Relationship System Coaching

We are all part of complex dynamic systems: families, business partnerships, and communities. All of these systems are interrelated and interconnected - much like a spider's web. Touch one strand and another moves. What affects one portion of the system affects the whole system.

Relationship Systems Coaching is the process in which a coach participates with all of the individuals in a system at the same time. No individual, group, or organization is ever in isolation: we are always part of a larger whole - a system. Relationship systems have a natural drive toward evolution and resolution. The goal of the coach is to reveal the system to itself. By focusing on making good relationships great, the system can discover the answers it seeks and begin the journey toward improved harmony and productivity.

Systems Theory

Systems Theory views the individual as a system living within larger systems, such as personal relationships, work relationships, and so on. The coach relies on certain properties of these systems:

• The healthy system is organized around the support, regulation, nurturance, and well-being of its members.
• The system has self-perpetuating properties and wisdom of its own.
• As the system itself finds structural and other ways to transform, it will continue to produce at least one possibility for further change.
• The relationship systems coach joins the system not to repair or modify it, rather to "reveal" its nature to its members. This supports the members to become "response-able," to better perform the necessary tasks of the system. This helps the system to be self-regulating.
• Because of the self-regulating nature of systems, a change in one area of the system induces change in the rest of the system.

Dimensions of Relationship Systems Coaching

Relationship Systems Coaching is comprised of three dimensions. Each dimension builds upon the others, is always present, and provides a different approach to systems coaching.

• Relationship Intelligence - works with the emotional processes and flow of relationships. The relationship itself has a direction and movement we learn to move with rather than resist. When the coach and client hold this perspective, they achieve the deep confidence that everything has a natural unfolding - every situation has a wisdom aspect. We can begin to trust and listen for the agenda of the relationship system. We move from "Who is doing what to whom?" to "What is trying to happen?"
• System Geography - addresses the semi-permanent structures and agreements of the relationship, such as roles and working with diversity. Addresses key questions about the structures of relationships: "Who is doing what?" and "What are our agreements?" Systems have a kind of natural topography made up of the agreements, roles, and rules we make up in order to create order and predictability in relationships. Much of the relationship is about building something together, working with agreements, and negotiating the tasks of managing a relationship. What we build is heavily influenced by our culture and personal history. Personal backgrounds, corporate, and cultural influences shape our understanding of the world. Each individual actually is a whole complex land of preferences and beliefs, created through socialization, education, culture, religion, and so on. Each of us walks around with different internal worlds we perceive as reality. We assume that others see the world the same way we do and are surprised when we realize they do not!
• Relationship Path - explores the dreaming potential of relationship systems to be consciously and intentionally creative. Relationship systems have potential and dreaming power. Relationships are inherently generative - they produce something. What is created may be feelings or stories or plans. It could be something as mundane as an order for a sandwich, or as profound as a baby. This generative quality makes relationships inherently meaningful. Expressing the creative potential of relationship is the moment-to-moment process of relationship fulfillment, for both work and personal relationships. In every relationship we affect, impact, and change one another. We are both creator and the created - the dream and the dreamer. As creators, together we generate each moment in relationship. We are not always conscious of what we create. The Path of Relationship is about becoming conscious and intentional about what we create together.

Taken from the Organization & Relationship Systems Coaching Manual developed for The Coaches Training Institute.
Copyright 2003 by Center for Right Relationship.

Contact us to learn how you can bring harmony to the many systems in your life.