You're at the Coaching Inn 3d Coaching Virtual Pub where we enjoy conversations with people who are engaged in the world of coaching. Welcome to the Coaching Inn. I'm Claire Pedrick. And today, look who's just walked into the pub? Hey, right. Thank you. I'm impressed with the pub. I'm impressed with the pub. I can't, I can't deny. Obviously, I'm impressed to be on here with you, but the pub is, is particularly special. So, uh Alex Swallow said we should have a drink. He did indeed.
He said something about some nice words about both of us and said we need to catch up together. So here we are. Indeed. I'm looking forward to this. I have no idea what you're gonna ask me. Neither am I? It does sound like a night at the pub then, doesn't it? Oh, this is a night at the pub. So tell me about you and your, well, you let me make that a little bit closer. Tell me about your coaching journey. Oh, Crikey, I mean, to be honest, it's been phenomenal, amazing, uh uh life changing.
That's probably the best words. Um And I'll, I'll try and give it a potted potted history. But cos we, to be honest, we'd be here all through, we'll be here every day and night. We talking in the pub. Um, I, so who am I? I've always been, um, a leader and manager that used a coaching style. Didn't know that's what I was doing from early on in my career, didn't have any coach training, but I had a few career light bulb moments, you know, the ones that you look back on and think.
Oh yeah, that, that, that was something happened at that moment in time. Um And it was really when, you know, it started being a, a young line manager, I'm saying, potted history, this is gonna go on. Um young line manager desperate to have all the answers, desperate to give all the answers. 2425 years old leading a team who were way more experienced than me. Um And me thinking, what am I even doing in this role? Um So there I was dishing out answers galore best I could.
And then one day I remember I can still see it to this day and it was actually in a pub uh because I was in hospitality, I was in the hospitality industry. So the conversation happened in a pub and I said to one of my team, we were coming up with a solution. Um No, I'll rephrase that I was coming up with a solution as the line manager. Let's be clear. And, um, and in the end, I just thought I've emptied my pockets. I have got nothing else to give to this conversation. My mouth's gone dry.
Um, and I just looked over at him and said, what would you do? And then I just stayed quiet and honestly, his solutions were, I can't even put a percentage on how much better than my solutions they were. Um, and I just remember sitting there thinking, why didn't I ask that sooner? Um Why didn't I ask that sooner? And um and the solutions that he came up with we adopted and, and they were hugely successful. And I remember thinking, wow, that was, that was really powerful.
And um the, the building trust and rapport with people had always been something that, you know, I'm a people person. So that bit had always come easy, kind of interested in people. But the asking questions rather than trying to give all the answers was a real powerful. And I was like I said, I was early in my twenties. Um And as I kind of progressed throughout my career as a manager or as a leader of teams, um I knew that I, I knew I was doing something right?
Because they were developing and growing still didn't know it had a name, but I knew caring for my team um helping them grow and develop, helped me to grow and develop and the whole team. So it, but I just thought it was people skills if that meant and, and to be fair, it is people's skills. But I just thought that's what it was. Um And then, and then I started realizing it was coaching and I became the go to person.
So this is now years further down, I became the, the mentor people kept coming to me asking me for career mentoring, uh kind of tagged onto my day job. and then I went on and then the biggest light bulb moment, the kind of one that illuminated everything was I became a change. Um It was called change and learning manager, which always tickles me because the acronym was calm. Um And it was anything other than calm because it was on a transformational change program.
So, you know what they're like, they, they're never calm, they're kind of anything other. Um And I realized that I didn't quite, I recognized that people weren't just changing when we told them to. Um And I thought there's something a bit deeper in here, what there's something in psychology going on. And uh but where I did see the pockets of change, it was when there was either 1 to 1 coaching conversations happening or group coaching conversations happening on the change program itself.
And that's what I would call the winning hearts and minds phase of a change program. And it was the coaching conversations that were making all the difference. And I just thought Yeah, I there's something special in this and, and it kind of, it connected all the dots throughout a 2020 odd year career. So I knew that I wanted to do a coaching qualification. I knew I wanted to get a few more stripes. I wanted to understand this superpower um more deeply. Um I researched coaching qualifications.
So the cavs came home um and, and, and, and more than anything, it was probably procrastination and lack of cash. So the two things together combined. But with me not coming up with a solution until one day, I had a really important conversation with somebody who recommended uh the company that I ended up uh doing my coaching qualification and I'm, I'm proud to say it was barefoot coaching uh with Kim Morgan. Um and, and I just, but still, it was quite expensive and I thought, oh right.
But uh you know, it was, I, I had to make a choice one year. It was either a really fancy holiday or invest in my own development. But, and I always made redundant along the way. So I got a redundancy check on the Friday and on the Monday, the money went down for the coaching qualification and the rest is history. Um It was a, a life changing experience on, on every level.
It, it, it made me, you know, I remember speaking to Kim, I was like, will you be able to set up a coaching business on the back of this as self employed. And she went, well, there's a lot more, you'll definitely have the coaching skills, you know, but there's a lot more to setting up a coaching business. And, um, and I thought fair enough, but I'm still doing this qualification off.
I went, met some amazing people and as I thought I was gonna come out as, you know, I kind of saw it as some sort of coaching sausage machine that I was gonna come out as some sort of amazing coach.
And actually I became out, I came out, um AAA freshly qualified coach, but with significantly more self awareness, it, it taught me all about myself and, and, and what it made me recognize was I've been carrying a whole rucksack of limiting beliefs on my back throughout my career and the coaching qualification, um, served to get rid of them and, and we all practice coaching, you'll know this on the coaching courses, you practice coaching and most people came with random topics to be coached on,
you know, when we were having the practice conversations. And I only went with one question. It didn't matter what the tool trick technique was. I had one question to be coached on and that was, can I, and I realize now it's a closed question. Can I go self employed or how can I go self employed? Um, kinda kinda do this and, and I'll never forget the moment that I realized I could, I was being coached by another trainee coach.
We were doing the walking and talking coaching and, um, and I'll, I'll never forget the moments as long as I live. But like, it's again, one of those critical career moments where she, she shouted at me. Um, I'd met, I'd, I'd built up a great rapport with her on the course and, and she basically stopped me. I was, I was throwing out all my fears, how all the reasons I couldn't do it. All the security, the fear that I've always had a good job.
You and, and she just turned round and stopped and looked at me and she kind of shouted but shouted in a smiley way and said, Joe, you're absolutely brilliant at this sort of thing. You absolutely can do this. She said there is only one person holding you back and I was sat there waiting for, who is it? Who is it? You know, I, I'll go and speak to them. She was like you and, and she was really quite strong with that.
And I just thought, and it was like, I had a penny in my throat and it just dropped into my stomach and it's never gone back since. And the rest is history coaching culture is now six years in the making in terms of, from the blank piece of paper concept to now being, um, a successful business with way over 100 customers around the world. Uh renewing our platform and product year in year out. So we've got some customers now on year four working with us.
And to be honest, quite frankly, I never dreamed because I clearly wasn't dreaming big enough that I'd be leading a and co founding a business that is making a difference to a lot of people and organizations out in the world. So now it's just time to dream, dream even bigger. Wow, what an amazing journey. Thank you. I don't know what to say. It's just, it is my journey and it's kind of every day I pinch myself and it's not been easy at all.
And um and it's not, you know, it's, I, I often say I often talk about the journey, certainly the coaching culture, part of the journey, setting up your own business, co founding it. So I'm a co-founder. It's me and my, I call my business partner the wizard behind the curtain. So he's a tech guru. Um It's, it's in equal levels of a, of a, in, I kind of, I, I have this vision of a weighing scales and it's amazing and challenging, kind of, I know I'm doing this and we're just on audio.
So I'm busy showing you my hands moving up and down, like weighing scales. But it's um it's equally amazing and challenging. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my career. But the most amazing thing I'm ever doing in my career as well. So I'm forever grateful for that. I'm forever grateful for the learnings. Every day is a school day.
I'm forever grateful for having a great team for the skills and knowledge we have about coaching, bringing it, being able to bring that to your own organization and then making that difference out to others is just something special. Yeah, it's so needed, isn't it? Because I think there's a kind of fantasy sometimes that coaching is something that we do in a, in a room with the door shut. Yes. And it's special. But actually it's not that special. I mean, it is and it isn't.
But, but the real change can happen in the workplace, can't it? 0 100%. And, and I often say we've got to get, you know, we've got to get rid of these myths about coaching, you know, and I, I've done a webinar, you know, which is about myth busting. Um, where people think it's this sort of dark art in a room, you know, with some person who's come in with a briefcase, shutting the door, close the blinds and what the heck's going on in there, what's happening.
But some, something magical is happening in the conversation. And I, I, I've kind of got this sort of capability triangle. Um, at the very top, I talk about external accredited, you know, exec coaches, et cetera. You know, they're the ones who've invested a lot of money time effort, hours CPD supervision. They're at the top of the tree and quite right.
But the very bottom of the triangle is self coaching us all stopping and asking ourselves questions before, before we'll run to our bosses and say, have you got the answer for me? Cos I can't be bothered to think and in everything in between leaders and managers being able to have the ability to have a good quality conversation, which is exactly what I was doing years ago without any stripes on my shoulder whatsoever.
It was only the interest in the topic and, and some of the fascination that there's more to this, um, that I, you know, invested and progressed into a different kind of in, in, in a different way. Um, but I absolutely agree, the magic happens, whether it's peer to peer coaching, um whether there's an internal accredited pool of coaches, but don't leave it all to them because they can't.
I, I always say I felt when I was self employed and, and I went from self employed to setting up coaching culture when I was the purpose behind coaching culture was about scaling coaching and, and, and my wizard behind the curtain business partner. And I talked, I said, I feel like I'm sprinkling fairy dust on one person. I can't do that to everybody in the world. You know, this is, this is not possible for one person. How do we scale this magic? And as far as wide as possible.
And we've done that with the voice of um through our coach and culture community. We've got a magazine, we've got a podcast. So we've definitely raised the awareness of all these different solutions. And we've also got a digital solution which is very much focused on self coaching, but encouraging leaders and managers to have the capability to coach, but also to have, have everyday coaching conversations.
So the self coaching tools, core mindset and that's for people who we wouldn't get the opportunity to coach in a workplace. They're in their forties on the leadership development program as an example. Actually, no, that's criminal. What about the people earlier on in their career? So we've created something because I kind of got on my soapbox o on the back of my qualification thinking this is amazing.
Why is everybody not got the opportunity to have these powerful self reflection moments that are linked to psychology that are linked to what's going on in their mind um that are driving their behaviors. So it's been a, a great journey. It's like and it's still, it's not easy but it's worth it. How does that sound as a little? That's amazing. You can see I'm passionate about this topic, can't you?
I have this, I have this pretend branded soap box that I go round and stand on and kind of you could imagine I have visions of me being on the corners of a street on a Saturday. Coaching is the answer. Where are you on your coaching, culture, journey, genius name. Which one? Coaching, culture, genius name? I've got to accredit that, oh, there's a story about us even getting that web domain.
It's a brilliant, honestly, the journey has just been and one day I'll write the, the, the story behind coaching culture, the ups and downs and the laughs, the not so funny moments. Um Cos it will, it will be a brilliant book. I always say to one of my team who's a copywriter in the team. Uh This is all of this is just the story for a Blockbuster movie.
It's just, it's just, this is just the, we're just writing the script and one day we'll be uh we'll be on cinemas everywhere and people go now that that never happened. No, it did. So let me tell you about the story about getting coaching, coach, genius name. So when my business partner's um AAA clever guy and he's a marketer and business strategist, he's an entrepreneur, he, he'd run businesses before very successfully. And when we got talking about, I was like, it's mindset.
We need, you know, we focus too much on skills, we need people to understand their own mindset. So this is soapbox, blank piece of paper conversation. And he went, I said, we need to get it out to the masses and he went. So really what you're describing is, it's a coaching culture he said, and I was like, uh yeah, it probably is actually. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Yes, it is. And he went, hm. Ok. So off, he went looking for the Domain Coaching.
Well, oh, and we set up the magazine and we called it Coaching Culture magazine and it really resonated with people. Of course, it did. Course it did. People go, yeah, we want some of that. We want a coaching course, but we don't, we haven't got a clue what to do and how to get there. So the magazine really started taking off and literally, we've got over 6000 people kind of downloading our magazines. We kind of it started off. We did a lot in hard copy. We still got some in hard copy.
Uh But more people have said we want it digital, you're kind of killing too many trees now. Um And, and then we said, well, maybe the business should be called coaching culture. So we went looking for the coaching culture.com Domain, and.co.uk and they'd both gone. Of course, they had dot co.uk was being used actively and.com wasn't. So despite me being a coach with now AAA renewed growth mindset and, and less limiting beliefs, I still wouldn't have then thought I would have then just gone.
Well, that's not available. Let's look for my coaching culture.com or coaching another coaching culture. Let's look for something else. Not my business partner is an out and out entrepreneur and therefore, as an entrepreneur, no, no barrier is no barrier is a barrier. Everything is possible. So he um to all intents and purposes, it's probably the wrong use of language. But this is how the poor lady felt about it. Stalked. The, that was the word that came to my mind. Stalked.
This is called resilience actually. But Stalked is another one stalked. The lady who owned the domain who was sat on it doing nothing with it. It wasn't an active live domain, but she was sat on it. So he, he saw she was in Canada and he found out who it was and they ended up on a call one day and he disappeared off into a room.
So we now had an office and we were now busy building the business and he disappeared off into the room going on this call with this poor innocent woman in Canada thinking who are you? And she genuinely did not believe that it was real. It was a scam in her head. Who is this person who somehow tracked me down? And and also not only tracking me down, offering me money for this domain anyway, he clearly made her an offer that she couldn't refuse by the end of the day.
Um He'd bought the domain and that was it. The coaching culture.com world became ours and oh, phenomenal and coaching culture.co.uk was still being used actively by somebody else. So this is just so funny. The whole ST honestly, it is the Hollywood, uh, Hollywood movie one day, the p the company that was using coaching culture.co.uk and they might listen to your podcast and go. All right. Cheers. Thanks.
Thanks for that lapsed on their renewal for the web domain and the day they lapsed we got it. Wow. So any listeners renew your domain name? Joe Wright will be on it. Coaching culture. It's like coaching culture, global domain domination. That matters though, doesn't it? I think cos I think, I mean, when we started, we got the.com and then cos that was all there was in those days and then we got the.co.uk and then we got the.org and then they, they really recommend that you buy everything, right?
Ok. But then there was a moment when IW when I'm just going, you can't buy everything. I can't afford all this. I mean, interestingly other people have set up companies called 3D. Coaching. Um Yeah. Yeah. And I wanna go. Did you look us up? Yeah. The, it's interesting. We've had people um coaching culture dot something which will be some company in a far, far, far flung land who've used our colors image rebranding and they were imitating us on linkedin. That was quite entertaining.
Um We jumped on that um with a large hummus. Um So yeah, the journey's, the journey's fascinating. We haven't bought everything I have to say, but you can't buy everything, can you? No, no, we haven't. Um, so, yeah, that's kind of, that's, that's kind of it, it, that's it in a little, in a little potted nutshell. But honestly I could talk for hours about this. So you can imagine. Can't you?
The stories that I've got up my sleeve about the highs, the lows, the funny moment, the, the, the critical moments of that moment then. But you don't know it at the time. It's only when you look back and connect the dots. You go. Ah It was then it was that it was this, it was that it, you just, you're just mapping this little journey along the way and connecting all the dots and, and it's fantastic. It's um it's, yeah, it's what can I say? It's I never dreamed I'd be doing this.
I was literally the question to be coached on and this is literally only back in 2015. So years ago, can I go self employed? I was asking the wrong question. Your question should have been. Can I change the world? How could I change the world? How do I change the world? 11 conversation at a time? Oh, do you know what? It, it does feel like we're making a difference. We get the, you know, I'm currently writing a book and I've got your book as well, which is great. Thank you.
I um thanks to Alex's recommendation. I'm currently writing my first book again. That was never on the uh that was never on the to do list. Part of my um fear of the coaching qualification was actually putting pen to paper for three assignments that added up to 12,000 words. So that, that was the biggest, one of the biggest mental blocks I had. I was like, I've not written since university. I can't even remember how to do that.
Now, I'm absolutely loving, you know, kind of writing the, the, the book, but it's about how to build a coaching culture. It's still title less until I come up with something cool um or not cool and just come up with something really normal. Um And it, it, it, it's, I've been gathering case studies as part of the book writing. Oh my word. Honestly, I'm like, wow, you know, until you go out there and speak to our customers and just sort of say, how have our solutions helped?
Literally my goo I have this thing called a goosebump Meer and, and it's been going off ping, ping, ping, ping ping because people have been saying stories about individuals in the business teams, in the business of how the solutions have made a difference.
Partic, yeah, particularly a mindset, which is people have done some of our little modules, which is a self coaching modules and they've recognized things about themselves that they would never have done because they wouldn't have had access to a, an expensive coach later on in their career.
Um There's other things as well and, and you know, it, it's just made me go honestly, I, I literally look over my shoulder and go is this is this me that we is, this is this happening and it is, and it is with a, with a big smile on our faces as well. So what's your dream now? Jo oh dreaming bigger um More probably a greater global footprint. We have got global companies and some of those are featuring in our uh in our book.
Um But actually it, for me, it's about more organizations, more and more organizations building their own coaching, culture build and, and if, if we can help them in some way, that's brilliant. You know, there's plenty of organizations who can help out there. But if we can help in some small way to make a difference, that is great.
Global domination is probably a uh um much further down the line to be fair, but we've got some great names as customers, you know, like um from a global perspective, Etihad Etihad Airways, they've been a customer now for three years. One of the case studies is the case that is, is K Kos Group which is a global um tech kind of tech and technology, digital transformation organization. There's just loads of stuff there um that and we've got then like some fabulous UK focus companies as well.
I think it's just such a market out there and I don't think not everybody's doing what we're doing from a digital, there's other companies that are doing digital stuff, but it's often virtual coaching. So it's a human being to a human. Whereas actually we've got digital solutions that we can turn on and press a button and it can be zapped out to thousands in an instance in a heartbeat.
So, um yeah, it's what's the big dream, the, the big dream is just continually growing and, and listening to our customers, our community and serving them of what they need. That's how we get our answers. That's where the answers and the team, that's where the answers are. I just open my ears and listen and then it just feeds the strategy.
You know, I was on a call last week the with um one of our customers who's been a customer now for two years and, and I was on with one of my team and um and they said just a few things and it was like, well, that's really easy for us to sort out, that's really easy for us to do. So it's so we're sorting it out. Do you know, it's things, it's just listening, that's it.
And I, I visualize while I talk to you before about the weighing scales, I also have this coaching visualization thing when I'm coaching or asking questions that I have elephant ears. Otherwise I have the um the potential to uh let the mouse do more of it. So I have to really visualize these being huge so that they work in that proportion.
And that's what makes the difference, asking the right questions and coaching our customers to find out what the solution should be and going back to something you said earlier, actually, the, the, the, the secret weapon is the right questions being in the air. Yeah, totally. And people being willing to, to think about them, isn't it? Rather than anybody asking anybody else necessarily? Yeah, absolutely. And, and it is all about that.
I mean, it, it, it makes, you know, like today, you know, you and I are talking International Women's Day and somebody asked me last week about, um would you consider doing a talk about being a fe female leader in the, in the uh and the specific word was female, female leader in the tech space. And I went, but it's not my gender that's made any difference to me. I said it, it, it's, it's ability to learn, it's determination, it is having the art of being able to ask questions and listen.
I said, I said, I, I don't see that agenda thing. I see that as a human skill. I said, it's that, that's the secret. I said not my cos she wanted it to be about me as a female. I like, but it's not about that. Uh For me it isn't anyway. Um And, and she was like, oh, that's a really interesting point. I said it's mindset. I said, and we've all got one of them. Yeah. Yeah. She was a human 100%. And we, we, we beat that drum a lot, a lot, you know, human um, authenticity.
Um I was on a, I was listening to a webinar yesterday with Kim Scott, who's the author of Radical Candor. Love that book, love her, love that book. She, she was amazing. She hadn't, she, she made me laugh at some of the stories she was saying and um, where was I gonna, what was I telling you with this oh human thing?
And she said, somewhere in our early twenties, somebody told us that we had to be professional and, and, and she said, and comes with being professional is leaving your true self at the door because suddenly you're thinking about what you're saying, you're, you're really mindful, you're really aware, you're really and actually just be human, just be you. And that's where the magic happens. And we, we preach that all the time, just be you and be, you know, have a laugh.
I did a post the other day last Friday, I did a post on linkedin about, you know, with all our mental health challenges in the workplace and the power of laughter. Why haven't we got a laughter in the workplace strategy? Some people just don't want to laugh in the workplace cos they're not being professional honestly. My best days are when we're absolutely howling laughter and celebrating team successes. The dopamine flies everywhere.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, all these things, we're trying to sort of Sprinkle around. Yeah, because it's about uns sticking, isn't it? Yeah. Says UNS sticking. What, what's been, I suppose being sold to us that how you need to be at work or how you, you know, I just think it's unlearning all of that and let's start again as let's focus on humanity and go from there. Yeah, that's our new book. Is it? Let's focus on humanity and go from there.
No. Well, that's a good, that maybe best title than the title we've got. It's true though, isn't it? And to be fair, the pandemic has definitely given that a whole kick up the backside, but it was happening before. But I think there's something in coaching that we often feel we can't be human cos we need to be professional. But who said that you can't be human and professional? I, I just think you can, I think the two go together and, and I just think be be who you are.
Cos people often come to me and go, oh, should I have a niche in my coaching? And I'm like, you are the niche. You are, you, you, there is not another you unless you're gonna tell me otherwise I'd like that. It's about you. Nobody can co nobody can compete with you and, and I can see them going. Oh, yeah. Good point. I'm like, there you go. Just be you and you will attract, you know, the right clients, the right work.
Um Yeah, there's definitely, there's a lot of great stuff going on and coaching is AAA massive part to play in that. And I think organizations thankfully are waking up to that now. They really are the power of coaching. There's still one question that we don't seem to get asked as much that we used to pre pandemic with. Well, what's the ro I that question did come up a lot and we'd be scrabbling around to kind of find data and evidence.
Literally, that question seems to not everywhere, but it was a question that was really important. And it was like, if you can't prove it, then I'm not interested. And it's like, how do you prove hiring for people listening to people building a rapport, building, trust, unlocking the potential? It's all of that. But how can you, how can you prove because that really does build performance on for the individual, for the team, for the organization? But anyway, there we go.
Or they or they happily leave happy, they leave happy and they've moved on somewhere that ha will en en encourage all of that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, there is a culture, isn't there in many workplaces of, of just enough or even not quite just enough. Go on, explain that a little bit further cos that, that could be, that could be so broad go on. What do you mean? Well, it's about getting by, isn't it? We get by rather than going deep as it were? Yeah. Yeah, we get by.
So, as long as people are, as long as people are getting by then and doing the work then that's ok. But, but there's such a gap there in the potential between what is and what could be the art of the possible. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and it's that short term thing, isn't it that short term view of the world? Um, you know, it's now now now rather than building for the future.
And actually, you know, whenever I get on my little coaching coach soap box or do talks, I often talk about, you know, a coaching culture isn't, is about building a, you know, putting the foundations in now, but it's also about building an organization that you'd want your Children to be working in, in X number of years time.
This is a, this is about future proofing because guess what kids are getting more conversa coaching conversations in schools, they're getting t talks about growth mindset and well being and all these great things. I was like, they're gonna expect it don't be suddenly giving them a bit of command and control when they're in the workplace in 10 years time. That's not gonna, that's not gonna cut it.
And it's already showing now, actually, you know, the people coming into the workplace don't fear feedback like others may have done and they're expecting it. They want it, they wanna know how they can improve, how can they be there? It's just times are changing and, and I often throw out the, the, the question, you know, in any talks I might do is, um, you know, time changing. Are you changing with it? Yeah. Cos if you don't move, you'll be left behind, you're going backwards, aren't you?
You're going backwards and stagnating. Absolutely. Uh, I mean, I, I obvious, I mean, I know that we attract organizations who are either they already know coaching is the answer somewhere in there. One of the answers. Um, or they're intrigued to learn more because there's been a lot of noise.
So let you know, I've got some issues here and, and whenever people talk about their issues, their pain points, you know, call it coaching, coach, call it great conversations, call it better conversations are all the, always the answers, you know, and every time more communication, better communication, building, relationships, building, trust. It's interesting because we run a, uh, a training in organizations, particularly in the NHS. And it's, it's 30 hours.
So half of it's on, uh, videos and half of it's practice. But people have to practice six or seven times before they lose the, I must fix everything you're saying to me thing, even though they know that the thing they're trying to do here is to not fix that is a brilliant statistic because I see it and people say, yeah, I coach like, it's, I don't need this. Ah, my team need this. That's, I love that. I don't need this. My team needs.
It's like, oh, that's probably not great self awareness and, and, and then you go into the practice conversations, don't you? And it's, you, you know, you need to literally hack people to stop. Duct tape might be best duct tape. I think duct tape is more useful than powerpoint slides. You know, here we are, here's the tools for this training course. Today, here's some duct tape. We'll talk about that later, but you'll, you'll be wearing it.
But, but the, the magnetic obsession that I have to bring the conversation back to me and I have to tell you what to do is so strong. Yeah, but isn't it? Yeah. And you give people permission not to do that and they can't, won't, don't take it. It's, it's interesting. Michael Bunyan is one of my sort of heroes from obviously the coaching world. I did a podcast with him. I still talk about it. He's great. Um And he, he and he presented our final award at our awards ceremony.
He did a video for us coaching culture of the year. He did a little video for us, which is great. Um He's currently writing another book as well now. Um but his book, The Advice Trap, you know, he sorts out your advice once. So it's like, yes, let me dive in. I've got all my ad advice. I'm gonna show you that I know more than you. Um, because you've asked me so I'm gonna tell you and you know, it, it, it, it's a skill, isn't it not to dive in?
It is a skill not to dive in and to just keep staying curious and asking questions and the, the solutions come, the solutions come, don't they? They don't, I listen to really experienced coaches coaching and they still dive in. It's just a bit more subtle. Yes or, or, or, or framed, you know, maybe it'll help if I just share my No, no, no. It's much more subtle than that. It's, it's, it's diving in early after the first shiny thing, right? I can help here.
So. No. Well, no, it's just asking her, I'm curious about right. But it's being curious about a shiny thing they happen to have said as they're, as they're arriving without asking them, which bit of the thing is a useful thing for us to do. So we then coach on the shiny thing. But what if it wasn't the shiny thing? That's, that was the thing they wanted to talk about today. Yeah, we've done a very fine coaching session on something that wasn't a thing, but we both feel good about it now.
Yes, we do. And they go, oh, that was lovely. And then two days later they go. Oh, actually the thing I really wanted to talk about with my coach was this, but we didn't talk about that cos I wasn't asked the question because my coach didn't ask me what? Yeah. Yeah. And it, it's fascinating. It is, it is a skill and I know we kind of implied, oh, it's not, you know, it's not difficult and I often also relate coaching or a story about coaching being similar to cooking. There's different levels.
We don't all need to be a professional chef, but we should all have some level of uh cooking skills, however basic they may be, we should all be able to do some of this. Um because that is better than not being able to do it at all. And actually just, you know, one, one of the case studies in the book, the I did the interview last week. Honestly, what some of the the phrase was coaching is, is now the air that we breathe. Oh my word. Honestly, I was like, oh wow, that's phenomenal.
That is powerful. And that is from someone who only three years ago was saying our managers were having conversations galore, just the wrong ones. And she says now coaching is the air that we breathe. It's the way we communicate. I was like, wow, that's powerful. How do we get that out everywhere? What a what a difference in the world if you know more because it brings so much goodness doesn't it? I always say to people, there are no downsides to a coaching culture.
There are no, if you can find me one, I'll challenge you because there are, there are no downsides. These are absolutely win, win growth conversations. Um Everybody wins. Therefore, why aren't we all focusing on this? More and more and more? I've got so many thoughts going off jo boom, boom, boom. Let, let this not be our last podcast. Oh, well, considering we've literally just met. Um but we knew that we'd share the same passion and topic and, and even better that it's in a pub. Indeed.
And big. Thank you to Alex. Yeah, cos I'm just thinking. So, one of my definitions of coaching is a conversation where somebody feels heard and gets new insights. Yeah, I love it and, and my new kind of mantra is what's the least that I need to do for that to be true. What's the least that I need to do for somebody to feel heard and get new insights? Oh, I love that. But as you're talking, I'm thinking, actually that's a really good little thing for managers.
You know, what's the least that I need to do? Yeah, for this to be a great conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Abso and to be honest, you and I know it's probably just ask a, ask a AAA small number of powerful questions and sit back and listen, put, put, put the duct tape on and listen and let them do the work and do the work. Yeah, totally. I think that what the most powerful conversations are, those where you don't actually do a lot of the talking at all as we know.
And at the end of it, the person's just gone, blah, blah, blah, blah, talk, talk, talk. And they go, oh, thank you very much for that, you know, and actually you've just answered 11 question or two kind of Nancy Clines. Um, but they've just sort of downloaded and talked and talked and when they've heard their words coming out of their mouth, they've, they've, they've verbalized their thoughts, heard themselves saying stuff.
They kind of go, oh, I've only just realized that myself but, you know, it's, that's, it's giving somebody the space, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, I get coached all the time at work as well, you know. Um, my team coach me, I'll coach, you know. So what's stopping you? I get coached all the time and, and I love it. It's like, literally, well, that was a great coaching question but it's, you know, it, it's a constant, you know. Well, what's stopping you? Uh, actually what is stopping you? Mm. Ok. Right.
Well, what are you gonna do then? Right. I'm gonna do it right off. You go, we coat each other or it's not a, we don't go into a room and a kind of, well, clearly, sometimes we do, we have catch up one to ones and stuff. But, you know, it's, it's, it's just constant. Yeah. How will, you know, by the end of this meeting that it's been a good one? Yeah, totally. Yeah. What do you want to get out of this?
Yeah. Abso, I'm doing something with our team at 10 o'clock or, or some of the team and that's gonna be the first question, kind of what, what will make this a good hour for you? I know, I know what they've come to me asking me for, but I want everybody to input so I can know by the, the, the hour that we'll go. Right? Ok. How was that? Did we all get what we need or is there anything else we need to do? But doesn't that make your life easier? Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Because then they're not gonna go. You didn't give me what I needed? No, because you know what they need. I, there's too much mind reading. Oh, I love the mind reading thing. The mind reading. I remember so many people in my career have come to me and said, blah, blah, blah, blah about somebody. And they've been sort of feeling anxious about somebody and they've come to me and told me and I was like, um, and what have, what have they said when you've told them?
And they go, 00, no, I haven't told them. Oh, no, I'm not. I, I, I've not told them. I was like, ok, however you perceive them as a person and no matter what they've done or said one thing that they are definitely not is a mind reader. None of us have mastered that skill yet. And until we do, you're gonna have to tell them, oh, I don't want to tell them. Well, how, how are they gonna change if you're not gonna give them back to the radical kind of feedback? How?
No, I just wanted to talk to you about it, but I can't do anything about it. It's mind reading and mind reading is very com mind reading is, um, and its comfort zone stuff, isn't it? You know, it's, it's, or assuming what other people are thinking, um, when actually you've just not asked. Yeah. And also I think I, I was doing a course yesterday and we were talking about checking in. Oh, yeah.
And the importance of checking in, in coaching and somebody goes, I don't like checking in and I went, well, how do you know you're working in partnership then cos if you don't check in, you don, uh, you don't know what's happening. You have no idea what space that person or headspace that person is sat in front of you.
If you've not, I, I used to have, um, somebody in my team who it took me a while to realize it was earlier on in my career that actually he had a lot going on in his personal life and only until I could talk to him about that in our 1 to 1 1st, what's going on, what's going on outside of work. So, so we got that off the table. Could we then talk about other stuff? And we'd have a much more productive conversation.
Uh It was like he needed that space, but it took me a little while to recognize that and I was thinking, hang on, there's something deeper here. There's a lot of stuff going on outside of work and we need to talk about that before we can start talking about any worky things here. And it just became part and parcel of our chats and check ins. And Nancy Klein says, doesn't she, that people can't think when they're experiencing high levels of emotion. There you go.
And in the rest of his work, he was probably suppressing the emotion in order to do the work. Correct. Yeah, absolutely. So, of course, he couldn't talk to you until we got that out in a cathartic kind of way. And then after we went and it much better, much better.
Wow. Um but again, I see that as basic leadership and management skills of or just basic communication skills of actually checking in with somebody and understanding how they are are, you know, it's some of our solutions that we provide at the coaching culture, you know, we've had feedback from some people saying, oh, that's really helped me, you know, you advise us to say, to ask somebody how they are quite early on in a meeting, like the first question and then how are you? Really?
And, and, and it was like, it's changed the dynamic of my conversations back to that back to that customer of ours who said our, our managers were having all the, we're having loads of conversations, just the wrong ones. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Have we put the world to rights, do you think, do you think, do you think we've put the world of to rights in the coaching in today? So when's your book coming out? Hopefully. Oh, Crikey, is this, are you holding me to account on a date? Please don't.
No, but I, I, you must definitely come back when it's about to be published. Thank you. Um I don't know how long it takes to get published. So I'm, I'm literally, I'm about, I'm a and I reckon about a week's worth of writing away, which obviously takes time. So I can't, I'm realizing I can't write for solid hours throughout the day to kind of pick it up, drop it and, and I can tell when my kind of fingertips are kind of going. Yeah, I've got nothing else coming out of these.
Now, this is not, this has got to stop. Um So when I'm in flow, I can, I can bash through. I'm, I'm at the first manuscript stage. I reckon I'll have that done by the end of March because the end of this month should be the first manuscript. And then it's got to go into the editing sausage sausage machine of, actually none of that makes sense. There. There, there. Let's look at it again. So I don't know how much we'll need editing.
Um, so, ah, in my head I've got this summer but it could be autumn but I just don't know how long it takes to do the editing, the p you know, the finessing and the publishing. So it could be autumn. Um But it's definitely this year brilliant. I it's so exciting. Honestly, I never ever dream genuinely. Like I said, I've just not been dreaming big enough. Have I that's the problem. How big are our dreams? So how do people contact you, Jo Well, linkedin is always, I'm Joe Wright coach on linkedin.
Um linkedin's a great place. Um I, I kind of quite active on linkedin, sharing any conversations I've had and any learnings I can share with people. Um So lots of learnings along the way. So I sh II I share them out there. Um And also obviously at, at coaching Culture, we're at coaching culture.com and I'm Joe at, as, as we well know, and I'm Joe at coaching culture.com, although we have recruited another Joe, but it's, he's Joe with an E. So we've got, we have Joe Battles now.
It's like which Joe we're talking about. There's definitely the techie one and there's definitely the coach, one brilliant. Uh I'll put those in the show notes, Jo, so Jo Wright, thank you so much for coming to the Coaching Inn. Thank you, Claire. It's been an absolute pleasure. I've loved it. Thank you. Perfect. So, I'm Claire Patrick and I've been in conversation with Joe Wright. Bye bye, everyone.
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 Inn, you can subscribe on pod bean and all major podcast channels. We look forward to welcoming you next time you've been listening to the Coaching Inn 3D Coaching Virtual Pub for more information, check out 3D coaching.com.