Whenever my team and I talked about our aspiration for System Work in the past, we crossed our fingers so that we could bring this type of work to more and more people. We didn’t know exactly what the scope would be (e.g. local? Regional? Global?) and we tried not to be presumptuous. It’d be good enough if our friends, peers, colleagues, and families in Indonesia could embrace this type of work.
As luck would have it, this year we got the chance to bring System Work to 3 other countries: Singapore, Philippines, and India.
Never in our wildest dreams, we thought it could happen in a single year! We were pleasantly surprised and tremendously grateful for this milestone.
There were many things that happened when we ran System Work in each of those countries, but this writing specifically aims to cover our experience in India based on the fact that there are more attendees and cultural diversity — all of which influenced the dynamics and increased the overall learnings in our session.
Return On Time Invested
We ran the course from August 23 to 25. There were 15 participants, wherein 14 were males. On the last day, we asked the participants to rate the course using Return On Time Invested (ROTI) method.
Result:
- 6 people thought the course was excellent (i.e. 5)
- 8 said it was above average (4)
- 1 mentioned it was just average (3)
In addition, one of the participants with highest seniority level gave us this feedback:
"The System Work course is the first learning session I attended in my 20+ years of being a professional that truly lives up to the standards of "experiential” learning."
Usefulness for professional lives
14 participants said they found the course to be useful for them as a professional. Specifically, 8 people mentioned that the emotion and archetype concepts were eye-opening and gave them a different perspective in the workplace.
Usefulness for personal lives
All participants found the course to be useful for them personally. The general consensus among them was that while the course put the emphasis on distinction-building — and not prescribing pragmatic solutions (how-to) — that in itself was valuable.
We'd like to highlight one feedback wherein the participants mentioned the course not only benefitted him as a person, but he believed it'd also bring value in the family context.
"I feel this makes me more sensible to understand different situations and feelings. This represents the beginning of a journey to find more answers for myself. And, I believe this would also be useful in the family context, especially in raising my kids and maintaining relationships with my loved ones."
My own learning and reflection
Running the System Work course in Bangalore, India was another learning experience for me due to cultural boundaries.
For example, at the end of day one, despite my best attempts to acknowledge and respect their cultural boundaries, one participant came up to me and pointed out there were some amount of cultural insensitivities in the examples I had given. While this was resolved immediately, it was still a learning point for me: I learned to appreciate the uniqueness of every system and how it was important to build strong competencies to “see” and navigate in human systems.
Moreover, I tried to be more intentional in my body language, intonation, and the overall energy I brought to the system; all of which were crucial to creating a safe space for the participants; one where they could be seen for who they were.
It was my gift to them and I'm glad they could benefit from it.
"I found the facilitators to be very respectful of our culture and handled sensitive topics delicately. Extremely empathetic 👍"
Overall, the experience was great and memorable. And, this wouldn’t have been possible without the support we received from the people who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure this trip happened. I sincerely appreciate and thank all of them for everything they did.
Thank you for reading.
Mul
PS: We’re planning to run System Work for public in November 2024. Registration is now open. If you’re interested or know someone who might be interested, please sign up here or scan the QR code below.
