You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hi, I'm Claire Pedrick. Welcome to this week's Coaching In. What a pleasure it is to have you with us today. Every so often we get wonderful emails from people and I got an email from Barbara's Coaching Club or a coaching club that Barbara sent me an email about who said, we'd absolutely love you to come and talk to us about challenge and all sorts of other things.
So I just said, why don't you come to the Coaching In and let's talk. So here we are. And if you'd like me to come to an online group that you run and record that for a podcast, you are most welcome. Contact us info at 3dcoaching.com and we can see what we can do. Great. Well, it's absolutely lovely to be here. We are here as a whole practice coaching group. call ourselves Coaching Club and we lead ourselves. Nobody's in charge, but I'm sort of taking the lead this evening. My name's Barbara.
and I did transforming conversations. now I didn't chat dates, but I think it was about a year ago that we finished. Maybe. Yes. Or maybe two. I can't remember. And I've been coaching before and since, but found the 3D model super helpful and really pushed me. So I've done lots of the training through 3D as a group. We've carried on practicing since we did transforming conversations and then we've added people in as we've gone. So I'm going to hand it over to Ellie.
Do want to introduce yourself? Hello, I'm Ellie Clack. I did Transforming Conversations at the same time as Barbara, whenever that was, when we decided we did that. And sort of steadily working through some coaching training and a little bit of coaching practice. think I'm sort of wondering whether this year is the year to open that up a bit more. But in the other bits of my time, I work as a healthcare chaplain in a large trauma hospital and in a hospice setting.
And I'm a Church of England priest and find myself interested in all the kind of shapes and sizes of conversations that happen and the quality of them and how coaching so often kind of dips in and out and all over the place, but also the joy of a really a more intentional purposeful coaching conversation. And this group is just delightful. and a source of great joy. I'm going to hand over to John, who's just made it into the room.
Hello, I'm John and I am a pioneer minister at clergy in the Church of England based in Southampton where I help oversee a community development charity and social enterprise and fresh expression of church and I did the Transforming Compensations training at the same time as most of this gang. And I absolutely adore it.
And it was very eye opening in a transformative yet at the same time affirming of what I already believe, but helping me to do be what I wanted to be and do what I want to do in a better way. So yes, it is hugely useful in my work with and my work but also do a little bit of coaching with individuals as well on the side. And that's enough about me. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna make guess. it's more exciting this way. I'm gonna go Josephine. Thanks. Hello, everyone. Josephine Knowles.
I did transforming conversations in February 21. And it's thanks to John, as I went on this walk with him that he told me about this training and I joined. So Word of mouth, people, word of mouth. Not much else to say really. I think I'm on trying to get accredited, which is an interesting process, which I would not go into at this moment. But yeah, that's been over to Eileen. Hi, I'm Eileen Saunders.
I did the Transforming Conversations course to improve the quality of my conversations with participants at work. And it's been really, really effective. I'm also now setting up a coaching business as I love. the work so much. So should we go to Sandra? thank you. So I'm Sandra, Sandra Thompson. I did Transforming Conversations with Barbara and Ellie and many other people on this call back, I think it was about 2020, 2021, but whenever it was.
And I was coaching before and I've been coaching since among some other roles that I do. I think what I really loved about Transforming Conversations was it was so practical. It was kind of how you really do it rather than the theory of coaching, it was actually doing coaching and learning some very useful tools and approaches that I certainly use both in the coaching but in a lot of the other conversations I have in all the other roles I do, other roles I do even.
So yeah, and I'm delighted to be here today. So I will pass to Eve. Thank you. My name's Eve and I also did the course about the same time everybody else did it and none of us can remember when it was. But it was and is an excellent group and has been really good fun. My background and work is all involved around politics.
In 2019 I started a staff training and management organisation and working with the staff of politicians and that's partly why I did this course because I wanted more tools for training staff and helping staff teams to build and to work successfully. And I found it unbelievably useful because small staff teams can be quite complicated and need a lot of kind of nip and tuck kind of movements to make them work successfully together. And I've found some of this absolutely brilliant.
And I love how much meetups because it just kind of refreshes it in your head every time it makes you go that's how you do it and then you go you launch back into work feeling that you've got another you know another few things that you've learnt from everybody else so it's really good. I shall pass on to Christine.
Hello thanks very much Eve I'm Christine, Christine Mackenzie and in my day job I'm the professional leaf learner and development at the Royal College of Nursing and I like many others have done the transforming conversations. which has just been great for me. I think it's built my confidence in terms of coaching, but also I've had other opportunities to work across health and social care with nurses who are also parts of other programmes, but developing talent.
And I'm currently using the Stoker's model with a programme that's taking place in Brazil. I think the other thing is just what I love is the opportunity to be coached and coach others who are not from the healthcare sector. And I think in particular this group has been important to me and I'm going to be looking at my accreditation this year. So I'm really going to make the commitment to come more to group. I think the way that the group works is really great.
I've had the opportunity to co-facilitate one of the sessions with Barbara and I thought that was really inclusive again. sort of drawing on our talents that aren't coaching, but absolutely helping the group to move along. So it's very inclusive and I'm glad to be here. Thank you. And I'm going to hand over to Becky. Hi everybody. So I'm a pioneer priest in Drax, which is in North Yorkshire. And I think we did the course at the end of 2020.
Cause I remember being on the course in January and it wasn't last January, was it? So I think it must be like the most depressing time for me was the end of 2020 when lots of stuff I'd tried to set up in group work and things couldn't happen.
I was having lot of one-to-one conversations with people which got quite intense and I found this course helpful because it helped me shift the sort of weight of the conversation away from it being a relationship with me specifically and just just me being somebody that people can have a good conversation with and then perhaps find other solutions themselves and that's really helped in my role here.
think the other thing is just to feel more confident that I can be of help, you know, because sometimes it starts to feel like you're just on the receiving end of stuff and not really doing anything with it. So the confidence that I've got from the course, I think it's just that. just having a really good conversation can be transforming for people and that is valuable in its own right and not to underestimate that I suppose. So it's given me confidence in that way.
Well, we are really excited to, as a group, be able to just plug Claire with our questions this evening. And we've been thinking about what questions we wanted to ask for a while. And sadly, Eileen, who isn't here right now, is one who comes up with the most wonderful and interesting questions. So hopefully she'll be able to join in and add hers to the mix. But I'd love to kick us off. Well, actually, Ellie, would you like to ask the challenge one because that came from you, think.
I'll just try and remember that. I think it was I think it was towards the end of our last session, Claire, we were we had done a bit of coaching practice and we were talking about some different things and And once again, and we've had this conversation a few times, ended up talking a little bit about how we foster the kind of high support, high challenge thing. And that came out in a number of different ways.
And I think all of us quite keen on those kind of pithy, good, neat challenges that are so, so very unlocking in coaching, but also just aware of it for a number of us working in kind of quite pastoral settings or sometimes in a coaching situation that needs quite a lot of sensitivity, how to do that well. And I think that was what we were talking about. Barbara, is that pretty much? Yeah, I think so. Challenge.
Well, a great question to kick off with and even more great because we were talking about it in a supervision this morning and I had an insight that I hadn't had. So the number one thing about challenge is stop stopping it. So often we're building up to something where we could have a challenge and we get to that moment where we could go with the challenge or we could change the subject.
We get to, I'll say that again, we get to the place where we could go with the challenge or we could change the subject and they give us a look that goes, let's go with the easy one. And we go with the easy one. So number one is don't change the subject. Stay with the thing. And if it looks like they're going to avoid the thing, say, are we avoiding the thing? and then ask them if we were going to if you were going to challenge yourself about this thing right now, what do we need to do?
and a bit more challenge because then you can get gradual permission for the challenge. And remember, well, remember two or three things. Number one is they were in the conversation just before you're getting to the challenge. They were there, they were listening and talking and you were doing this together. So if you use the challenge from what you see or hear or sense, you're going to be enough in sync for it to be okay.
But the art is to use the words that they say rather than back off, turn it into what you think is a challenging question and then come back in and ask it. I probably said this before at the coaching in, but the person who's saying, really want to do this at the same time as shaking their head. You might think that a challenging question is to say, how motivated are you really? But that is too far away from what you saw or heard or sensed.
So if you were going to be quite provocative in the question, so remember that they shook their head while saying, I really want to do this. Then you can shake your head and say, do you really want to do this? So use the data and the information that's in the room and then you can be really challenging.
It becomes tricky when there's a risk that we go to judgment, but you're not going to go to judgment if you're only using what you saw or heard or sensed and you're only saying what you see or hear or sense. Did you say more Claire about things you notice when you've been challenging or what sort of things we're looking out for to notice in the challenging conversation? So I would be noticing dissonance. So the difference between what I hear and what I see. I would notice avoidance.
so another example of challenge is the person who you're working with over time. And in the first time the thing comes up, you say, what do you want to do right now? And they talk about something lighter. and then you just let that happen. The second time it comes up, you say, what do we need to do right now? They say, I want to talk about time management again. You say, so does that mean we're not going to talk about? whether you need to leave your job or not. Let's say that that's the thing.
Time three. What do we really need to focus on here? Actually, I still need to work out how to get to the end of the week and it still be, you know, and still be alive. that's interesting. Cause this is the third time we've had a conversation where we haven't actually looked at, do I need to leave my job? Are we avoiding that? Time four. It comes up again, I would just say, you know, the thing that we keep avoiding, well, I just wonder whether that's the thing we really need to be talking about.
What do you think? So it's about making it safe enough for people. But the interesting thing is that when I was writing Simplifying Coaching, I did a sort of straw poll of people using John Blakey, his grid about challenge and support. And of course, he was a guest at the coaching in just before Christmas. And I asked people what their preference was when they were thinking and what was their preference or tolerance for challenge and support. And it was about 200 people over a few weeks.
And I think it was about 96 % of them said that their preference was for high support, high challenge when they were on the receiving end of the conversation. Then I asked them what they liked to deliver. It's kind of the opposite. Almost everybody's preference for delivery was high support, low challenge. And in coaching, that's the issue.
So one of the things that we were talking about in the supervision session that I was facilitating this morning was that actually not challenging can impact trust. So sometimes we don't challenge because we don't want to break trust. but sometimes we break trust because we didn't challenge. But the art is absolutely no judgment. Because as soon as it sounds like judgment, you're in sticky territory. So say what you see or hear or sense as a question, don't translate and just offer.
Can I ask just a supplementary you just mentioned about not challenging can, sorry, I can't remember how you just said it. I was just trying to ask you a supplementary question really badly, about not challenged, not being in the service of that person. Does that require us to have got informed consent from that person about how much challenge they're prepared to have in the session? I think you have to have I think you have to have escalating permission.
Okay. As part of job process, rather than informed consent, because one of the issues is that in a lot of coaching conversations, the coach says, let's talk about how much challenge you are happy to have. But but it's completely separated from the moment when the challenge is going to emerge.
you have this theoretical conversation about what they think about challenge, which actually when it comes to the moment is completely useless because you've still got to do it again, only you had this kind of what's your attitude to challenge conversation which was totally theoretical.
So just kind of dance into it, be willing to drop it and I might say to somebody I am willing to drop this if you really don't want to go there but I am also noticing that that is the fifth time it's come up today. So it's your choice but it just keeps coming back. So some light misaround challenge, and I am really now of the mind.
I think when you were trained, one of the things I probably said to you was ask them in the contracting, in the right sizing at the beginning of the relationship, how much challenge they're up for. But really, it makes absolutely no difference in the moment. Because you just can't, you just, it comes from nowhere. And it's often, of course, as you well know from being coached, The most simple thing is often the thing that is the game changer and is the transformational thing.
And it's not the challenging question that's been boiling up inside us until we ask it in this most beautiful way. That's not the challenging thing. The challenging one is the silence or the, hmm, and so. And Claire, what is your thoughts about asking almost permission to challenge in the moment? if can I challenge you on that? if I were to be challenging, might. Yeah, jumping in the moment, but always permission. Yeah. Always, always, always permission.
And the permission could be light and slightly humorous. Don't be coached by me if I say. Can I be really challenging here? Because what I mean is I think I'm going to come in with a knife. Is it worth if I'm doing stuff with a collar on, a dog collar on, sort of qualifying things? Because the judgment issue is almost like people expect it if you're a vicar. Do you know what mean? Like they expect to be judged. Probably not rightly, but that's sort of what people think.
So I'm just, I'm concerned about that particularly because it's like, even if I say, but there's no judgment here, I just wonder, da, da, da, like, it's almost like I have to do that more, the qualification more, think, because of the power dynamics and stuff. But I know I've got stuck on this before and you challenged me back kind of thing. But, but- I wonder how you can be light about it, Becky. Okay, yeah, yeah, just humor. And that might sound like if I didn't have my dog collar on.
Yeah, yeah, good point. I'd be asking this question. Because that gets the question out into the air without having it attached to your collar. And then somebody can choose and think they can't just they can't differentiate, in which case that's their choice and that's OK. Yeah. And maybe you can't ask that question in that context, or it might be or it might be that they can do that.
Yeah, so for example, I meet a gay bloke who's thinking about getting married and it's hard for me to have a conversation about that without saying, am I wearing a dog collar whilst I'm this conversation or not? Do you know what mean? Because it's like, there's so much loaded in that tent, that particular topic that it'd be really hard for them to, you know, they'd have an answer they were expecting, I suppose. So it's just sort of. Can I be really direct? Yeah, please do.
What would it be like if you pulled the colour out? Yeah, yeah, I like that. Yeah. Do a send to me. Did it eat it or something? What did you do with it? Yeah. Did you notice that was challenging question, guys? Yeah, that's one thing I've been noticing that even just the permission asking is challenging, isn't it? Because you're truth telling. And that's really interesting.
And another thing I notice is that sometimes I think I'm being challenging and the other person doesn't experience it that way. And sometimes I think I'm not being very challenging and they feel really challenged. So have you got anything you could shed light on that Claire, sort of different levels of challenge for different people? I think there's a really big issue that we think of being very challenging and we're not.
And we're not very challenging if they thought about it on the bus or on the loo, now in the world of people working from home all the time. You know, if they, if, if in the break they... they suddenly have that insight and you ask them a challenging question, it's just totally not challenging because you've thought about it already. So I would say don't get hung up on it too much.
And if coaching is a conversation where people feel heard and get new insights into their own stuff, then some of the new insights are going to come from a bit of provocation in the moment that gets that out. But the provocation needs to have no agenda. because if we've got an agenda, then it's not challenging. So I say to somebody, I find it much easier to work with people who I've never met before and know absolutely nothing about them.
Because if I ask them a question that's based on what I see or hear or sense, it is absolutely world shatteringly challenging because there is no other data. I can ask the same question. to somebody I know really well in the same spirit and it's received as judging. So a little bit of distance is a useful thing. That's really helpful.
And as well, that a sense of speaking to an ongoing coaching relationship and how challenge, how we need to watch challenge over a relationship where we do get to know our client better. Just writing that down. Yeah, and that's about losing the edge if you're working with somebody for too long. When's the moment at which you can't work with that person anymore because the challenge doesn't have the same impact? And probably the challenge question is a great question around losing the edge.
really good. Or would you suggest we help each other practice challenge in our practice group? I suspect you can't. Because I think you probably know each other too well. For exactly the reason I've just said. I think that's a really interesting observation because as somebody that hasn't been as fully part of the group, just in terms of timing, I would say that I noticed that. That would be an observation that I would make, definitely.
I think the friendships make it more difficult to challenge. Yeah, I would agree. But sometimes over time when you work with people, you can build up more trust so then you can challenge further. Yeah, it depends. But you're too buddy like here. So that should shape the way we practice so that we're growing skills, practicing, you know, short questions and things like that, rather than specifically looking for challenge in each other in situations.
Yeah. And I think we thought a little bit about that last year about whether there are different techniques, aren't there, sort of, because I think you're right, familiarity can be a bit of a shadow.
so we, think, it, Barbara, a conversation we were having about instead of doing challenge as a kind of technique to try and overlay over our coaching practice in this setting, to do sort of almost sort of... play with some techniques, like what would be a challenging question, let's chuck them in the chat function now, sort of to try and remember the technique rather than to try and sort of pretend it with each other.
Because I think that's the thing as well, isn't it, with practicing is that you sort of go looking for a challenge that isn't really there either. We pretend to look, you know, we sort of then notice things that aren't really there. So the noticing is a great way of doing it. And the other way is probably another way that I'm just kind of making up in the moment, but it seems like a good idea.
might be to do some blind coaching where the person isn't particularly saying what the thing is, but you're actually saying to your friends and colleagues around the room here, keep pushing me. Because you can learn to do the challenge and collude less if you don't know what the subject is. So that would be another way that in this room you could do it. just don't know what the subject is.
I did that the other day on, we've got this program called Simplifying Coaching for people who haven't trained with us. And it's such fun. And I, in the demo, because they're all really experienced coaches. So in the demo in session one, I just said as a joke really to the person who volunteered, I said, I'm not gonna ask you about the thing. So I don't know what the coaching was about.
So we had this 15 minute coaching conversation where I kept pushing him with consent and permission and all those things. And when we came back for session two, he started off by saying, of course I did this. He said, I need everybody to know, of course I did this. But of course we didn't have a clue. But it's easier to challenge when you don't know the story because you have no emotional investment in the subject.
So the more people tell you, the more a little bit of opinion is going to come into your challenge. The less you know, the cleaner you can be. so I would practice coaching without the thinker disclosing what the thing is. And then you might find that you can go all the way. I found that really helpful. Thank you. That'll be a pleasure. We have a fun session coming up for our next one. Yeah, I might come and get some coaching from you. I think something that...
The other thing I've sometimes found is just asking the same question again and again can sometimes work without it feeling like, know, but yeah, not letting them off the hook too easily. Yeah. And if there's a question you ask early on based on what you see or hear or sense and it's a miss, it might be the right question at the wrong time. So it might be worth just clocking what it was and coming back to it later.
You could even say, I've got a coach that I use who is trained by 3D and she said to me the other day, you just look really tired, Becky. And cause we know each other quite well, like you're describing. so just noticing like the state of mind that happened to be in that day was sort of, was, it was, it was noticeable enough for her to mention it. So that felt like it felt like more of a challenge than it would have done if I hadn't known her so well, I suppose. Interesting.
So it can work the other way, it? Yeah. You can, you can, if you're prepared to have a more open, robust conversation with somebody then. Yeah. You can invite challenge, you? Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. Joes. Joes. I'm just wondering. What's the fear behind challenging? Well, that's deep. Yeah, sorry. What is the fear behind challenging? I think that's a really good question and for me, I think it's about the context.
So I guess I would probably lean more towards coaching people that I don't know that well. I think that when I coach somebody or use the principle of coaching with somebody that I know, it's easier to prefix it with something around that causes a slight hesitation or a Yeah, and we might not always get there or I almost ask permission to say what I know needs to be said. But I think that question maybe touched the part of me that's human.
That actually I want that, perhaps I need and want that connection with the person that I know more than actually if I'm clean coaching somebody who I do not have that emotional engagement with. And I think for me, I managed the boundaries quite well within that context. So if it's someone I know, it can be a little bit more, yeah. And the irony is that when it works really well, it deepens the coaching relationship, but there is a risk. And the closer you are to somebody, the more a risk it is.
Interesting. I just fear getting it wrong, isn't it? We're all just scared of making an idiot of ourselves. Yeah. So offering what you see or hear or sense is the safest thing to do because you're not interpreting it and therefore you're less likely to get it wrong. I wonder if for me this is flagging up the difference between a coaching relationship and a friendship because a friendship is a much broader, deeper relationship.
I'm not trying to be their friend, I'm trying to be useful and I think those are different. So I'm just thinking from my own personal experience, if I'm in a different kind of conversation with someone I know better and I probably challenge in a different way, I might say, know, if I were to play devil's advocate, so I'm kind of taking it off me and putting it on this unnamed person over there, because it feels more comfortable to me. But I don't know if it loses some of its power in doing that.
I was listening to a conversation the other day where I honestly, the person who was thinking probably said 10 times, there's a values clash here. They said it in slightly different ways each time. But the art of being really challenging is to say, you know, I've counted now and it feels like you said that 10 times, there's a value clash here. And I'm wondering what's stopping us talking about values.
Eve. I've had a couple of really interesting things lately with because you know I work in the political world and I found that I get a real kind of pushback from trying to help colleagues in the political world who are not particularly well known or anything but I think they've all become so caught up with everybody, know, tracking them on social media and listening to every word and all that.
that you get this kind of almost, you're being a little bit challenging, just trying to dig into something. And you can almost see the kind of, my goodness, I mustn't say this because you never know where it's going to go thing. I've found, mean, you can, you can kind of gently go get past it.
But it's a, it's, it's quite a challenge to do it because you suddenly think, gosh, well, they're never going to mention this because whatever their thing is, because they're So scared that somebody outside and no, it's not that they don't trust me because they do you know, but it's it's been it's been really interesting because I've it's about the third time now I've spotted it in something and you see this it's like a break They're happily bowling along going. Yeah, this is really good.
I'm really enjoying this and then suddenly like whoa, know, let's stop now It's really interesting. So here's another permission one, which is to say to somebody You don't need to answer this out loud. But the question I'm asking is this. Because once it's been spoken, it can't be unspoken.
So prefacing it with, don't have to give me the answer and I'm still going to ask the question, is a useful and so is, it might be that you don't want to talk about with me, but I am observing that this thing keeps coming back. That's really helpful. That's two really good ways of getting past it. But in your context, I would just tell them they don't have to answer it, but I would absolutely ask it. Yeah, yeah, that's it. You're trying to kind of get them to think it through.
Yeah, and then they will. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I might say next time, you know the thing that we weren't talking about last time? I'm just wondering whether that's usefully processing for you. And then you'll know whether that's a yes or a no. And then if it's a no, I'd go, I'm just checking that that's okay. Cause if it isn't okay, I wonder what we need to talk about here to help you work out a safe place where you can take it and process it.
I once coached somebody for an hour blind in a paid for thing where there was single session coaching on a conference and we had a whole hour and I don't know what we were talking about. but I do know that it was so, so tender. They had never said it to anybody and they were not gonna say it to me. And I learned so much and I am super grateful to that person because, you know, coaching is about dancing in the moment.
It's about working out in the moment what we're gonna do and we never know, but being with somebody who is never gonna tell you, but is still willing to have the conversation is such a gift. I had to bring every single thing that I'd ever learned into the room. And afterwards, one of the other people who was present in the venue said to me, on earth have you done? Because that person is transformed for the good. And I said, I don't know really. Wow. What were we talking about?
I think we live in a world where people expect an answer to a question when they ask it. And we learn our defences and in your world, Eve, know, for good reasons, people have to have defences and there are other worlds like that where people have to have their defences, but that doesn't mean you can't ask the question. That is really super helpful.
I was watching this thing the other day where somebody was saying, there's this man that I know and they were talking about it like it was somebody else, but it was them. And I used to see that more on TV, didn't you? That people would talk about a problem that wasn't them, it was somebody else. But perhaps that's kind of psychologically helpful for people to sort of not have to own it immediately. Something human about that, isn't it? So have we covered challenge enough? Fantastic.
So who wants to bat the next one? No, I'm biting just now. We've got, I think this follows on quite nicely, but we were thinking around the elements of power and responsibility in a conversation or a coaching conversation and sort of how those two things are a bit of a dance that, you you come in with a certain responsibility and a certain, I suppose, pressure as a coach to create a transforming conversation, but also this sense of needing to keep the power equal and balanced in the middle.
And so wondered if you could speak to that dance for us. We have to do our own work. We have to do our own work so that we have to think about our own attitudes to not being in control. We have to think about our own attitudes to being in a situation where we don't know what to do. We have to think about status. You if I go into a conversation and it's really important to me that this person thinks I'm good at what I do.
then actually I'm probably not going to be good at what I do because I'm going to be trying to do extra things to please them. So, you know, if you're a people pleaser, there's work to be done. We need to do our own work in order to be able to do this work of facilitating conversations even better. And the challenge is that people will give us power even if we don't take it. And many people will come to coaching thinking that you're going to fix it.
And I would say step one, don't explain to them that that's not what coaching is about and that you're not going to fix it because you've just taken on the role of the teacher and that's taking power. So you're going to absolutely get yourself in a tangled upness again. I, people might challenge me on this and say it's not ethical. I just don't take any notice. So when I say to somebody, how would you like us to do this?
And they say, actually, I want you to give me your 26 best ideas and solve my problem for me. I'll just go, so how will you know by the end of the day that we've done that? I won't say I'm not going to do that because that gets us into that very unhealthy dance. But what I know is that I'm not going to do it. Barbara, you look like you had something to say to that. That was making me think a lot that even in attempting to equalise the balance, you can take power. Just to be aware of that.
It's quite a challenge. We need to develop the art of lightness. this is about, you know, the lightest touch. I'm just tidying up my Google Drive and I found something I'd written years ago and it said, the lightest touch has the deepest impact. We don't need to do very much. We just need to be present in a very present and light way in service of this being a really good experience where the... person that we're working with does stuff.
you know, every other dyadic conversation they go to, probably, they expect the person with the perceived power to take the responsibility and do it that way. just do, just be different. And that isn't going to work for everybody because some people are not going to be able to step up. But if you tell them they have to and you're not going to do anything, then that's a certain thing that they're not going to step up.
Because what you've actually just done is you've told them that they're wrong, that they've misunderstood why they've come to this conversation. And it feels like a bit of a telling off. And it also feels as though you've really turned up the challenge on them. And that's not positive challenge. So dance your way into it. You know, Jo's, you're, you dance the tango. If you told people at the beginning all the things that they were going to have to do, they wouldn't go there.
If they gently, gently dance with you, they'll come. And we must have our tango lesson. I was doing a session one week and a person said, you're the expert and we got in deep water, but I checked in and checked in and checked in thinking, I don't know how we're going to get out of this hole. And like two minutes before the end, they had the most amazing insight. I hadn't given them any answers, but I did feel like I was on that. I was like, I don't want to do this. I'm not the expert.
And I didn't know what to say. And I don't know whether I'd handle it the same again, but I still think it was really interesting that by checking in, I think it must have shifted the power back. And then they got an amazing insight. Well done. Interesting. So you held your nerve. Yeah, good work. was an hour and it took she said the expert bit quite near the beginning and in the last it was the last five minutes she got an insight that blew her away. Fantastic.
And it blew her away because it came from her. And she probably told you at the end that the thing that you told her five minutes before the end was life-changing. And thank you very much for the good advice. And you probably said not a thing. So you can have a silent coaching conversation at the end of which the person goes, the advice you've given me today has been so brilliantly helpful. Thank you so much. Do you want to go lie and you said hello?
But sometimes you just have to let it go, you know, as they say in the movie. I think part of my question after that was, guess, well, no, I'm not the expert and I don't know, rather than I held my nerve and dug out of it. But what would you say immediately after someone says you're an expert? Take the notice. Just ignore it. Yeah. I mean, now I say don't guru me. I, yeah, but no, would, I would just say, no, I just take no notice. And that isn't impacting trust and rapport.
It's just letting it just, it's just slide over that. Otherwise you, I can remember listening to a recording and that was the sort of thing that the thinker said in session one to the coach and the coach said, right, I need to explain to you. That's not coaching. And I'm now going to tell you all about what coaching is and what it isn't. And at the end of it, you could hear that all the thinker's doing is sitting there passively listening to the coach explaining.
Yes, we need to be clear on what the difference is, but that does not necessarily have to be a torch thing. It can be an experienced thing. The ethical thing is don't do the expert thing. but you don't have to tell them that's not what you're doing. I think. Because you know, you're all nodding. Because otherwise you get yourself into really deep water, don't you? Yeah. So how are we doing? Yeah. Any other questions? We had a few on our hats. Can I just take a variant of that?
So if you're running through Stokers and you get to the bit that kind of says, how should we do this? What role do want me to play? And they turn around and say, well, I don't know. You're the coach. How would you handle that? Let's work it out together. OK. Or let's even better, let's see how we get on. I don't like the role question anymore. We've printed 5000 of those jolly cards. So you can buy in the shop the Stoker's cards. And now I wouldn't ask the questions quite in that way anymore.
So how would you ask it then? Or would you not ask it at all? I would say how are going to do this? It's really important because it's co-created. But you're asking it because you're saying because we don't have to do it my way. in brackets. That means this is a very different conversation from the ones that you normally have when nobody ever asks you how we're going to do this. Close brackets. So you've planted the seed in their mind that we can decide together how we're going to do this.
They say, don't know, and the art is just let it go. That's fine. Where should we start? Don't make a thing of it. Don't put them on the spot. Don't start negotiating all sorts of weirdness. Just let it go. But then when you check in five minutes in and say, this useful? You're gonna get three answers. One is yes. One is no. And one is yes. And when they give you the yes, which is the one that needs the most artful handling, you can say, We could do this in a different way.
Let's work out what that might be. And then you're back to partnership. And that goes back to the power and responsibility thing, which is the more you can negotiate together all the way through how you're doing what you're doing, the more you're demonstrating shared responsibility. And what's really interesting is that the most artful coaches will negotiate that at every single turning point.
There'll be a check-in every, every, every single time there's any kind of crossroads or a variety of things that can be done. And that's artful. And then you're living it. And when you're living it, people will respect it because you've actually said, we can really work out here what to do. And that's okay. So you've got to sort of embody it, I think. It's a risk of like feeling like you're... So I do this quite a lot with people where I'm trying to get them to think for themselves about stuff.
But it's a joint thing that we're doing together. And I'm hoping eventually it's something they do on their own. But like... I think often they think, I don't know what I'm doing or I'm, know, surely I'm sure why can't I just tell them what to do? Do you know what mean? So there's a risk that you sort of come across as looking like a bit vague or a bit like, inept or something. I mean, I'm happy to take that risk. So I look like that most of time anyway, but like, just, don't know.
I suppose it's just sort of how to do that without like, I suppose it's just the confidence of practice, isn't it? So for the more confident you are at holding that space, the more that comes through, I don't know. And it's the benches. Sorry. was going to say, what expectations do they have when they come for the conversation? Because I know in the project that I've worked on, I've worked with a lot of vulnerable adults who would expect you to have the answers.
And I start very deliberately by saying, I'm on the back of the bicycle. you're going to do the work. And then I think they find it easier to respond to the questions that are not how people normally treat them. Yeah. So that's about clarity. And sometimes it's about, it's about a journey. So I think, Becky, you're describing using a coaching style with people who haven't necessarily hired you as a coach. So it might be on that journey, you say to them, okay, so today I'm really happy.
to tell you some ideas and then we'll work out together what we need to do. And I'll offer you some stuff and that might be useful. Next time we meet, let's see if you can come up with some of the ideas. So you can do a kind of a moving thing in the same way that you do when you're actually when you're doing kind of a skills coaching thing. So we've got a new chopper.
that bought from one of those, know, I'm sure they sell it on QVC, but I was trying to show my daughter how to use it at Christmas. And the first thing I said was, I'll do it and show you how it works. And then the next time you can do it. And then she goes, well, how do I put this potato in? Okay, well, let's think about that. are we going to do it? And then the next time she can do it herself.
So sometimes there's a movement from one way of doing it to another, which is a useful thing if they haven't hired you as a coach. Yeah, thanks. That's helpful. That is very helpful. Play light with the rules. Josephine or John, have you got anything you'd like to jump in with? Shall I go? I'm thinking about power and partnership and particularly over responsibility.
Now as a recovering rescuer, I can see it actually moving into over responsibility and I'm starting to notice it is really annoying me now. And I'm just wondering if anyone else has that. I think if you've done leadership role, if you've done pastoral care, any helping giving kind of space, and it's just like, ooh, that is a dance. of taking responsibility but not over taking responsibility. I'm just wondering, passing on, passing the baton. What do people think?
It definitely speaks something into the kind of internal agility needed, isn't it? Of being a coach, you know, we talk about sort of silencing our internal chatter or trying not to preempt our questions and that sort of stuff. And I think, I wonder if it's for me, it's partly about that sort of entering into a coaching space with some kind of check-in with myself, like what's bubbling up and rising up for me today? And is that going to come up in this session?
And what am I going to do about, you know, so it's a little bit of knowing myself well enough, but also I think it's a real challenge. I think there is, I think for some of us, maybe all of us, there's something in coaching that is about assisting someone to think well, isn't it? So you're automatically in a kind of helping mode and yet you don't want to be in helping mode. You're actually, because you're actually trying not to be the helper fixer.
I don't know if that's helpful, other than, it's a good question. It's something as well about timing. So often people come to you on their time scale, don't they? if they want you to help there and then that you can play around with a bit if you have more of a coaching head on that you sort of saying, well, that's interesting. You know, right, maybe we should look at that, but you're not sort of straight in with the, I'll come to rescue.
I think there's something about tolerating incompleteness. So we had a friend here over the weekend who had a lot of stuff going on and said to me on Saturday morning, I'm going to need some advice from you today. And part of me is going, not sure if I'm the best person to give advice, but I didn't say anything. And they then downloaded the most enormous lorryload of stuff.
At which point I said, So it feels like there's something about this and something about this and something about this and something about this. And after lunch, they said, so those eight things you told me. Well, I couldn't remember what they were and also I don't know if they were eight or not, but they thought they were eight because they'd written them down and actually that was all they needed. So they went off and then did their own good work with the stuff that was left.
There's something about agency, I think, and I think sometimes we accidentally take people's agency by trying to be helpful. And in trying to be helpful, what we actually do is disempower them. So that goes back to power and responsibility again, doesn't it? So it's about being just a bit cautious, but also be human because if you get too caught up in the technical stuff of this, you lose your, you turn into a machine and you're not a machine, you're a real person. And how delightful is that?
Great. So have we done enough for today? feels like a really lovely rounded, like we've meandered through things that link up together and have relevance to us all in different ways. And it's a good place to, feels like a good place to stop. Well, thank you for inviting me to your coaching club. Thank you for coming. And thank you for inviting our global audience to your coaching club. You're welcome to. I think on behalf of the audience, I'd like to say thank you very much for having us.
Thanks, Claire. It's been so insightful and useful and just a great opportunity to recalibrate. Brilliant. Thank you. So thank you all for coming. I think you should say a corporate goodbye to our listeners. Goodbye. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, we'd love you to share the podcast with a friend or leave a comment on social media. And if you'd like to become a regular at The Coaching In, you can subscribe on Podbean and all major podcast channels.
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