You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hello and welcome. It's Claire here. Welcome to this week's episode of The Coaching In. My colleague today is coach Mike White from Shropshire in the UK. And I invited him to The Coaching In because he wrote a brilliant LinkedIn post about tools and techniques called It's All About Partnering. So we ended up having a conversation and I said, let's talk.
So. Mike, welcome to a conversation where we can talk. Thank you so much, Claire. It's lovely to be here and lovely to meet up with you again. We haven't spoken for a while, so. Indeed. Good to be together. It's a good way, isn't it? Or be it via video. There you go. It's a good way to have the virtual coffee we've been promising each other for the last 10 years. Good call, good call. Yes. I've got tea today. there you are. Me too.
But it's all right, we have non-alcoholic drinks at the Coaching Inn. tell us Mike, a bit about your coaching journey. Okay, well, I'll where I am now actually, because I've been coaching independently, Soul Trading as a coach. Mike White Coaching is my Soul Trading name for about eight years now actually. And most of my work is through associate ships. I work with three associate ships.
It's all about leadership though and that's not necessarily top table stuff that could be people at the beginning of their leadership journey or in the middle of it or in transition or whatever. So yeah some associate work that I do and I'm also working I am actually working with a couple of organizations with senior leaders as well so I'm doing a kind of broad stroke of stuff really but always in and around. leadership development.
That's the kind of, I know that's a niche or it's just, it's just what I felt comfortable with and the work I'm doing, because I came out of 25 years in the voluntary and community sector. Yeah. And that's kind of where I kind of started when I stepped into the world of coaching following my passion. And yeah, I still working for a bit in the the voluntary sector, voluntary community sector, but also within the working with people in local authorities.
And yeah, kind of connected areas, I guess, that's the way I put it, suppose. That's my kind of, that's where I'm, that's where you'll find me, I guess. Okay, fantastic. And you've just retired, left, passed on the Shropshire Coaches Group, which you started, Mike. It's, you're absolutely right, and it's, but it's, I think that the Retirement date is the 31st of March. OK. So but yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, I set up. moved to South Shropshire about eight years ago.
There's a kind of time reference there. And I was kind of lonely professionally and socially, guess, in a sense. And there was nothing around at all. So I kind of thought, well, I'll set something up. And I started to have some conversations through a couple of connections. There was a quite famous coffee shop incident where three or four of us that were interested in doing this got together. And I think I stepped forward and said, okay, we'll try it. We'll see what happens.
And a few months later, we held our first meeting. It was in March 2016, I think it was. And about half a dozen people came to that. And what I'm handing over now is a group that's grown to around 40 people. I've got four members that are going to carry on, on the baton, thank you, and carry on the legacy really, because we've done a lot of stuff over the six years, mainly, largely through the CPD for coaches lens, I would call it basically.
It's amazing, isn't it Mike, that you feeling professionally lonely eight years ago has led to a such great group, including the likes, I understand, of Sarah Klein and Caroline Quaife, who've been here at the Coaching Inn as well. You're absolutely right. Yeah, you're right indeed. it's... And what I found was when we, of course, in the early days, sorry, in first few years, first, I don't what is it, first four years or so, whatever it was, it was always about face-to-face.
That was the kind of thing. That was the thing that brought people together. Yeah. And what I found out very, very quickly was... actually this is something that we want to do as well. We want to be face to face. Having said that, over the last couple of years, the group has indeed survived, not exclusively, but largely through the virtual media. We've kind of adapted and kept together and kept the faith, if you will.
And of course, the current leadership group are now beginning to think around what would it look like if we went back to the face to face arena. I feel confident that's going to happen sometime this year. yeah, as I keep saying to people, I'm not actually, I'm not retiring as such. I'm retiring as leader, but I'm going to continue in the group because I need, you know, I need and I want that professional connection, essentially locally, locally, you like.
Yeah. And what it's like that you're able to pass that on? Well, indeed, indeed. And, And it looks, you know, certainly at the moment it looks as if it's going to be some of the quite a bit of the kind of same kinds of things. So we've worked up, we've tried various things over the years and the model, the approach that we've got seems to be one that's going to continue to work. So let's see where it goes next. see where it goes next. That's great news.
That's great news and encouragement to people who might think about starting a chapter somewhere else, a local group. If they too are looking for connections. thank you. So Mike, tools and techniques. So it sounds maybe sounds a bit dry, but as I... Yeah, I guess that's a question that kind of takes me to. where does this come from? And thank you for your appreciation of my LinkedIn post. That was a little bit further down the track.
one thing I haven't mentioned so far, which I've forgotten about it, I've been working as a mentor coach for about 18 months or so. I guess more recent development is I've now completed the ICF. It's got a wonderful title, the ICF PCC Mark Recessor. program, an online program. I totally recommend it if you want to go deep dive into. I'm doing it too. Yes, I think you did say that to me. indeed. how I got into this was, course, it always comes through from work with clients.
And I was running a session with a thinker, I don't know, a couple of months ago. And they were talking about struggling with learning. really, and how they capture the learning or how they reflect on the learning. then they said something like, I need some kind of structure, And what just popped into my head was, you tried Cole's learning cycle? And they had heard of it, but got completely forgotten about it. And I said, well, basically, it works like this. Would you like to try?
And then in the moment, we did a, we, We worked around from what was the experience, reflection, conclusion, and what are you going to do next kind of stuff. And they really got it and then said, well, actually, I'm going to take that away and I'm going to use that as the way and as the structure. And that got me into thinking. where's that come from? I'd read something in the wonderful guide that comes with the program I've just been talking around.
Something about partnering and presence and about making sure that as coaches, what we're doing is we're working in partnership in a way that means that the client chooses what happens next in the session. And this is the key thing, including tools and techniques. I'd read that someone, I really have to look it up. And I took it to supervision. I've been working with a supervisor for, well, forever, basically for about the last 10 years, lady called Claire Palmer.
The wonderful Clare. Yeah, well, I forgot the title, forgive me. And she's amazing. She's an amazing person. And we sat there one day over again, over the video, of course, and we just couldn't we couldn't quite remember where it came from. Anyway, I did I said, this sounds like a bit of a kind of desk research project for me. And I'm into this kind of stuff at the moment anyway. Okay, so maybe I'm a bit of a geek at the moment, but anyway, I was interested in finding out where is it?
I managed to pin it down to the document. And I also said to Claire Palmer, I think this feels like something I could write something about. And what came out when I did the research was, this is the title came from, guess, was LinkedIn post was, it's all about partnering. And yeah, and then as you said at the top of the podcast, Claire, you said... You picked up on it and said this might be something interesting for people to kind of talk around.
I guess the essence of it for me, yeah, it is about the coach being responsive. That's the kind of thing that comes across. Yeah. And then it's a particular development, a particular angle on this partnering piece that is dotted throughout the PCC market competencies. And yeah, it's... Yeah, it's been about responsive. think it is about, and this is my kind of learning. I was kind of expressing this through the LinkedIn post, really.
It was about, yeah, a response, know, a search for a structure. It was about the offer of a potential approach. It was an on offer. It was about, well, let's just try it. Not not with kind of going in with all the theory that sits behind the cool learning cycle, for example, because that's kind of, it's just kind of too heavy. And then, yeah, let's just try it and see what happens. And then responding to the feedback that you get from the client in terms of what I got, it sounds great.
And yeah, that's kind of where I got to really in terms of the experience and the supervision and the LinkedIn and sharing and now this conversation really. That is so interesting. Because if you go back to what you said right at the beginning about what happened in the coaching. My question is always who started it? And you described the person that you were coaching started it, because they said something like, only I had a structure. Correct. Yeah. Because for me, so they started it.
So that's partnership, Yeah, I think so. think that's what I would recognize as partnership in a coaching, in the moment in a coaching. Not something that's... brought to the session as the coach, something that has come in response to the clients. yeah, that's what I understand. And it connects with this piece and it's, again, people might want to look this up, but I'm pretty sure I'm talking here about market five, maintains presence.
I'm talking about the, sorry, competency five, I beg your pardon. I'm talking about 5.3, the market, which, and I haven't got it in front of me, but it talks about ensuring Partnering and ensuring, I'm paraphrasing, partnering and ensuring that the client chooses what happens in the session. And then it says something like, including the use of tools and techniques. And that's where the kind of language comes from. And it also says, on checking in. yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Cause I think for me, there's a question about timing for me, because I think sometimes the coach thinks, that might be a useful lens or something to offer at this stage. And I think the danger is when you start asking questions to test the hypothesis about whether the tool that you're thinking about is the right one to use in the moment, because at that point you've lost connection with them because you're now checking out the usefulness of your tool inside yourself.
and they don't know that. So what you're doing is leading and steering as you're just checking out if you're going to introduce something. And I think the art is to offer early. So it might be to say, that's interesting. How are we going to do that? Because I've got a bit of a shape that we could look at if that's useful.
and really do it in a way where they've got permission to say no. Because I think the danger in partnering is when we think we're asking permission, but actually the only answer to the permission question is yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. it's a, essence, asking is a close question. So you're getting, what you're going to get back is yes. Well, yeah, well, it's a kind of the defined, it's a projection or a... Yeah, as you say, a leading closed question. Yes. Which doesn't feel like partnership to me.
So yeah, I would say, Mike, it can be a closed question in spirit, even if it's even if the words sound like an open question. So if I say, what should we do now? And the tone of the way I say that is, because I've got a really good idea and I think we should do it. Yes. That will be not received. That will be received with it. OK. And then they follow us. And that's the other thing, isn't it, about this? Who's leading and who's following? And are we walking together?
Yeah. And as you're saying that, I'm thinking it's, you describe it as an art and it's kind of a, it's the coach skill as well. And, you know, I'm not here to say I've got it, I get it right every time. I'm by, in fact, the absolute opposite. I say what I'm doing, I hope, yeah, like a lot of coaches, I'm like other coaches, I'm sure I'm working towards that point of excellence, that place of, that place where, where I can, I can, yeah, say and feel.
and B, authentic as a coach, as a partnering coach. In a podcast and a blog post the other day, I shared somebody's diagram about rest. I don't know if you saw it, it was a spirally thing about exhaustion. And what I wrote in the blog as a result of that was how interesting it is that if you just show somebody a picture, Sometimes it just makes so much sense for them. You don't really need to say anything. They just go, yeah, now this is what we need to go.
So I think offering a diagram sometimes is a, and when I used to do face to face, I often had in my bag the picture of Cartman's drama triangle and would just say to people, as you're talking, I'm hearing a lot of language around victim, persecutor, rescuer. I wonder if this picture makes some sense, if that's useful. So no teaching.
So I think the issue about tools and techniques is that there's a very fine line, isn't there, between offering so they make sense, what you did in the session that started off this conversation, which is offering because they've asked for it. versus turning it into a teaching session where the focus moves away from the thinker thinking and moves to the coach teaching. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, as I was saying earlier on, I didn't really give any, I didn't give any explanation of Gold's cycle, you know, and it's stuff that, you know, in a former past life, that would be the focus of a, I don't know, a half hour or an hour and a in a workshop, in a learning workshop sort of stuff. But that's not what we're doing here. That's the way I think about it. It's not, that's not what this is about.
It is about Yeah, no, guess it's what's popped in my head though is it's about not getting in this kind of classic thing, but not getting in, not yourself getting in the way of the client and also not getting the tool in the way of the client and indeed the clients thinking. That's the way I would think about it. Giving that's, yeah, it's that safe space for people to step into and explore it for themselves as you know, hold and resourceful people, the whole and resourceful people that they are.
what I think about it. Yeah, so it's something about offering, isn't it? It's something about lightness and it's something about permission and it's something about checking in. And I think abandoning when it's done its good work. Yeah, yeah, letting go, but because knowing that is at the point at which that's when the client likes, let's go. I've used that and I've got what I want from it. either it's and whatever.
it could be actually that was completely useless or actually and I've heard that from clients or I don't get it or actually in this instance I've described actually that was really useful. I'm going to use that going forward and also the light touch stuff you talk about. People read my LinkedIn post. Part of my research was I went to my go-to Simple Approach, which is by one Claire Pedrick, Simplifying Coaching. I think it's by page 65, 66. And you talk about- goodness.
You talk about, I said I was a geek. You talk about pages, sorry, you talk about, you talk about, in there, you talk about models. Yeah. And that's the other thing, that was kind of thing that where this learning journey around this kind of took me, but I was thinking, are, tools and techniques. So what are we talking about? And I had some conversations with various coaches within various contexts.
And what emerged is, well, for me, is that actually the language of tools and techniques, and it's the language that comes from the competencies that we have, ICF competency. I came to a conclusion, really, that actually it's kind of TNT, know, tools and techniques. It's a kind of convenient shorthand. for a whole bunch of other things.
Because when I started to talk to people about, you know, or I was talking to one person about somatic coaching, I said, would you, you regard this as a tool and technique? And they came back and said, well, actually, Mike, no, it's much more about, it's more than much more a way of being and doing. And then other people want to talk about the approach they take. It's a system of change. It's an approach. Other people say actually, yeah, technique does work.
Some people saying to me, yeah, no, actually, you talk about coal, well, that's a model. And it's a bit of a kind of a rabbit hole, in a sense, because you go round and round and round. But then what you come to, well, I'm sorry, what I came to was it doesn't really matter what we call it. The language of TNT, as I call it, Tulten techniques, is a convenient shorthand for a whole bunch of different things that we do, different ways that we can work with clients.
know, Claire yourself, you talked in that LinkedIn post about, maybe it's about lenses, know, or perspectives or prisms or whatever. The thing I kept coming back to, and from feedback from my coaching colleagues I spoke to around this was actually, doesn't really matter what we call it. What does matter is it's in, it's in service of the client. Whatever we're doing is in service of the client.
And that's that kind of central thing really, you know, the labeling stuff, labeling or the language that we're using around this. Tools and techniques, okay, that's what ICF used, fair enough. But it is about that service stuff, serving the client. And it's about, please check in. a lot and it's about not feeling that we have to complete what we started. You know that quiz show? the UK quiz show, isn't it? In Mastermind and they go, I've started so I'll finish. yes, yes, yes.
Yeah, that's right. And I think I noticed that quite a lot. I can remember being somewhere and I was, it was a training course. I was the thinker and somebody else was working with me. And they decided to do that Gestalt chair work thing and invite me to sit in other chairs. They went, now sit in that chair and be this person and now sit in that chair and be this person. And in the end, I lost my capacity to go, please, can we stop this? Cause it's not working for me.
And in the end, I sat there and I said, I don't even know who I am because they were moving me around to be rep, all sorts of things. And what I meant was this exercise is so complicated. I've completely lost the plot about what is meant to be happening here. And they went, you see, I think that's the issue, Claire. You don't know who you are. And I'm no! You've just made me do an exercise that I think probably in the first chair, the first question gave me a little bit of insight.
But now you're just forcing me. to do this chair hopping thing and I've totally lost, I don't understand what we're doing. And actually that is replicated with some tools where the coach feels they want to respect and honor the tool. And the price of that is that partnership is impacted. So I can absolutely believe you, I never was coached by that person again, because I would not go in a small group with them.
because that was just horrible, horrible, because it was, it wasn't partnership, was being something was being done to me and somebody was making me do stuff that I didn't want to do, and not giving me permission. Not asking me if I wanted to keep doing it. And then you just, you get into this following thing, don't you? You go, this isn't working.
Well, and the thing that popped into my head as you were talking, and there, It sounded like the coach in this instance, because they stepped you through all that, not only did they step you through all the stages of the steps in the tool to get to, as you say, to honor or to serve the process or the tool, at the end of it, then they say, that's the point, you don't know yourself. So what they're doing there is they're offering a diagnosis. Yes. That's what popped into my head.
rather than saying, well, what I notice here is they say, all right, once you've done these five things, then I can tell you exactly what's wrong with you or what's right with you or who you are. And I said, I said that out of humor because I was trying not to go. This is a really bad exercise for me. So rather than being judgy, I was trying to be a bit light and go, I don't think I know who I am.
Yeah. So there's something, isn't that, where if they've done that, And after the first chair, they'd said, do you want to try a different one? And I could have gone, yeah, okay. And then in the second one, I think was when it started to go wrong. And then they say, do you want to try another one? And I'll go, no, thanks. And then they say, so now what do we need to do? And then we'd work it out together.
But it was the fact that it turned from probably a good idea that probably came from something they saw or heard or sensed into a, it felt abusive. I really have to honestly say it felt abusive. Yeah, and as you describe, you know, from one chair to another chair with the, the, you say, if the coach had been offering you the next chair, then that brings us right back to the coach, sorry, the client choosing what happens next in the session. Absolutely. That's exactly what that's about.
All the time. Which kind of brings us back to checking in, doesn't it? Cause I, I notice how little most coaches check in. And I also noticed that when they check in, it's usually a version of am I any good? And not a version of, do you want to keep doing this or should we do something else? Is this useful? How are we getting on those kinds of things?
And, Really interestingly, when I work with aspiring MCCs, it's almost always the thing that moves us from quite a long way away to very nearly there. But what surprises me, I don't know what you think from the coaching you hear, but what surprises me is how absent it is which makes me wonder whether either it's not taught in training or it's not picked up as being almost the most important thing about partnership because it's so very much not present so very much of the time.
And yet, if you look at the ICF competencies, the one, is it three that says establishing and maintaining agreements? It talks about checking in in one of its really big important points. Yeah. Yeah. And as you described that, my response to your question around what I see is I think it's I think in some ways it's the it's the challenge of understanding and actioning what's what's going on in that competency we call maintaining presence.
Yeah, it's it's that it's that it's that piece because it's it's It's to do, to me, I keep coming back to this, it's to do with how the coach is responding to where the client is in the moment. So that's in a sense, Claire, that's my version of what you're saying in terms of checking in.
You're responding to, the only way you're gonna be able to do that is to check in, to find out where people are, to use, well, to use all your senses, including your hearing, including your... what you're seeing in front of you, to find a way, sorry, to be clear in terms of, yeah, where your client is at in the moment and this other question, so where do want to go next? Where are you and where do you want to go next?
The two the kind of really powerful ones that, questions we can ask in this context, I think. Yeah, and it's about relinquishing power, isn't it? Apparently, What I love about these podcasts is I've no idea what I say. then somebody went, said this on the podcast. And then I write it down. think, that's interesting. Apparently I said, it's about not being in control and it's about not being out of control.
And I think there's something around presence that's quite scary for most of us about being in that space where we're not in control and being confident enough. that we're also not out of control. And I wonder whether there's a fear that when we check in, we might wobble the thinker because it sounds as though we don't know what we're doing.
So there's something about about tone isn't there and how do we, how do we check in in a way that maintains their confidence in the process without scaring them witless? Yeah, yeah. I think, I think the other thing that comes up for me there is it's about I've heard you talk about this, it probably was in a podcast, but about being attentive. So that takes me, again, is another way into this. What are we doing when we're quote maintaining presence?
We're actually being, we're actually being attentive. we're completely focused and attuned with where the client is, which is perhaps a way of stepping into that scary place about checking in.
Because if you're that lined up with your client, and you think then it maybe didn't maybe it's not quite so scary to just say so where are we now yeah that's that's kind of stuff that comes up for me there yeah and where are we now is where we disagree with the icf because they would like to say where are you now yes but i think that when you say where are you now we've suddenly split ourselves and we've stepped right away
So I'm happy for people that I mentor to get feedback that they should have said, where are you now? When they said, where are we now? But I also noticed they get scored high on presence. So that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that one of the reflections when I've been thinking around this area, you know, from this, as I say, from an experience to supervision to LinkedIn posts is, It's personal thing for me, but I regard the competencies as a signpost along our journey as coaches.
don't how ICF would respond to this, but I don't see the competencies as a destination. They're a point of departure when you first encounter them, but they're there and they're alongside all the work we do. Yeah, but that doesn't mean we don't we actually create the create the place the words create the place for the dialogue, which is kind of what we're doing here, I guess, in a sense. Yeah, that's why that's the way I think about it.
And they create the mood for the things that we need to look out for. And I'm a little bit of the way through another book. And it's about the underneath things that underpin the competencies that aren't the competencies at all. Cause it's actually what's underneath them that matters a lot. So yeah, yeah. So useful signposts. That's a great place probably to bring our conversation towards the end, Mike. Cause we don't want anyone to think, my goodness, we've just thrown the rule book at you.
No, no, not at all. It's like, isn't it, when you learn to drive and they, can remember learning to drive, although I think my kids were taught differently and I was told go into first gear, then go into second gear. This is for the, this is for the non-automatic drivers amongst us. Then go into third gig, then go into fourth gear.
And then you discover when you start driving, actually going from second to fourth is quite useful, quite often, but they didn't tell you that was okay, but you kind of make it your own. And I think that's also true about making the ICF competences your own.
The other thing I was just, as you were saying that as well, in terms of my own journey as a coach, and I guess in terms of coaches journey is the tools and techniques feature very, feature very kind of front and center at the beginning of your coaching journey. Yeah. And they're very, very important. mean, they're very often the things that the training you mentioned earlier on is kind of based around.
But, as you develop your experience as a coach, certainly my experience has been, they become kind of absorbed into your style, into the way in which you are as a coach. They're not quite so, what's the word, explicit, I guess, in a sense. And somebody, one of the people I was talking to, said to me, when I sense that the tool is being, I'm using a tool in a kind of bolt on way, I realized that actually they're not part of me being present.
So I know what they were saying, kind of saying it's absorbed so much in the sense that it just becomes part of who they are, how they're being, how they're being and doing as a coach. That's a really interesting way of putting it actually. Come with empty pockets. I worked with a mentor coach when I was going for my MCC years ago and he was an NLP practitioner, but you would never have known because there was nothing in his pocket. What I encountered was what was inside him.
And that's different, isn't it? So if you had one thing, Mike, as we finish that you could say to our listeners about this partnership subject, what would it be? I would encourage people to be responsive and to check in. I think that's what's coming out of this conversation. And yeah, the competencies are there. The signposts, handrails sometimes described as to help us. but they're not the end of the story.
what's much more important is the learning that comes from practice in the moment with clients, which is where you're really going to get into being in a place of partnership. That's the I would describe it. Thank you. So how do people get in touch with you, Mike, if they want to carry on the conversation? direct message me on LinkedIn. I'm there. And I don't have a website. But my email, mike at mikewhitecoaching.com. So that's interesting, isn't it?
So I'm going to put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so people can make that connection. But I just want to say that to our listeners, Mike doesn't have a website. So not every coach needs to have a website because there are other ways of doing marketing. FYI, just saying. agree with you totally. Somebody has taken a deep breath and gone, good, thank goodness for that. Somebody else has gone, but I rather like my website and that's also okay.
I guess my thinking as you're talking is, I just want to share with our listeners that quote from Jung that said, learn your theories as well as you can and put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul. Isn't that amazing? I love it. So Mike White, thank you for coming. I'm Claire Pedrick and you've been at The Coaching In. Bye bye. You've been listening to The Coaching In, 3D Coaching's virtual pub. For more information, check out 3dcoaching.com.