Stone Skills. Gestalt OD

Speech at VIII CONFERENCE on Organizational Development in the Gestalt Approach VEGI-INTAGIO-2025 "GROUPS. TEAMS. ORGANIZATIONS"

One can learn a lot from experts in their field. For instance, one could attend a cooking master class given by a chef at the city's best restaurant… But, unfortunately, everyone later returns to their own kitchens and continues to cook familiar dishes from familiar ingredients. Unlike this (expert) approach, a process consultant working with the Gestalt approach will come to your "kitchen" and help you become aware of how you cook your soup!

The monks from the "The Story of Stone Soup" fairy tale are, of course, process consultants! They arrive only with stones, and they leave with them.

In my presentation, I will talk about the theory and practice of using the organizational development seminar "Stone Soup". The seminar is based on the Cleveland Model.

A few slides about myself. My name is Alexander Koptyakov. I recently turned 45, and I am at something of a peak in my life.

For the first 12 years, I developed Hard Skills – I was a programmer. To use culinary language, I was cooking individually.

Then I mastered Soft Skills as a manager – you could say I was managing the kitchen.

After studying Gestalt at VEGI with Konstantin Pavlov, I began developing Salt Skills – that is, mastering a leadership position in my organization, minimizing managerial influence and managing experience.

And for the past few years, I have become a consultant and mentor not only in other departments (finance, logistics) but also outside the organization where I still work. Today, I have developed two seminars: one, "Letter from the Future," based on the Belfast Model, and the other, "Stone Soup", based on the Cleveland Model, with which I visit other people's "kitchens"! I have named these skills Stone Skills. At the end of the presentation, I will definitely explain why I chose this particular name.

So, to back up what I'm saying. Writer. You can find about nine of my books in Russian and English. They cover management, psychology, and philosophy. There is prose and poetry. The latest books include material on Gestalt and Organizational Development.

Engineer.

Hard skills – Soft skills – Salt skills – Stone skills

Specialist – Manager – Leader – Consultant

My career as a specialist began in 2002 with the development of a database for the startup Ultimate-Guitar. At the time, I was the only programmer there, and now it is the world's largest online archive of guitar tabs, chords, and lyrics, with a multi-million audience of musicians.

Next, I worked for 11 years as a software engineer in the Gas Industry. Today, incidentally, is the 60th anniversary of Oil and Gas Industry Workers' Day! I congratulate everyone involved on the holiday!

The following 11 years were spent at an international chemical company, where I was already mastering the roles of manager and leader.

Somewhere between these companies, or rather, parallel to working at them, I spent 5 years as the owner of a children's development club based on the Montessori method.

And finally, my current stage of development, as before – parallel to my main job – is practicing the role of a process consultant for organizational development using the Gestalt approach: this includes conducting strategic sessions, mentoring, and external consulting.

So, consulting practice as of now. Some figures:

– The workshop "Letter from the Future" has been conducted 29 times.

– The workshop "Stone Soup" has been conducted 8 times (the seminar was developed this year)