In this episode, Katie talks with Sunčica Getter and Marita Fridjhon about the power of reflective practice as a dynamic professional and personal growth resource. Across this conversation they discuss:
This conversation builds on a previous episode, so if you haven’t listened to it already we’d highly recommend checking out Systemic Supervision from season 3.
Sunčica Getter, is a systemic coach, consultant, educator and head of continuous development at CRR Global. With over 20 years of experience, her focus is on transformational leadership development and systemic culture change. Her work in coaching education has seen her train, mentor and supervise coaches and design and deliver academic, public, and in-house coaching training and accreditation courses. Her experiences collaborating with world-class coaching institutions and diverse clients have made Sunčica a trusted systemic coaching consultant. She advises companies and institutions on the implementation of systemic coaching and systemic thinking for both organisational and community development.
Marita Fridjhon is co-founder of CRR Global and mentor to an ever-growing community of practitioners in the field of Relationship Systems work. She designs curriculum and operates training programs in Relationship Systems Work for coaches, executives and teams. She came to this work from an extensive background in Clinical Social Work, Community Development, Process Work, Family Systems Therapy, Business Consulting and Alternative Dispute Resolution. She has an international mentor coaching practice of individuals, partnerships and teams. Her primary focus in coaching is on systemic change, leveraging diversity, creative communication, deep democracy in conflict management and the development of Learning Organizations.
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.
In this episode, Katie talks with Sunčica Getter and Marita Fridjhon about the power of reflective practice as a dynamic professional and personal growth resource. Across this conversation they discuss:
This conversation builds on a previous episode, so if you haven’t listened to it already we’d highly recommend checking out Systemic Supervision from season 3.
Sunčica Getter, is a systemic coach, consultant, educator and head of continuous development at CRR Global. With over 20 years of experience, her focus is on transformational leadership development and systemic culture change. Her work in coaching education has seen her train, mentor and supervise coaches and design and deliver academic, public, and in-house coaching training and accreditation courses. Her experiences collaborating with world-class coaching institutions and diverse clients have made Sunčica a trusted systemic coaching consultant. She advises companies and institutions on the implementation of systemic coaching and systemic thinking for both organisational and community development.
Marita Fridjhon is co-founder of CRR Global and mentor to an ever-growing community of practitioners in the field of Relationship Systems work. She designs curriculum and operates training programs in Relationship Systems Work for coaches, executives and teams. She came to this work from an extensive background in Clinical Social Work, Community Development, Process Work, Family Systems Therapy, Business Consulting and Alternative Dispute Resolution. She has an international mentor coaching practice of individuals, partnerships and teams. Her primary focus in coaching is on systemic change, leveraging diversity, creative communication, deep democracy in conflict management and the development of Learning Organizations.
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.
Key
KC – Katie Churchman
SC - Sunčica Getter
MF - Marita Fridjhon
[Intro 00:00 – 00:09]
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 in this episode I’m talking with Sunčica Getter and Marita Fridjhon about the power of reflective practice as a dynamic professional and personal growth resource. Across this conversation we discuss How reflective practice can help us to discover and deepen our strengths, cross edges, see beyond blind spots, and find wisdom in the challenges we face; the importance of resourcing ourselves and caring for our own well-being as coaches; Using the five principles of Relationship Systems Intelligence as a lens for reflecting on our coaching practice and impact as a coach. This conversation builds on a previous episode I recorded with Marita and Sunčica last year called Systemic Supervision, so if you haven’t listened to it already we highly recommend checking out that part of the conversation first. You can find a link in the show notes. Sunčica Getter is a a systemic coach, consultant, educator and head of continuous development at CRR Global. With over 20 years of experience, her focus is on transformational leadership, development and systemic culture change. Her work in coaching education has seen her train, mentor and supervise coaches and design and deliver academic, public, and in-house coaching training and accreditation courses. Her experiences collaborating with world-class coaching institutions and diverse clients have made Sunčica a trusted systemic coaching consultant. She advises companies and institutions on the implementation of systemic coaching and systemic thinking for both opportunity and community development. Marita Fridjhon is co-founder of CRR Global and mentor to an ever-growing community of practitioners in the field of Relationship Systems work. She designs curriculum and operates training programs in Relationship Systems Work for coaches, executives and teams. She came to this work from an extensive background in Clinical Social Work, Community Development, Process Work, Family Systems Therapy, Business Consulting and Alternative Dispute Resolution. So without further ado I bring you, Sunčica Getter and Marita Fridjhon talking about the importance of reflective practice.
KC – Sunčica, Marita, welcome back to the Relationships Matter podcast. So, today we’re talking about the importance of Reflective Practice, so why is it important that we reflect as coaches and leaders, particularly in the systemic space?
SC – Thank you for having us again, thank you Katie.
MF – Same here.
SC – And great to be in the conversation with you and Marita about this. I’ll start answering the question. Marita, please jump in, why is it important more than ever? Two things come up for me, one is because I think the world is more complex than ever and so those, that stepping out and reflecting on and observing, stepping out of the doing and the chaos and the immediate becomes crucial for our wellbeing and for us developing proffesionaly. And then the other thing is that we are in the world of systemic coaching which itself is a lot more complex and it’s not the same as one-to-one coaching, where also it’s good and important to have the reflective space, but as systemic workers again we deal in a work with much more complexity and that’s why it’s crucial.
MF – Building on that, Sunčica, that one of the things that we always tend to have a little bit of a conversation before we come on to do the podcast and an interesting question came up that I love, that Sunčica you asked and I’m going to throw you under the bus, when we’re sitting in this conversation is a really useful question, why bother? Why do we do it? And Sunčica just pointed to two important reasons – the evolution of human kind, our own evolution as coaches and human beings, but also because there is in the ever-evolving world of the coaching industry there’s a very different waking up to this that is now creating a demand for coaches in service of their own vertical development, their own evolution, have supervision on a regular basis. And I want to underscore that because one of the things that we are committed to is that we don’t hold and see supervision and this reflective practice as a box to tick. I’ve done it, now I’m done. I’ve got the hours, I’ve got… it’s that. But that’s the complicated part of it. The complexity of why we need it is an ongoing evolution piece that is not a once in a lifetime moment or a once only and that is where I think is the true conversation about what and why reflective practice.
KC – So would I be right in thinking that systemic supervision is one type of reflective practice and its one way as coaches we can come together and think about how we showed up and take perhaps the balcony view on that. Why do you feel this form of reflective practice is so needed in the work that we do? Because obviously there’s meditation, there’s… I’m sure we can think of a walk that’s mindful as a form of reflective practice if it’s done in the right way, so why systemic supervision as opposed to those other ways?
SG - Great question. So, Katie, there’s something about, of course all kinds of reflective are important, I’m big into meditation and I think that’s how reflection is hugely useful. And I wouldn’t wanna create a hierarchy of reflective spaces here, right, so saying systemic supervision is better than, you know, our meditation or any other supervision. But I want to underline how it’s different and I think the difference of systemic supervision is that we have a chance to have the system reflect on us as well, and to reflect together on the system, and that gives a lot of information to us and it creates a different way of being held in the bigger awareness and in the collective wisdom and collective consciousness. And so that is very unique, I think, when it comes to kinds of reflective practice. It brings me back to, you know, the image of the Wheeler fish and probably our listeners are familiar with that, but just in case they’re not there’s an anecdote that Jonathon Wheeler, the physicist, sat with Einstein one day and drew a fish where the fishes head observes its tail. And he said that reflects the nature of the universe in a sense that the nature reality is constantly evolving because their conscious is constantly evolving, so that reflection of what’s happening we are actually recreated ourselves. And in this case, in systemic supervision, it happens on a collective level, or a systemic level. It happens on the level of the system. And, of course we can talk about our internal system, our bigger systems out there, but I think that’s the gift of systemic supervision.
MF – I love all the pieces that you’ve just brought, the Wheeler fish as well, the universe reflecting on itself. Us systemically reflecting on ourselves. There’s another piece, particularly when we talk about group supervision, is what you also talked about Sunčica, is that when we listen, let’s say Katie and I are listening to you Sunčica talking about a client activity that you’re working with. We are not so much listening for how you performed with that client, but we are listening to what’s emerging for us, what are the things that show up in me when I listen to you and to your clientele or client itself. Because that gives us access, and if we then collectively reflect back to you, not so much as here’s what I thought you did well and here’s because that’s closer to mentoring also, but if we reflect back to yourself to you, here’s what showed up for me. I notice that I had this and this voice, or there was a part of me that felt very identifiable with one of the clients that you talk… but that kind of reflection gives you a different access point because you are listening to other, to the rest of the system reflecting and revealing themselves in conversation about what you talked about, and that takes us to that thing that is so important in supervision, of all sorts, that parallel process. What’s happening between you and your client and what’s happening in the client system is a parallel process, it’s a version of what is also happening in me. So shall we pay the client because the client showed us some things about ourselves? That’s a whole different way to look at it but I think it’s that piece that we really have access and a very different reflective way to information, not only about the system but about us as a system and interaction with that as a system, and it sounds very essencey but it’s very real, it’s also very, very real.
SG – I love what you’re saying Marita and I want to point out that the participants of systemic supervision very often say that the sort of, that they feel upheld by the system because when we start reflecting systemically, all of a sudden the information comes from different people in the system and the pressure is not anymore just on us, in a way, to see and feel and sense the system fully, that we can never do like 100%, but all of a sudden we are being held and we have many more pairs of eyes and senses and the information comes through different parts of the system that’s doing the reflection.
MF – The other thing I thought of when you were talking is also, to your question Katie, why reflective practices is so important, what’s interesting is that for some reason or other the nature of reflective practice, but the nature of reflective practice in essence is non-judgmental. So there’s a place where I can go what would I have done when that happened to me? Rather than making a comment about why did that person do x, y z, that bringing it back to what would somebody else have done? Or I never thought of that. It immediately takes us to what I’d think of is one of the tribal practices that we’ve talked about in the past where there’s a practice of dialoguing with questions. So in that reflective space I can sit with the question what would I have done? Or what happened there? Or I wonder why that happened, and I wonder why... just that rather than interpreting which is so, if you just look at us at the moment globally from a political, financial, it doesn’t matter where you’re looking, there’s so many fingers pointing to somebody who got it wrong, and I think that’s why this, for us, is an important ongoing process because it pauses the social media, it pauses the news, it pauses and it allows us to sit with it in a different way.
KC – It makes me think of, sort of lots of different mirrors. Quite often the idea of the mirror can be quite intimidating to some of us, and to your point, reflections are non-judgmental and so if it’s held in a safe container then you can get all these different insights about not just who you are as a coach, and I think that’s perhaps what I was making up about systemic supervision, that it’s about expanding your range as a coach, but really it’s about expanding your range as a human being…
MF – Yes.
KC – Which is such a gift.
SG – I think there’s not much more to add to that, because I think that’s it.
MF – Yeah. Well the piece that I also shared with you guys just before we started is we are currently in the process of downsizing even more and moving to a different house, and just going through everything I chanced upon so many of my diaries and reflections during my therapeutic years, the training as three different types of social workers and therapy, where supervision was, that’s what you do. It was assumed. It’s part of your professional and personal development. When I read through those reflections I was amazed to begin to track and trace how much of those supervision sessions, how much they actually influenced so much of what shows up in our training today, and just looking at it was from that reflective practice that so much evolved and that really shaped my life. And then, you know, gonna own my own, fall on my own sword, then at some stage we become thought leaders and we do different things and I don’t need supervision anymore – nonsense! Right now I need it as much as I needed it then because who I am now that needs to be evolved is different from who I was then to evolve. So either there is a place in me that again I will just own in reflection, there was a little bit, do I now, really do I need to pay to be supervised again? I supervise and I just like… you can just hear that piece and we just need to allow ourselves to be arrogant and ignorant and then sit in a reflection of so why bother Marita? Why do it again? And why do it and make a commitment now to it for it being an on-going practice, because without that even with all the other practices that I do I’m not sure there’s an optimum evolution for me or any of us.
KC – Beautiful. I think you’re speaking to the idea, Marita, that we never arrive, and yet I think in this life there’s a real sense of urgency to arrive as a coach, or as a fully formed adult which I think we’re all still waiting for, like when do you get that badge? I’ve aced adulthood. And we don’t arrive, and I think the joy is in the journey and this is a big part of that conscious, I guess, focus on the journey and being more aware about how it evolves. Would you say?
SG – Yeah, and there’s something about the idea of development that’s in the reflective space for sure, so it’s that constant evolution. Maybe not development, maybe that’s not even the right word because it’s not always linear and upwards, but there’s the expansion, right, of us, as practitioners and human beings. And besides that expansion or development if we want to use it, there’s also the idea of just self care and being held and that is necessary all the time, I think in many ways as coaches we haven’t been collectively really good with that. So we would invest a lot in training in certification, in development, in that technical, you know, aspects of our practice, but perhaps not take really good care of ourselves because we need to be held as well, and this reflective space fulfills that too. So I want to underscore that restorative aspect of supervision that’s so important.
MF – I so love that you brought that in because, and again, we talked about it before, how this is not, reflective practice is not in competition with all of the other practices that we already have. Most of us have some form of practice, whether it is meditation, whether it is yoga, whether it is walking, but there’s some form of that, most of which we do with ourselves, within our own system. I think part of what we’re talking about in supervision, the nature of which we talk about for team coaches, organizational coaches and consultants, is because it gives us opportunity to do and to bring whatever we have from that practices we already are in to this space where we can collectively help evolve one another. The other thing that I just wanted to talk about, particularly for folks who are coming in to these sessions without having done any of our training is that while we are in line and aligned with so much of what already is predating what we’re doing in the field of supervision, what we are adding and bringing to it as well is using the five principles of RSI as lenses through which we can reveal what is going on with clients, the supervisor and ourselves. So those lenses help shape our, it really is a window through which we can look from a balcony view. So when I think of, one that always shows up for me these days because of what happens around us, the normalizing statement of the principle that says systems are in a constant state of emergence. The moment systems start to emerge and evolve it turns and is, that’s the end of it. Not in a bad way, but that’s part of systemic evolution, that’s why some things need to die, but that state of constant emergence has been amplified for humanity with the emergence, for example, of Covid. So if we can sit and think through the lens of what is emerging for my client. In that emergence, what’s emerging from me? When I listen to that emergence in your client it’s that, just that principle, whatever the principle is that we are and we are mapping, tracking the principles through each of the sessions, one session per principle, that’s a huge added piece that we are bringing a certain uniqueness to the model that we are leveraging and building at the moment.
KC – Makes me think that it kind of offers us different lenses to look through, as you mentioned, so that we can step back and see the situation or the challenge even from all these different perspectives, and holding that everyone is right partially.
MF – That’s right.
KC – Every one of those perspectives has a truth partially, and maybe we’re starting to piece together more of the truth because we get more range is what we see.
SG – And there’s something that Marita and I discussed together which is that in various forms of therapeutic practice, if we use that just as a comparison, it was proven that actually it almost doesn’t matter what model we use as long as we use a model of therapy, so the research has shown that if a therapist has a model, even if it’s an interpretive model that combines different things, that that has better affect on the outcomes of therapy. So there’s something about the power of the model. Now, we are particularly biased about our model because I think it is beautifully set up for reflection, because the questions are such, but I also want to say that those principles become different perspectives, but also they become the anchors. So Katie you mentioned meditation, so the same as meditation, you know we get lost and pulled away through our motions or tools or different things that are happening and when we might use the breath as an anchor, the principle becomes an anchor for the partitioner. The principle becomes an anchor to bring us within all the complexity of, and the story that we might be swimming in during the reflective place, we actually can have somewhere to go back to that’s gonna anchor us and offer us a way of feeling, sort of going deeper into that reflection rather than being carried away in different places, at least that’s been our experience.
KC – What a useful framework. I’m sure sometimes people do have quite triggering experiences with clients and then having these as anchors to come back to and to not get stuck in the story or identify with the emotion, because that’s so often the case isn’t it? We’re in the performance, we’re in the drama, not sitting back and taking that wider lens view of the situation, so wow, you go through each of the principles one by one and they start to see and hold different truths around their coaching.
SG – That’s exactly it. So let’s say, you mention a triggering situation and we might have a coach who’s brining situation to trigger them, the trigger might happen in the moment within the group etc, and then let’s say that the systems are in a constant state of emergence, you know, might be helpful because we might ask the question what edge behavior am I noticing in me right now as we’re reflecting on this space. And that becomes a doorway to then thinking of the client and thinking of ourselves and thinking of the group collectively, so in a sense it becomes an anchor to actually make sense, because we all need a process of sense making when we reflect, when we are in reflective spaces, we’re making sense of us, we’re sort of making sense of our systems, the ones of the group, and in that it’s useful to have these wonderful anchors that the principles are.
MF – You’ve just reminded me about something that you said earlier in the call, where you talked about hearing, seeing, sensing the system. The principle that we, RSI principle that’s really, really useful in many situations is the principle that systems rely on roles for the execution of its functions. So when we have a team where there’s high conflict or there’s one person that is the trouble maker or the whatever and that’s all of what the supervisee is bringing to the session, when we begin to look through the lens of that principle that the system requires different voices and different roles to explain itself. If we then begin to have the troublemaker as the voice of the system or as somebody who’s speaking, unskillfully maybe, but speaking what the system is trying to say, that allows us to stop looking at Joe who is the one that always creates the conflict, but begin to look at when I listen, where and how does that kind of conflict show up for me with my clients? Where I judge like that. Or where else in the system is it happening where somebody is more skillful in bringing it, but it is a message from the system.
KC – I think something I’m curious about right now, Sunčica you mentioned the sense making piece and then Marita you mentioned about having that safety to do so, and I wonder if we can sort of close our conversation talking about the power of the container for within which that work can happen. Because it feels like that is a powerful part of this process.
SG – One thing that crossed my mind right now, just before you asked this question Katie, was that question of why bother, and I was like let’s not miss to say how enriching and nourishing and fun it is to sit in the system in supervision, so I also want to speak to the experience and the deliciousness of the experience of being there as well as the usefulness of it. And I think that the quality of that experience comes from the quality of the container, and the container is created through the principles that we already mentioned because they bring safety, they really do. They’re saying actually you can go and swim in the deep sea of awareness knowing that there are boundaries, that there is, that you are being held by these. So one is the principles and the other is the group that is holding you. They are, in each group, in each systemic supervision group there is a strong collective bond and the group becomes that container that you are held in. So it’s not just our mind, it’s not just our body and our experience, it’s that collective mind that creates safety and it creates freedom. It's a vulnerable space but we or the reflections of the people are that that vulnerability actually brings a lot of authority, so we create a different kind of authority when we go back in there with our clients because we had the chance to be completely vulnerable, not completely, but to be vulnerable in groups, I think. So there’s great freedom and authority they’re building through the container of the group.
MF – In supervision, like in all other, you know, professional work, contracting is huge. So there are, there’s a lot of work being done on contracting in a similar sense to what we train and do with all our coaches, the designing the team alliance and the team agreements about how they want to be while we do the work and that’s their offering of it and it’s an ongoing process, that’s part of what we hold as contracting, that supervisees create the safety net, offer it, that the supervisor can agree with, line up with, and it’s ever evolving. None of these things, we can set the guard rails but the social contract between us and the supervisees and what will work for us during these five sessions and ongoing, whatever it is, that’s a critical piece, I think that that is, there may be guard rails but I think the foot holding of safety is in that designed supervisee alliance and agreement. And that’s so much already part of what we train in the, and just as most of the people that listen to this podcast may be heading in the direction of one of our group sessions, and just to you know, call it a testimonial or a shout out or whatever but as we’re building this program and working with this, Sunčica and myself and several of our senior, a couple of our senior practitioners that’s been around for a long time, actually paid for, to join to be supervised in one of the supervision groups by one of our accredited supervisors. And it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life where massive growth, personally, and a bond between the group that, in the end, I felt a little bit like, it’s like we felt like sisters, it was a very different experience because we were a group of people that knew one another well and there was a depth that we could go to in our own personal evolution, but also in our relationships. So this is for everybody, from beginners to you think you’ve done it all already, nope, there’s something else to try.
SG – And if I may add to that, just that the strength of the container, Katie, that you asked about is also built by the fabulous supervisors that we have. I want to shout out to Lou and Dorothy and Lorissa and Daphne and Cat because it’s their experience and as supervisors, as coaches, and their depth are actually creating the containers for the participants.
MF – Yes.
KC – I had the privilege to be part of a very powerful container recently and I think it makes you realize how little we have those opportunities to really flit like that with others, and how beautiful it is actually to grow in relationship in that way. And what a gift and how wonderful it would be to bring more of this, not just to our coaching work but to our family lives and to the workplaces that we’re in, it just seems like there’s a space for this in so many different parts of the world, not just our coaching work.
MF – Katie I’m so glad you said that, and it’s something that we talked about through different lenses before, but I really would underscore what you’ve just said. A lot of what we talked about is for our own personal evolution, it’s for our own professional development, but over the last two years sitting in this reflective practice as we both emerge and do this work together in service of what is here now, it has impacted by personal life, my relationship with family members who visit and who I would just go, you said what, and in just so many different ways beyond the professional work that we do, that I truly hope, I truly hope and envision that this kind of reflection practice sitting together in this way will become something that happens everywhere, it’s not just supervision for professionals, there’s ways of being for humans and that’s why we wanna do it. And that’s why we’ll continue to fight and stand for it. Not only because it’s a professional accreditation but because we think that it is the future of humanity. I think it’s the future of humanity.
SG – Yeah, I could not agree more. I think in our polarized world, in the world filled with conflicts, these reflective spaces create experiences of interdependence and belonging that changes forever.
KC – What an exciting, joyful growth orientated way to live. And thank you so much for bringing this work to the world.
MF – Thank you Sunčica and thank you Katie for actually being our supervisor podcaster on this session!
SG – Thank you Katie!
KC – Take care both of you. Thank you.
[Music outro begins 31:40]
KC – Thank you to Marita and Sunčica for deepening the conversation around systemic supervision. Here are my key takeaways. Reflective practices offer us a space to recreate ourselves. In systemic supervision this happens at a collective level, it happens as a system. During systemic supervision information comes from different people within the system. The information comes through many different parts of the system so you can receive multiple different reflections or insights around the same situation. The principles of relationships systems intelligence can create safety and freedom, enable us to explore our edges as they create boundaries within which the work can happen. The principles work as an anchor for the practitioner. As within all the complexities of systemic work that can catch us and pull us away, they offer us a place to come back to. They are anchors from which to make sense. For more information about the systemic supervision program please visit CRRGlobal.com/course/systemic-coaching-supervision. Thank you for listening to the Relationship Matters podcast. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with your colleagues and friends so that we can continue to spread these ideas across the globe, and if you haven’t already, do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. And for more information on the ORSC courses please visit CRRGlobal.com. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to 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.
[Music outro 33:56 – end]