Bonus: ORSC Certification

In this episode, Katie talks with Judy van Zon and Katherine Starks about the ORSC™ certification program. Judy is currently Director of Certification at CRR Global, and Kathie is a recent alumnus of the program. The ORSC Certification program is a unique and comprehensive eight-month program with extensive practice and online study designed to produce the best ORSC practitioners in the world! Throughout this conversation, we discuss what makes the program so unique, the intentions and outcomes of the course, edge crossing, the practicalities of the course, the impact of world work, and much more.

For more information on the ORSC Certification Program, please click here.

Judy van Zon helps her clients better connect to their own inner wisdom and power. In her team coaching, Judy believes that working with the ORSC model is a very powerful way to build bridges in relationships. It goes far beyond familiar skills like empathy and active listening. It offers a whole new way of looking at people and how we live and work together. Her focus is on working with corporate leaders and teams. Training others in this allows her to spread this energy throughout the world. She also applies her skills to roles like facilitating and mentoring. For the last 25 years, she has lived and worked in six countries on three continents, the last 3.5 years in India and the region around. She is now back in the Netherlands and is CRR Global's current Director of Certification. Judy speaks Dutch, English, German, Spanish, and French. With a master’s in business administration, her professional career started in the commercial operations of an international consumer goods company. 

Katherine Starks has spent most of her career in financial services, the last 15 years in senior leadership positions. This experience laid the groundwork for a natural progression to the next stage: coaching and mentoring other professionals so that they too can find their path and passion in life. Kathie’s coaching journey began during her years in the corporate world, first becoming an ICF Certified Co-Active Coach and later embarking on her ORSC journey just as she pursued her final and most challenging role as CEO and Branch Manager of the Bank of New York Mellon in Frankfurt. At the beginning of 2022, Kathie left the corporate world so that she could dedicate all her time and energy into pursuing her dream of coaching successful teams and fulfilled leaders.


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 

JZ - Judy van Zon

KS - Katherine Starks

[Intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

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 bonus episode I’m talking with Judy van Zon and Katherin Starks about ORSC certification. Judy is currently director of certification at CRR Global and Kathy is a recent alumnus of the program. The ORSC certification program is a unique and comprehensive 8-month program with extensive practice online study and and supervision designed to product the best ORSC practitioners in the world. Throughout this conversation we discuss what makes the program so unique, the intentions and outcomes of the course, edge crossing, the practicalities of the course, the impact of world work and much more. Judy van Zon has lived and worked in several countries and speaks the language of people who are crossing a border physically as well as emotionally. In short, she works with people who are going through personal or professional change. One of the things that sets her apart is her inclusion of spirituality to help her clients better connect to their own inner wisdom and power. In her team coaching Judy believes that working with the ORSC model is a very powerful way to build bridges in relationships. It goes far beyond familiar skills like empathy and active listening, it offers a whole new way of looking at people and how we live and work together. Her focus is on working with corporate leaders and teams, training others in this allows her to spread this energy throughout the world. She also applies her skills to roles like facilitating and mentoring. For the last 25-years she has lived and worked in six countries on three continents, the last 3.5 years in India and the region around. She is now back in the Netherlands and is CRR Global's current Director of Certification. Judy speaks Dutch, English, German, Spanish, and French. With a master’s in business administration, her professional career started in the commercial operations of an international consumer goods company. Managerial responsibilities allowed her to discover her fascination with people which finally lead to working full time as a coach, supporting clients to live and perform to their powerful potential. Katherine Starks has spent most of her career in financial services, the last 15 years in senior leadership positions. This experience laid the groundwork for a natural progression to the next stage: coaching and mentoring other professionals so that they too can find their path and passion in life. Born in Switzerland to English parents, Kathy grew up bilingual speaking German and English. Her family relocated to England when she was 12, but 7 years later she was drawn to Frankfurt, a place where she has built a home and a career over the last 40 years. Kathy’s coaching journey began during her years in the corporate world, first becoming an ICF Certified Co-Active Coach and later embarking on her ORSC journey just as she pursued her final and most challenging role as CEO and Branch Manager of the Bank of New York Mellon in Frankfurt, responsible for 200 people. ORSC training opened her eyes to new ways of looking at systems and this had a huge impact on her leadership style. She was able to create highly successful teams and facilitate their pathway to producing outstanding results for the bank whilst simultaneously achieving a significant and positive impact on employer engagement scores. At the beginning of 2022, Kathie left the corporate world so that she could dedicate all her time and energy into pursuing her dream of coaching successful teams and fulfilled leaders. Her mission is to help those leaders develop the skills they need to build high performing, resilient teams of people who not only deliver great results, but love turning up to the work they do. So without further ado I bring you Judy and Kathy talking about the ORSC Certification program. 

KC – Kathy, Judy, welcome to the Relationship Matters podcast. I’m really excited to be having this conversation with you both today around the certification program, so welcome. 

JZ - Thank you very much Katie, if I speak for myself I’m delighted to be here… finally! As a listener, being a fan of your podcast and now I get to speak about certification, thank you! 

KS – Hi Katie, thank you so much for allowing me to participate, I’m a huge fan of the podcast and delighted to be here as well. 

KC – And I know we’re talking specifically today about certification, and I wonder if we can step back for a moment and talk about what brought you both to ORSC? What was your why in terms of stepping into this work? 

JZ – So Kathy, why don’t you go first? I can refresh my memory, it’s longer ago for me. 

KC – Ok. So, well I’ve been in senior leadership positions for a long time and I started my coaching journey in 2015 when I did my individual coaching and I loved working with teams and I knew there had to be something more. And when I heard about ORSC I just thought this is it for me. I embarked on my ORSC journey in my last job in the corporate world when I was a senior executive in a bank, and I was, I was attending these ORSC weekends while working long hours but all the things that I learned there were so powerful, so impactful on my team and I just knew it was the right thing to do. And it was very clear to me when I, when I decided to leave the corporate world that the next step was going to be to complete my certification. And I’m so glad I did it. 

KC – Thank you Kathy. And Judy, you said your journey is a little bit longer back, so what was your why that brought you to ORSC? 

JZ – Well, Kathy, I can easily blend in with you because I was in a leadership position as well but I left the corporate world much, much younger, much earlier, for all sorts of reasons. I was in sales and marketing but working with my own teams and noticing that actually I found it way more fascinating to work with people than to design, develop and sell and market products, so over time I wanted to shift my focus to people development and that’s how, in 2007, I ended up in a coach course room, first in individual coaching and when I started as an individual coach I noticed so many people brought relationship issues to the coaching agenda and I, well, I was living in Poland at the time and Faith and Marita were still traveling the world and delivering programs everywhere, this was 2008, and they happened to come to Warsaw in Poland and I thought well, let me go there and see what that’s about. I was Marita’s practice client, demo client for the third entity exercise. Well, and the rest is history, I thought this is it for me. This is what brings so many difficulties in life, personal life, professional life, you know, how to build right relationship, I wanted to learn more and more and more about it. 

KC – I totally hear what you’re both saying and it really resonates that once you start seeing in systems you really can’t go back, it sort of changes your whole world view, personally and professionally. I want to start by pointing to the fact that I love that we’re having this conversation in relationship today, so we’re talking about certification, and Judy you head up the certification program and Kathy, you’ve just finished the certification program so a huge congratulations there, I know what a mammoth undertaking that is, so well done. I wonder if we can start then by talking a bit about the certification program for those who might not be familiar. 

JZ – So what is it about, so the premise of certification is actually to build confidence and competence. Our pre-requisite is that you have gone through the foundational series and the five models from fundamentals right up until the systems integration which is really equipping you with a lot of tools and skills and also this whole, for many people, new systems perspective. But you’ve done everything only once up until then. So the competence building in certification is really deepening your understanding and practicing the tools, so it’s almost like when I’m siting with, partly interesting people in certification information calls and they as me why would I join the program. Well, if you feel systems approach is landing strongly in your heart and you think that’s the way to go, that certification is the place to really start owning it. On a mental level, you know, that competence level, but also on a heart level, confidence level. Yeah. Systems can be like, Marita sometimes says big hair animals, they can be large things, it’s a lot to hold. And so to develop selves to be able to hold more and more and more I think is a life skill in itself. You know, you get to develop all of that in certification. 

KC – It’s brilliant. And then I wonder, in terms of that, huge question, Kathy, what made you then, after doing this series, step into this certification program? 

KS – Well I’d like to maybe just go back at one step and that’s I came into a role as a senior leader in a team that was not functioning well, there was a lot of conflict, a lot of toxic behavior. And I saw how a number of the tools that we learnt during the ORSC journey were so helpful and I can really say I changed the entire way that I lead teams, just simple things like doing a DTA, doing an alignment at the beginning. They’d never had anything like that before. Or identifying toxins in the communication that we had with one another. I was part of the system so I couldn’t coach it perse, but I used a lot of the ORSC competencies in my communication, so I learned, for instance, something a lot of leaders can’t handle is I learned to hear difficult voices, I learned to really embrace deep democracy. I had somebody in my team who used to scream in meetings. Previously I’d have just tried to shut that down, it felt very uncomfortable, but just by listening to it and honoring that primary, that enabled us to move out of the team into a much more successful performance. And so when I saw that and experienced that, practiced that and saw the results, black on white, we dramatically increased the employment engagement scores in a whole organization. And I was managing the leadership team. We increased sales dramatically. It became very clear to me that if you get, if you can bring this energy, this ORSC, these competencies into teams it can have a huge impact and it’s not just about people feeling good coming to work but it actually impacts the bottom line. And so I knew that I wanted to get more into this and I also knew that I wanted to have a bigger impact which is why I left the corporate world. And I also knew that I really wanted to get good at this stuff and deepen my knowledge and my skills, and that’s why I did certification. And I feel like certification really delivered and I really learned so much and became so much more competent. 

KC – Wow. Kathy, that’s such an amazing example of stepping into Systems Inspired leadership. I’m curious, off the back of that, was there quite a big switch when you moved from that leader role to that systems inspired coach role, then? 

KS – It wasn’t a big leap because I’d always prided myself in having a bit of a unique leadership style, which wasn’t always very popular by the way! My focus was always on my people and developing them and focusing on people’s strengths and that was always the way that I worked, but what changed was I think I saw the system through a different lens. It’s this idea that it’s a system, it’s a voice of the system as opposed to seven individuals, or ten, or whatever, and that was what changed. There was some tools that were useful. What was really useful for me, for instance, was understanding ghosts in systems. There were a lot of ghosts in the past in this team, managers that had done certain things and, you know, people were very upset by that and just talking about that as a concept was a real game changer, I wouldn’t have known about that before doing ORSC. I think it was small, subtle changes that lead to really big results. You don’t always have to change a lot. 

KC – That talks to the two degree tiller shift, I think many of us are quite impatient and want to see it all happen overnight, but actually if you can stay with it over time we can see huge change. 

KS – Absolutely, and this was a team that had been suffering for the last 5 years and I didn’t change anybody in the team. 

KC – So would you say seeing that impact of those tools was what lead you then to deepen this work? 

KS – Absolutely. I was so convinced… having seen the impact it had on my own team and then, you know, I’d go around in the organization sharing some of the tools and the impact that was having with others, I was convinced that this was the way to lead this systems inspired leadership. And I’m very convinced that when we do, when we do coach teams one of the things we do is we do some education along the way. And of course the goal of that is for them to take that back into their own organizations and start applying, start thinking about things differently. 

JZ – I love that, Kathy, that you are brining in that systems inspired leadership voice as well, because one of the things that we are noticing in certification, if we look at our participants, we’re getting more and more people from a leadership position that do not necessarily want to become full time coaches but want to use the coach approach into their leadership style, so there’s definitely an emergence happening towards systems inspired leadership. 

KC – That’s brilliant and I think for many people they may already have a coach certification so why this certification, why do they need this other badge? The other certificate. And I’m curious for both of you – what makes this program so unique? 

JZ – Well for me, ORSC is unique about is actually two elements. One is that we focus on the third entity, that we focus on the relationship and holding the individual personal play as voices of the system, that is mind blowing and world changing. If only, if only we would bring that into our lives, everything would look different and we would stop blaming, pointing fingers, defending and really giving the phenomena of deep democracy. So I think that about ORSC is absolutely unique and fabulous and mind blowing. The other thing is that we are so conscious and intentional about working the emotional field. It’s always there, we all know about it, we feel it, and it’s like hmmm, it’s underneath the water, we push it underneath the carpet because we, we are not equipped to work with it consciously and intentionally. So the fact that ORSC does that, I think makes it unique. So, third entity and emotional field, that for me is like the essence and the core of it and I’d like to say more about what I think is unique about certification program but Kathy, for you, ORSC, what makes it unique for you? 

KS – For me it’s certainly this different lens on systems, this taking it away from individuals but still ensuring this idea of deep democracy. But this third entity concept is so unique and so incredible, and by the way, it took me till halfway through certification to properly really get that and sometimes I still struggle with that but I’m working on it. I have a sticker on my screen that says, ‘ask all questions to the system’ because you have to remind yourself, one of my supervisors told me that in certification, but I think what makes ORSC unique is that you come out of it with, it’s like Judy said, I used to get a lot of requests from people struggling with relationships and you come out of it with a number of really great tools. I do a lot of individual coaching and I use a lot of the ORSC tools for that as well. I use the detriggering, the third entity, lots and lots, unfolding, I use almost exclusively the things I’ve learnt in ORSC with my individual clients now. So it’s a great, they don’t talk about it much when you start but there’s some great things as you learn that enable you to do better individual coaching as well. 

KC – Yeah and I think, in many ways, and I love what you said there Kathy about I only learned to understand things halfway through – there’s so much! On my wall here it says you get 40 tools and 27 skills across the series and there’s no way you can master all of those in that time frame. And I think for me, going through certification, I remember some tools just feeling brand new again, I was like what is this tool? And you realize that you have your favorites and then suddenly there’s this whole other toolkit part that you haven’t really focused on yet. So it really is, I think it was a bootcamp for me in many ways. 

KS – Agreed. 

JZ – That’s very well said, I like that Katie, a bootcamp. And yeah, we see that time and again when people come to certification, you know, we forget things. There’s a couple of focus points we have by then in our primary but there’s so much in the secondary that gets to be redeveloped. As to your questions, what makes then the certification piece of our program unique, well, I think, and I can’t be for a full 100% sure, but I think we have like the most number, number of hours of supervisions that we offer our students. So it’s not just practicing with scenarios, it’s really bring your own work and listen to it with a supervisor and get direct feet forward on it, you know what went well and where could you improve. And so it’s a large number of supervision on real life coaching and also a variety of supervision types. One on ones, team coaching supervision, in smaller groups of five and so that’s really real life coaching that’s happening there. 

KC – So would you say that certification in many ways forces people over edges? Maybe tools or techniques that they’re reluctant to try, it sort of forces people over that? 

JZ – What edge Kathy did certification…

KS – So many. Honestly, so many. I mean one of them is, for me, reading the emotional field and also allowing the system, you know, respecting that the system is generative and intelligent and creative and you don’t have to, you know, manage the system, it’s doing all of that by itself. There was so much learning for me and the one thing that also makes it unique to me is we’re in these cohorts with a lot of very different types of people from all over the world. I mean I had someone from India, from Hong Kong, from Canada, you know, a couple of Dutch people, a few English, a few Germans, and that is incredible, it’s like a brilliant system in itself and you get to learn to work within that system and I know for many people we’re all still in contact, we were called the Rose Cohort and we’ve even created a little message system called the rosebuds which is a small group of us that we meet very regularly and we talk and we learn from one another, we practice, that’s very unique and it’s an ongoing learning months after the course finished. For me that’s really key and then also the residential weekend is so powerful. I wish I could have done it in person but we did it online, of course, it was easier in many requests, but the learning in that three day residential weekend was phenomenal, and that is really unique, the coaches we had there within the system, and that forced us to really get out of our comfort zone and practice tools we hadn’t used before and I came out of that feeling like I had really understood certain things a lot better after residential. 

KC – And I guess on residential you had that dual learning of being both a participant and a practitioner. 

JZ – Yeah. 

KS – Yeah, exactly, and having to deal with people being tired and getting into slight conflicts and how do we manage that, and it brought us all closer as a cohort as well. 

JZ – So I think that is one of the edges that certification allows you to take. To not be an individual learner but be a systemic learner. By the time you get to residential you’re a couple of months into the program already, everybody signs up individually but by then you are step by step becoming a learning system with all it’s issues, you know, we all know, you put people together stuff happens. All that stuff you get to work in residential, so yes, you’re coaching and you’re participating in what is very real and as certification faculty we very often see when cohorts come out of residential and these three day, four day program is in the middle of the program, there is a, something has shifted for them, something new has emerged. Usually they have cleaned up some stuff that has been unrevealed up until then, there’s a stronger bonding, so you get to experience as a participant from the inside, what is it to be like on a maybe not so skillful team and work to becoming a high performing team, a very strong learning system. So it takes you over that edge and not just doing the work out there but doing your own work as well. I think another edge that you take in ORSC and that gets very much deepened in certification is to really be with deep democracy. It sounds like a nice concept right? Yeah! All voices count! But to truly live it, to truly live it, you gave a couple of Kathy those examples, you had on team big loud voices, critical voices that we have the tendency to shut down because you know most of us didn’t go to conflict school, we didn’t learn how to deal with that, but that is a big edge to really allow for all these voices, especially the marginalized ones. And to experience it sometimes you hold that voice as well as an individual. Yeah. So, I think that’s sort of a foundational edge, to be with and really live deep democracy. 

KC – I want to underline what you said there Judy about the inside out, I think that really captures the character of this program. You are learning from the inside out because to understand systems you have to realize that you’re also a system unto yourself. I think we go into this work, maybe become a coach or a better leader, but then we come out doing so much personal development, I think everyone says that on the other side of the series and then certification, wow, I’ve changed with my family, with my friends, with my mother, whoever it is. Kathy, I’m curious, was that your experience going into the professional tools and then being more personal too? 

KS – Absolutely, I have to say that I think I’ve really become a better person myself from doing ORSC, you know, for understanding which toxins I typically use and trying to reduce that, realizing how harmful it is. And then there’s something else on the, in the supervision we haven’t talked about and that is we have these sessions where you send in your recordings or you have someone go through with you what you could change, what you could do better, what was good, but there’s also one where you send in a recording that you may not be particularly proud of. And there the supervisors goal is really to take a look at you and how you as an individual, what are you bringing to the coaching, what underlying beliefs may be showing up in your coaching? That was so powerful for me. You know, all sorts of, and they don’t so much look at the individual coaching but they focus much more on you as a coach and that’s a really important part of the program. 

JZ – Wow, thanks for brining that in as well Kathy. So like supervision as self reflective practice which is emerging in the whole coaching world currently, more and more. And I think, especially relevant for systems workers either as a leader or a coach to really, to really self reflect what is going on for me. It’s part of the confidence building, the deepened learning, the personal development that is happening through certification. If we think of or dream about the future there will be more of that in certification. More self reflective practice in a very conscious and intentional way. 

KC – Yeah. I think, whilst it’s very edgy, it almost feels like looking in a mirror sometimes those sessions, it also, for me at least, it helped me to trust in my self as more of a resource because sometimes you get those signals, maybe something feels off or you feel, maybe, bored! And you push that down because it’s not socially acceptable to say or to speak to and yet all of that is information because you are part of the system, in a way, you are a channel. I think the more we lean into that, even though it’s edgy, the more we are able to bring into our clients we work with. 

JZ – That’s another great example Katie, it’s another version of really living deep democracy, not just allowing for other marginalized voices but for your own marginalized voice. I’m thinking of a telephone conversation I had with my siblings yesterday. I know I was marginalizing something there, absolutely, but to really unfold that and, yeah, what’s underneath that? So it’s again, like what you said earlier, inside out, yes it’s outside and it’s inside as well. So, if you continue from the foundational program into certification, I think that is a very strong added benefit, to really bring and dive deep inside as well.

KC – I’m curious, Kathy, from the series, because it sounded like you were already using quite a lot of the tools and practicing them. What was the big shift when you started certification that you noticed in yourself as a practitioner? 

KS – I think I really became much more deeply curious and much less I’m gonna go in and fix this lot. You know? Sorry to say that but that’s basically often how leaders think. I became much more, much less interpretive when people did certain things and just changed to becoming much more curious and it’s such a great skill to learn to stop interpreting and to just become curious. I think that’s probably the main thing. And then of course I became much more confident, like Judy said. After I did the intermediate courses I don’t think I would have gone into a big jacks 40 corporation and led a big four hour coaching workshop, but because we learned how do you, where do you meet the system, how do you identify coaching needs, how do you develop a coaching plan, all that became really clear what’s needed there, what tools you might use, how not to overfill it – all those things you learn and you learn it in two ways. You know, we do skill drills, you learn it that way but you also then learn it because then of course you have to record coaching sessions and submit them for your supervision. So that gets you out there practicing and that’s when you realize oh, I didn’t need five tools for a one hour coaching session. Less is more. And all those things, and that’s when you build your confidence. I also think when you get out there and start you suddenly realize that it’s having such a big impact. Sometimes I think I, like everybody, I’ve thought has it had an impact, what good did I do? And you suddenly start seeing it firsthand in the teams you work with. And the joy you see in people, one of my big missions in life is to have people who like to come to work because i’ve had so many jobs where I’ve started Saturday morning dreading Monday because it’s only two days away. And I just think that can be changed and where we start is with the leaders. So I saw the impact when we coached senior leadership teams and we do engagement surveys two months later, the whole system, the whole mood has changed. And that’s the thing that I really got from certification, the confidence to really go in and to do that. 

JZ – And to add to where you started Kathy, that curiosity, that’s not, you know, is that fix thing not just for leaders very important but for us coaches as well, having been full time in the last 15 years as a coach I know there’s a very strong tendency in me that wants to fix. So to be self aware of that and shift into, yeah, the lens of curiosity. 

KC – I really appreciate you saying that Judy, that you’ve been doing this for 15 + years and that you still notice that because, particularly in my personal relationships, that fixing mechanism does show up, and I think what you’re pointing to is that this work, it doesn’t stop, we don’t arrive and then we tick that box. I don’t know if this was your experience Kathy but for me at least certification sort of opened up more and more and I realized there’s so much and I had so many questions. What are you sort of now sitting with as you step out of certification into this role of systemic coach? 

KS – Wow. Yeah, so, one of the things that I do a lot of now is assisting because I just love all these materials, I think I’ve assisted about seven or eight times in the last year. And I still, every time I go into a course I think oh, how have I missed that the first three times that I do it? And I’m just continuously learning and practicing. And also, I go through with my three ladies, when we meet up, and we go through and we actually talk about tools we’ve used, how we’ve used them, what worked, what didn’t work and I find that very useful to have other people, other ORSCers to talk to about this material. I still feel like I’ve got a very long way to go, I’ve got a lot of learning and practicing to be where Judy is or where others are… 

JZ – And, what you say is true for me as well Kathy, I mean leading the courses in 2010 so 13 years now, every time I lead a program I learn more about it, so just to say it’s a great question Katie that you’re asking, it never stops, you know, it’s actually world work which is another piece in our certification program, to really have your own world work project where you’re using the ORSC approach, where in your world, small, large, would you like to create an impact? What is something that you really want to contribute to? And that is never ending either. That’s constantly evolving as well. I think the phenomena of right relationship, I mean we say CRR Global right now but there are from right relationship, I still love that because that feels the essence of what we are and from a world work that we are doing. One relationship at a time. Either a relationship we’re coaching with or a relationship we’re a member of. That for me is also like world work, not just a project to tick the box, but how to live a life in step by step better relationship, and you can’t get to right relationship, to better relationship, when you don’t work everything that makes it messy and difficult and complicated at the same time. 

KC – That is beautifully put Judy and it makes me think that in many ways this program, it embraces that principle that systems are in a constant state of emergence and as practitioners we’re never going to arrive and I think in our cultures we tend to have this ok, I get there and then I tick this box and then it’s done, and actually this whole program is really a continuing journey and like with right relationship, I think that Faith often mentions that there’s no definition of right relationship because it changes moment to moment and it keeps us on our toes. I think when you said curiosity, Kathy, that’s exactly it, you remain curious because you can’t ever know what the system is going to bring, each system will be different and that’s quite an exciting way to live and to lead. 

JZ – Yep. 

KS – It really is. 

KC – You mentioned the world work project. So, I’m curious about the impact, both for you Kathy going through this program and Judy the impact you’ve seen on students on the world work program, where they really take ownership of this work in their world. 

JZ – Well what I just said about world work is short of, you know the why underneath the concept, but as a cohort leader I get to listen to and experience all these world work projects of all the students going through certification and there, I mean, especially at the end of certification, you know the last calls are about world work presentations, they all bring tears to my eyes. I think like my god, these people, what they are going out there. And it can be like a physical, small worlds like working within your own family or, already a somewhat larger world, maybe your organization, or maybe something in the political arena – it doesn’t matter. And so in terms of impact it is, I can only I think speak from a level of essence, you see, I’m looking for words here, because I remember every time when students share their world work project, it’s so emotional it’s like wow, my God, you know. What are all these people doing out there in the world? 

KC – Yeah, in some ways it makes me think of that jigsaw puzzle and they’re sort of taking a part of this work and really owning it in their land. And then it starts to live on in different ways and different systems and I think that’s beautiful, because I think in terms of this work it’s infinite what’s possible, and it’s continuing to evolve in terms of the curriculum but also where and when we can use it. 

JZ – Really owning it, I like that very much because it’s not like something you learn about but really owning it. 

KC – Yeah. It’s a shift from almost doing the work to being the work, I think, and that’s when you start to live the principles. Kathy – how was your world work experience? 

KS – So my project was coaching couples on finance, because under my going in line, Judy saw this and I think she was a bit shocked, people are much more comfortable talking about sex than about money because money is a really difficult topic in relationships. There’s loads of infidelity around money and all sorts of things. So, the one thing I loved about it is that it really got me to coach couples, so my goal really is to coach teams and individuals but by my world work project I have coached a few couples, it was really interesting to then have other things revealed that obviously had nothing… so we ended up not talking about money so much, because it, there’s always some other issues underlying going on. But I still had plans, I’m working at the moment with a financial adviser in coming up with something we do together, where she does the advice and I do the actual coaching part going in, because I think just doling out advice doesn’t work, you’ve got to sort of get to the depths… like in my case, when I coached couples, getting to completely different topics that were standing in the way of financial alignment, it was a great edge for me by the way because I really didn’t feel comfortable coaching couples and now I actually coach quite a few as a result of the learning. 

KC – Yeah, fascinating that, I also went in coaching teams and individuals professionally speaking and then I started coaching a lot of couples through certification and it’s not the main part of my business but it really keeps me on my toes. I often say that couples are the dingies, they move really fast, whereas teams are more like big cruise ships, they move slower. So it’s nice to have that diversity in your portfolio of work because I guess it challenges you in different ways. 

JZ – It’s a good thing to underline. As supervisors that’s always something that we advise our students in certification, you know you have your primary focus but stretch yourselves, find in a different area also different relationships to work with like you just shared Kathy. And as you were sharing Kathy your world work project, it made me become aware of it’s another version of deep democracy, right, in couples, finance not being a topic that… you know, we push it under the carpet but it’s there. So to allow the space for that voice to emerge is a great example of really bringing deep democracy. 

KS – Yeah, it certainly is. 

KC – So I’m curious, in terms of the people listening, maybe they’ve gone through this series, they’re practicing these tools, what would you like them to know about the certification program given your different perspective on where you are with the program that maybe they don’t know? 

JZ – From a place of consensus reality I would say come to one of our monthly certification information calls, and that’s a great place to deepen your awareness about how the program is built up when you go to the certification page on the CRR Global website you can find all the dates for that. But if people have gone through the series already what do they now know about the certification that we have not mentioned yet? I don’t really know, Kathy, is there anything particular coming up for you? 

KS – Yes, so for me, so I left my corporate job at the end of 2022 and immediately signed up for ORSC certification. And one of the reasons I did it was I thought I want to be optimally equipped for a life of self employment and I would say this, we were talking about finances, and I mean this is also a bit consensus reality but first of all I immediately kicked off with lots of practice coaching. I found that some of the systems that I coach then generated individual coaching contracts, etc etc. And I’d say a year in, of course the course has more than paid for itself, and also it gave me a sort of a, it let me hit the ground running in self employment. I know so many people are scared to walk away from a corporate job and while I planned it for a few years there’s still some fear there, and going into certification was such a brilliant start for me that I’m really grateful that it really got me out there, it got me going and it got me coaching and it got me earning money very quickly. 

JZ – Wow. So, that’s a great example of an edge that certification allows you to take, thanks for sharing that, that’s great. I think one of the reasons that I find it difficult to answer this great question is I’m so immersed in the program, it’s all primary for me, I think it’s all known, but what I do know that students, as they come into certification, especially in the first couple of months of the program, it is an intense program. It’s a really quite a commitment so your yes has to be like a full yes and a big yes, and because of the diversity, almost the complexity of the program with all these different elements, different faculty members, it takes a little while before you really see the full puzzle. Sometimes people get confused in the beginning about that, I think to bring the meta skill of trust in the program but also in yourself, that you will definitely get through it, there’s a lot of edges in the beginning, don’t be afraid of it if, I don’t know, if that helps, if people are at the end of the series considering certification, but it’s different, it’s, certification is in that sense a different animal from the series. You can go through these modules in an easy way as well. Certification is intense. Go for it and you’ll get loads, loads, loads out of it. 

KC – I think that’s really important to say Judy, and also, I remember in my first session and I don’t know if this was the same for you Kathy, I remember looking around at the screen of my cohort participant thinking that everyone must be so good at this and they must know everything, and after a couple of weeks we started to reveal that actually we’re all just as nervous as each other and all felt quite out of our depth, and I think to cross that edge together was wonderful because now we can just start learning together and just get curious as a system. Judy, I’m curious, because you have a balcony view you see the whole arc of students going through this – what is a sort of them that sort of shows up from beginning to end when you see different students like Kathy going through this program, almost a year long program? 

JZ – What is the theme? In terms of you know the type of students that sign up, participants, like I mentioned earlier, pure, pure coaching, more and more people in leadership positions, HR professionals that really want to learn from the ORSC way of the coach approach, so we definitely see an emergence of that. In terms of, yeah, interesting, it’s probably a parallel process program development. Although we still stand on the strong shoulders of how the program was designed like 15 years ago, it is emerging more in a business-like application, if you like. We are dreaming up spending more time in the world of specific team coaching, working with larger systems, and given that we are dreaming of more self reflective practice because we’re holding larger things out there in the world and the world as it is going, you know, all kinds of directions, you know, as a human being on the earth we have to learn how to hold more things. So, you see the program emerging in that direction as well but the final thing is, you know last year we helped focus groups, focus groups in the sense that we wanted to have systems inspired conversations with people that were certified in the last two years so really recent participants but finishing the journey. And like you know just hearing their voice, how did you benefit, what would be a game changer for you, those kinds of questions. I think one big emergence for me is that we can still hold onto the essence of this program, how it was built in the beginning. Yes on a consensus level of reality we might put some different flavors into it, and like you’re cooking your meals you try… but the core of it, the core ingredients are still extremely powerful. That actually builds also from the role of being the director of the program, built my own confidence and trust in the program. It’s still like a big wow on an essence and yes we are dreaming as the world revolves around us, and on consensus reality we see some differences, but from a balcony view we’d say let’s stick to who we are and that hasn’t changed a lot and I feel totally excited that I get to be part of that. 

KC – And Kathy got the pleasure and the privilege of having you as a cohort leader, I’m sure, Kathy, that was a wonderful experience to have Judy lead. 

KS – It really was wonderful and of course I’ve had Judy lead some of the courses that I took in the beginning and I’ve assisted Judy a few times and it’s always a great pleasure. 

KC – And that you both for very much walking your talk today. This has been a wonderful dance in relationship around the certification program, I’m sure our listeners have got a lot from this. 

JZ – And thank you very much Katie for inviting us, allowing us to speak our voice also together, yeah, looking forward – actually, as we were preparing for the call also I could feel a strong sense of pride, thank you for allowing the space for that to really shine a light on an amazing program that we have on offer. 

KS – And thanks from me too Katie, it’s been a pleasure. 

[Music outro begins 48:41] 

KC – A huge thanks to Judy and Kathy for that fantastic discussion around ORSC certification. ORSC certification is the culmination of months and even years by students who wish to become practitioners of the competencies, tools and skills that make CRR Global so uniquely positioned in the marketplace. The ORSC certification program consists of two semesters of practice, online study and extensive supervision. During certification you’ll move the ORSC material out of the introductory level and into mastery and practical application. To apply for the program students must have completed the fundamentals of ORSC or ORSC at work, an intelligence geography path and systems integration prior to registration. For more information please visit CRRGlobal.com/course/ORSC-certification. 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 50:36 – end]