I’m finally forcing myself to find time to take CRR Global Organization and Relationship System Coaching training program.  Beyond Emotional Intelligence (relationship with oneself), and Social Intelligence (relationship with other) lies Relationship Systems Intelligence where the focus is on the entire group, team or system.

This is a five course program and I already took the first ORS@Work course a few weeks ago (This two-day course explores the ORSC™ model, and is a business-focused version of ORSC™ Fundamentals.). This week I took ORSC Intelligence (Three-day course provides a robust toolkit for increasing emotional resilience in the face of change.)  

I said forcing myself early this in post but let me explain. I’m lucky in that many Agilists have attended this program and I’ve benefited from their shares at conferences and other trainings.  As a result, I’m pretty familiar with a good portion of the course program, which always made the investment in time difficult to balance.  However, 2019 was the year for me to cut back on conferences, thus a perfect time to work in this training.

Overall, the experience was positive.

What I enjoyed the most…TOOLS:

  • Ones that are similar to tools I’ve already known but gave a different tweak/application for a fresh delivery.
    • Force Field Anaylsis (think what would help vs what would hinder in order to help make a decision by uncovering deeper considerations.
    • Appreciation Loop (think giving appreciations by going back in forth in a loop to continue to go deeper and more specific with appreciations).
    • Blank Access Questions (think questions that are really wide open and don’t indicate any interpretation/judgement, such as “what are you aware of?”)
    • Change Theory (think everyone has a current identity that they own – primary; and that there is something that might be trying to emerge – secondary. The question then becomes can you cross the edge from primary to secondary, which may become the new primary…or do you even want to cross the edge (sometimes what is trying to emerge might not be healthy).
  • Reinforcing tools from the first course.
    • Relationship Myth (finding positive points previously in the relationship)
    • 3rd Entity (considering each perspective and stepping into the 3rd entity (the relationship system itself) to consider a different perspective of the whole picture).
    • Informal constellations (where do you stand in relation to others on this topic).

What I appreciated the most… people:

  • Faith and Fernando were an excellent combination of instructors. When I pushed on “reason why” or “value”, they went right there with me easily and completely. I found their styles refreshing and genuine.
  • Simon, my training buddy (assigned because he sat next to me on day one). He was completely willing to explore different perspectives on an exercise, try or not try elements of an exercise, highjack an exercise when something else needed to happen and most importantly laugh with me until tears rolled down our faces. Thank you!

What I am looking forward to more classes to dig deeper on:

  • This is what I wrote from the first course.
    • The cornerstone of “Reveal the system to itself”.  I can fully support helping others reveal the system.  I can fully support highlighting repair bids to reveal the system.  I can fully support highlighting the possible unsaid/elephant in the system.  What I am still not completely understanding is the impact/value of a leader potentially labeling the system and impacting the system in negative ways.  For example, I asked a deeper question to the instructors.  After some discussion, the instructors asked the system “what are you sensing”… words such as friction were highlighted.  If I wasn’t as strong as I was, the system (being creative and intelligent) was telling me to stop asking questions.  Is that healthy?  Or what should leaders be doing to help the system evolve.
  • I’m going to build on this for the second course:
    • They covered signals in this course. Signals are information. They may or may not mean anything. So an example of use was “I notice your hands in your pockets”. I tried really hard to amplify/call out the signals during our homework coaching course. I wanted to push myself to see if there was a value that I just didn’t connect with until I tried. The result: I do notice signals. I didn’t feel like I was noticing anything more than I normally did in coaching sessions. I definitely do not place any judgement on the signals. But what I noticed was that I wanted to weave the signal naturally later vs allowing them to unpack/explore the signal right in the moment. For example, I’ll notice when someone leans in and gets quieter. I would normally never call attention to it. I would possibly lean in slightly myself. This time, I tried to reveal the system/signal: “What’s happening for you right now?” The conversation was good – they did explore a little about what made them lean in without me saying it. This was a big step for me…I don’t have to do the non-authentic part for me – of labeling or drawing attention to the action (by directly saying “I noticed you leaned in”), yet still draw attention to the moment period. So we will see where this continues to go for me.

What was difficult:

  • I have a different definition of Kumbaya. For most people, I’m learning that Kumbaya is anything emotional or touchy-feely. That’s not my version. I can go deep with people. I don’t mind a very emotional exercise. Kumbaya for me, is pointless non-value forcing of exercises that seem ridiculous or not value add. For instance, at the end of the class, people had to grasp the next person’s hand in a circle and make the sound of what a relationship sounds like. I fully get that this can add energy. I fully get that this can be great for some minds/people. For me, this is just dumb. Making noises in a circle doesn’t bring me closer to anyone. I’m not bothered/embarassed; it simply doesn’t serve a purpose for me. So I have to leverage the “right to pass” on these. I could play along but that doesn’t feel authentic.
  • A series of these small examples culminated for me in a moment that I’ve spent some time reflecting on. At the end of the third day, the request was to say “all in” afterwards. Being told to say “all in” doesn’t feel authentic to me, as a result, I’m willing to share what I learned/impacted by/etc but not willing to blindly say “all in”. After the class was over, someone said “you hug?”. This genuinely shocked me. Anyone that knows me even in the slightest knows that I am a personal space invader…I love hugs. So I asked, why they had this impression. The response was “you don’t like touchy feely emotion things”. Now this is what led to the bullet above – just the basic difference in what Kumbaya means to me. I’m noting it here also because I spent some time reflecting on this further. I am different in these trainings. In no particular order…
    • I am not the leader/trainer/facilitator. I get to just be in the class. I don’t have to constantly focus on my energy. I don’t have to ensure anything for anyone else. My bad student meta brain might struggle but this is also very relaxing. I can just sit back and go for the ride. So if someone saw me as a speaker, etc and then saw me in this class – I would seem different.
    • I am not in a “holy crap this is blowing my mind” state of mind. I really enjoy learning/enhancing/practicing these tools. But I already embraced the power of coaching skill and the aspects of relationship dynamics. When others are sharing these deep insightful life changing moments, my share feels fake or not willing to go as deep. If I was having a “holy crap” moment, I would be trying to connect with others in that same space not a woman that seems to be surface.
    • I am very good about setting my boundaries. This results in me knowing what I would be willing to do and what doesn’t feel authentic to my style/me. My lack of “willingness to just play along” can be very off-putting to people. I’m completely ok with my right to pass but even in these three days, the joke was made enough that “Tricia won’t like this”. Sometimes they were right and sometimes not – I’m ok but what is this joke lead to in terms of assuming my willingness to engage in other things. For example, people assumed I wouldn’t want to put anything on the graphic visual board – yet surprised when I had special markers and crayons.
    • I don’t enjoy random small talk with strangers. I’ve spoken about this on the blog. I’m willing to be extremely vulnerable in pretty much anything about my life with anyone. The hard part for me is that random small talk is often not safe – how many children do you have – do I highlight 2 or 3? will this relationship continue and then I have to change the answer later? will my saying 3 end the conversation? etc. So the common way people make quick connections in courses – short periods of time, I am guarded about…which leads to not being connected and understood.

So this different perception from people is my own doing. I make choices based on my past and present self to determine how I behave. As I reflected, I understand most of the causes and I think for now, I’m ok with that incongruence. And here’s why…I did make connections. Maybe not as many as others did but the ones I made felt real. I’ll take one real connection over 20 surface any day of the week. And if the Tricia that shows up when she is taking a training means you have to work a little harder to know the extroverted Tricia others often experience, well, then that’s a connection that will last.

All that said, I’m looking forward to the next classes to dig deeper in the reasons/data behind this model.

What did you enjoy most about ORSC Intelligence?

Tricia Broderick

Tricia Broderick

Tricia Broderick is a leadership and organizational advisor. Her transformational leadership at all levels of an organization, ignites growth of leaders and high performing teams to deliver quality outcomes. Tricia has more than twenty years of experience in the software development industry. She is a highly-rated trainer, coach, facilitator and motivational keynote speaker. Beyond her extensive knowledge and skills, her biggest offering is inspiring people to believe anything is possible.

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