Translated article by Susan P. Gantt, PhD, ABPP,
Nov. 2005, in "The Group Psychologist" a Newsletter of Div. 49 of the American Pschological Association. Vol. 15, No.5, p.15

Since Senge's (1990) well-known work "The Fifth Discipline," the importance
of systems thinking within organizations recognized. Nevertheless, few methods have been developed that translate systems thinking into practice in organizations.
Yvonne Agazarian (1997) developed a theory based on the theory of living human systems. Based on that, she developed methods that make systems-thinking practical.

This article describes incorporating your functional role, one of the Systems Centered (SCT) methods, which prove useful for translating a systems orientation to teams.

I begin this article with an example of a team meeting,

whose goal is to develop a five-year strategic plan. Earlier, I introduced the idea of "role" in this group. Furthermore, team members know the difference between - as SCT calls it - one's personal response and one's response from a group member role.
In the group member role, the challenge is to shift from a personal perspective to a systems perspective by bringing in a personal response in a way that supports the purpose of the work context.

In the above meeting, the group was working on the strategic plan for about 45 minutes when a group member brought in that she was bored. Based on the training the group had received, she asked "Is anyone else bored too?" "Someone else's questions implement the method of Functional Subgroups" (Agazarian, 1997). Functional subgroups, a conflict management method, organizes group communication so that those with similar experiences talk together so that what information they have for the team's task comes to the surface.
Then, when the first group has finished examining one side, a new subgroup examines the other side. By Functionally subgrouping, a team explores differences in separate subgroups. The subgroups continue to work until the differences can be integrated into the whole team.

In the example mentioned, two other team members join the team member who is bored. They indicate that they are also bored. The three team members (the bored subgroup) talk about their experience and discover that they lack passion and elation. They want a strategic plan to which they can commit their hearts, and it wasn't there yet! As they talk, they begin to see their responsibility to influence the plan and the need to actively contribute to it. In fact, they are coming

figure out that the role of their subgroup in the work of the whole team, is to bring in their energy and passion so that it can be incorporated into the strategic plan.

The team member who started the discussion about boredom, like the two others, now shifts from a personal experience (which she usually handles by withdrawing or mentally "checking out") to taking on their group member role for the benefit of the team's work. Not surprisingly, the team is happy with the work the subgroup is doing.

Including your functional role, works from the idea that each of us has developed a number of roles in our lives. Some of these are functional, some are not. In SCT, we determine whether a role is functional depending on how the role relates to the purpose of the context.

More precisely, some roles are functional in one context and not in another. For example, the behavior associated with a consultant role is not very useful if the person has the role of task force member.
Finally, other roles, our habitual roles are rarely functional because they were developed earlier in our lives. As a result, they have more to do with the past than with the present context.

Including your functional role begins with including your group member role. SCT introduces the idea that one's group member role is the vehicle for bringing one's personal resources into a system in a way that supports the purpose of the system context.
To change your role as context and purpose change is to include your functional role at its core. In this way, through the inclusion of your functional role, the SCT model links the concept of role to the purpose of context.
Group members learn to see themselves as part of a larger context. Through this broader perspective, group members gain more distance from the human tendency to take personal reactions exclusively personally. In addition, it gives us an opportunity to deal with familiar personal reactions such as withdrawal and boredom.

One more thing about theory: the SCT model to include your functional role comes from the operational definition of the theory of living human systems (TLMS). TLMS ' defines a hierarchy of similarly shaped systems that are energy-organizing, self-correcting and goal-oriented (Agazarian, 1997).
The concept of hierarchy is most relevant in the context of this article. Indeed, SCT defines hierarchy as a series of systems that always exist in the context of a larger system above it, which in turn is the context for the smaller system
underneath it. In this article, role is a system that exists within the context of the task group (subgroups play a "role" for the team system) and the role is the immediate context for the person (Gantt&Agazarian 2005).
When the roles are aligned with the purpose of the context, it is relatively easy to name the behaviors needed to achieve the goal. (SCT builds on Howard and Scott's (1965) and Lewin's (1951) idea of from path to goal).
When a person names the behavior that demands a role, it is a lot easier to align their personal resources with it.
If someone can also commit their values to the role, it is much easier to put their heart into the role.
In this way, role connects people to the purpose of context. And the orientation to role, purpose and context makes it more plausible that we can all make the move from a self-oriented orientation to a system-oriented orientation. This is the core of including your functional role.