Recently I found myself occupying the voice of an ICF Chapter. Given I have little experience of other chapters it was obviously influenced by all the good work that the OC chapter sets out to do. It was a voice that very much wanted to be heard, it was passionate, it spoke about support, unity, local coaches working together to change lives and credibility.  

The voice came during a class in Worldwork Skills for Large Group Process. Based on the metaskill of Deep Democracy, the belief that every voice and every feeling needs representation in order for the group to know itself and resolve issues. The experience I was part of unfolded as follows. 

Together the group filtered and sorted topics until we found consensus around a topic that we wanted to work on.  We then stood in a circle and were invited to step in and occupy a voice or a role on said topic. We listened, and if we agreed with a voice or role that was being expressed we could walk over and join the person representing that voice or add to it.

As you can imagine at the beginning of the exercise several splinter groups appeared. Once a participant felt that they had fully expressed a voice and wanted to occupy a role that was not yet represented they would break away and switch to that new role and voice.  During the exercise many voices turned up, among them were confused clients, ‘celebrity coaches’, HR managers, the ICF itself and as mentioned the voice of the chapter too.  Our system was physically moving, evolving and morphing as we expressed the voices that were relevant to our chosen topic. As a group we seemed to be pretty swift to take on these roles and it was interesting how many seemingly unpopular voices were freely represented, the members of our system who took those roles didn’t necessarily agree with the voice but were fully prepared to acknowledge its existence enabling the rest of us to react accordingly.

During the debrief we were able to lock in the learning through sharing our own experiences and by discussing the expert facilitation of the two leaders.  They had not only held a safe space and witnessed each of the voices; they had read the emotional field of our system. By using this skill of reading the emotional field the facilitators could astutely articulate to us what was happening within our relationship system, ask a powerful question about a hot spot that had just appeared or look at points of escalation and de-escalation. They were reflecting back to us what we were doing and being as a system.

What I find incredibly interesting is that the goal of Worldwork is not to find resolution to an issue there and then in the process of the exercise; instead conflict is appreciated.  The true goal of this work is the introduction of awareness to the system, to awaken it.

Some pointers –

- If you find this summary interesting there is so much more! This is just one exercise within a three day course on Relationship Intelligence that expands on the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EQ).
- “Harmony is great but not as powerful as awareness” – Arnold Mindell

RESOURCE AT: http://www.centerforrightrelationship.com for course details.

http://www.aamindell.net to read more about the work of Arny and Amy Mindell.

Looking at conflict differently,
Candice

candice@redbarncoaching.com