S2 Episode 20: Open Table - Simplicity and Challenge in Coaching - podcast episode cover

S2 Episode 20: Open Table - Simplicity and Challenge in Coaching

Jun 08, 202243 minSeason 2Ep. 20
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Episode description

Naomi Ward emailed info@3dcoaching.com to say "In the context of doing less as a coach, a journey I'm really enjoying, what are some ways that you create challenge for the thinker?" So we said come to The Coaching Inn and let's talk. And we shared on LinkedIn and had more willing companions who wanted to dig deeper...

 

akeaways

  • Challenge can be supportive and transformative.
  • Silence can be the most challenging aspect of coaching.
  • Courage is essential for effective coaching conversations.
  • Timing is crucial when delivering challenging feedback.
  • Trust between enhances the effectiveness of challenge.
  • Noticing and naming dynamics in the room can create powerful insights.
  • Ethical considerations are important when challenging systemic issues.
  • Simplicity in communication can enhance clarity and understanding.
  • The role of the coach is to hold space for the thinker.
  • Reflecting on personal experiences can deepen coaching practice.

Here's the quote about fools

"This begs the question whether as coaches we are willing to sacrifice the gleam of professional status to ask the dumb questions, the really dumb ones. Can we as coaches take a lead from the Fool and leap from the intelligent challenge to the outrageous suggestion, churning up the waters of the coaching safe space in a bid for higher stakes? Can coaching develop a radical edge in service to a greater good? The Fool injects the vitality we need as we work together with leaders to challenge business as usual and hold a vision for a better world." Hetty Einzig - The Future of Coaching

 

Contact

Naomi Ward

Sarah-Jane Marriott

Bryony Rowntree

Caroline Storey

 

Keywords

coaching, simplicity, challenge, presence, courage, ethics, trust, silence, communication, leadership

 

 

Transcript

You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Welcome to this week's edition. I'm Claire Pedrick. And today my companions are Naomi Ward, Sarah Jane Marriott, Caroline Story and friends. And Naomi emailed and asked in the context of doing less as a coach, a journey I'm really enjoying, what are some ways that you create challenge for the thinker? So I said to Naomi, come to the coaching in and let's talk.

And then I said to LinkedIn, Who else wants to talk about simplicity and challenge? So here we are. Welcome. Naomi, tell us a bit about you. Well, it's great to be here this morning. And so I was a secondary school teacher for a very long time and a job that I absolutely loved. And then like so many people fell out of love, not with the teaching so much, but other things and found coaching. And when I did, kind of realized, this was the missing ingredient.

that I needed, so was really motivated and found my purpose really to go back into schools. And now I work for Making Stuff Better, which is a company offering regenerative spaces to school leaders all over the world. So I work kind of all over the world, like this week, Mexico, online, I should say, this would be a lot of air miles, Mexico, Ecuador, all the Americas, Asia, Europe. So it's a really fascinating insight into education and the power of coaching in this context.

Fantastic. Well, you're really welcome, Naomi. So let's meet our other guests this morning. Sarah Jane, welcome back. Tell us a bit about you and your coaching journey. Thank you, Claire. Yeah, I guess like Naomi and like lots of people, my coaching journey was similar, doing a particular profession, in my case, working in international development. had a moment about 10 years ago, I thought, this is no longer in keeping with my core values.

I'm finding this difficult, moved away, found coaching, went, wow, this is amazing. And then have taken that back to the same sector. So very similar story. So most of my coaching are leaders within the international development sector. Many of them within the UN actually, which is fascinating. So like Naomi, lot of my clients, most of them actually are based all over the world and they are amazing.

And I feel really, Honoured to work with them and very glad that I'm not doing their job, but I'm supporting them doing their job. Fantastic. Well, you're really welcome. It's funny. My life story is playing out here amongst two lovely guests because I was a teacher and then I worked in international development and then I became a coach. So Caroline, welcome. I wonder what you're going to say. Well, you need a sprinkling of marketing in there, Claire. That's what you need. I don't have that.

So I'm a career in life leadership coach and I've been a coach for about three years now. And I have Naomi to thank for helping me to find coaching. Cause it was when she was doing her coach training that she messaged out and I explored it and fell in love with it. And it was just what I was looking for at the time. I'd spent about 20 years in marketing, both on client side, in brand management and then in consultancy and strategy.

And I was just, loved it, but there was something missing and what was missing was the people element. So why I was so attracted to Naomi's question in this podcast is my favourite bit of marketing, of strategy, of coaching is taking all of the elements and weaving them together to make the story simple. And yeah, and the people part is what I really love doing now. Fantastic. Well, you're really welcome. Yeah. Somebody once told me I should be in marketing, but I don't know why.

That's true, I love that simple thing. Bryony Roundtree, our other guest this morning, you're really welcome. Hello. Thank you. Morning everyone. Thanks for having me. Pleasure. So I am trained with Naomi in the room together, we've got to clean hair with her, which was lovely. I did various jobs. I was a care worker. some customer service to start with, then yeah, care worker, which is mostly end of life care, but a complete mixture of all ages really, and for birth.

And then I did, I taught sexual health HIV AIDS awareness in Tanzania, and then I came back and worked in the people referral unit, working with excluded teenagers. And then I worked at the designer setting in early years, supporting parents and did an anti-native education. So I'd gone from death to birth. And when I studied in that, my mum was studying to be a song midwife. So there's all this holding space and supporting people in transitions.

And as I was running these parent-child groups, and then as my babies weren't babies, I wanted to do something else. I came back to coaching having a sixth form tutor who was a life coach in the nineties thinking, think I need to get some life and come back to it. But yeah, it's coming back to work with people to have better relationship with themselves so that we can have better relationship with each other, more capacity. for communities, more capacity for the planet, all of that.

And really, it's wonderful hearing about the UN and like Naomi, I coach some teachers as well, but people doing important work in this world that we need to support and keep going. And I'm meant to have a first aid instructor as well because of that, some of that work. Thank you. I love the connections. I love the connections in this call. And it also makes me smile because it makes me think of the times that we coach somebody and We go, I think that's really interesting.

That makes a connection with my life. I'd love to talk to you about the work you did in Tanzania, Briley. But actually in coaching, that's not an in-call subject. So it's just lovely as everybody's talked, I'm thinking I'd love to talk you about this. I'd love to talk to you about that. I'd love to, and we're at the coaching in so we can talk about anything. Cause this isn't coaching. simplicity and challenge.

What examples might we have of where you've really kind of thought about that and you've gone, I wonder if that could have been simpler. My starting point for this was to think about the word challenge and what it, the connotations really. And for me it was something quite aggressive, whether it comes from sport, that was a really great challenge, bruising challenge. There's almost a kind of stop in your tracks. slight violence to it.

And I sort of went back and I realized that in Middle English, there's a connection to the word accusation. And in French, there's a connection to the word calumny, again, accusation. So I think I've just embodied the meaning of the word challenge to be something in that energy. And so I think what I'm hoping for today is kind of a reframe. for challenge to be less about power, more about the thinker and for it to happen at a deeper, more transformational level.

But yeah, your question about simplicity, I guess it's just doing so much less. It's interesting, Sorry. Go on, Bryony. That word power, there's different, like that could be there are power. Or it could be this gentle, like flowing, gently pushing something out that ripples and has a different own of power. I think that's another word in there that's... Yeah, and what I heard you describe, was what Kim Scott would describe as obnoxious aggression. Which, I'm glad you avoid that in coaching.

Thank you. That's great. So she, if you look up the cover of Kim Scott's book, Radical Candor on the internet, you'll get a picture of some of the additions of her book have got a two by two grid on the cover. And she talks about high challenge, low support as obnoxious aggression. in John Blakey's book, Challenging Coaching, he calls that stress. And I think that compassionate human beings often avoid challenge for that reason, because we fear that's where we're going to be going.

But what's interesting is we're now talking about two words here, aren't we? We're talking about challenge or aggression, and we're also talking about power. And yeah, what do think? I think it's so interesting hearing what you said, Naaman. I hadn't actually thought about that, thinking about what the word challenge evokes for us. But I think it is really interesting, isn't it?

Because when we start on that journey of training as coaches, and I'm guessing many of us are with ICF and you have the core competencies, and one of them is, you know, that there's... So there's always, in my view, there was always, but when am going to be challenging? I feel like I'm... being nice and supporting and I'm giving them space, but I've got to get something in there. That's a challenging question. But actually, so I think you asked the question, Clegg, what are some examples?

And I suppose as I've been trying, you know, really loving thinking about this and trying to do this, it's noticing that actually almost the most challenging thing, but that is also supportive is the silence. Is the waiting out when somebody says something, not just not interrupting them. But more than that, actually even leaving some space after it, or maybe just picking up on one of those words with a question mark.

Because that can be really challenging, because somebody is then being asked to really look at and think about what they said and what they meant by that, which we often don't do. Because in normal conversations, we just immediately interrupt each other or follow up or assume that we know what they meant. And so you're not asked to really think, what did I mean by that?

And I suppose that's... what I've noticed is the thing that is challenging, but in a way that isn't aggressive, although people often do find it quite uncomfortable to them. not by me. It's interesting how we've all had to reframe it, because I really, was walking, walking and talking with my husband, I was saying, I was really thinking about the question you raised, Naomi, because I thought, how do I create challenge as a coach?

It was a really useful self reflection exercise, because Yeah, and the training, it's a challenge is something that puts people super out of their comfort zone, like do 50 things of this by, you know, but actually often challenge for my clients is saying, is really holding the mirror up to show them what they're capable of and not letting them wriggle out of it. And that's not, that's very loving, not getting away with it, kind of, just not letting you back in there.

And it's like the silence and the picking up, you know, it's really uncomfortable for lot of my clients to have the spotlight on them. One of them says, it's like, it's like, won't let, I won't let them hold the door open for me because you can't have that chat. And it feels really uncomfortable and challenging. Yeah. I don't know if our listeners missed that great description of challenge there when Caroline went, and Naomi went, because actually, is a horrible question.

Whatever the words are in that, but, when you just invite somebody to dig a bit deeper is a great thing. think listeners, need to just, to just annihilate the myth now that there could be a book about challenging questions. because any questions in a book about challenging questions won't be challenging because they'll be learned. And actually challenge comes from noticing in the moment.

And when I watch recordings, listen to recordings of coaches coaching, the challenge is never the question the coach thought it was going to be. It's another question they happen to ask on the way that is usually very boring. and rather insignificant, and yet suddenly it changes everything. And they're pretty much always questions that can't be repeated apart from the one that you asked Sarah, Jane, which is the silent one, which can be repeated often.

And also for me, sometimes you say the question you don't think you're gonna ask, but also I start saying it I don't know what I'm thinking today. When you're in presence, really, well, really in presence, nicely articulated. And yeah, and you just start asking a question and other words come out your mouth. And as you know, the whole thing of simplicity when there's not many words in it. Yeah. And I think that presence is a clue to where you can challenge.

So I remember a recent coaching session with a head teacher who was talking about the difficulty he was having in communication with his parents. And he wasn't making eye contact with me and he was talking all around the room. And it was happening there, you know, the kind of disconnect. And I was like, right, I'm noticing this. Do I have the courage to name that I'm noticing and I'm feeling that I've lost contact? And I went, okay, deep breath. And I said it and that's what was needed.

Naomi, sorry Claire you go. That is such a great example of using the information that's in the room because that is so much more powerful and so much more challenging than talking about it. And I often do that and I'll say can I just stop you for a second. Is that what's happening here? Or just what just happened? Because if they see it and notice it, then it's challenging. If we talk about it, or we're a bit more distant about it, it's less challenging.

But to actually freeze somebody and you can do it with humor. Just wait a minute. What just happened? And then you don't even probably have to ask another question because they probably go, yeah, I just did it, didn't I? And then there's the challenge and then you go to the depth. It's such an interesting art.

And I'm really curious, Naomi, about the connection between that bit of that word courage that you used from the coach's perspective, because often it is sometimes with the challenge, there is a bit of a daring to say. you know, and saying it with love and saying it beautifully, but that's often when You know, when that opportunity slips away, you've missed maybe an opportunity to create challenge. I'm really reflecting on that in my own coaching.

Some of the times when I've kind of gone, missed the moment and not kind of gathered my courage to say, really? Sorry, Bryony, go ahead. I we have to challenge ourselves first. Yeah, great point. And after that session, was kind of, was I too direct? And he went, no, that was just what I needed. But there was a really sticky silence afterwards. Can I just say Naomi? silence. Of course you weren't too challenging, because all you did was say what you saw.

So there's no judgment in saying what you see. You're just saying what you see and that's such a great thing. But I just want to pick up what you said, Caroline, about there's a daring to say. Because I think one of the things about challenge is timing. So when I listen to recordings and somebody does in the end challenge, I say to them, how long were you holding on to that for?

And I wonder whether, yeah, the part of the daring to say and the thinking about, the not saying it, and as you were saying, Caroline, where you're kind of, it's partly because that's harder than what I was talking about earlier, which is just the way, the silence. And I think partly it's been thinking, I would like to notice this, but I know I need to notice it in a way that there isn't judgment and it isn't an interpretation.

And it's that whole thing of just, how do you, yeah, stopping with the noticing. and the holding up the mirror, as you were saying Caroline, and all of the other stuff that's behind going on in our heads as to what this means and our interpretation of it, making sure that you let that go and you don't, that doesn't come out at the same time. And I think I'm sometimes a bit worried that that's all gonna fall out at the same time if I open my mouth and say what I've noticed.

So maybe that's partly why we hold onto it, because we're just kind of, yeah, how do we do that without? But my hunch Naomi, if we go back to your, conversation he was describing is that if you had held on to that for 15 minutes and then used it, it wouldn't have been challenging because he wouldn't have made the connection because he wouldn't have remembered that he'd done it. Yeah. And, and actually coming back to what you said, Sarah Jane, had held onto that for a long time.

And I was almost, I could have said it a lot earlier in our coaching relationship, actually. And so, you know, this is a journey and what you said there, Claire of say what you see, was very much say what I felt. Cause I was so uncomfortable with the not. being seen. So I think if it carried on, I would have just got really cross. But coming back to your point about power.

I really like Hetty Einzig's book, Future of Coaching, and she writes a whole chapter about the fool as archetype and what we can learn from Shakespeare's fool in speaking that truth to power. And I really like that there's this quote which I pulled out, which is, the act of challenging conveys the authority of the challenger, playing the fool involves giving up the gravitas of one's professional persona for something more ambiguous.

And like you said, Claire, it's done in humour, but actually you're cutting to the heart of what's going on. And if we go back to what you said, Caroline, earlier about marketing and forming beautiful words, ambiguity is terribly painful if you like crafting words. But ambiguity is also about releasing power and letting go of power and not getting our value from how we say stuff, but actually from the impact of how we say it. You're so right.

It's just saying it and to your point, Sarah Jane, not crafting the words around it and having to interpret it, which is the marketing kind of strategy thing. And it's really interesting, Naomi, because I was listening to a Rich Lipton podcast the other day and he was talking about the fool and saying, you know, every king or person in power had someone like that to tell them the truth. and to point out stuff that no one else would have the guts to say it because they have permission to.

So this is really interesting, the connection between that and not having to make it clever or interpret it or put a spin on it, it's just saying it. Yeah, so telling the truth in a trusted relationship. Yeah. Even if we're not absolutely sure that it's absolutely the truth, that if it's what we notice or sense, then it's the truth in the moment. I remember having a coaching conversation with somebody years ago and we were in a place that wasn't ideal because he was over the table from me.

And he looked me straight in the eye and came right across the table, at which point I'm feeling really kind of threatened and squished to the wall. And he goes, I got feedback in an interview that I would scare the living daylights out of them. And I don't know why. And I went, don't move. Just stay exactly where you are. And look at me. There I was really squished against the wall.

And I said, I wonder whether the enthusiasm with which you've come across the table might indicate what they were talking about. because I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now. And nobody had ever said to him that his internal enthusiasm was accompanied by a bodily movement forward, which clearly it was quite often. But nobody had said that.

Now that makes me angry on one level about all the people who'd experienced that before who'd never felt they were in a position to say it or had chosen not to suck it. Because actually it was quite an easy thing to challenge. Because at some point I just wanted to get back into my chair. And I think- Go on Sarah-Jane. No, I suppose I was just going to say, I think in both your example, Naomi, and in Claire's example there, yeah, the challenge is coming from us.

So it's bringing ourselves as well into it, isn't it, as the coaches and the dynamic between us and the- and I suppose, and then talking to Brian, his point about we need to get, you know, we need to challenge ourselves first of all. That's where it feels we have to be braver and more courageous as coaches. it's sort of easy to kind of just be what we're just professional, which it's all about you, just all about you.

And that's easier somehow to just let's just reflect back your words, but to bring in what we're experiencing as well in service of the client, somehow does feel to me more, you have to be more courageous, I think, for that risk. Yeah. So what insights have we had so far in this great conversation? Yeah, the gift of doing it.

mean, you know, coming back to that, I think being reminded what you're saying, Claire, that guy, for having been told that and I know someone else personally in my life who certain behaviours have been really tricky and through some, it was years before anyone said anything and when it did, it was devastating. And it was said, you know, and actually the responsibility and the ownership for us to own. That's one of the gifts we have. is to bring that challenge like someone said we love.

about others, what insights have we had? I'm taking your thing, the, Briony about the gift and adding the image. It's like having the courage to give the gift. It's really helps me reframe that. It's beautiful. And it's that question of what's the cost of not giving the gift? What if I don't?

Yeah. And there's not so many insights for me, but one of them is now going to come across as another question actually more, but it was interesting, Naomi, that you said you could have brought it up earlier on in your coaching relationship with this client. And I've had this examples as well, where I've worked with people over time and there's been things that have been building.

And I wonder, but actually I wonder now whether it was exactly the right moment because by that stage you had that trusting relationship with him and he knew therefore that it was given with love. And had you said it the first time you experienced it, but you didn't have that trust. It might not have been received in the same way. might not have been just challenging and aggressive, but not with the love that actually made it work. I think that's very kind.

And I also, looking back, you know, because there's a dynamic here as well in coaching, in the coaching space. of power, whether we like it or not. You know, if you're a male principal of a school of 3000 people, you know, I've not been a head teacher. I don't know what that's like. There is a slight and I'm still working on this and I've made huge progress to really stand in my authority as an equal partner back to the you know, this crucial web partnership.

So I think if that happened again, from what I've learned from that coaching partnership, I would tell the truth much earlier. So that's another dynamic, it, in terms of gender, race, class, ethnicity, all of that is another dimension here. You know the right things. you go, Briony. No, carry on. going to say you need the right conditions for challenge. That's what it's bringing up to me. And back to your four box matrix, Claire, that kind of there needs to be that equal partnership.

And first, you need that feeling of safety and support. You need to feel supported, you know, that there's a support and then there's challenge and then it fits into the right quadrant. And going back to the fall. Because my learning is about the fool and ambiguity. want to sit with that. And I'd love you know me to send that quote. If you if you can, that'd be great. We can put it in the show notes because I think that's worth sitting with.

But there's there's something about if you think about the court jester in in English history, you know, and the court jester was the fool who accompanied the king or the queen. They didn't have any level of equality, but they did have permission. So. That's what that's made me think. And also what I love about what you said Naomi is that it had happened a number of times before. And you chose on that day to use the data that was in the room on that day to say it.

Which is different in timing from what I was saying to you Caroline, which is it's all about timing and if you've missed it and it comes in later. Because there was a repeating thing there. One of the things I... do sometimes is to say to somebody, if I was going to be really challenging now. I would be telling you, so if I go to your example, Naomi, if I was going to be really challenging now, I would be telling you how I'm feeling as you're talking about this. Which is a giving permission.

Years ago, one of the people I worked with said to somebody else in front of me, watch out for Claire, because she's got a velvet knife. And if she says to you, can I be really challenging, you just need to know that's going to come in as a like 12 out of 10. Because there, but there is something about, you I imagine if you were the court jester in history, you'd have had a pretty good checking out system inside you about whether this was the moment to say the thing to the monarch, wouldn't you?

You wouldn't have, you know, if you think about really significant moments in history where things were very difficult, the... the fool might have played it down in those moments, whereas they might have played it up in other spaces. So there's something about checking out and there's something about permission. And I think there's something about saying it's coming. Not in the silence one, like you were saying, Sarah-Jane, because that's using silence in the moment.

But if there's content in the question based on what you saw or heard or sensed, you can always ask permission and check out. and then they'll be ready for it. And they also know it's going to be challenging. So they'll probably make it more challenging than you did. I used that the other day. said to a client, something had been building and I said, so I'm going to say this with love. And she kind of went, okay.

And then it was, and then we, it hit, but it was, could laugh at the same time and then explore it. And that really helped. Yeah, pre-warning. I think that's a... Go on, Bryony. It also brings you in it together. I think that sort of humour and that sort of invitation, it doesn't leave them on their own with it. Yeah. Yeah, such a good point, you know, to ask questions like, do you have any feedback about how we're working together, you know, invite that challenge back from the thinker.

And, and, and I'm really mulling over this idea of the fool as well, Claire. And there's another question about challenge that I have, which is, to what extent in this privilege, privileged position, Do we have a responsibility to challenge anything systemically that we know is causing difficulty, pain, all those things that happen in organizations?

And just going back to this, another quote I've got, which really resonates like now in our times, a society or organization without its fall will become a closed system on its way to stagnation and death. So what is our kind of responsibility? to, yeah, I'm just wondering about the, again, this kind of, is it a dissonance between doing less and being more challenging in kind of concentric circles of individual, team, organization, world, future?

And I think the question I always ask myself is where is the challenge coming from? So is the challenge coming from data in the room? or data in the organization? Or is it coming from your... personal passion. So there's a big debate isn't there in coaching about whether you should talk about climate change with people. And I think that's a different question from the question you asked Naomi about, do you challenge on systemic things?

So for example, if you're in a school and you notice that the demographics of the school don't represent the demographics of the community, That's an observation based on real observable data on site where you are. Whereas if you say, wonder what you're doing for the planet, that may or may not be based on real observable data in the room. That might be based on something that you're bringing into the space. So I think where is the data is a really important question, ethically.

Yeah. And I think there are ethical ways about talking about climate change. But my personal preference is that that isn't in the container that we've created for this conversation. We might have an after conversation. That goes, you know, I'm just wondering whether you've thought about this. You know, have we finished the work today? Yes, we have. That's interesting, because I've just been thinking quite a lot about climate change, and I'm just wondering how that plays out in your organization.

But that's separating it. It's not bringing my agenda into the coaching container. So there's an ethical thing there about what we challenge on and how, I think. Yeah, and that comes into contracting as well or discovery session questionnaire. Would you like to talk about this too? Does this come into your business? that something? Yeah. It's something else that just for me, you were speaking to Claire in the balance of the challenging and talking about schools.

And it doesn't just pertain to schools, but when coaching a teacher, particularly female teacher, going back to work, who wants to tread the path for other parents coming on who don't have to work 80 hours a week, you know, so that they can change it, but actually they're not sleeping at night, they're feeding, they're getting children to nursery, they're knackered. And trying to get the balance and contracting through that challenge, well, how, you know, where's the challenge?

Is the challenging you being an advocate? for systemic change, which they really want to do, or is the challenge for you to look after yourself and let go of some of that. And it's a really difficult one. And it's something we have to come back to depending on whether they've slept that night for that session or. What a great question to ask them. But just feel stuck sometimes because they talked about wanting to be an advocate, advocate, advocate, then that's, as you say, data in the room.

They can't do it all. Yeah, wow. Well, what an amazingly interesting conversation we are having this morning. And I'm sure that people will want to carry on and we'll probably have a part two on simplicity and challenge at some point in the future. But as we wrap up today, it'd be just great to hear from each of us. about something that we might do differently in the coming week or so in relation to challenge in our conversations. And listeners, we encourage you to also think about that.

What is it you're going to do differently in relation to challenge this week? Okay, I should start. Sorry. There's the perfect sort of pause after a question that we're both kind of after you Sarah-Jane.

No, I suppose for me it is that bringing myself more in where it feels, the noticing what I'm noticing, what I'm experiencing, what I'm wondering, which I know with certain clients there will be stuff that where there's been patterns and I've felt something and so it's to, yeah, to be braver about noticing that. Brilliant, thank you. Naomi? Yeah, I think similarly. the doing less and there's something, you know, when you coach a lot, doing less is really important.

I've had feedback from a coach mentor saying, you're like a swan, really kind of chilled on the surface, but you, wow, you're doing a lot. So it's about managing our energy, isn't it? As well, everything that you talk about, Claire. And so I think it's that just noticing and giving it back. without the hard work of interpretation or, yeah, so doing less noticing. The less words we're trying to form, the more we can notice.

I've picked this out from one of your, from your book, the more I say, the less challenging it is. Yeah, my husband retired and he brought, was allowed to bring with him his clicker counter. So when I listen to a recording, I will often notice that the challenge comes on about word three. So you can see that the coach is asking challenging questions. The great thing about Zoom recordings when you're watching them is you see the thinker take it and the coach carries on talking.

And I'm going, you've now said 104 words. 101 of them were after your very brilliant challenging question. And now they've forgotten what the challenge was. And now you're both lost again. Just abandon. abandon. The minute they take it, abandon because that's the moment it's at its top challenge and everything you say after that is reducing the challenge. Briony. it's so many things bubbling up for me and I'm trying to do less and just come back to a core of it.

There was something that the words that Naomi said a while ago about telling the truth. Yeah. And that's always been so important to me, even like as a little girl telling the truth. think, yeah, actually, that's it. There's something, there's something so values based about it, very much linking with what Sarah did and that feeling. And I was thinking, how do I embody it? it giving myself permission of the fool? And that, But I think it might be something slightly different to that.

The Quaker and actually the United Nations coming up earlier, I a summer school in the Quakers at the United Nations, they have offices there. And hearing about them speaking truth to power and just doing it with bringing back people around for cup of Yeah, and it can stay simple and gentle, but taking breath. Thank you. And Caroline. Like you, Briony, trying to simplify all the different bits going around in my head.

The key things for me are just the courage to say and then sticky silence are two words that I'm now just going to have to put on a post-it. So also that, the courage to say and the courage to sit in the sticky silence afterwards. And not fill it with 101 words. Well, thank you, Naomi Ward, Sarah Jane Marriott, Caroline Story and Bryony Roundtree. It's been great to have you here. I'll pop your contact details in the show notes if people want to contact you.

And so listeners, if you have a question about an aspect of coaching where you'd like to dig deeper, let's talk. So do what Naomi did and email us on info at 3dcoaching.com because thinking about this together will help other people learn and make their own meaning. And watch out on LinkedIn, because that's where we say we're going to be thinking about this who wants to join us. And that's how lots of our lovely companions this morning have found us. So thank you all. Have the best week.

Bye-bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you, Claire. Bye. and all major podcast channels. We look forward to welcoming you next time. You've been listening to The Coaching In, 3D Coaching's virtual pub. For more information, check out 3dcoaching.com.

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