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About

Hello People Consulting

Hello People Consulting (HPC) understands the pressure companies are under to produce innovative ideas, find creative solutions, and manage difficult interpersonal relationships. Companies are bombarded with “new and improved” solutions for stagnation and lack of success. These quick fix ideas may include restructuring the company’s hierarchy, setting up new policies and procedures, or following the latest trend in cutting edge thought.

Unfortunately, all quick fixes are built upon the companies existing emotional system. Emotional systems are identified by watching how the employees interact. Are decisions being made by pandering to the lowest common denominator? Do leaders make decisions so people remain calm? Did reading that your company has an emotional system cause you stress?

An emotional system is the instinctual process groups of people perform to develop methods of interactions. Simply said, it is how people react to the anxiety of working as a group. HPC is dedicated to helping companies recognize their restricting patterns of engagement and replace them with positive patterns.

Growth happens when people develop new ways of interacting with self and others. Each leader, whether the CEO or a leader of a small team, will learn to recognize the dysfunctional reactions of distancing, overfunctioning, underfunctioning, reacting with instinct instead of thought, fusion, and conflict. The outcomes of working with HPC is having leaders who are decisive, creative, and calm. When a leader can maintain a solid sense of self, decisions based on facts and not fear.

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Julie Swanberg-Hjelm

Julie Swanberg-Hjelm

CEO

Julie has a PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy and a Master’s certification in Organizational Development and Leadership. This provides her a unique understanding of how the relationships within an organization can either help or hinder the organization’s growth. 

Her goal is to provide each client the ability to recognize both the organization’s and personal decision-making processes. People often use black and white thinking, but there is always a Third Way. Third Way thinking lowers the stress around decision-making and provides creative solutions to the problem. When creativity occurs, exciting opportunities appear.

She has worked with clients from companies such as Amazon.com, Microsoft, Expedia, and Google. She has also worked with clients from smaller high-tech firms and start-up companies.

Bowen Basics

 

Dr. Murray Bowen recognized the need to understand the process humans use to develop a system for working together. He spent years researching human’s interactions. This research became the basis for the formulation of Bowen Theory (BT).

BT identifies the dichotomous nature of people wanting to be close to others and yet desiring independence. When people manage the anxiety around this struggle, they have developed a higher level of differentiation of self (DoS). As a person’s level of DoS increases, so does the ability to maintain personal ideals, views, and morals within emotionally charged relationships.

Difficulty arises when the anxiety of being connected to other people becomes chronic. The person has started to worry about the relationship instead of real issues. When people experience chronic anxiety, they use a variety of methods to reduce it so they can calm down. They may choose to distance themselves from others, they may develop triangles, they may become an overfunctioner or underfunctioner, they may have emotional reactions to any real or imagined situation, and they may become conflictual.

While anxiety is a part of the human experience, people have the capability of learning new methods of self-calming. Learning new methods starts by recognizing their historical methods of anxiety reduction. When the patterns are recognized, healthier methods of self-calming can be instigated. As the ability to self-calm increases, so does the ability to remain solid in personal ideals, views, and morals within emotionally charged relationships. Working from a solid self provides the person an abundance of flexibility, creativity, and decisiveness resulting in a calmer presence, innovative ideas, and the ability to take reasoned risks.