This is The Coaching Inn, a podcast from 3D Coaching. So it's Su Blanch here. I am really excited to be doing a podcast today with Claire Pedrick. So I work for 3D Coaching. I do coaching. I do training coaching. And Claire Pedrick, tell us a bit about you. I also work for 3D Coaching doing all of the above. So it's very nice to be a guest on our podcast, I have to say. Good. Good, good, good. Our conversation today is going to be one about Claire, what took you so long to write this book?
OK, so that's going to be the principle that we're going to be thinking about, but perhaps not in that sort of judgmental tone, I think. you. Thank you. Yeah, so. I always thought I had a book in me and I was never going to write it because every time I thought about it, I learned something else and I didn't really want to write a book that had a full stop at the end. So about three years ago, was it four years ago?
I felt deeply compromised when we produced a set of postcards on the principles that we think are coaching. And then immediately wanted to change a principle. Had to print extra ones because we changed our minds because we'd simplified what we were learning.
And in fact, even the set that's out now needs to be changed because there's one that's really doesn't work now because again, the evolution of learning means that we've learned something new that we didn't know when we printed those postcards. So there was always a reluctance in me to actually put pen to paper on the basis that new learning emerges and, you know, Sue, that for us it's about less. So also the book was getting shorter all the time, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, it sounds like a real evolution of thinking about when would be the right time. So why is now the right time? because somebody asked me to write it in a sentence. Yeah. And they said, we'd like you to write a book and, you know, it's open university press. So I could have gone, I'm going to be very precious. I don't think I should write one or I could go, yeah, okay then let's give it a go. So that's what I said.
And the proposal was a bit on the back of an envelope because I knew that by the time I finished writing it, I'd have learned something I didn't know at the beginning. And the really annoying thing, as you well know, was that the big insight came two weeks before the submission date when I had to go back through the whole jolly thing and change it. And that was when that whole concept of making the conversation the right size and right sizing became such a more useful word.
than the word that we'd always used for co-creating the conversation that was contracting, which had always felt a bit litigious. So at least I learnt that two weeks before I submitted the script and not two weeks after it was published. But you know, the real irony is that I've learnt so much. So it was submitted in April and I've learnt so much in the last few months, of course. if I was to write it again, there'd be a whole lot of stuff that was different.
Because of course, as soon as you start talking about what you've written, you think, actually, if you just simplified that, it would be even more effective and even easier to deliver. So so it was all about not wanting to put the final full stop on the last page. And does it feel like you've put the final full stop on the last page? Of course I haven't. And I have to tell you the funniest thing. So, so we haven't named the book. So the book is called Simplifying Coaching.
And I actually wanted, so the fantasy book that I wasn't writing was called Simply Coaching. And that was my dream title of this book I was never going to write. And when I did the proposal and said, is what the title, the editor said, Laura, who's amazing, she's lovely. And she went, I'm not sure that's the best title. I think we should call it simplifying coaching. And, you know, we talk about simply systems, simply, you know, we like the word simply. So I went, right then.
And I thought what I actually thought was, I'll fight the battle on the title later. But as I began to write it, I began to recognise that actually her title was massively better than mine. But can I tell you the funniest thing? So it came out in December, they sold out really quickly and they had to reprint. And last weekend, the reprint is now out. So it is now back available in independent book shops as well as on Amazon.
But last week, I went for a socially distanced walk with a friend who'd read it. And she said, I've nearly finished the book. I'm still trying to find I'm still waiting to find out why you spelt simplifying wrong. And I'm going. But we didn't spell simplifying wrong, you know, and then I'm going, no, what have I done?
So. We're out in the ice and snow on the common, I've got my phone out with Amazon and I'm going, look, look, it says simplifying that spell correctly now, look at Wikipedia, you know, the Internet says simplifying is felt like that. On the spine, it's spelt simply, buying. So it is spelt wrong. And I absolutely love that. And I, I was a bit huffy. thought, no. And well, actually, I don't know it was huffy or just no, no. And now they've printed more and it's still got the mistake on the spine.
And that would have been the moment to change the spine and everything. But then, then I thought, actually, the whole book is about not being perfect. And the whole book is about the least that we need to do in service of somebody else thinking and actually, I have told them it's spelt wrong, but I am on the cusp of sending them an email and going, please don't change it. Because I kind of like that it's not perfect.
Yeah, so it strikes me because you've told me that before when it it happened and I went away and thought about that too, Claire, and wondered how it felt for me as well. And It really struck me that there was something so deeply. deeply right about that, that this is counter-cultural, right? So there are so many books that would need to have absolutely everything completely right. And that's about authority, isn't it? That I get this right, I'm the expert, it's all going to be perfect.
And I love the fact that there's space in this, both for things not to be quite right, but also for us to recognise in that. that there is a learning process, that nothing actually has the full stop at the end of the final page. I did come back and hold the spine and go, does it look nice? Does it look, is it a beautiful word, this misspelt word, or is it actually really jaw clenching? it's beautiful word. Yes. And I like what it looks like, so that's great.
But actually what you've done there is you picked up on the other reason that I didn't write it before, is that there is nothing else out there, I think, that says you don't need to know very much to be able to do this very well. And actually, even if you know a lot, you need to reduce. Yes. And I did have a big anxiety about launching it into the world of complexity. because I was concerned about. Yeah, criticism, actually.
But actually, I think we have to stand up and say, coaching is not about the coach. It's about the impact it has on the other person. And unless we really focus on that, what are we doing? Yes. And it isn't great coaching is not about watching great coaches coach and use amazing questions. It's about the impact it has on the other person. I was doing some training yesterday in in the health service. And these two, they've only been, we've only done three sessions.
We've done three two hour sessions. They're very new to this. And I asked them to stop talking to each other and look at something together. But of course, because we're all working virtually at the moment, the coach couldn't look at it anyway. So only the thinker could look at it. And she drew this picture and she said something to the coach about how shocked she was about her picture. And the coach said, what's before the picture? And she went, and transformation happened in that moment.
But the thing about that question is you can't ask that question to anybody else ever again. And that's why it's such a lovely question, because it was absolutely in the moment. And I could see the delegates wanting to write this down. I messed, put that in my stash. And I said to them, she, she asked that in the moment, totally off the back of what she saw. And that's why it's so simple. So I was concerned that it was dissonant with what's out there. Yes, yes.
And I think that there is a great degree of dissonance in terms of timing, much more so now than two years, five years or whenever else you might have written this book. So there's something about this book which feels like it's really swimming against the tide and that that's a very, very wonderful thing.
And it's making me wonder too about who it is that this is written for because I'm noticing that lots of people I'm seeing and in connection with are getting more technical, more complex in their coaching. and I wonder who you're speaking to with this book. Well, I kind of fantasized that I was speaking to anybody. And then in the editorial process, we agreed that I was speaking to experienced, to learning and experienced coaches and coaching supervisors.
But I still had a secret hope that it would be useful for anybody. So the feedback that I'm getting from coaches with eight, nine, 10,000 hours experience, is different, but also wonderful feedback. then on Tuesday, I had this interview with a sales podcast called the Salesman, can't remember what it's called, Salesman something. It'll be on social media in the next couple of weeks.
But he contacted me and he said, we have a conversation about having more sales conversations by doing less, more transformational sales conversations by doing less? And he'd read it. We had the most extraordinary conversation for more than half an hour where we never used the word coaching at all. But we were absolutely talking about sales is about a conversation between two people. And unless it's enough in partnership, it doesn't work.
Yes. And we only just scratched the surface of the usefulness. And I think the fact that I so don't like jargon. that it is written in plain and simple English means, you know, he's absolutely hooked on the idea that this is a way forward to be having different kinds of conversations. And actually the world needs right now more than ever before future focused, optimistic conversations about what can I control and what can I move forward? you know, we all keep going backwards.
They shouldn't have done that if they'd only done that. Yeah, I'm just as guilty as everybody else in doing that. But actually that's, can't, you can't change the past. But I can say in a conversation with my husband, you know, given that we're locked in, in a place we don't know with nobody we know around, like really locally, you know, how do we live our lives here? And that's coaching question. you know, we've had some life giving answers to that.
You know, we've also fallen over a bit, but that's okay too, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. It's okay too. And, and so there's something in this, which is really about all of us and the conversations that we can have, which don't need to be clever or technical or... the most beautifully written question, the most beautifully thought question, but a human soul touching another human soul.
Totally. So yesterday I'm getting to the end of our, a transforming conversations course where we're training people to use coaching and many of them are going to use it in organisations and many of them are going to use it as independent coaches. And yesterday I did a coaching demonstration. So They heard a demonstration at the beginning and now they heard another one.
And we've been talking about great questions and we've been talking about all those things, great middles, great beginnings, which is what's in the book. And I did the demonstration yesterday and two or three of them said, we really want to be focusing on what your questions are. Cause they still, even after they've trained with me, they still seem to think they need to be articulate, grammatically correct, beautifully formed, well-prepared things.
And they kind of go, So I did the live coaching conversation with somebody in the room. And I didn't say very much and I used words and nothing made sense because it was only simply responding to what she said and nothing was complete. Yes. And it was really funny because I learned something yesterday, of course. So one of the things in the book is about taking off the plane, flying the plane and landing the plane. And actually, one of the questions was, why did I end it like four times?
Because I said, have we finished? And she said, yes. And I didn't stop. And in the feedback, they said, why didn't you stop? And I said, because her tone told me she hadn't landed. She was still in sort of wandering tone. Yeah. And actually, I wanted a good yes. Not that we'd finished every single thing on her list, but that she'd got to a place where she was ready to stop. And I realized then that actually, if a plane lands, when a plane... They don't fly much these days, do they?
But when a plane lands, as it hits, the sound changes from when you're mid flight, when you start descending the sound, the tone, the sound changes, and then it changes again when you land, and then it changes again when you stop. And actually, there's another bit of learning. Yes, what a wonderful bit of learning. And so that's going to be in the next iteration, I suspect, of this. This book. Well, yeah, because because there is always more to learn and there's always more to simplify.
And of course, they go, yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Though I've been good for a while on the fact that it takes half an hour to land a plane. So we should take, you know, it takes half an hour to land a conversation, even if the conversation is half an hour long. But no, that's new. And I kind of have to go for a walk on that one.
Yeah. And how wonderful that the thing that we're learning out of that is something that we already know because we already know about the sounds of, you know, we already know those things. We know about the sound that someone's voice makes when they're thinking and when they've landed. But now it's become something more that we can really look out for. Yeah. Totally. It's amazing. It's wonderful. So you can kind of see why I didn't want to full stop.
So you can't really send everybody out a post-it note and say, could you just stick this in your book? This is the extra little PS. Yes. Yeah. But I guess the great thing is that all of the PS is and all of the post-it notes also appear, don't they, in 3D juggling, you know, in the blog. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's that's that. But it's there and current. people aren't missing out, I guess. They just need to keep connected for all of those those nuggets of new learning.
I'll be looking on Pixabay for an image of a plane engine. Right. Good luck with that. So Claire, anything else that feels really important to be saying about this book and now? Well, I think what's been really amazing is the number of messages I've had on LinkedIn from people who've said, I was beginning to wonder whether it had to be as complicated as I feel I'm being told. Yep. And I felt I was on my own thinking that.
I'm absolutely not saying that none of the other stuff has any value because it does. But actually what I am saying is you've got to start with the amazingness of the person in the room or on the phone call or in Zoom before you think about the amazingness of any of your stuff, which may or may not be useful. And you may have to not use any of it and you may use some of it and that's okay. But I think if we get it the other way around, it's just so...
It's like going into a conversation with a person who is surrounded by boxes full of books. Now, we're moving and all the time and behind me are boxes and boxes of books. And one of them fell the other day and it broke the, well, it didn't break the radiator. I hope the landlord isn't listening, but it switched off the radiator because it just had a huge impact. But I've spent quite a lot of time in the last few months, sometimes in rooms with boxes right up to the ceiling.
And it feels much more free space here and now you and me just in this space with us. And if I brought all my boxes from over there and put them on the table or put them next to me, we would both feel a bit overwhelmed. Yes, they're there. Yeah. If you say something and I, and I think, I need something in that box that will serve you, then I'll go and get it. But actually. Yeah. We have to believe and we have to.
We have to believe in the capacity of the person that we're working with to do good work. And when we demonstrate, for example, if I can be really controversial by doing lots of preparation of what we think we need to do today, then what I'm doing is I'm not demonstrating that I believe that you've got any capacity to have moved forward since we last spoke. Yeah. And you have. Yes. And it might be we need to do something, but actually you probably have a better idea than I do.
But if I look as though I've got a good idea. and you think I've got more power in this process than you have, which most people believe, then you'll defer to me if I give it away in any which way, which might be, well, I've got some stuff we could do if you'd like to. Yes, please. Or even a slight leaning in, as though I'm about to speak or about to do something. Then you'll stop thinking and you'll look to me to see what I was about to say.
Yes. So, so this delicate dance of keeping the space open between us, keeping this, this thinking. I've just had a new thought. Sorry. It's like, isn't it? It's like a circus where the action takes place in the ring. And you really need to be sitting on the edge of the ring saying we could do anything in this ring. And it might be that they say, actually, I want to talk about being a clown today.
And it might be that they say, don't know what I want to do today, but the skill in coaching is to keep that ring as a clean place for us to do our good work. And the ring that you're drawing is in the space between you and me. And the moment that I or you step in as the expert coach, then we can't see the other stuff. becomes very, yeah, becomes less clear. But if I bring juggling balls in and the whole of the kit of a juggler in to the ring, then my response is that's what I'd love to do.
I'd love to do juggling. Yeah. But actually you might have wanted to do, I was thinking about like Call the Midwife at Christmas where she did the trapeze. Okay. Not a fan. Didn't watch it. Spoiler alert if you haven't watched it. They did the trapeze because she had said in lots of different ways that that's what she really, really wanted to do. And it was absolutely made her come alive. It was amazing. So keeping that space between us really matters.
Yeah. And it's, it's perhaps our anxiety or fear or performance concerns, performance anxiety as a coach that means that we want to bring in the juggling balls and the trapeze and that funny one-wheeled bicycle thing. That's our need, isn't it, to make us feel better? Well, it might be... I spent a lot of time learning that, so I'd really like to use it. Yeah. It might be, I really like this. Yes, it worked for me. And I think it's also... Sometimes we feel a bit naked.
Yeah, and we go in with nothing. Yeah But actually, on one level, we're asking them to be naked. So let's be naked together. I realise this is going in a strange direction, I also realise that's something else to think about. It's not going there anymore, but it's true though, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely right. So change naked for vulnerable. Yeah, there we go. That's better. That's that a better word? I think so. my goodness. OK. my goodness.
So there's been some, even in these these last few minutes of us chatting, there's been some new learning. I think that's just really encouraging for people that they don't need to know. So I hope very much that the people listening to this podcast are encouraged by the learning keeps happening. It's what we're here for actually, isn't it? Co-create where the space is. Co-create where the ring is, the circus ring.
I realised that after this call, you're going to say you've just brought in another metaphor, Claire. Anyway, absolutely. And then we're going to have an angst about it, but that's okay for the moment. Let's just hold onto it. But it's all, it's about, it's about, we're going to co-create this space. We need to work out together where that space is going to be planted in relation to you and your questions and your situation and where you are now.
But then once we've done that, we just have to do what we do. Yep. And that isn't very much because when I'm drawing on stuff I know from outside, I'm not paying attention to enough of what's happening inside the space between the two of us. Because a little bit of me, so you and I are having this conversation now, I can see my brother outside on his bike talking to my husband. And now I'm really distracted by it because I said it to you. But up to now, I've just been noticing it.
Yes. But actually, that's a metaphor too, isn't it? That that thing that's on the other and the brighter and the more focused that is. If he came now and put his nose to the window, then I would turn around and be really paying attention to him and not paying attention to you. Yes. And that's what happens with stuff. It puts its nose against our window. and we have a jolly good look. It's very alluring though, isn't it? it is, especially if it's shiny and it's got all nice bits on it.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's our favourite colour. Yeah. It's easier as well to notice those things. OK, so what do people need to know about getting hold of this book? So it's available globally through McGraw Hill suppliers. So whoever McGraw Hill supply in your continent, that's where you can get it. Amazon have got it everywhere, I think now. And you can also get it in independent bookshops. I'll put a couple of links in the notes for the podcast. Great. you want to click through.
And we probably should say what it's called. That's how it's spelt. So it's called Simplifying Coaching, How to Have More Transformational Conversations by Doing Less by Claire Pedrick. And on the spine, it's called Simply Fying Coaching, published by Open University Press McGraw-Hill. Great. Good. Good, good, good. Well, it's a good encouraging read, I think, because it inspires and it also helps us go, okay, this doesn't need to be so complex. So I think it's great.
Good. So does my friend's 11 year olds. Who are having it as a bedtime story, which I rather like. It's for anyone. Yeah, it is. I agree. It is for anyone, anyone, anyone that needs to have good conversations, which surely is all of us. So, okay. Claire. Thank you very much for our chat this morning about simplifying coaching and why it's now and what meant that now was the right time. And I hope that people can enjoy having a good read of it and a good learn. It's also available on Kindle.
OK, thank you. And yeah, thank you. Thank you, Sue. OK. Bye! Goodbye.