Organizational Psychology

The article provides an overview of the four approaches to organizational consulting based on the principles of social constructionism. The idea of socially constructed, intersubjective reality shifts the focus on attention from the personal assessment and training to communication practices, contexts of interaction. Appreciative inquiry proposes to build the process of organizational development on the “positive core” — strengths and experiences of success. On this basis is possible to formulate the image of preferred future, create the way of its implementation. “Solution-focused corporate coaching” also relies on the knowledge and skills that brings good result. It proposes principles for asking questions and goal formulation, which help to construct the solutions. Dialogical Self Theory considers a personas a “society of mind” — multiple voices and positions in the process of interaction. In the frameworkof this concept was proposed “Team confrontation method”, revealing the dominant and the deviant positions in the team, and implementing changes on the basis of these alternative points of view. The narrative approach offers the non-expert position of the consultant, which is respectful to the local knowledge and the unique experience of people in organizations. It gives guidance on how to consider the political aspects of work, to take into account the cultural context, and to use the principles ofnarrative structuring of experience for the benefit of people and organizations. Some of the peculiarities of these approaches: communication is considered as a process of reality co-construction; recognition and appreciation of the values and strengths of people and organizations; attention to language, metaphors and communicative principles; sensitivity to the political aspects of the interaction; a focus on relationships, collaboration; the value of diversity, polyphony, dialogue; reliance on local knowledgeand skills.