Most visitors drop in just before noon, some just after noon. Women, men, adolescents. All are standing before a time of change, or are going through it, or are getting nowhere, or have noticed that they’re not happy with a decision they made. The Coaching Workshop Steinbeis Consulting Center has been providing clients with supervision and coaching for three years now. Most clients come from Böblingen and the surrounding area. The aim of the center’s workshops: to uncover new work, training or health strategies. The center was recently selected as a model location in Baden-Württemberg to help people make a new start in life.
The consulting rooms at the center feel just right. What better way for clients to transport themselves into different place or situation? On vacation. Calm all around. Relaxation. Take a deep breath. It soon becomes apparent that, at any given time, people really can, for a brief moment, imagine being someone else. And this someone else views the world differently, smells it differently, sees him or herself moving around in it differently – and thus feels different. Just because of the different location and the shift in attention. This important insight is a major door-opener for the consultation process that is about to begin.
Verena Burgbacher and Heidi Boner-Schilling head up the Steinbeis center. They both bring special therapeutic skills and an understanding of business to the unit – and to everyone’s benefit. They know that clients always do the best they can, but for one reason or another they haven’t necessary always done what was right from a personal standpoint. They also know that people have a number of sides to them. Sometimes they’re more outspoken, more demanding. Or they try to fit in more, or withdraw. As a result, they can feel confused. The experts also always assume that people shape their own reality and are therefore in a position to change their reality in a way that matches their goals more closely (according to P. Watzlawick).
These are just some of the fundamentals underpinning the special advisory work carried out at the center – sometimes standing around a table, sometimes in an armchair, sometimes sitting at a desk, sometimes moving around the room. The duo work by combining structured choreography, family trees, work with props and physical tasks with conventional coaching and supervisory tools. What’s special and novel about their work is the perfect mixture of four factors: cognition, physiology, kinesthetics and energy – a person’s innate potential.
The Steinbeis Consulting Center was recently selected by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Family Affairs to work with 17 other units, as part of 134 projects. The center is the only “model location” in Baden-Württemberg working on the topic of giving people a fresh start in life.
Verena Burgbacher
Heidi Boner-Schilling
Steinbeis Consulting Center Coaching Workshop (Böblingen)