Katie Churchman (0:05):Hello, and welcome to the Relationship Matters podcast. From the boardroom to the living room, we believe relationship matters. Hello. I’m your host, Katie Churchman. And in this episode, Marita and I deep dive into the first of the five principles of Relationship Systems Intelligence. The Third Entity, Relationship Systems Intelligence, or RSI, involves the ability to move from seeing a group of individuals to seeing the system itself as a living, breathing entity. And this is what we call the Third Entity. Relationship systems work holds that there is more present in a relationship than the individual team members. Along with the people involved, there is also the relationship or system itself. It is useful to consider the relationship as a separate Third Entity, which has its own needs and voice. In relationship systems work, this Third Entity is the ultimate focus. Here’s Marita talking about principle one, the Third Entity of Relationship Systems Intelligence.

Katie Churchman (1:13):So, hello, Marita. So today I believe we’re doing a deep dive into one of the principles.

Marita Fridjhon (1:19):Hi, Katie. I believe so, and looking forward to it. Who knows what comes out of it? Every now and again when you and I talk, I expect something to show up, and then something completely different shows up.

Katie Churchman (1:30):Exactly. And it was obviously difficult to pick which principle to start with because they do all inform one another. But we’ve landed on the Third Entity as our sort of foundational principle for today.

Marita Fridjhon (1:43):I think that’s a good place to start, because, like you say, it really is foundational to what we do and how we approach that. When we talk about Relationship Systems Intelligence, probably one of the biggest differentiator ORSC from other intelligences and different things is that the focus is so on that web of connection that the team has, that relationship itself to whom all team members belong, that actually is the oracle that we consort with and consult with to get information.

Katie Churchman (2:18):Yeah. So for people who’ve never come across this idea of the Third Entity before, how can you quickly summarize that concept?

Marita Fridjhon (2:26):I think if you just. If you think about different examples of teams, that’s standard in our world today. Whether you talk about a management team or whether you talk about an accounting team, or if you think even about couples and partner relationships, if you think about different relationships, you can see how it may be globally known as an executive team. But if you think about different executive teams, and I sort of assign personality to them, what are the character traits of that particular team? There is not a single management team that are the same. Some are very slow moving and think things through, and then they go. Another one is very fast and push for action. So there’s different qualities to each one of those. I think the other easy way to think of it is we think of music, whether you think rock music, whether you think hip hop, whatever it is that you think. There are songs and music pieces that’s well known to everybody, but every different group, symphony orchestra or band that picks it up will give its own unique expression of it. So that’s what we’re talking about, that nothing is the same. So when you talk about that group or team in front of you, how are they different from anything else?

Katie Churchman (3:58):And then when we’re sort of working with this Third Entity, we work with it like it’s another person, would you say?

Marita Fridjhon (4:03):We work with the personality, with the system itself, because it has information as well. So we tend to. In so much of the work that we do as coaches, therapists, counselORSC, there’s something that is so individually focused. So the focus is on the individual team member performance, or the feedback is only to the individual team member. So there’s something about if we lift the gaze, literally shift holonically, and don’t look just only at the individuals, but see the web of connection. See, we use a string activity with team members so that they can actually see when they connected by string, that our focus, their client, is that web of connection. It’s that string that brings everybody together. So that’s the Third Entity, whatever you want to call it, it’s the system itself that has information that, from a systems theory perspective, one of the things we’re talking about, and I think we mentioned it last time, that in systems theory we’re talking about, that when systems can be revealed to itself, it has the propensity of self regulation. So the question then is, if we are looking at the relationship system itself, how can we get information from it?

Katie Churchman (5:28):Okay, so is it enough to just be aware of the Third Entity? Is that activating in its own right, that awareness?

Marita Fridjhon (5:36):I think we need to get a little bit braver and not just have that. I think creating that awareness within a personal relationship, within a team, creating that awareness that there is something bigger. That’s what collective intelligence brought us as well. The MIT Sloan research that talked about collectively intelligent teams, it doesn’t depend on their independent IQ. It depends on the abilities that they bring to collectively work together as one that creates the best team efficacy. So there’s some of the research around collective fatalities absolutely points this out, that each team has its diversity, and our task is to find out who that team is that is in front of us so that we can get information from it, right?

Katie Churchman (6:34):So once we’ve got this information, then we can start to use it to place people perhaps in different positions, or.

Marita Fridjhon (6:41):You know, people will come back with information like that. And maybe it’s useful to give an example of what that is. One of the ones that is really interesting is that. And it’s going around. The drawing is actually going around on the LinkedIn, when we were involved in a conversation about the emergence of COVID and the impact of COVID and there was a lot of people, obviously, there’s fear. People are scared, people are insecure. People don’t know what to expect. That means a lot of things, and telecommuting and everything that came with it. So right in the beginning of the pandemic, when we talked about it, that was a lot of what took the conversation. So in one of the calls that I was on, that kind of ventilation sharing of what’s happening is really important to have. And we cannot do what I’m going to suggest now until we’ve done enough of that. But what we then did is ask everybody to take a moment, and they’ve just taken. We’ve just taken our own side against Covid and what it brings us. It would be interesting if we begin to look at us in relationship with COVID and find out what that relationship between humanity and Covid is trying to say. So we set it up for people to really go into that seat. That is that relationship between, like I said, humanity and Covid. If it has something to say, what would it say? What does it know that we don’t know or can’t see? What does it want from humanity? So we guided people through that. And what is on LinkedIn going around, or had gone around at the time, was when one of our participants is somebody who created the graphics and drawings as people participate. So there’s a drawing of what came out from participants when they took on the voice of. Of COVID itself. And it was saying things like, I want you to slow down. I want you to pay attention. What’s now happening in nature? What is interesting, that most of what was then said from the COVID relationship perspective was not harsh. It had, it’s always, it seems like there’s a metaverse, a more neutral voice that comes from that Third Entity that I think is something of an oracle for us because it brings us information that we don’t normally think about. So that was interesting. But that’s an example of if you really have difficulty with the situation or with a team, and you can see how that team is unique and you can then begin to have every member us. If you could sit in our team chair, not my chair, your chair, a team chair. What is it asking us? What does it want for us? What does it want with this project that we’re busy working on at the moment? That’s a very different set of information. And you’re correct. Once the team has revealed itself in that way, the team members have different access in terms of what to do next.

Katie Churchman (10:04):Okay, so in terms of, say, I’m coaching a team and I’m trying to get them into this Third Entity space, is the Third Entity always neutral? Because if, say, someone starts speaking from the Third Entity and they’re perhaps quite negative about a subject, would that suggest that they’re not speaking from that position?

Marita Fridjhon (10:22):Yes. And no one thinks that’s really interesting. Courses are now delivered in, I don’t know, 28, 32, I can’t remember how many countries, and we’ve been at it for 20 years now. And what is interesting is, I don’t know that we have any evidence of a Third Entity that didn’t have that kind of neutrality that you’re talking about. So, yes, the no part and the caution part is that there has to be that period where people can take their own side.

Katie Churchman (10:57):Yes.

Marita Fridjhon (10:57):Whether it’s the CEO or whether it is the accounting person, or there has to be a place where everybody can speak their own thing and be heard of. Because until they’ve done that, they actually cannot sit in the system seat because if they’re still busy with their own personal, they’re still in emotional and social intelligence. What we do when we ask them to go into the team seat, we are asking them to access Relationship Systems Intelligence. So what we frequently see is people will go and sit in that chair, but when they speak, they still sound the way they did when they sat in their own chair. So you can actually, as a facilitator or somebody that holds awareness, you can see how that goes. I don’t know how many times, but the number of times that we have set up this activity and then created the caution, be careful when you go and sit in that chair. Actually, when you get up to walk there, you don’t know what you’re going to be saying because you’ll sit in a chair that gives you different information. And from a gestalt perspective, that’s valid. I can’t tell you how many times somebody would get up, walk towards the chair, sat down and then said, nope, that’s still me, and walk back to their own chair. So intuitively, it’s actually something that leaders find a relief because it shares, it lifts a burden from. They have to have the answer and it makes challenges less personal because there’s somewhere else that we can get information from.

Katie Churchman (12:44):I just noticed it. Is that your doggie snoring in the background?

Marita Fridjhon (12:47):I was going to say to you, I am going to turn mute on because I’m going to have to kick his ass out of here. So do you want to pause while I do that?

Katie Churchman (12:59):I think the listeners are going to love this. Just trying to think where we were. So we’re talking about Third Entity, team seat.

Marita Fridjhon (13:08):If somebody walks in the direction of the chair and sits down, they will recognize that they still are in their own land. And really from. If you think about the three intelligences, we say that emotional intelligence really is knowing what’s happening inside of me. Being able to express that, being able to navigate that social intelligence is being able to take the other person’s side, is to know the impact that I have on somebody else. So social intelligence and awareness. So social awareness, social intelligence is that when we go in the direction of, and those two things need to be expressed, we need to be able to sit in emotional social intelligence, being able to take my side, be able to hear your side still in the relationship between us, but we still speaking. Then RSI takes us to that place that is holding that there is also a third set of information that comes from the system itself.

Katie Churchman (14:11): How do we find that the third entity in its neutrality, truly embraces the idea that who knows what’s good or what’s bad?

Marita Fridjhon (14:16):I think so. I think so also, because from a systems perspective, what is bad that’s happening in the world, in my experience, whatever that is, is my personal experience is that it’s not good at the moment. It just is. How can that be good? But we need to remember that we live in our own personal now. It’s not the same as what somebody else experience. It’s not the same as the quantum emergence of systemic growth fall down, whatever it is. So there’s a much bigger arc that we just occupy now in this moment that we are here in this reality.

Katie Churchman (15:01):Oh, that’s a really good point. Because the Third Entity doesn’t just take you out of your own shoes, it takes you out of the time you’re in, because it’s timeless.

Marita Fridjhon (15:08):I think something like that. I think something like that. It’s less panicky.

Katie Churchman (15:12):Yeah, big picture thinking, for sure.

Marita Fridjhon (15:15):Yeah. I think the only other thing that I want to say when we think about that, unique identity is one of the challenges that we, as coaches, facilitatORSC, speakers, leaders, is that we often sit with a group, and we have the view that I just described that this is the unique group that I have in front of me. However, within each of those groups or each of those systems, there also are nested systems. So I am never ever just in front of one system. Yes, there is the bigger collective, but within that, there is a lot of diversity. And our challenge of this time, this place in the world, is how do we, and every interaction, we do recognize that there’s a larger whole that has information, but within that, there also are nested systems that has its own and their own unique Third Entity.

Katie Churchman (16:15):So are we working with multiple third entities?

Marita Fridjhon (16:19):Yes, that’s the piece that we don’t understand, okay? Because we always think that is only this one in front of me, even if it’s just one individual. But there are so much more complexity to that. And very often I think that when conflict emerges, it is because some of the nested systems feels marginalized. So it’s like any of the issues that’s happening in the world at the moment, from the politics, from the anti racist movement, that needs to be honored, to the. Even within that. Can you see how the moment we go into that conversation, not a single group of people will be of the same orientation? It’s not possible. So there’s always groups within. And the same thing is for me personally, because the first system is self. This may be my profile, my identity, my. If I do an assessment, I will show up in such and such a way, but within my own self. What creates that profile is a multitude of voices.

Katie Churchman (17:28):So in terms of human evolution, then, would you say it’s working with ever wider systems?

Marita Fridjhon (17:36):It is working with ever wider systems, but it is from that cultural intelligence perspective, as we move into different intelligences, or means, it needs to include and transcend. So, yes, we need to know that there is multiple systems, different third entities, but that within each one of those, there also are nested systems that, again, is existing change systems theory. The task that we have is how do we create space for each of those nested systems to be expressed? I think that’s one of the places where we do so much of our. The tool that we use as lands work, because literally, in lands work, we can honor the nested systems. That’s actually what we do. What does it look like in the land of black? What does it look like in the land of muslim? What does it look and feel like in the name it. Because that brings the complexity of nested systems into the same conversation, where people don’t feel like I have to defend mine. So, nested systems, individually unique threat entities, but always, always nested systems. I had the strangers experience one day. I was. It was just after Siri came out and things so big, and I was sitting playing with my iPad. I kid you not. I wish I tried to repeat it, I don’t know how many times, and I wish I had it recorded, but I didn’t see it coming. So I’m playing with Siri, asking all sorts of questions, and then I asked the question, how many series are there? Here’s what it came back with. There is one Siri, but within me, I contain multitudes.

Katie Churchman (19:29):Wow.

Marita Fridjhon (19:30):I kid you not.

Katie Churchman (19:31):Oh, my gosh.

Marita Fridjhon (19:33):And that is one of the best definitions of the complexity of nested systems. Wow.

Katie Churchman (19:41):That’s really profound. Siri is very profound.

Marita Fridjhon (19:44):He would have thought I was like, did you take our course, Siri? But that sums it up pretty much, is that there is one Third Entity, depending on what level you are looking at, whether it’s the cosmos or the US or the whatever, but within it there are multitudes.

Katie Churchman (20:07):So, one final question, Marita. What’s the largest Third Entity you’ve worked with, do you feel?

Marita Fridjhon (20:13):I think it is when in clients I work with, where there were mergers and acquisitions, because that’s where you get a university acquiring a hospital. Any of those kinds of mergers and acquisitions brings together this very thing we’re talking about. Because then you have the entity that is the university, with its sets of values, and you have the entity that is the hospital, with its sets of values and its different necessary. So those from thinking about the sessions where we had most people, I think the most that I’ve had was somewhere between three and 400. And then we have to work with multiple coaches. We have them seated at tables of ten or something like that. You have to have roving mics and a lot of. But what is the upside of that is we need to design it in such a way that they do all the work at their tables of ten, and that we can then, based on the information we get from there, we can navigate the rest of the pieces. And those are some of the places where we work with them as Nat systems and as third entities. But every one of those, we really took them to this place. That the question is, what does the merger itself want? Why did it choose you? Those kinds of questions. By the time that we’ve done a lot of prep work. They have information they don’t know they have, but they cannot speak it in the transaction. That has them thinking about others and themselves. But if they go to that unified voice, they get information that they didn’t realize. So yeah, that’s exciting stuff.

Katie Churchman (22:03):Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Marita. I look forward to diving into principle two with you next time.

Marita Fridjhon (22:08):Thank you, thank you, thank you. And Guido thanks you for tolerating his little bit of snoring. Thank you. Thank you. As always, fun to be with you.

Katie Churchman (22:19):Yeah, thank you too. Take care.

Marita Fridjhon (22:21):Welcome. Bye.

Katie Churchman (22:23):Thanks to Marita for deep diving into Principle One, the Third Entity. Here are my key takeaways from today’s episode. Relationship Systems Intelligence expands the concept of EQ, emotional intelligence, to include awareness not only of myself and others, but also of the Third Entity, the relationship itself, that lives between us. The relationship itself has a direction and movement we learn to move with rather than resist. When coach and client hold this perspective, we can begin to trust and listen for the agenda of the relationship system rather than just the opinions and positions of individuals within the system. We move from who is doing what to whom to what is trying to happen. For more articles, resources and to find out about our virtual courses, do check out crrglobal.com and do subscribe wherever you get your podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. From the boardroom to the living room, we believe relationship matters.