Relationship Matters

Worldwork Bonus: Teach for China & team cohesion

July 27, 2022 CRR Global
Relationship Matters
Worldwork Bonus: Teach for China & team cohesion
Show Notes Transcript

In this collection of bonus episodes, we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork, which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with self. Across the course of these 5 bonus episodes, you will be hearing from Worldworkers from across the globe, who have all used ORSC tools in very different ways tools to serve their wider communities. 

In this podcast, Katie talks with Yan Zhang about her Worldwork project: Teach for China and Team Cohesion. Teach for China is a non-profit organisation that recruits outstanding Chinese and American college graduates and trains them to serve as full-time teachers in under-resourced Chinese schools. Across the episode, Yan talks about her learnings and insights after working with the operations team at Teach for China, who were looking to build more connection, role clarity and team cohesion.

Yan Zhang is a leadership coach and team coach with over 15 years of experience as a senior executive at Fortune 500 and startup companies in China, across financial services, data & information, education, media, e-commerce, and investment banking. Her coaching philosophy is to inspire and empower people and organization with love, she leverages the professional skills of executive coaching, and team coaching to support company executives and entrepreneurs to unleash the power of leadership, and ignite teams to build greater trust, manifest collaborative power, and evoke transformation. 


The Worldwork Project is a key element in the ORSC certification journey. It allows students to apply the ORSC™ materials in the real world and develop themselves as change agents. At CRR Global we hold all our students as change agents and train them to be conscious of what impact they want to make in their world. We believe that everybody’s impact –whether conscious or unconscious— sends ripples out into the world. It’s up to all of us, as world workers, to keep our communities safe and healthy. For more information about World Work and the ORSC Certification programme click here.

 We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Key 

 

KC – Katie Churchman 

YZ - Yan Zhang

 

[Music intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast Worldworks Special. We believe relationship matters, from humanity to nature to the larger whole. I’m your host Katie Churchman and in this collection of bonus episodes we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world whether we’re conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with the self. Across the course of these five bonus episodes you’ll be hearing from Worldworkers from across the globe who’ve all used organizational and relationship systems coaching tools in very different ways to serve their wider communities. In this podcast I’m talking with Yan Zhang about her Worldwork project: Teach for China and Team Cohesion. Yan Zhang is a leadership coach and team coach with over 15 years of experience as a senior executive at Fortune 500 and startup companies in China, across financial services, data and information, education, media, e-commerce, and investment banking. Her coaching philosophy is to inspire and empower people and organizations with love, she leverages the professional skills of executive coaching, and team coaching to support company executives and entrepreneurs to unleash the power of leadership, and ignite teams to build greater trust, manifest collaborative power, and evoke transformation. For her Worldwork project, Yan worked with a team within Teach for China, a non-profit organization which recruits outstanding Chinese and American college graduates and trains for them to serve as full time teachers in under resourced Chinese schools. In this episode Yan talks about her learnings and insights after working with the operations team at Teach for China who were looking to build more connection, role clarity and team cohesion. So without further ado I bring you Yan Zhang. 

 

KC – And Yan Zhang, we’re here today to talk about your Worldwork project! So, thank you firstly for joining me on the Relationship Matters podcast, it’s wonderful to have you on the show. 

 

YZ – Thank you, I really feel lucky to have this opportunity to come back with you and share the work I have done! 

 

KC – I’m excited to hear more about your Worldwork project and I guess I’d love to start by asking what inspired your project? 

 

YZ – I have always wanted to participate in non-profit work, particularly regarding to education and balancing the resources of education between big cities and the rural area. So this particular project is done with an organization called Teach for China which is similar to Teach for America, they recruit a lot of young graduates from college to volunteer two years to teach in rural and really remote areas in China where the education resources are really scarce. So this is something that I’m really passionate about and I really feel that everybody should be enjoying the equal opportunities to get education, so this is sort of my little effort to help contribute to better education resources for young kids in villages, mountainous areas, etc. 

 

KC – Wow. And, so there was a real passion to this project as well and am I right in thinking you’re working with the operations team specifically who are in charge of holding these volunteers on their teaching journey over the 2 years? 

 

YZ – Yes, the client is. So my client is the operations team, that they’re in charge to support and provide assessment and a lot of the teaching tools for these, around 700 young volunteer teachers in this organization. So they’re sort of like the structure to support the whole thing, to make it successful and make it really valuable for the schools in the villages. 

 

KC – Wow, so it’s a very important team then? The backbone to everything else, the teachers and then probably also the pupils are impacted by how this team show off. And I guess I’m wondering what connected you to this team and what was the focus when working with this team or group of people? 

 

YZ – Yeah, I have always been passionate about supporting, you know, such an organization and luckily one of my friends actually sits on the board of Teach for China, so I connected with her a long time ago and we were talking about how I can support. Over the years I didn’t really find a proper connection other than contributing money. But then I started learning ORSC and I suddenly realized hey, I can actually use ORSC which is such a wonderful tool, wonderful methodology, to empower people or empower organizations. So I kind of told her about this idea and she connected me to the head of the operations in Teach for China. And I actually started working with her 1-1 coaching. So I organized 50 coaches to provide free 1-1 coaching for the staff in Teach for China. So I did that for a couple years and then I started introducing ORSC and the operations team was the first team I coached using ORSC tools. 

 

KC – Wow, so you started with this individual coaching and then transitioned to the team coaching. And I guess I’m wondering, was there quite a big shift from the individual 1-1 to then working with the team and I guess those systemic issues that might have been showing up? 

 

YZ – Yeah, yeah, it is a major shift. I think both from my side as a coach as well as for the client as the coachee. It’s a shift in terms of how we work together, but I think the mindset is still the same, is that we want to empower. In 1-1 coaching we empower the individual, in the team coaching we really empower the entire team. You know, the underlying intention and underlying philosophy is the same but obviously the way we coach and the… object, quote/unquote “object” we coach are quite different. 

 

KC – Yeah. I love that, the empowerment is there both with individuals and teams. I’m wondering with the operations team, where did the organizational relationships systems coaching work take you with this team, what was showing up and what tools did you use? 

 

YZ – When it came to coaching, so before we start, I actually spent about a week talking to each member on the team. They actually only had five members including the leader. 

 

KC – Ok. 

 

YZ – So yeah I spent an hour, actually more than an hour, maybe three hours with the leader, trying to identify what some of the changes that she wants the team to realize using the ORSC coaching project. And I also spent like 20 minutes each with each of the members and understanding the challenges they have, the difficulties they have. So the team really come down to, they want the team to work together as a team rather than five individuals. And they were sharing that they feel so lonely and they feel stressed because as a non-profit organization they’re understaffed, so one person was almost for like the workload of two people and they’re always in this mode of like firefighting, so like emergency thing happens, they have to react and they feel really stressed and they don’t feel they’re really supporting each other and work sort of coherently and as a system. So they want to, they have a metaphor for this which is fantastic. They said right now, working in this team feels like taking an exam in a classroom. It feels so stressful, so tense, and so sort of like they’re just doing their own text, right, they can’t even, they don’t have time to look around and look at what other people are doing. And what they want is that they want the team to work like an organic farm. So they want to shift from taking an exam in a classroom into planting fruits and harvesting fruits in an organic farm. And they can sing whilst they work, they can play with each other while they work and they can really support each other as a team. That’s what they came to ORSC to coach which is really, really interesting. Really touched the heart of ORSC coaching, is how to transform in a group of individuals to a team of systemic work that really makes the team one + one + one. Better than, greater than five rather than equal to five. Less than five. 

 

KC – That’s such a good point and what a wonderful sort of focus to find, meeting that system that they’re currently a group and they want to be a team and how to help them be interdependent, or see that they’re interdependent, and aligned around a common purpose or goal, as is the definition of systems. So I guess next question is around what did you use to help them to see themselves as a system? What tools showed up? 

 

YZ – Yeah, many of the classic tools really played, I think, a critical role. The first one was really what I used was the edge model, the primary crossing the edge to the secondary. I think that one was really pivotal in kind of really identify what the issues are and paint, coach them, as a team, paint a picture of their vision, so kind of really giving them a clear picture of where they are and where they want to go. And almost, I feel the energy in the team, almost the minute the picture was clear they started to cross the edge. 

 

KC – Oh, how interesting. So just putting it out there made it more digestible? 

 

YZ – Exactly, so making the, you know, triangle on the whiteboard, so putting what are some of the key difficulties or things they don’t want any more on the left hand side, and putting the things that they really want, you know like the orchard, the organic orchard picture came out from them and they said they want more trust and they want more connection, they want more collaboration with each other, asking for help from each other rather than fighting every battle as individuals. So I think the power of that tool is that the minute the picture became clear the team were already like we can’t wait, we want to go there! That’s what we really want! So I think sometimes a lot of the obstacles of teams not knowing what to do is that the vision is not clear. What they really want isn’t clear. Sometimes they think it’s clear inside but it’s not shared amongst the team. So once we reveal the team and everybody says what they want they realize we actually want similar things. So why don’t we all go there? 

 

KC – That’s so true! 

 

YZ – That one was a wonderful tool, the primary secondary across the edge. 

 

KC – That’s a lovely point, that so often there’s more in common, perhaps, than we realize, just because we’re voicing it and just revealing those can in itself help them over that edge. 

 

YZ – Yeah. 

 

KC – How did that shift the dynamics between them? I’m wondering sort of as they realized oh, we’re already aligned around X, Y and Z, how did that shift how they showed up together? 

 

YZ – In a partly because of the deep democracy process and everybody felt like they’re heard, so they really started to become much more connected because connection was a big thing for them, because they feel disconnected and they want connection. So a lot of them said just coming together and going through these conversations and experiential exercises as a team already helped them to connect. So the shift you’re asking is really from disconnect to finding connection and being seen and being heard by the team, it’s really critical. And another, I think, two really useful tools – one was the original myth. 

 

KC – Ok. 

 

YZ – I used, yeah. I think this tool is particularly… actually, I find this tool really wonderful regardless of which kind of team, regardless of like sector, industry, size of the team, whatever. But particularly for non-profit organizations it’s especially useful because these people all come with a lot of passion initially, like when they first joined the organization, and they come with a sense of mission. And, but over time, as they get over worked they get disconnected from the original sense of mission and the original passion and they get buried into the day-to-day work and the KPIs and the tasks. And, you know, when they have a chance to talk about what attracted them to this organization, what are some of the earliest highlights of their early career and what’s the first impression, I think the entire team became so lit up, like this team, they’re, one of their mottos was that a microscopic light can lit a big fire, this was one of their mottos, and I can feel that just using the original myths and talking about our deepest, you know, meaning for them and their personal mission aligned with the organization mission kind of lit up their internal passion and then you can see the entire energy of the team kind of shift from in a really cold and really tired, to really like warm, heated. And also they feel the warmth, emotional connection to the team rather than just structural connection to the team. 

 

KC – Yeah. What a great distinction, actually, the emotional connection as opposed to the structural connection of well you are my colleague, we sit next to each other on the same floor. 

 

YZ – We’re one team on the organizational chart. 

 

KC – Exactly! And what a fantastic way of I guess beating burn out or helping people to cope with a sense of fatigue, particularly when they’re overworked. I’m sure that energized a lot of them and maybe redirected their passion back to sort of that reason of why they started in the first place? 

 

YZ – Yeah, so lots of positivity and sort of connecting them with the source of energy and that’s really where they draw all these energies going forward. So it’s becoming like a big reservoir and they forgot connecting with this big reservoir, so the original myth was a really magical tool. And I actually used another tool which is not necessarily ORSC but it really helped a lot. It’s a little bit similar to lands work…

 

KC – Ok. 

 

YZ – It’s really, because the size of the team is small, right, only five people, so I asked them initially to kind of talk about one story when they were kids that they remember really well and they had not shared with their team. And so they all talked about distinct stories, they’re like highlights of their childhood or like a really lowlight of their childhood, just to share a childhood story with the team. It’s almost like lands work, it kind of reveals who you are as a person. 

 

KC – Yes. 

 

YZ – Rather than as a row. Just as a function. So the team became a team by really connecting with the essence level, because when they talk about the childhood story it really went down to the essence level of who they are and what they had experienced growing up. And that also strengthened the connection as a team. 

 

KC – Wow. Love that that essence level helped them to connect and become more than just a group of people but to see themselves as a team. It sounds like there were a lot of learnings for them and I’m wondering what were some of the greatest learnings for you from this beautiful experience, it sounds like? 

 

YZ – Yeah, so much learning. I feel like I benefited more from this project than the client. Actually one biggest learning, well actually a few big learning. The first one is that the initial system entry is really critical because I have done different teams in the same organization but I didn’t spend as much time as I did with this team in terms of the initial connection with each team member and initial time and resource in terms of identifying the issue. So I think initial connection with the critical team members and if possible with each team member is really critical, because when we coach we coach the team but, you know, sort of the connection between the coach and the team, if you already have a very safe, trustworthy connection with them then I think the coach session became a bonfire right away, rather than a small match. So I think the initial connection with the team and the system entry in terms of understanding and forming a consensus agenda for the coach project is really critical. And also understanding exactly what they, like as a team, they deem as the success for the coach work. Because sometimes the coach thinks oh they have an issue about collaboration and at the end of the coach session they will have much more connectedness with each other and that’s enough, but maybe the team think totally different. They might think oh we want more collaboration but at the end of the coaching session we want action plan in terms of how we connect in our strategies. So we really need to understand the topic and also what the team need in terms of a definition of success. So that’s what I learned from coaching this team but also another team and another team in different organizations. So I think really be crystal clear on the agenda and the, you know, how they measure success, it’s really critical.

 

KC – I love the saying there, particularly that slowing down at the start, it’s so, I think, human to want to rush in and do the work, but actually meeting them and creating that container, it’s critical. 

 

YZ – Yeah, totally. And almost, I think, doing proper connection and deciding on the agenda and the objective and measure of success, it’s sort of like 50% of the success of the whole project. 

 

KC – That’s so true, that is so true! Because often what we think of as a terrible session has for so often for them been the most transformative session, and if we don’t know what their measure for success is then it’s hard to really know if we’re moving in the right direction or not. How did you ask that? How did you get a sense of what’s their measure of success, did you just quite literally say what would success look like for this team? 

 

YZ – Yeah, so kind of went back to the things I did, really spending time to talk to the team leader and also spending some time connecting with the team members, understanding their issue, kind of understanding what they want for their team and also for coaching. And also, during the first session, rather than jumping into you know sort of coaching them, I really used the primary secondary tool to really clarify. So what does the team want together and have them really clarify and crystal clear this is what we want and this is sort of the end result we want out of the coaching. So as you said, initially slowing down and clarify the goal and the measure of success. And have the team do it, rather than the team leader. 

 

KC – So true.

 

YZ – Because sometimes the team leader says something but the team actually think of something else! And so I think as coach we need to be aligned with the system, not only with one person in the system. Even though the leader, a lot of times, they have a bigger voice, but really hearing the team and identifying what the team want and really align on that is really critical. 

 

KC – Such an important point. 

 

YZ – Yeah, to that’s really one big learning. And the second learning is just ORSC really works! 

 

KC – It does doesn’t it! It’s one of the ones where every time you’re feeling edgy about a tool and you try it and you’re like oh yeah, follow the instructions, wow. 

 

YZ – Yeah. It really works! And follow the instructions. Sometimes I feel like oh maybe I can reinvent the tool, maybe I can add some extra steps and make it more sophisticated and then I find it doesn’t work! 

 

KC – Yes. 

 

YZ – Like the tools are designed the way it’s designed for a reason. And when I add a lot of stuff to it, it actually loses the magical power. A lot of times I think simplicity is really powerful. Just, you know, follow the tools. Obviously we can innovate as we become much more experienced, but as starting, as a beginner, as a starting coach I would advise that you just follow the steps and see what happens instead of adding a lot of stuff from your imaginary. A too complicated tool actually reduces the magic of the ORSC, so trust… 

 

KC – Trust the tool! And I think that’s, it’s sometimes the simplest questions are the best questions and I think that’s so often what we find in these tools, it’s that they’re very simple actually at their essence and the human brain wants to go away and complicate it and, to your point, maybe that reduces the magic and the revealing that these offer. 

 

YZ – Yeah. And also the reason some of the tools are so simple opens up the space for actually more abundance from the team. Because when I designed the tool to complicated then it becomes so structured, it took away a lot of the creativity and sort of the dance in the moment possibility from the team. So I think the simplicity creates an open space for the team to actually reveal itself, more fully, rather than follow very complicated instructions. 

 

KC – That’s such, I’d not thought about that but the simplicity creates the space for, I guess,  that principal that the team is naturally intelligent, generative and creative, and if we give them everything in the tool then we’re not creating space for any of that to show up. 

 

YZ – Exactly, yes. 

 

KC – Such a great point. 

 

YZ – So that was my second learning. It really works and follow the tool. And part of that, also, is a lot of times client comes with an agenda and the reason the ORSC tool really works is really have them experience the team. Experience the system. Rather than talk about it. So a lot of times the problem is not that they don’t want to do it and they don’t know how to do it, it’s that they didn’t feel the energy of doing it or feel the energy of what they want. So, for example, a lot of times teams come to ORSC and say we want to have a sense of the team rather than a group of individuals, and they all want that, every single team member wants that, but how come they haven’t done it? It sort of stayed at the mental level, right? We want the team but they just don’t have a sense of a team. So a lot of the ORSC tools really has them experience, you know, the string exercise is also a great one. To have them experience what it needs by saying that we are a team, we’re not just a collection of individuals, so when they see the strings collecting to each other, oh, you know, visually they feel this is the team! And then, you know, we have them for example after the original myth or after some other tool like break down a vision, have them create a story of the team. If your team is a story, what’s the story of the team? What’s the symbol of the team? They really kind of emotionally, physically and spiritually connected to that team rather than mentally. 

 

KC – That is such a wonderful way of putting it, that so often we’re trying to intellectualize our way into team and what that means and actually it’s in all of our dimensions, emotionally, physically, intellectually and spiritually. I guess ORSC, when we dance through the different reality levels, brings all of that into play. 

 

YZ – Yeah, totally. And really became aware why we always ask the coach to lead the emotional field, because really I think the emotion is the critical sign of the system. The emotion change is usually like a signal of what the team really want. So that’s why I think we always want to read the emotional field to reveal, oh, you know kind of from the emotion they can trace, they can trace what the team really want. And the emotion also has physical memories that they can connect to overcome the edge, to make the change possible. 

 

KC – You have a beautiful way of putting things like from the emotions you can chase that sense of team, it’s a very creative, wonderful way of thinking about that, that essencey space, and it really talks to the fact that the emotions are the currency of relationship. What a wonderful way of sharing that with the team and helping them see themselves as a team and not just a group. 

 

YZ – Yes, yes absolutely. I was actually wondering why we say emotions are the currency of the relationship. So I was talking to another coach and my understanding is that in a currency has the functional measure of value, you know, value of goods, that’s basically the definition of currency. So you have a $1, $5, $10 bill. And emotion, for me, is the measure of the want of the team, of the system. So big emotion signals the team really, really wants something. Small emotions probably signal the team wants something a little bit, so for me reading the emotion for me is important because it kind of measures how much the team really want to do something. 

 

KC – Wow, just think the measure of the want of the team, there’s a whole language there that so often we’re not even listening too are we? And what might get revealed when we tune into that different way of hearing and sensing and feeling systems.

 

YZ – Yeah, and then, actually the other coach came up with another dimension of the definition.

 

KC – Ok. 

 

YZ – He said because emotion keeps team alive so currency flows, currency flows in the system and the system is alive. And emotion is also like a flow of the river, so the flowing river means the team, the system is alive. If there’s no emotion then the system is dead. 

 

KC – That’s such an interesting point. How fascinating. Oh, I love that! And then it takes away from, because so often, particularly in our organizations, emotion is considered a bad word, don’t bring emotions into the workplace. But actually emotions are part of our humanity and actually that aliveness that passes between us as human beings in relationships, wow. Wow, thank you for sharing that!

 

YZ – Exactly, yeah, I was really inspired by that discussion so that’s why I want to share that with you! 

 

KC – Yeah, and I’ve been very inspired by this discussion and I’m wondering, thinking about your Worldwork project and people listening to this thinking maybe how they can bring more ORSC to the world, what’s one thing you’d love to share with our listeners around brining ORSC to the wider world in different ways? 

 

YZ – I think one thing is that consider ORSC as a philosophy and as a way of work rather than just as a set of coaching tools. So really embed ORSC in your daily life and daily work, and sort of keep the system inspired, thinking, everywhere. Because we have relationships, we live in relationships, life is defined by relationship. So we need all the relationships in our life and work to flourish and really, you know, embed the ORSC work in everyday, everyday life and everyday work. 

 

KC – Wow, well they do say Worldwork starts with the self and what a wonderful way of living, leading and loving with a systemic approach. Thank you so much Yan, I’ve absolutely adored this conversation and I’m sure you’ve provided our listeners with so much wisdom and also ideas for their projects and how to use this with their teams and their communities going forward, so thank you. 

 

YZ – Thank you. Thank you for having me, it’s really an honor and I really want to acknowledge your work to spread around all these great experiences across the globe and connect the global ORSC community together. 

 

KC – Thank you Yan and thank you for being here. I hope to have you back on the show soon, this has been such a delight and take care! 

 

YZ – Thank you, I’m looking forward to it. 

 

[Music outro begins 35:15] 

 

KC – The Worldwork project is a key element in the ORSC certification journey. It allows students to apply the ORSC materials in the real world and develop themselves as change agents. At CRR Global we hold all our students as change agents and train them to be conscious of what impact they want to make in their world. We believe that everybody’s impact –whether conscious or unconscious— sends ripples out into the world. It’s up to all of us, as world workers, to keep our communities safe and healthy. For more information about Worldwork and ORSC certification do check out CRRGlobal.com/course/ORSC-certification. We believe relationship matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole.