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Process consultation revisited 23
remains silent. Everybody remains silent. The consultant observes “we are all here around the
table”. Silence follows. After a little while a group member articulates his hopes and fears
concerning the ongoing change process as it relates to his own job. Others join in the
conversation and actors frame and reframe their and others’ concerns, mutually and respectfully
explore thoughts and emotions, reflectively inquire into here-and-now group dynamics, and give
advise to each other. The consultant remains ‘low key’ (e.g., Schein, 1999b), in the background,
and only intervenes (with a content, procedure or process intervention) if he or she feels that this
is helping to foster learning and helping relationships. Also, the consultant, as a behavioral
model, frequently puts aside his own judgments or reactions to create space for input of the
actors involved. This is an important working principle of dialogue as helping conversational
form (e.g., Schein, 1999a, 2003b). Acting in this way is another exemplary behavior of the
consultant that is experienced by the team leader as a ‘high quality’ intervention because it
facilitates mutual learning and co-ownership of the process. The team leaders, and the team
members, gradually incorporate this consultation behavior through closely observing the
consultant, jointly reflecting on her-and-now interactions and relationships, experimenting with
own interventions, and getting feedback from the consultant and co-actors. In doing so, they
expand their (inter)action repertoire to enhance the interactivity and reflexivity, and thus the
quality of the ongoing process. One team leader expresses “that what works” in intervision as
“now, we are talking directly to each other instead of talking about each other behind someone’s
back” (e.g., Shotter, 2004).
Assembling relational practices. As mentioned earlier, the process of including and
excluding voices in a certain relational practice is a very central concern when taking a relational
practices perspective. It is also a central concern in the organizational change process of the