By Guest Blogger Grace Flannery, CPCC, PCC, ORSCC
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Resilience
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A successful green energy organization enlisted my aid to address a variety of issues: new staff members felt like outsiders, seasoned team members were disengaging and information and authority wasn’t being shared across hierarchical lines.

Together we worked to create an organizational culture that acknowledges and appreciates all contributions, from the insights and lessons that the founders and first generation hires housed, to the unfiltered and unbiased perspectives of the “newbies.” The team members feel the increased resiliency and are excited rather than demoralized by new challenges.

Working with this group was an important reminder that a high functioning team (i.e. the Third Entity™) outlives the “lifespan” of individual team members. People come and go, but a resilient team retains its power in the face of change.

Clarity

We’ve probably all been part of a work team that is lacking clarity: discussions go round-and-round, and a general malaise sweeps the office. People don’t believe that problems can be resolved—nor do people even agree about the nature of the problems. Meetings are fruitless endeavors and morale plummets.

One of my clients found themselves in a similar spot. After several mergers with other organizations, which forced rapid growth on an already strained system, formerly high-performing people were becoming inefficient, burned out, and frustrated. Problems “shape-shifted” from one week to the next, and the team was at risk of losing key contributors.
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Through the application of this and other team coaching tools, we were able to identify that the mergers were conducted without establishing clear roles and accountability first. Further, they did not have a clear process for decision making. The team gained clarity around the new organizational structure and decision making protocols that would support the workload without compromising quality. 

By Guest Blogger Grace Flannery, CPCC, PCC, ORSCC

As a coach, I frequently examine the impact I have on my clients as a way of measuring progress. Organizations seeking to justify the investment in team coaching have relied upon employee and customer satisfaction surveys, productivity and retention metrics, and anecdotal evidence. However, the greatest breakthroughs from coaching often elude measurement, and if one were required to assign a price tag, each would be deemed “priceless.”
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1. Cohesion – created when all team members share a sense of belonging to the group, and know their voices are heard and their contributions valued. Behaviors that demonstrate cohesion include a willingness to endure sacrifices for the good of the group, and defending against challenges that arise from outside the group.
2. Resilience – a team’s ability to integrate new members, absorb loss, adapt to meet change, and manage pressure, while maintaining a stable, healthy environment for its members.
3. Clarity – a team’s shared, lucid, clear vision of the problem or situation and its contributing factors. Once this is achieved, an effective solution can be developed.

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Coaching teams is a very different proposition from coaching individuals, because my exposure and impact can be far greater. As an ORSC™ practitioner (Organization and Relationship Systems Coach, I’m often asked to explain what distinguishes my approach from the other schools of thought about team coaching. We know that a team is more than a collection of individuals—its shared strengths, weaknesses, skills, knowledge and culture combine to create what we’ve called the Third Entity™. Essentially, this is the “client” with whom we establish the coaching relationship—not individuals on the team.

By Marita Fridjhon

It happened in Heathrow airport in November of 2012. I had just landed in London, excited to meet friends and colleagues at the ICF Conference. I was walking fast, pulling my two bags behind me when somebody, rushing to their flight, cut directly in front of me and I went down, hard!

The journey from then until now, 9 months later, has taught me more about systemic interdependence than I ever knew before. Interdependence within my own body system, interdependence within the medical system and health care, interdependence between all of that and day-to-day living.

See, interdependence just IS. Whether we know about it, care about it or believe in it, it impacts our lives. Injure one knee, and the rest of the system is impacted. The other knee will need to take up some of the work load. When that happens the back and the rest of body automatically compensate for the redistributed workload. And when that happens over a prolonged period of time, overall mobility begins to suffer since certain muscle groups atrophy while others become overdeveloped and strained.
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I won't ask you to accompany me on my whole rehabilitation journey. Just know that I am lucky to have access to a great medical care system that has been amazing in their patience with me. And, it would be useful to look at this experience to evaluate the non-local cost of a very localized event.

By Marita Fridjhon, CEO of CRR Global

A discussion on ORSC Global between our coaches stirred my excitement about this amazing phenomenon. I believe the ability to consciously work with Parallel Process is the ability to directly tap into a collective creativity and the wisdom of a larger intelligence. I also think there are creative leadership applications for this. Before I get ahead of myself, lets take some things apart and first look at the definition of parallel process.

Wikipedia states the following: "Parallel processing is the ability to carry out multiple operations or tasks simultaneously. The term is used in the contexts of both human cognition, particularly in the ability of the brain to simultaneously process incoming stimuli, and in parallel computing by machines." In my mind, this is not to be confused with mere multi-tasking. An example from the computing industry might provide better understanding.
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Here it refers to an initiative where at least two micro processors handle separate parts of an overall task. When working with a complex problem, computer scientists divide the complex problem into component tasks. Each component task is then assigned to a dedicated processor. Each processor then solves its assigned part of the overall complex problem; parallel process. Finally, software then re-assembles the data to reach the final conclusion and resolution of the original complex problem. It is the high tech way of saying that it is easier to get the job done if you share the load!

While we indeed leverage parallel processing in best practices for task forces and other team efforts, there is another, messier way in which it shows up in human relationships that I believe to be a good mine for systemic transformation. It happens when we are in a parallel process without realizing it!

Years ago when Faith and I still did couples therapy we would from time to time choose to do individual work around specific issues with partners. Faith would work with one partner and I with the other for a session or two and then return to conjoint work. That's when we noticed a recurring phenomenon: by the time we got back to the joint sessions, Faith and I would invariably get into disagreements before the couple session - the content of which simply did not feel congruent with our own partnership.

By Obi James, CPCC, ORSC

We all get triggered. The difference between one successful professional and another can lie simply in the way they deal with pressure and their ability to stay cool when triggered. According to George Bernard Shaw, “Self-control is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to survive.” This is particularly true in the corporate world.

Neuroscience helps us appreciate exactly what’s going on in our brain when we get triggered. With this knowledge, we are able to find ways to help us stay cool in these stressful situations.

Let’s take some time to explore being triggered. One of the key areas we help our clients explore as part of our leadership development coaching program is their values. Values represent those things that are important to you. People have different core values and just as companies take time to (or at least, should) identify their values, so should individuals. Values explain why one person loves their job and someone else in the same role hates it. When our values are aligned to the work we do, we experience job satisfaction and fulfillment. On the other hand, when our values are stepped on – be it in the workplace, by our partners or by our children, we lose our cool. We get triggered.

What’s Happening In Our Brain When We Get Triggered?
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Our amygdala, part of our limbic system plays a key role in processing emotions, identifying threats and activating the well-known ‘fight or flight’ response. This leads to the release of various chemicals that result in the biological responses we recognize such as increased heart rate, feeling flushed and tense etc.

By Guest Blogger Jake Calabrese
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Toxins are normal and we can’t just “get rid of them.” In fact, pretending there are never toxins in a team could be viewed as a form of stonewalling. There are a number of ways to resolve conflict by working with team toxins. These not “iron-clad plans” or best practices, they are approaches to resolving conflict that ideally start before major conflict has emerged.
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The four team toxins are blaming, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
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Below I list a number of ways to work with team toxins. These are ideas that make or break our teams and relationships. I believe they make the difference between being engaged and checking-out. Many of these ideas are concepts that should be explored and examined, they are not just “steps” that you can do and check-off a list. Some are simpler than others, but all require a level of commitment and effort to dig into and learn from and about.

Ways to resolve conflict by working with team toxins:

By Faith Fuller

Marita wrote a wonderful blog last week titled “It's Easier Said Than Done.” It was all about how ORSC sounds so straight forward in the course room but can be so hard to live! This got me thinking about the complexities of relationship and I feel huge compassion for us all, considering all with which we are working. How can we Walk the Talk a little easier?

First I have to mediate between the many secret selves and sub personalities in my internal system which is no easy task. How do I get my Over Achiever self to stop abusing my Beach Hippie? The Gym Bunny and the Meditator are competing for time. And can somebody please get the Kids to stop whining! Some days I am astonished that any of us can walk straight given the many voices inside. And yet, somehow it all adds up to that beautiful integrated gemstone of who we are, full of rich facets but with our own solidity.

By Guest Blogger Janet Frood

I’ve been noticing a lot of my clients are living with a lot of disturbance in their lives right now. It seems that people are being challenged – work or personal relationships are going off the rails, unexpected events are messing with well crafted plans, credibility and integrity is being questioned, or they are feeling immobilized by uncertainty in the face of rapidly changing conditions. These are painful experiences; all of them legitimately cause a person to go to some degree of self doubt and wondering of “Why me?” From a broader perspective, the world feels universally unbalanced right now. Political, economic and environmental systems are unpredictably shifting like a rapidly moving roller coaster. This is creating waves. People are being humbled by their inability to exert influence or control over conditions impacting them.