Ep.1 Walking our Talk: some curriculum updates

To kick-start a brand-new season of the Relationship Matters Podcast, Katie Churchman talks with Sandra Cain (Director of Curriculum and Senior Faculty at CRR Global) about some updates to the Organizational and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC) curriculum. We’re living our own work and as a consequence, our materials, tools and understanding of systems keeps emerging. This conversation covers a range of updates to the ORSC curriculum that have emerged over the last few years including:

• The addition of the 5 principles of RSI to the ORSC curriculum
• Updates to paper constellations set-up and the scenarios used across the modules
• Structural changes to the deep democracy tool from the intelligence module that aim to make it a more accessible and user-friendly tool.
• Integrating Meet Reveal Align and Act into the systems integration model as a way to create a coaching plan and act as a map for where you are in the coaching process.

Sandra Cain coaches individuals, pairs and teams around the world. Her background includes 15 years of experience at American Express with a variety of leadership and personal development roles. In addition to leading the CRR Global Core Curriculum, she is also Associate Director of the Certification Program and on faculty for The Coaches Training Institute. Her stand for this work is that since we’re already in relationships, we might as well be conscious and intentional about who we are, what we do and how we live.

For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

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

Transcript

Key 

KC – Katie Churchman

SC - Sandra Cain

[Intro 00:00 – 00:07] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and to kickstart a brand new season of the Relationship Matters podcast I’m talking with Sandra Cain, senior faculty at CRR Global, about some updates to the Organizational and Relationship Systems Coaching curriculum. Sandra Cain coaches individuals pairs and teams around the world. Her background includes 15 years of experience at American Express with a variety of leadership and personal development roles. In addition to leading the CRR Global Core Curriculum, she is also Associate Director of the Certification Program and on faculty for The Coaches Training Institute. Her stand for this work is that since we’re already in relationships, we might as well be conscious and intentional about who we are, what we do and how we live. This conversation covers a range of small and big updates to the ORSC curriculum that have emerged over the last few years. These include: the addition of the five principles of RSI relationship systems intelligence to the ORSC curriculum; updates to paper constellations set-up and the scenarios used across the modules; structural changes to the deep democracy tool from the intelligence module that aim to make it more accessible and user-friendly; and integrating Meet Reveal Align and Act into the systems integration module as a way of creating a coaching plan. We’re living our own work, our materials and our tools and our understanding of systems keeps emerging. And this conversation revolves around what we know now that we didn’t know a few years ago and what else might be emerging. So without further ado I bring you Sandra Cain. 

KC – Sandra, welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast, you can see I’m beaming already, I’m delighted to have you on the show. 

SC – Oh thank you, it’s fun for me to be here. 

KC – I’m looking forward today to deep diving into some of the changes that have been emerging from within the CRR Global system. So where do we want to start with regards to some of these changes, big and small? 

SC – Probably the best place to start is with the addition of the five principles. And this comes from either of the books that Marita has been involved in in the last few years, but they really are kind of the pillars for ORSC and they’re primarily for the coach, not for your clients, and that’s what I think is unique. These are the kinds of things that are helpful for you to remember, for me to remember, when I’m working with my clients. And they are also kind of grounding, I think, because it’s easy to get kind of pulled into the circumstances or to one person’s opinion or something they said, and when I come back to the principles I’m really holding the ORSC stance. So, probably useful to talk through each of them, yeah? The first one is that each relationship system has its own unique identity or personality and that’s kind of a cool one, you know, if you think about sports teams or bands, they give us the most obvious examples. I think about Van Halen with David Lee Roth, and they had a certain personality, and then when he left and Sammy Hagar came in they had a very different personality, still Van Halen but a different personality, and we could certainly vote on who we think is better… David Lee Roth… but, you know, just different! Just different! Or sports teams, you know, a new coach comes in to lead a team, or a new quarterback or a new, any one of the players changes and it just has a different impact on who they are together. 

KC – And so holding this as a coach can help us to work with the system as a client and help them to see themselves, would you say? 

SC – Yes. Who are they together? You know, I went to my nieces wedding recently and there’s a new family member, right, and that changes the dynamic of our family. So you know, all these little moments of each person that shifts out or each, each system has its own, like a personality is what we say. Right? Like it’s got a unique set of qualities. To be curious about who they are, who they are now, and hold the wholeness of it and not get pulled into the individuals and that’s where it gets really interesting. 

KC – Mm. I like what you say about who they are now because I can generalize a system but a system one day is different from a system the next and you’re so right about family members, can completely change the dynamic! 

SC – Yeah. For sure! Or, you know, one person moves even and it shifts the system a little bit. But yeah, it’s helpful to hold, for us to remember to look at the whole, who’s the identity of the system? You know, and in a more practical sense with clients it’s easy to hold into maybe the leader’s voice, or maybe get curious about the one who’s quiet. But to see them as a whole system at the same time, that’s really the uniqueness that ORSC brings. 

KC – So see them as a system at the same time, in that moment in time. 

SC – Right? Yeah. And we’ll get pulled in, of course, we’re human, right? It’s easy to get drawn into one voice or have an opinion about an individual but to really look at the whole system and the uniqueness of it and I think that’s the piece of this system that’s really cool, there’s no other system quite like that and how do we, how do we continue to hold the view of the system with curiosity and wonder and reveal it back to them rather than getting pulled into anything else, really. So that’s a key one. The next one is every member of the relationship system, so that’s the team or maybe a partnership, is a voice of the system. So we know about the metaskill of deep democracy, we’re going to talk about the tool a little bit later than this, but the metaskill of deep democracy is holding that every person has, you know, is a voice of the system, right? And we wanna hear all of them to see the system. And that doesn’t mean one is right or we’re going to act on one but really from the principle stance it’s like inviting in all the voices so that we make sure that we hear that. 

KC – And I guess it isn’t that every voice is equal either. It’s that every voice is a voice of that system. 

SC – Really good point, right. Not every voice is equal. And sometimes that’s bumpy! Not everyone has input on the same decisions, for example. But we wanna really stand in that place of everyone holds a voice for this system and at least give them a place to contribute if they want, because not everybody wants too. And even silence, in fact, is a voice of the system. Then we have relationship systems are naturally intelligent, generative and creative. Now this is a good one to remember when things get tough. Right? If it gets messy or if they’re fighting or if it feels hopeless or you don’t know what the heck to do, which happens sometimes, right? They actually naturally will create something. Something’s always trying to emerge. We used to say something’s trying to happen. It’s a little bit of this in this principle, right. That there’s a natural intelligence generativeness like creativity, and that helps especially when things are really, really conflictual or disruptive or unskillful which is all my nice worst words for when it’s antsy and hard. You know? 

KC – Which is when this is probably the hardest principle of all to lean into because sometimes systems don’t feel creative, intelligent and generative. 

SC – Yeah. And sometimes the coach can get in our head, you know, they aren’t. So even when it’s really difficult to stand firmly in that place and hold that, don’t underestimate the power of someone really holding mess with the team. Even when they’re in their in their mess, whatever it is, if we can really hold this principle with them that changes something. That changes the emotional field somehow, and there’s ways we can’t define or see but it’s, it actually does. If someone could be with them in their disruptions and not freak out, and not try to fix it, just sort of hold the energy or help them facilitate a conversation more skillfully, absolutely, this isn’t a passive thing, but that’s more of a skillset than a principle, right? The principle is to really trust and believe that. 

KC – Yeah, this is a real coach approach, I didn’t think about how this principle is, it really helps us to not fix and to tell them what to do. 

SC – Right, that’s probably the biggest crutch, right? Is a lot of us come from a background of being rewarded for being problem solvers. You know, probably many years in a career of being a problem solver in some way or another. So to really let go of that or maybe add to the toolkit, you know, to really trust the system is a very different thing, it takes practice. Fourth principle I want to introduce is the systems rely on roles for their organization and executions of functions. This is what’s interesting, you know, roles, we talk about this in a geography course, that roles belong to the system, not to the individuals. And that’s sometimes hard to separate that, because we tend to think that the leader is always the leader, well sometimes they might take on a different role and to be clear about that. But it’s, in our model we actually say that leadership is a role across the system, so who works in the mailroom might take on the role of leader in a moment or in an exercise or might demonstrate that. But to hold the idea that roles are somewhat fluid, actually, is how I think about it. That they belong to the system, the system knows what to do there but there’s a fluidity to that which I think is really interesting. 

KC – Yeah, I can see how that can really help us to hold that systemic lens. 

SC – Yeah, sometimes talk about putting people in a box, back in the 90s I think that was a big thing, don’t put people in a box, or the early 2000s. It’s a little bit like that. Roles are inherently changing within a system and to allow for that and be transparent about that. So you know, someone might speak a really courageous voice on a team. And it might create a ripple effect to the emotional field where people are just like [gasps], right? And for us to see that as their speaking a role, they’re just a voice for the system, and actually to, in some cases, train our clients to see that.

KC – It’s quite refreshing, isn’t it, to realize that you don’t have to hold that role all the time. 

SC – Right? Yes. Because that kind of role fatigue can show up, or role nausea. Or everyone thinks I’m this and I’m not that, I’m not just that. So yeah, all those things contribute to this one, so to really remember that they actually rely on the roles for their organization, for getting things done, and it’s just roles. You know, I might be the disturber in one system and the caretaker in another one, it’s almost not my choice in some ways. You know. Of course, it is, if I’m aware of it I can have some consciousness, but we do get kind of dreamed into this as well. 

KC – This really helps us to sort of allow for our clients to grow, as well, in the way that we wanna grow as coaches, constantly, we don’t want anyone to put us in a box. This allows us that too because we get, it seems like these principles help us to be more present, that’s what I’m sensing as we go through these together Sandra, that it allows us to be with who shows up in that moment. 

SC – Yes. And not hold onto any specific role. Because the way systems work is it is the roles speak up as required, right? Now they’re not always skillful, they’re not always eloquent, but they do speak up. And so we don’t, we want to be aware that we’re not pigeonholing anybody or saying that that person’s always this or never that, you know, they really are speaking for a role or they’re not speaking and they’re still in a role. And there’s a lot to be said, you know, like I said, the geography course goes into more kind of tactical ways to work with roles, but this is a principle we want our coaches to really stand in, that systems are reliant on roles. Whether we want them too or not is irrelevant. That’s just what we do. It’s true of all of these, right, it’s like this is what systems do. 

KC – And it does help us to then step back and take that balcony view, as opposed then to getting drawn into our, oh, I’m finding her really difficult in this team. 

SC – Right. They’d be so much better off if shewasn’t here or if he wasn’t here, right? And that’s very human. I’ve had that with my clients, you know that person just, and you’re like oh, it’s a role. And it’s usually the one that’s difficult. You know, it’s usually the one that’s difficult. In fact, one way we worked with this, it just reminded me of pretty intense conflict, there was a woman who was a real, like a road block. She was the one who said no to everything, and she wasn’t skillful, to be honest. She was harsh. And everyone was kind of like oh, here she goes again. That’s happened, I’m sure lots coaches have run into that. One of great inspiration. I didn’t plan this but it just kind of came through me. I actually asked everyone to, I asked her to just step aside and asked everyone to come over and stand in her position and speak, and actually, no, I didn’t ask them to speak. I said just feel into what’s it like to be the one that feels like you have the answer, you have the clear solution, nobody listens to you. Just feel into that. And a year later someone contacted me and said I’m still impacted by that. Like what’s it like to be the one who always feels, you know, because there was a definite us against her thing happening. I can’t tell you where it came from, it wasn’t my plan because, you know, I didn’t plan that at all. But I just thought there needs to be a way for people to get out of their own self and into that social intelligence place. And it really stayed with me because it was an example of this, of just having people try on a role and see that it is just a role, because they were making it very personal. 

KC – It does become so, doesn’t it, so often. And I guess if we hold this we can help our clients to see themselves as this system too, and to share the roles more differently perhaps? 

SC – Well even, yeah, more skillfully maybe? Even to spring it up and say hey, I notice you hold this role a lot. I mean thinking about it in, whoever you live with, you know, we follow roles in our personal relationships too and that’s sometimes where conflict happens. Like oh, they always want to do it that way, why can’t we ever do it my way? It’s, you know, all that very normal human things that happen. Start to see it through a lens of roles and if they’ll change something. And then probably, if I had to pick a favorite principle it’s probably this last one, you know. Systems are in a constant state of emergence. I just love the language of this because it’s so true. There’s always something trying to happen, and maybe something very small. And it may be something very big. But what is trying to reveal itself here? What is trying to emerge or what’s being generated through this system? It’s a big one, you know. And can we take our view from the me and you and him and her and them, to that larger looking at the whole level, w h o l e. Right? What’s trying to emerge from that place? It might just be better communication. It maybe conflict is trying to emerge, it may be new ideas. It could be all kinds of things. But yeah, that soft gaze at the larger whole, what’s happening between people, what’s trying to emerge there? 

KC – That’s really what’s inspiring this conversation and the emerging updates and changes, because we are also a system that’s in a constant state of emergence and how can we dance with that and be more conscious and intentional about how we show up then with those changes. 

SC – Right. And you know, it’s a very interesting thing to try and put curriculum down on paper about this, because its, we’re living our own world in this. Our materials and our tools and our understanding of systems keeps emerging. You know. And so, that’s why we have podcasts of this, to help people understand what’s new and what do we know now that we didn’t know a few years ago or, you know, some simple things like we’ve made some changes to the paper constellation, where we used to have two different symbols for two different genders, we don’t need to do that. In today’s society we can have a gender neutral symbol, we can just have one symbol and that’s what we’ve done, we’ve just made everything one symbol. Now for some client it makes sense to have more than one symbol and you can absolutely do that, but there’s, we can start from a neutral place and have the clients reveal themselves to us. So that’s one change we’ve made that I think is a no-brainer. The other thing I think along the same lines is in our materials, in training, we’ve made all of our scenarios gender neutral names, or in some cases we say pick a name. Whereas before we ascribed certain names that assumed certain genders and it’s just a simple way that we can have people create their own experience without us telling them who they are, who they need to be in this scenario. It’s a simple thing and I think it’s a meaningful one as well. Now that won’t affect people in our client world necessarily, because more people aren’t working scenarios, but I wanted to mention that in kind of the realm of how we’re looking at our curriculum and how we can, how we can meet more people where they are. 

KC – Yeah, because there are these themes emerging in the wider systems and this is CRR Global’s way of co-creating, dancing with those, as opposed to resisting and staying as we are, this is a way of being conscious and intentional about whatever shows up and evolving as a system too. 

SC – Yeah, exactly. If we’re walking or talking that and the complexity of it comes with we still have to write things down and get people materials, and so, and yet the work will continue to emerge and evolve, so that’s why we’ll do this every so often as we need to and get information out. We did send an email out to our alumni in 2020 when we made some big changes, but we also wanted, I know you and I wanted to talk about one of the more specific changes recently which was to the deep democracy tool. So let’s spend a little time on that. 

KC – Yeah, so, I wonder, Sandra, for those people who may not be familiar with the deep democracy tool, could you give us sort of a quick overview of how that looks and then we can move onto what’s new now? 

SC – Yeah, the concept of deep democracy comes from the Mendels work which is really that there’s so many different possible voices around any topic, right? And the deep democracy, deep meaning, that there’s many, there’s a depth of voices and inputs and opinions, even, on any topic. And this is an adaptation on the work that the Mendels have done, of course, with their permission, with Faith and Marita. But what we’re really looking for is how do we get multiple voices on a topic, how do we create awareness of multiple voices? It usually happens, and I think mostly with organizational examples here, you know, people kind of know the primary voices. Let’s say they’re talking about something like a merger or an acquisition, you know, a big thing like that. Well, you can assume that there are some people who think it’s a great idea, and some people think it’s not, and some people think it’s going to be expensive or not worth it. You know, we could just brainstorm some of the common reactions to something like this. But this is about getting at not just those, because those are the primary voices maybe and those matter, but there’s a whole bunch of other secondary voices, voices that haven’t been raised yet, maybe don’t feel safe enough, maybe people aren’t even aware of yet. I can imagine there’d be a million voices around a merger if we really opened it up. Lots of different inputs around that. So what we’re trying to do here is a couple things. Get people out of their primary kind of grove of thinking, which sometimes is a reaction, not always, but sometimes is reactionary. We wanna shake that up a little bit and have people try on some other voices. And, you know, we can sit around a table and say yeah, I can see how that’s true, oh yeah that makes sense to me, we can kind of do that in our mind, but it’s very different to actually stand in a place that represents that and advocate for it, and that’s really what’s different here. And that’s what’s different about the new version, as well. We actually have people advocate for a view that isn’t their primary view. For the whole purpose of just getting new information, new insight. Doesn’t mean you have to believe it or hold that to be a truth. That’s really, so deep democracy is getting out of the everyday groove of how we think of things and trying on different voices. And really speaking for them. 

KC – So, why a new version? What were you noticing that perhaps wasn’t working with the way it was done before? 

SC – That’s a great question. You know, one of the things we do in Certification is we, when we get to this topic in Certification, we poll the group and say who uses this tool? And we were seeing no one uses this tool. I mean, over years, Katie. Nobody waved their hands. Nobody said yeah, I use it, or maybe a handful of people and it was always  a delight, like great, tell us about it! What was the circumstances, you know. But it was really pretty obvious, you know, just about every other tool people use, and this one they were like yeah, I thought it was interesting but I couldn’t really see the application. So, the version of it that we originally created from Artie and Amy’s work was kind of chaotic. Some people really loved it, the process, they loved doing it, but then they would say it was fun to be in but I don’t know how to do that. So we had a lot of voices around the tool, frankly. Lot of different points of view, but that was one of the biggest things. And it’s hard to teach because there was so much going on, so we just basically needed to simplify it. Just make it more accessible. And it still delivers, that’s what’s great. I actually think it’s better. 

KC – Ok. 

SC – I think it delivers better. Because in the last 18 months or so, now in Certification most people raise their hand. And those of us who are faculty for that course, we’re always like yes! You know? So we actually have some data to say the changes we made are making it more accessible and people are bringing it to their clients, that was really one of the biggest things. Now, you know, we kind of nerded out about it, those who are really into the systemic stuff loved doing this and were fascinated by it. But again, it ended up being too complex a tool that people were not using. 

KC – So what are some of the ways you simplified it? 

SC – The main thing we did is we put a little bit more structure to it, because it was a pretty open, you know, how we used to do it, gosh feels like a while now for me, I have to remember. It was a little bit more open of a process where people would move around from voice to voice and try things and just, mostly what would happen is you would have a room full of people who would just be speaking different voices but no one would talk to each other. And there’s some value in that, to be fair. You know, just trying on a voice and speaking it. And in this process we speak from I, whatever voice we’re in, and that alone is cool. I’m speaking the voice of a parent who has seven kids and, you know, that’s not my world but to speak I from that place still gives me some new insight, so there’s value in that. So if people are enjoying the old way, go for it. It just for most people was too complex. So the idea that you can try on a voice in a little bit more of a structured way and then, you know, what we say is try on the one that feels most truth for you now and that’s honoring the primary. In the old way we kind of just said let’s hear from somebody, you know, and we want to honor the primary because that’s good change theory, start with what’s familiar. And then we have you try on what’s not familiar, maybe less familiar or maybe one that’s the most different, or the one you’re curious about, or you know, we only rotate about three times in this but it’s a little more prescribed, it’s not as chaotic, but it still delivers, in fact, delivers more. We have some blank spaces in this one that we might say, you know, if somebody is speaking to, let’s say, the example I used of a child and we don’t have the voice of a child in the room, somebody go and stand in the blank and respond back as the child. And the blank spaces are interchangeable, so they can be used for any voices that show up that someone might want to try and speak. But the bottom line of it is it’s a little bit more prescribed, it’s less chaotic, there’s more of a clear off-ramp about how we take people out of the process. And the thing I said earlier that I want to pull through here is really advocating. So it’s not just I feel like this in this voice or this is what’s true for me. But to have that dialogue, you know, imagine that I’m stepping in or you’re stepping into a voice that doesn’t feel true for you. And you’re standing there and you’re speaking it, and then I’m speaking to you from a different voice and you have to kind of advocate for a voice that doesn’t feel true for you. I mean that is huge to do. You’re not committing to that voice, you know, that’s part of the setup, we want people to be clear, you’re just trying things on to get new insight, new information. To stand in a position that doesn’t feel true and advocate back to somebody else, that changes you and that’s what’s interesting and at the end it’s still like so what’s new about your team, first? Or what’s new for you and then what’s new about the team? So we do kind of a personal debrief and then we talk about the team application. 

KC – So do you have a suggestion for how many voices, is there a sense around sort of the limit for how many we collect in the structure? 

SC – Yeah, I do. The way we have the tool written is what’s the one that’s the most true for them. 

KC – Ok. 

SC – Again, said honor the primary, so that’s one voice. Then chose the one that’s the most different from the one you believe to be true. Then one that you’re curious about. So that’s three. And again, even if it’s just a brief little interaction back and forth, having them kind of advocate for some other position is a really powerful experience, here’s what it feels like for me and here’s why it’s important to hear, right? So, the way it’s written is we have three different rounds, so to speak. You could certainly add one or two more, but I would just always be aware of the fatigue that can happen with any tool because this takes time and it depends on how vocal the group is and how many people there are. I wouldn’t wanna add more than that. I really wouldn’t. 

KC – Ok. 

SC – I would be more likely to keep them in one that’s true for them, one that’s most different, one they’re curious about and close it after that. 

KC – And before the process itself is there a gathering of the different voices or are they all just standing in their own voice upfront? 

SC – Yeah. That’s right. You know, part of that happens in the work that the coach does ahead of time. 

KC – Ok. 

SC – You know whether you do an interview or you do any kind of summary tool like survey or anything, that, you know what the primary voices are from the work you’ve done with the team, right? And if you don’t know that then don’t use this tool because it’s not the kind of thing I want people making up in the moment, it’s too much, there’s too much going on around it. Unless you’re really, if you have an overnight, you know, you were with them one day and then you’re working with them the next day – sure. But I would say don’t wing it, don’t try to make this up in the moment. I know a lot of us, you know, if we have a whole day with a team, at the lunch break we usually redesign the afternoon anyway it’s like oh my gosh, this all happened so I want to think about this too… that’s fine but I wouldn’t want you to wing it because you do need to know what are the primary voices, and however you got that information, like I said, survey, interviews, maybe you just picked up on it in the work you’ve already been doing with them, maybe in another tool. But it’s just a way of kind of grabbing what’s there, putting the structure around it, slowing that down just a little bit to say well, you know, I can tell some of you feel this way and some of you feel that way and there’s also this voice that keeps coming in, let’s actually use that material and I wanna take you into an exercise that’s gonna have you really try on some of those different positions around this or those different voices and see what it’s like to really speak for them. That’s not something people do every day. You know, you might sit around the conference table and say we know the voice for our client is this, well there’s no one voice of any client, you know, that’s a simple example but even if they took on you know what are the three primary things that they hear from their clients and actually really try it on and advocate for that and say why that’s true because it would be easy to dismiss that. The thing you don’t want to hear from your clients, for example. Oh, they don’t get it or they don’t understand us, you know, that’s not who we are Vs standing there and saying yeah, that’s who we are. 

KC – Do you have a limit for how many voices you would pre-design ahead of doing this tool?

SC – Good question. I would probably limit it at four and have two blank spaces. 

KC – Right.

SC – And the primary reason for that is fatigue. With any process, you know, if you keep people in a process too long they, sometimes people get overwhelmed, they go I don’t get that or I don’t want… or they just get tired and it gets, yeah, it just gets in the way. So that’s my vibe, I don’t… I think I could represent CRR Global with that statement pretty fairly. Because even in the old, old way we used to do this we had just way too many voices, it’s unruly, you can’t mange and it just loses its power. So at some point you say ok. So, what’s the new information here, what are you learning from this voice and we have a kind of off ramp out of the process. The main thing that’s changed is getting a sense for what are the voices that you know exist on this team and starting with those rather than inviting in 20 new voices that just create more chaos and aren’t particularly relevant. 

KC – That’s such a good point, I think I remember it being quite chaotic and in some ways the process allowed for the louder more theatrical voices to dominate, like myself, that kind of love the exercise. It was a nightmare, probably, for our leader and I wonder now about some of the quieter voices in themselves, like if they got a chance to try on some other more edgy voices. 

SC – Right, exactly. Well and the old way was more in line with what the Mendels are doing with it, right. And they give a different angle on it. We’re really creating a tool that we want our coaches to take to their clients to get new information about a topic and then create action from that. You know, if we create action from the same opinions and voices that we know already, you know, that’s kind of flat. It doesn’t give us the full view of the system or the team or the organization, whatever context it is. But if we just keep creating from the same data we don’t, we’re not really meeting the issue and we don’t have a full picture either. You know, this gives us a little bit more of a full view of what’s it really like out there around this topic? 

KC – And, so, is this in some ways a third entity exercise because everyone’s trying on that position too in lots of different ways? Or three ways. 

SC – Well, it’s a great question. Third entity really is just two positions. It’s mine and it’s yours. Or it’s us and it’s them, right? This one expands that out. Third entity is also me and you and then the thing between us, right? The voice of our relationship or the third entity of the system voice. It’s prescribed that way, I’m making that little triangle with my hands. This one is not me, you, us, it’s me, you, you, you. 

KC – Many many yous, which makes it very very complicated. 

SC – Yeah, yeah, a bunch of yous. And some yous that I don’t even know yet. So there’s something organic sometimes happens in this one and that’s why we have those blank spaces that allow for those new voices that come in. And then it’s all of us looking together and saying what are we learning from this and what possible actions can we take from that new information. So a different angle on it. We’re also not directly asking for the voice of the system, we’re not saying what is the team voice in this exercise. Now unless they somehow decide to speak for that which would be kind of cool, most clients probably wouldn’t, they tend to think more in the individual or the client or the leader or the, you know, they tend to think more roles in this exercise – that’s fine too. As long as we’re clear about who they’re speaking for. 

KC – So in a way it’s an exercise in social intelligence, trying on the other’s position, and through that social intelligence awareness raising they start to be more aware of themselves as a system? 

SC – That’s where they have in common actually because third entity also gives you social intelligence, right, because you speak for the second position and it gives you the RSI voice of the voice of the team or the partnership, right? So in that way it’s… third entity’s great because it’s a much more clear example of the three intelligences. Deep democracy tool is, it’s honoring all of those but it’s in a different way. It’s less prescribed that way. But there’s some common, like in the Venn diagram of those two they would have some overlap and they have some differences. 

KC – So this is one of the ways we’re emerging as a system, CRR Global. Are there any others on the horizon Sandra that you’re excited about or maybe you can’t share yet! 

SC – [Laughs] That’s great. Urm, there’s a couple others I wanted to just name that are already happening, just for people that maybe missed the email that came out, and one is that we’ve integrated the concept of Meet, Reveal, Align and Act to the systems integration course and we call it MRAA sometimes, meet, reveal, align and act, but it’s really a great framework for creating a coaching plan and to understand where you are in the map of the work that you’re doing with the client. And meet is usually the first thing, so it’s like meeting is usually like DTA, you’re meeting with your client, you’re meeting them where they are, basically, right? Reveal, so many of our tools are about revealing, revealing the system to itself. So the deep democracy tool is a great reveal tool, constellations, very visual, right, very much a reveal tool, just as examples. And align and act is what do we do with that revealed information? How do we align around that and what’s next? You know, what are the next steps? So it’s a helpful kind of framework for us. The way it’s helpful for me is when I’m writing a coaching plan. You know, to be clear about, I don’t want to start with deep democracy tool, I want to do a DTA first, I want to meet them where they are, I want to create relationship, I want to be, you know, with them. And then I want to take them into reveal. And as I’m closing out I want to get towards ok, how do we work on alignment and then action from here? So it’s a nice way to kind of hold the arc of coaching. Again, those are introduced in systems integration course. And different tools kind of live in different phases there. That’s some, and we all have our biases right? Some of us really love the meet phases and they might spend too much time there, and we’re saying m e e t, just to be clear. Some people love meat, too! And reveal! Some people love like revealing the system to itself, all these cool things, and then we run out of time, right? How did that happen? Crap, I got so pulled into that reveal phase that I didn’t remember or I prioritized it over align and act and suddenly I’ve got 30 minutes at the end to get them into some kind of action and that’s, you know, there’s ways to do it but it’s stressful. So this is mostly for us as coaches, it’s not something I would train my clients in, but kind of know where you are on the map of coaching. I always think of that ‘You Are Here’ thing that they have on maps all of the time. You know, know where you are in the phase of this work with your clients so that you don’t have to scramble at the end. 

KC – Yeah, so that something… you’re not revealing something and then suddenly there’s no time to act on that. 

SC – Right! And it can reveal a lot about you as a coach too. 

KC – Mmm. 

SC – Where your preferences lie, you know, be mindful of that. Maybe partner with somebody who has other preferences or other biases around it and, you know, or just be aware of your own and manage your, not just your time but also your map of your work with them, that’s gonna be useful. 

KC – Are there any other updates right now Sandra that you feel are top of mind? 

SC – Those are the biggest ones that come to mind. You know I guess I just want to leave this with, I wanna encourage people to continue to look at the model through the lens of what’s needed, what’s trying to happen. We’ve been saying what’s trying to happen for years, we just put it in language of the principle of emergence now. But, you know, the other thing is I would want people to walk away from this feeling like ok, if I get kind of rocky with my clients, or I get nervous or I’m not sure, to come back to the principles to ground you because they really are there to ground us, they are a stable place to come back to. So if you feel like I don’t know what’s happening or this is getting weird, this conflict is really rough, come back and look at these – oh yeah, naturally, generative and creative, that’s all it is. Right? It’s a little bit like a hand on your back that says it’s ok! You know, what’s going on? Oh constant state of emergence? This is normal. Of course it’s emergence. Of course it’s going to continue too. What’s trying to get revealed to you? Take our gaze up to the bigger view rather than we can get pulled into the details of oh my gosh, can’t believe she said that, all of that normal stuff will happen and it takes practice and muscle to build your capacity to see these, to kind of run that through the ORSC translator, to go ok I’m freaking out, this is happening, but in the ORSC translator it’s actually quite normal, and that’s really what I would want for people. The principles are, we talked about deep democracy as well, that’s just one tool of many, but the principles really are there to support all of us as coaches. 

KC – What I love about this conversation is it seems that all these changes have emerged from standing in the principles, would you say? 

SC – That’s interesting. I think it’s a blend. You know, like I said, we were pretty clear that people weren’t using deep democracy and that was before we had the principles, so like, there’s something else going on here that maybe we missed. Because if I look at it in hindsight I can probably see something there. But yeah, it’s, you know, our work will continue to emerge and evolve. It just will. Even as I speak all of this now it’s probably already, in some ways, out of date because the emergences continue to happen! And something will reveal itself to us that at some point we’ll come back and say oh we need to integrate that now too. That’s another new piece. Or even thinking about from the lens of curriculum, you know, how do we, what are the right materials to provide people given this? You know, how much do we wanna have documented and hand out, like our manuals, you know our manuals were created a while ago and haven’t been updated and there’s a lot of information there. So how do we have our curriculum in a way that allows for the emergence and how do we get that out to people who want it? And so this podcast is one way to do that. But it’s a place to continue to look? How do we do that in a way that is simple and makes sense and is accessible for people? That’s sort of what’s emerging here around curriculum. 

KC – It’s a dance isn’t it, this principle of emergence, keeps us on our toes, that’s for sure! 

SC – Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. 

KC – I’ve loved the dance today Sandra. 

SC – Yes, more to come, thank you. 

KC – Take care. 

[Music outro begins 39:41] 

KC – Thanks to Sandra Cane for highlighting some of the updates to the ORSC curriculum that have emerged over the past few years. Here are my key takeaways from this conversation. The five principles of RSI are the pillars of this work and are primarily for the coach and not the client. They’re useful for us to remember as coaches as they can be very rounding and stop us from being pulled towards one opinion or person. When we come back to the principles we’re holding the ORSC stance. Simple updates to scenarios like using gender neutral names or letting people pick their own names has created more space for participants to create their own experience with the materials. This is with the intention of really meeting people where they are. In the updated version of the deep democracy tool people advocate for a view that isn’t their primary view for the purpose of getting informational insight. It doesn’t mean we have to believe or agree with it, it’s about getting out of our everyday groove, trying on different voices and really speaking from them. When using the deep democracy tool it’s important to know the primary voices in advance, so it’s not something we suggest you make up in the moment. These primary voices may come out of surveys or your experience working with the team. It’s suggested you have four voices and two blank spaces. These blank spaces represent other voices that might show up during the process and are interchangeable. In addition, the updated deep democracy tool has more structure. In this update three rounds are suggested, so we would start with a first round in the primary, pick a voice that feels most familiar and speak from there, then for round two we would ask people to try on a voice that isn’t so familiar or maybe the one that’s the most different and ask them to really advocate for that voice, and then for a third round we may ask them to pick a voice that you’re curious about, after this there would be a clear off ramp process where we would ask what’s new for you and what’s new for the team so that there is both a personal and a team application. Meet, reveal, align and act is a great framework for creating a coaching plan and understanding where you are in the work with the client. Meet is meeting the client where they are, reveal shows up in a lot of the tools, it helps the system to see itself, and then align and act is where we turn this information into action. For over 18 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. We believe Relationship Matters from humanity to nature to the larger whole. 

[Outro 42:50 – end]