purpose
many of us - individuals and organisations - struggle to achieve what we are capable of. When we are stuck in a story that is too small for us, transformation may be our only option. Yet how do we transform?
Meus helps leaders, teams and whole enterprises to understand what transformation means for them and how to realise it. We are creative catalysts and ‘guides’ who bring extensive expertise and experience of change to the transformation of strategies, relationships and results.
We enable transformation through the application of leading-edge thinking and our own innovative experiential practices (including film facilitation, storytelling, constellations and more). Each solution we provide is co-created with our clients, and is therefore uniquely tailored to their specific needs.
Ultimately, our work is all about people. Creating connection, belonging and aliveness is key to the outcomes we achieve for our clients.
credo
our values of creativity, collaboration and compassion inform all that we do, and stand out as hallmarks of our approach. Most of all, we work with integrity.
Five principles underpin everything that we do:
- Working systemically. Transformation is never individual, but collective. We identify the unseen connections and hidden dynamics that impede or enhance personal and project success.
- Begin it now! Transformation is a process of creating 'clumsy solutions' for current problems - not about designing perfect plans for future implementation.
- Working with ‘what is’. Transformation cannot begin until we acknowledge where we are and the ‘truth’ of our situation.
- Choosing growth over fear. Transformation requires that we each confront what holds us back.
- Leadership is not a special kind of person, but a special kind of action. Transformation liberates each person’s potential to act courageously in the face of uncertainty.
approach
we are creative catalysts who draw on leading-edge systemic approaches to transformation. We pioneer the use of film as an integral part of how we design & deliver experiences in our increasingly virtual, digital age.
Nobody works in the way that we do! We are not a production company - we are facilitators, coaches and consultants who understand the power of 'moving images' to bridge the space between leadership, change and communication.
The films that we create are more than simple records of breakthrough – they explore ‘living moments’ that connect us more fully to ourselves and to one another. Our films are not bolt-ons to our work, they make it possible to share these moments more widely, creating a transformative power in and through your organisation.
services
in partnership with you, we design and deliver experiences that accelerate leadership and team development, build employee engagement and enable an agile working culture where feedback is valued.
Working in partnership with you, we design and deliver solutions that accelerate leadership and team development; build employee engagement; and enable a vibrant working culture where feedback and agility are aligned.
Our clients engage us across five different but inter-related services:
- Leadership & Team development. Inspiring performance and results by liberating the potential of your people.
- Systemic Coaching. Individual and team coaching focused on connecting people and transforming business relationships.
- Film facilitation. Adding creative challenge to strategic offsites, engaging the team while producing high-value communication assets in real-time.
- Constellations. A leading-edge diagnostic process for revealing hidden dynamics and creating direction and momentum.
- Virtual Academy. Private, curated spaces containing resources that facilitate your organisation’s transformation.
Leadership & Team Development
Inspiring performance and results by liberating the potential of your people
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Because leadership is essential to organisational effectiveness, meus undertakes continuous research into leadership principles and practices, to understand what makes leadership successful.
For us, leadership is a special kind of action, not as a special kind of person, so we focus on building leadership as a natural organisational capability at every level of the organisational hierarchy.
Seen systemically, leadership implies a following, and leaders act with followers rather than on them, and so much of our focus in our Leadership Development work is on harnessing the power of connections and inter-relationships within the business and across the whole stakeholder network.
Our Leadership & Team Development services include:
- Playing To Win or Playing Not to Lose? A programme to create a leadership mindset at all levels of the organisation
- VisionQuests and PurposeQuests, for leaders to co-create the conceptual architecture that enables the whole organisation
- Top Team teambuilding, to clarify and build a coherent leadership culture, focused on strategy execution, corporate culture and customer interaction
- Strategic Offsites that bring together ‘extended’ leadership teams across functions to focus on accelerating results
- High-Potential Talent Development programmes
- Deep-impact Leadership Development programmes
- Bespoke Teambuilding design and delivery
- Transformational 1-2-1 and team coaching
- Specialised topics including: Trust-based leadership, Emotional Intelligence for leaders, Leadership wellness & resilience, and more…
Constellations
A systemic process for revealing hidden dynamics and creating direction and momentum
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meus is a market leader in the use of Organisational and Coaching Constellations – a systemic approach to diagnosing and resolving ‘Wicked Problems’ that plague leadership, team and organisational effectiveness.
Our Constellations portfolio includes several services:
- Regular Training Programmes and Masterclasses for coaches and other organisational practitioners, who wish to learn how to constellate. Our training programmes are structured around 4 levels of ability:
- Discovery Programmes which introduce the systemic perspective and provide the basics of Constellations theory, method and practice
- Development Programmes for those who want to take their learning further and deeper and apply the art of constellating to their own coaching practice
- Destination Programmes which teach people both how to facilitate their own constellations and how to integrate this approach seamlessly into their wider OD practice without needing to set up a constellation
- Masterclasses on specific organisational topics such as Change, Leadership, Partnerships & Mergers, Money and more – for anyone interested in this work
- One-to-one and team Systemic Supervision for coaches, consultants and internal change agents. Our supervision provides a bespoke, confidential learning space for you to reflect on your client work and how you use yourself as a practitioner
- Integrated Organisational Applications in commercial and Public Sector organisations: where the systemic practice of Constellations is used alongside other OD approaches, to deliver Talent Development, Leadership Development, Executive Learning, Change Management and Communications programmes and consultancy
What is a ‘Constellation’?
The practice of Constellations is making an invaluable contribution to Organisational Development, not least because of its novel methodology for uncovering and working with ‘hidden dynamics’ in systems.
A Constellation is simply a way of spatially mapping the elements of a system so that the undercurrents of an issue are revealed and can be worked with. It is based on an understanding that there are multiple ‘ways of knowing’ and of accessing information in a system – such as intuitive, embodied and emotional ways – that are complementary to conscious, intellectual ways of knowing. With a constellation, we explore the implicit rather than the explicit knowledge held within a system, and use a powerful mapping process using people (or sometimes objects or specialist software) to represent aspects of an issue under consideration.
The process begins with a short ‘interview’ – akin to a coaching conversation – where the facilitator identifies elements of the issue being explored. These elements could include people in their roles (for example, the CEO; or the Marketing team; or the external coach) as well as more abstract elements (such as the Stock Exchange; or the company’s profit motive; or the values of the organisation). The client positions each element intuitively, using only the relative direction and proximity to the other elements as a guide. Together with the facilitator, the client then considers the whole arrangement and as they explore the layout, the facilitator suggests moving some representatives and offers some pithy sentences to the client. A configuration might be presenting itself that looks like this:
The facilitator offers a ‘reading’ of the constellation and explores what resonates with the client. This reading is not an interpretation, as much as a concrete description of what presents itself. For example, in the constellation illustrated here, we can see that the CEO, Stock Exchange and Profit motive are all facing roughly the same direction; the Marketing Team is looking at the Stock Exchange; the Values of the organisation are close to the CEO but moving in an opposite direction; and the Coach is very close to the CEO, is looking at the Values but obstructing the CEO’s view of the Marketing Team.
This reading and its suggested meanings are explored together by the facilitator and client, and ‘experiments’ are undertaken such as repositioning one element at a time (moving the coach back, for example), or offering sentences (such as inviting the coach to say to the CEO, “I’m more interested in your Values than in your Profit Motive”). The resonance and ‘felt sense’ of these often-provocative statements is examined by the client, and in this way insights and different action possibilities emerge that might not have been so obvious before.
This spatial mapping is itself immensely useful, as it provides the client with a meta-perspective. However, the value of Constellations work is not limited to this mapping technique. Practitioners may or may not make explicit use of the constellation to map systemic dynamics. With experience, the facilitator can ‘constellate without setting up a constellation’.
Coaching
Systemic, individual and team coaching - beyond performance improvement to transformation
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meus provides Systemic Coaching virtually and in person, to both individuals and teams. Our coaching is built on a strong psychological foundation with a focus on transformation. We believe that it is the honesty of the dialogue that results in the breakthroughs our clients experience.
We work across both commercial and public sectors, at all levels of the organisation – with high-potential young talent, managers and directors to Board level. We not only focus on coaching for improving the performance of individuals and teams, but also on ‘breakthrough coaching’ that contributes to innovation, as well as team and organisational transformation.
Our coaching is tailored to individual needs, focused on delivering outcomes, and geared to ensuring greater self-awareness and self-management as well as awareness of others and relationship management. Some of the applications of our coaching services include:
- Developing high-performing individuals and teams
- Enabling leaders in transition
- Trust-based team building
- Identifying and resolving leadership blindspots
- Supporting change, transformation and innovation initiatives
- Burnout prevention and recovery
- Resolving conflicts
- Women leaders
- Action Learning
- Creating a coaching culture
Film Facilitation
Engaging and inspiring the team while producing high-value communication assets in real-time
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meus is pioneering the art of Film Facilitation – a creative process that supports culture transformation and adds practical value to strategic offsite meetings, teambuilding, visioning and strategy workshops, brand development and more…
Each of our four Film Facilitation services contributes to organisational change, leadership & team development and corporate communications. We use film to capture and share authentically the experience of working, learning and growing together. Our film process generates both outcomes and outputs – the outcomes include greater focus and engagement among participants and the outputs take the form of film assets that can be shared with teams, as ‘viral communications’ that support alignment with strategy and a sense of belonging – of being ‘in it together’.
Our Film Facilitation services include:
- Strategic Offsite Support
For important offsite meetings and corporate awaydays, our film facilitation process combines expert facilitation with the presence of a camera and editor crew. Films are made in real-time and played back to participants as a way of reflecting on what it is like to work together – and the films function as records that capture and communicate the spirit as well as the content of the work being undertaken. Managers can use these films as part of team onboarding and learning and development initiatives.
- Participant-led Filming
We accelerate learning, culture change, innovation and communications impact by enabling your people to create short films that meet specific needs. For example, we led a 2-day workshop on ‘feedback’ where a departmental team learned how to improve their feedback to colleagues and customers by creating a film showing others how to give and receive feedback skilfully; we designed a workshop on collaborative leadership which had participants producing films with local homeless people that closed the gap between the business and the community… In these and other cases, our Participant-led Filming innovates through creative, action-learning approaches that deliver transformational learning and deeply-engaging communications assets.
- Voice of the Customer
We share our skills as storytellers to help your people have honest conversations with customers that result in compelling insights that support change. These on-camera conversations move customer relationships forwards and also provide powerful feedback when reconnecting with your purpose and brand, redesigning your services, or transforming your operations. We equip your people with interview skills as well as basic camera skills, so they have the conversations that change things – we simply edit the footage in to powerful mini-documentaries for your use.
- Soul Biographies
These are intimate, heart-warming and mind-expanding portraits of your people, sharing their wisdom and uniqueness through unscripted dialogue. Used as part of trust-based leadership development they invite people to connect with themselves and others beyond the ‘corporate mask’; as teambuilding ice-breakers they show ‘truths’ about team members that break down barriers and build cohesion; or used simply as inspiring ‘thoughtpieces’ in meetings or in private, they support connection, belonging and aliveness.
With meus, film is an integral part of how we facilitate – not a bolt-on extra. We do not work like a video production company, merely recording events and playing back polished versions of what went on… Instead, our entire workshop design and facilitation delivery process orients around the use of film as a creative medium.
Virtual Academy
Private, curated spaces containing resources that facilitate your company's transformation.
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This space is confidential and password-protected to safeguard our clients' bespoke assets. Please contact us for further information on hello@meus.co.uk
workshops
systemic learning & development to spark your personal & organisational transformation
In both online and in-person settings, our open-access learning and development workshops are experiential, practical and participative.
We are leading exponents of Systemic Constellations, as well as Organisational Gestalt, and our workshops reflect this. Our workshops equip professionals from organisations, as well as independent coaches and consultants, with new tools, techniques, approaches and fresh perspectives that make a tangible difference to their personal practice, teams and businesses.
All workshops comprise a mixture of expert inputs, group discussions and practice sessions in pairs, triads and small groups. Within this structure we encourage participants to bring their own 'live' issues and real case studies for exploration and insight.
Our workshops run in locations across the UK and Europe - as well as online - and are regularly updated. Click on the links below to see our current workshops and book your place.
Latest workshops
about meus
our community of facilitators, coaches and consultants, camera technicians and editors, educators and artists ensure we bring diversity and creativity to all our projects.
Founded in 2008 and directed by Ty Francis and Jon Riley, meus has developed a reputation for bringing creative, collaborative and systemic approaches to Organisational Development. We help our clients meet the challenges of increasing complexity and competition through unleashing the potential of people. Whether we work at the level of individual leaders, teams or the whole organisation, the meus community works together to create connection, belonging and aliveness.
Ty Francis PhD
a social psychologist whose research explored ‘transformation’, Ty has a deep interest in creativity and in the experience of ‘breakthrough’. He uses his skills as a storyteller to elicit the essence of our human experience
“My work draws on systemic principles to design experiences that inspire deep connection between us, enabling us to relate to ourselves, to one another and to the world around us with more vitality, creativity and compassion.”
download Ty's résumé as a PDFJon Riley
a systemic coach and facilitator with an abiding personal interest in technology, Jon combines the skills of drawing out people’s inner, emotional experiences and portraying them sensitively on film.
“My passion has always been about closing the gaps that sometimes exist between people. I’m at my best when creating compelling learning experiences and films that help us to discover greater depth and new dimensions in our most important relationships.”
download Jon's résumé as a PDFmeus community
The meus community is a talent-pool of people with varied expertise in the ‘art of connection’.
We bring together unique combinations of people to create bespoke teams that serve our clients’ needs.
Drawn from the fields of design, art, film technology, branding, change consultancy, coaching, facilitation and education, our people bring creative solutions to individual, organisational and social transformation.
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Pete Goodman
Catalyst
“I have a commitment to fearless joint exploration of the unknown, and enjoy inviting people into original ways of thinking and being to help transform the complex situations we find ourselves in.”
Pete has held leadership positions in the Tech and Education sectors, and leads our coaching and dialogue practices. His Master’s degree in Systemic Organisational Development expanded his ability to provide transformational learning and development experiences.
Andre Kotzé
Coach
“Growing up in South Africa during Apartheid has cultivated in me a fascination for leadership and the ethical use of power.”
An Organisational Development specialist with abiding interests in process consultancy and executive coaching, Andre has a deep commitment to shaping the ways people perceive and act positively in the world.
Pascale Cozzolino
Coach
“I believe that a commitment to personal growth is essential for leaders to develop greater impact and improved performance for themselves and their teams. Freeing people from unhelpful mental constructs is core to my approach.”
A Master Executive Coach with over 20 years’ international experience, Pascale’s deepest interest is in helping leaders explore and embrace the unknown and open up to new possibilities.
Petra Slembek
Coach
“I am deeply committed to helping my clients ‘get out of the hamster wheel’ and reflect on action, as well as in action – so that real change is possible.”
Petra is an Organisational Developer with a deep belief in holistic approaches. She describes herself as a ‘guide’ with a deep interest in ‘connected learning’ - enabling organisations, teams and individuals to grow and adapt to their complex reality.
Pete Thompson
Film-maker
“I’m deeply interested in humanising business and making films about ‘the eth word’ - ethics, values and the things we most care about as people.”
With a background in social care and later as a BBC journalist, Pete acquired great storytelling skills which he uses now as a cameraman, editor and film-maker. He’s also currently completing a Coaching qualification.
Andrew Hassenruck
Editor
"I really enjoy making films that dissolve the space between us and reveal people’s inner, authentic light."
As a former BBC Editor, Andrew has worked on broadcast documentaries, animations and dramas for over 30 years. He loves the variety of his work and sees editing as a collaborative process, working with crews to craft the director’s vision in to the best programme possible.
Christine Stevens PhD
Artist
"I combine my work as an artist and psychotherapist on projects that tackle complex social issues and effect community transformation."
Christine is the editor of The British Gestalt Journal, a Gestalt psychotherapist and an international psychotherapy trainer to doctoral level. As an artist, she works in clay and runs workshops for personal and professional development from her studio.
Mike Meaney
Educator
"I help build awareness, both personal and collective, of how we communicate with one another, how things fall apart and how we can learn to listen, talk and act more powerfully together for the common good."
Mike's skills as a musician and photographer greatly influence the ways in which he engages with others - as a facilitator, organisational development consultant and integrative psychotherapist.
who we work with
We work with global corporations and public sector organisations, as well as charities, groups and individuals.
We collaborate with our clients throughout the process of our engagement, and enable them to leverage the value of their films to engage people in transformation.
Contact us to explore how our unique mix of Organisational Development and film-making can help you unleash connection, belonging and aliveness in your people and stakeholders. We would love to connect!