, what we might refer to as taking things at their face value, and to reflect on the part that the internal level is having on any circumstances.
  • This is the added value that OPUS offers to client organisations.

Services to Client Organisations