“My name is Mélanie Rouppe van der Voort. I currently work in the Dutch financial sector. I started 25 years ago in the banking industry as a company lawyer and later on I worked in the business. I switched to the consultancy and then I actually changed roles as well, so I started to focus on change management, so leadership and change. With this working experience I went to my current employer.
I am a supervisor on governance behavior and culture and I look at the board effectiveness of financial institutions and their ability to change. Change effectiveness, risk culture and integrity climate. Interesting stuff. That’s my working background at the moment.
And I am married, I have two kids, two teenagers. You can maybe see them in the back when they were still young and adorable. Now they’re two nice people in puberty. Well, today you are actually speaking with me in my role as coach. I am a certified coach and I have a small coaching practice and I combine that with my permanent job.”
“First of all, the reason that I did this program is that I am really fascinated in how you build relationships and how they change over time and also how they end sometimes. We don’t actually learn that when we’re young. To consciously design that was very helpful to me. What I notice is that I became much better in naming what is going on in the relationship. Actually reading the emotional field as they’re called in the ORSC world. It enriches your relationships.
I think actually when I look at the pandemic, it absolutely changed relationships. For me it was like a cooker pressure. We were all at home and for instance I thought that my husband was also becoming my colleague and of course that’s not true. Because you can’t expect from one person to do all the roles. So my husband is my husband and my colleagues are my colleagues. And at the same time I think also because of this time frame, you start to develop compassion for each other, but also for yourself. You also get to know yourself a lot better. In that way it is really enriching for myself, but also for the outer world I function in.”
“The biggest impact for me was that it was a combination of theory and practice. I had individual supervision, group supervision, team supervision [Mélanie also completed the ORSCC certification program]. The whole program helps you to become well trained. I think I also became a better listener and observer. What you actually learn is to be at the dance floor and then go to the balcony and back and forth, and back and forth. You become sometimes like a fly on the wall and you’re looking down at relationships and start to notice what’s happening there and also what is needed in the relationship. And also the wisdom that’s needed. I think that’s the biggest impact for me, that I developed a new view of what’s happening in relationships.”
“For me it was actually the world work project I did in the ORSCC certification program. That’s a component and the world work project is the real life project, so you get to practice the ORSC skills. You literally put the ORSC methodology into the world and become a change agent for it as well.
It was very fulfilling for me to do it, because I coached a foundation and they support immigrants women, who come to the Netherlands and try to build a life. The foundation actually supports them economically, but also socially. And I coached a group of change agents and it was very interesting because it was a very diverse group a lot of different nationalities and some of the women really had difficulty to speak their voice, to speak what they thought, because of those cultural differences.
What I tried to do, is build some tolerance for differences as they call it. And that made it a bit more complex, some of these women came from warzones. They had experienced all kind of traumatic events. Sometimes very difficult marriages and also strict upbringing. So people can become triggered. In the ORSC we also had beautiful tools that would help these women. It asked something extra because you are very close to them in person and you really need to keep your own balance in order to really help those people as well.”
“Yes, I would! It’s a scientifically based training, which really appeals to me. It is a really thorough training. You get a lot of supervision [in certification] , a lot of practice and you do it with a small cohort. That’s also a safe space to practice and it really helps to stay committed. For almost a year, including certification, you really commit to a training program and then it is really helpful to have some people around that go through the same process as you do. It’s wonderful.
I was in a cohort with a lot of Americans and then we had a few European members. We formed a European cohort after the certification program. We meet every two weeks and we help each other to prepare for our upcoming coaching sessions and we share knowledge. This summer we actually met each other, it was as if we had known each other for many years. It’s a precious friendship!”
“Clients can expect that they ask a well trained coach, with the experience, with coaching hours. Of course when you really carry this trademark they expect you to do continuous learning as well. And for me it is also an acknowledgement, because I have invested a lot of time, effort and training hours. It is also an acknowledgement for me as well.”
“The first value for me is that you speak the same language. It becomes much easier to cooperate and to work together. You can inspire each other with all kinds of tools and knowledge, so that’s really nice. Then of course I am combining my coaching practice with my permanent work, so I probably I could do much more with it. At the moment I try to keep a good balance. For me word of mouth is the most important at the moment. It’s nice to be in touch and to ask questions when you really need them.
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