In this episode, Katie Churchman is in conversation with Marita Fridjhon, co-owner and CEO of CRR Global, about some of the systems that have inspired the work that she does, with CRR Global and beyond. The conversation covers:

• Growing up in South Africa during the Apartheid era
• Working as a clinical social worker at the University of Cape Town
• Her time in the Amazon during a cross-cultural research project investigating the impact of death and dying in families and communities
• Discovering coaching and the work of Arnie and Amy Mindell
• The power of looking back in order to step forward into Right Relationship with the many systems within which we all exist.

Marita Fridjhon is co-owner and CEO of CRR Global and mentor to an ever-growing community of practitioners in the field of Relationship Systems work. She designs curriculum and operates training programs in Relationship Systems Work for coaches, executives and teams. She came to this work from an extensive background in Clinical Social Work, Community Development, Process Work, Family Systems Therapy, Business Consulting and Alternative Dispute Resolution. She has an international mentor coaching practice of individuals, partnerships and teams. Her primary focus in coaching is on systemic change, leveraging diversity, creative communication, deep democracy in conflict management and the development of Learning Organizations.


For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

To kick-start a brand-new season of the Relationship Matters Podcast, Katie Churchman talks with Sandra Cain (Director of Curriculum and Senior Faculty at CRR Global) about some updates to the Organizational and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC) curriculum. We’re living our own work and as a consequence, our materials, tools and understanding of systems keeps emerging. This conversation covers a range of updates to the ORSC curriculum that have emerged over the last few years including:

• The addition of the 5 principles of RSI to the ORSC curriculum
• Updates to paper constellations set-up and the scenarios used across the modules
• Structural changes to the deep democracy tool from the intelligence module that aim to make it a more accessible and user-friendly tool.
• Integrating Meet Reveal Align and Act into the systems integration model as a way to create a coaching plan and act as a map for where you are in the coaching process.

Sandra Cain coaches individuals, pairs and teams around the world. Her background includes 15 years of experience at American Express with a variety of leadership and personal development roles. In addition to leading the CRR Global Core Curriculum, she is also Associate Director of the Certification Program and on faculty for The Coaches Training Institute. Her stand for this work is that since we’re already in relationships, we might as well be conscious and intentional about who we are, what we do and how we live.

For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

In this collection of bonus episodes, we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork, which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with self. Across the course of these 5 bonus episodes, you will be hearing from Worldworkers from across the globe, who have all used ORSC tools in very different ways tools to serve their wider communities. 

In this podcast, Katie talks with Yan Zhang about her Worldwork project: Teach for China and Team Cohesion. Teach for China is a non-profit organisation that recruits outstanding Chinese and American college graduates and trains them to serve as full-time teachers in under-resourced Chinese schools. Across the episode, Yan talks about her learnings and insights after working with the operations team at Teach for China, who were looking to build more connection, role clarity and team cohesion.

Yan Zhang is a leadership coach and team coach with over 15 years of experience as a senior executive at Fortune 500 and startup companies in China, across financial services, data & information, education, media, e-commerce, and investment banking. Her coaching philosophy is to inspire and empower people and organization with love, she leverages the professional skills of executive coaching, and team coaching to support company executives and entrepreneurs to unleash the power of leadership, and ignite teams to build greater trust, manifest collaborative power, and evoke transformation. 

The Worldwork Project is a key element in the ORSC certification journey. It allows students to apply the ORSC™ materials in the real world and develop themselves as change agents. At CRR Global we hold all our students as change agents and train them to be conscious of what impact they want to make in their world. We believe that everybody’s impact –whether conscious or unconscious— sends ripples out into the world. It’s up to all of us, as world workers, to keep our communities safe and healthy. For more information about World Work and the ORSC Certification programme click here.

 We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

In this collection of bonus episodes, we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork, which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with self. Across the course of these 5 bonus episodes, you will be hearing from Worldworkers from across the globe, who have all used ORSC tools in very different ways tools to serve their wider communities. 

In this podcast, Katie talks to Brandon Raines about his Worldwork Project: assisting Girl Scouts to continue their journey to become future leaders. Brandon's coaching plan focused on providing the girls with tools and competencies geared towards finding alignment. Throughout the discussion, Brandon discusses his key learnings, including overcoming his fear to allow the system to be creative, intelligent and resilient and trusting the system. 

Brandon Raines is an Organization Design and Enterprise Coach who has worked with public and private entities, both large and small.  He has helped organizations and individuals emerge from near failure to thriving models of success.  Brandon is a noted author, speaker and presenter on topics of leadership, organization design and teamwork.  Brandon is a Certified Enterprise Coach with the Scrum Alliance.  He is also trained and certified in Organization Relationship Systems Coaching and certified by the Disney Institute in Customer Relationships. Brandon has a deep background in Information Technology organizations as a Software Developer.  Brandon has also served as Chief Operating Officer for a mid-size company where he instituted many organizational and leadership practices.  

The Worldwork Project is a key element in the ORSC certification journey. It allows students to apply the ORSC™ materials in the real world and develop themselves as change agents. At CRR Global we hold all our students as change agents and train them to be conscious of what impact they want to make in their world. We believe that everybody’s impact –whether conscious or unconscious— sends ripples out into the world. It’s up to all of us, as world workers, to keep our communities safe and healthy. For more information about World Work and the ORSC Certification programme click here.

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

In this collection of bonus episodes, we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork, which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with self. Across the course of these 5 bonus episodes, you will be hearing from Worldworkers from across the globe, who have all used ORSC tools in very different ways tools to serve their wider communities.

In this episode, Katie talks with Stephen Light and Jeffrey Wotherspoon about their Worldwork project: why inclusion is key to leveraging and honouring diversity. Across the conversation, Stephen and Jeffrey use their own relationship as a model for exploring what inclusion really means and how diversity is wasted when inclusion is not present. The intention of their work is to help people in organisations feel safe to speak up and shift outdated limiting ways of working that prevent the organisational culture from truly thriving. Ultimately, they want to ensure that everyone who is at the party is invited to dance…

Stephen Light is a Master Coach and certified ORSC coach with over 21 years of experience. Stephen works in major corporates at all levels, from CEOs and their Boards through to new leadership. He facilitates leadership programmes growing leadership capability to drive a high-performance culture. Stephen is highly skilled in creating engagement and facilitating learning in person and in the virtual space. Stephen coaches executives and teams, moving them to being more effective at creating engagement and achieving results. His driving philosophy is, “If you want something you have never had, you need look in places that you never look in and you have to do something you have never done. 

Jeffrey Wotherspoon is an Executive and Leadership Coach accredited with both the Internal Coaching Federation at Professional Certified Coach (PPC) level and with the Association for Coaching at a Professional Executive Coach level. He is also an International Trainer/ facilitator  and Conflict Resolution Specialist with a Psychology BSc (Hons). Jeffrey works with a full range of professional roles from C-Suite executives to those early on in their careers and across the private, public and voluntary sectors. In addition, Jeffrey also coaches those who would not ordinarily have access to coaching, including young men in prison and underrepresented young women. He is active in a range of pro bono roles, sitting on the Advisory Board for ‘Culture at Work’- a leading global Coaching company that offers Coach Training to Senior Executives worldwide; and as a Trustee for two charities Peer Power’ and Jubilee ‘Primary School’.

The Worldwork Project is a key element in the ORSC certification journey. It allows students to apply the ORSC™ materials in the real world and develop themselves as change agents. At CRR Global we hold all our students as change agents and train them to be conscious of what impact they want to make in their world. We believe that everybody’s impact –whether conscious or unconscious— sends ripples out into the world. It’s up to all of us, as world workers, to keep our communities safe and healthy. For more information about World Work and the ORSC Certification programme click here.

 We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

In this collection of bonus episodes, we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork, which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with self. Across the course of these 5 bonus episodes, you will be hearing from Worldworkers from across the globe, who have all used ORSC tools in very different ways tools to serve their wider communities. 

In this episode, Katie talks with Jie Zhou about her Worldwork project: championing emotions in Chinese corporations. Jie’s project was inspired by her experiences living and working in China. From a young age, Jie was encouraged to keep positive AND negative emotions to herself, especially in the workplace. Her world work project aimed at encouraging her, her colleagues and her clients to speak out more about various emotions and expectations in order to create deeper mutual understanding and better relationships.

Jie Zhou is a leadership trainer and team coach and CRR Global faculty. After working for 20+ years in government, start-up and multinational corporations, she realized the value of unleashing individual and team leadership potential. Encouraged by her hands-on coaching and training experiences for her team, she made career change from Strategy, Market & Technology Head to a freelance coach and trainer. She has a bachelor degree of finance from Fudan University and an MBA from Darden Business School at University of Virginia, USA.

The Worldwork Project is a key element in the ORSC certification journey. It allows students to apply the ORSC™ materials in the real world and develop themselves as change agents. At CRR Global we hold all our students as change agents and train them to be conscious of what impact they want to make in their world. We believe that everybody’s impact –whether conscious or unconscious— sends ripples out into the world. It’s up to all of us, as world workers, to keep our communities safe and healthy. For more information about World Work and the ORSC Certification programme click here.

 We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

In this collection of bonus episodes, we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork, which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with self. Across the course of these 5 bonus episodes, you will be hearing from Worldworkers from across the globe, who have all used ORSC tools in very different ways tools to serve their wider communities.  

In this episode, Katie talks with Mélanie Rouppe van der Voort about her Worldwork project: improving the social and economic Position of Immigrant Women in the Netherlands. As both the ORSC Certification Program and the Covid-19 pandemic coincided for Melanie, she had to be creative in finding clients and doing her WWP. Due to the huge societal impact of the pandemic, she felt drawn to the work of a Dutch foundation, whose name when translated literally means Women’s Power. Melanie has huge respect for the work that the women do at the foundation because they give their community members – predominantly immigrant women with non-western backgrounds – a voice and a platform to build a life in the Netherlands. The founders and most important change agents have shown that they are able to turn hopelessness, fear and frustration into courage and engagement.

Melanie Rouppe van der Voort is a certified coach and in addition to her private coaching practice, has been working in the financial industry for over 25 years. With her legal and change management background, she is currently working for the Expert Centre of Governance, Behaviour and Culture at the Dutch Central Bank. She has been married to her husband Willem for over 22 years and together they have a 17-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter.


The Worldwork Project is a key element in the ORSC certification journey. It allows students to apply the ORSC™ materials in the real world and develop themselves as change agents. At CRR Global we hold all our students as change agents and train them to be conscious of what impact they want to make in their world. We believe that everybody’s impact –whether conscious or unconscious— sends ripples out into the world. It’s up to all of us, as world workers, to keep our communities safe and healthy. For more information about World Work and the ORSC Certification programme click here.

 We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Conversations on Cancer is a 6-part mini-series on the Relationship Matters podcast focusing on finding Right Relationship with life-threatening illness. Across the 6 episodes, Faith Fuller and Katie Churchman talk with survivors & caregivers from around the world about their relationship with life-threatening illness. In this episode, Katie talks with Marita Fridjhon and Daphne Taylor about what it means to be in right relationship when one is a caregiver.

Daphne Taylor is ORSC faculty and was Front of Room and certification faculty over a period of 13 years, and is now part of the team producing CRR Global’s new Systemic Supervision program. Her husband, Paul,  was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2015 and given 12-18 months to live. They had been married for 34 years and had a strong, loving relationship and were just emerging from the years of child-rearing to planning exciting adventures ahead. Paul lived for 18 months and died in a hospice, just after his 60th birthday in 2017.

Marita Fridjhon is co-owner and CEO of CRR Global and mentor to an ever-growing community of practitioners in the field of Relationship Systems work. Her business and life partner Faith Fuller was diagnosed with stage 4 Uterine Cancer in September 2021. She is currently in remission.

Conversations on Cancer is a 6-part mini-series on the Relationship Matters podcast focusing on finding Right Relationship with life-threatening illness. Across the 6 episodes, Faith Fuller and Katie Churchman talk with survivors & caregivers from around the world about their relationship with life-threatening illness. In this episode, Faith and Katie talk with Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt about finding Right Relationship with uncertainty.

Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt is a certified Leadership and Organizational Coach and Consultant, who has worked for more than 25 years on some of the world’s most intractable conflicts with the United Nations, governments, and global think tanks, traveling to over eighty countries and living in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. She was diagnosed in March 2021 at age 52 with inoperable Stage 4 Cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and incurable bile duct cancer with poor prognosis.  She is being treated at  Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City where she has so far undergone 40 infusions of platinum-based chemotherapy.

Conversations on Cancer is a 6-part mini-series on the Relationship Matters podcast focusing on finding Right Relationship with life-threatening illness. Across the 6 episodes, Faith Fuller and Katie Churchman talk with survivors & caregivers from around the world about their relationship with life-threatening illness. In this epsiode, Faith and Katie are talking with Mish Middleman about right relationship with prostate cancer and male identity.

Mish Middelmann was the founding CEO of Praxis Computing, a hi-tech start-up in the 1990s, and then became a systems coach, brought ORSC to Africa in 2012 and is now a part of the CRR Global faculty, both leading ORSC courses and supervising certification students worldwide.  Mish was an apparently very fit and healthy 61-year-old when he was lucky enough to be diagnosed with prostate cancer just before it spread beyond his prostate gland. After being bewildered by the complete absence of a roadmap for recovery from the side effects of his treatment, he created www.recoveringman.net, where he, his partner and many other prostate cancer survivors share their stories very frankly and intimately, as they unfold. This has also led to a global Recovering Men support group – a space of live conversation, vulnerable strength and openness.