Explaining
Explanations make connections which have much to do with the nature of description and, thus, with that which gives an explanation. You can usually explain situations rather differently and, accordingly, the reaction will also be rather different. If you explain the delayed target date by the colleague in terms of the illness of his wife, they would, presumably, react differently than if you explain this behaviour as a lack of esteem. Reacting in the sense of external action seldom rests only on the description of the situation. Usually there are also (unconscious) explanations about how this happened at play. For those who have an explanation it is frequently easier to find a guilty party, who can be made responsible for the observed effect. Helping clients to take personal responsibility for their explanations and to recognise themselves as the ‘producers’ of these explanations, is an important process during systemic work: it utilises the change-effective guiding processes of resonance, personal responsibility, comprehension and consciousness.