S4 Episode 20: From The Archives - 3D Book Group - Simplifying Coaching

You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hello, welcome to The Coaching In. This episode is our book club and I'm Claire Pedrick and I'm going to be talking about this week's chapter in our book club, which is Simplifying Coaching, which I wrote. And every week we ask out on social media people to give insights and questions about a chapter of the book. And then the following week we do a podcast.

where we share what we're learning and what others are saying and what people are asking. So the first chapter of Simplifying Coaching is called It's a Journey. And I'm just going to give you some headlines about some of the things that I know now that I didn't know when I finished writing the book. And then I'll be sharing some questions and insights from others. But first of all, I want to do a shout out. So every week we'll do a shout out.

And this week, It's to a delegate from a course in Russia who said this, when the coach keeps silence, the client turns into a thinker. So they stop being a client and they become a thinker. What a deep insight. I love it when we learn from people who are sharing with us on their learning journey. So there you are. There's one to ponder for the week.

You'll remember that in the book, I talk about the idea that we're travelling on a journey as a coach with someone else in their thinking processes, and that sometimes we meet and sometimes they do good work on their own. I also talked about the idea that transformation happens in a container. And two things that have come to me really since in the last few weeks, actually. One is that...

People are really loving the idea of transformation happening in a container and the idea that you make a cake by seeing the ingredients transformed by the cake tin and the heat and that you can't unmake a cake. But somebody wisely observed the other day that actually too many ingredients don't make a great cake either. And there's a real question. I think when we're on a journey with somebody of thinking together about whose recipe is it.

So you'd have laughed if you'd been in my conversation with somebody last week where I suddenly realized I hate dried fruit. So if you give me a cake with dried fruit in it, even if I like the look of the cake, I really am not going to like it because I have a lifetime aversion to dried fruit. But that's also true in terms of the conversations we have, isn't it? Whose recipe is it that creates the conversation that we're about to have?

Is it co -created in partnership on our journey together or is one of us giving the other the recipe? And there's a question that I'll pick up shortly from Richard, which gives a bit of insight into that. The other thing that I realised after listening to Ruth's podcast last week with Sarah Clark about coaching and education is that it's also useful to ask people what kind of coaching is going to serve them. Because there are so many kinds of coaching, aren't there?

There's there's kind of driving instructor coaching that's more like teaching. And then there's the transformational coaching, which we're talking about in the book. which is about enabling people to have new insights into their own stuff that's going to move them forward. So that's a couple of my insights from the book since it was published. So we're going to hear some questions and observations from others now. Let's start with Richard, who put on LinkedIn.

He said this, in a way, I feel I have a foot in two different worlds. One being the technique driven, empower your client to glory world and the other more receptive, more responsive, more like water flowing, which feels like a loss of the support technique can give and a reluctance at the moment to trust the flow, which would mean letting go of being in control, even though I'm not anyway. That's really honest, Richard. Thank you for saying that. And I think that...

Sarah Clark's podcast interview about the fact that sometimes technique is useful might give you some food for thought as you kind of ponder what you've what you've written there. But I think the real clue, the real key is to ask and to actually make sure that we're doing the thing that is most in service of the person that we're working with, that we've both agreed that and if we're using technique, that we're qualified and experienced to do it.

And remember what I said in, I think, the last chapter of the book is the idea that we go to technique last and we absolutely trust that the person that we're working with is pretty much able to deal with their own stuff first. And that means you have to go in without plan B in your pocket. So here's another question.

This one came up at the... somebody on the drinks at the coaching inn, who asked the question, to what extent is this simplification of coaching approach aligned or not with the ICF requirements? So for those of you who don't subscribe to a kind of coaching tribe, the ICF is the International Coach Federation. And actually the answer to this question is, it's absolutely bang on. the ICF requirements at MCC level, the master certified coach level, which is all about working in partnership.

It's all about the coach trusting the process more than they trust themselves. So if you use what you're learning in the book and absolutely practice to really dance in partnership with thinkers and to work simply, you'll fly through ACC. and PCC and then there's more courage to develop as you move towards MCC but it's the same shape and what I notice is the thing that makes the biggest difference to the quality of people's coaching is introducing the boundaries to the conversation.

So remember in chapter one we call that creating the coaching container and there's that lovely Chinese proverb the banks of the Yangtze River give it debt drive and direction. Now some other questions came up in week one's questions which I'll be picking up when we get to those chapters. So next week we're looking at chapter two. Chapter two is about simple listening.

So do share your insights and questions on social media or commenting on our Podbean or Apple iTunes podcasts and we'll pick up with those questions and insights next week. Hello, it's Claire Pedrick here and this is this week's book group. If you're following us on social media, it's on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, hashtag 3D Book Group. And we're reading Simplifying Coaching and this week we've been reading chapter two, which is called Simple Listening.

And it's all about... headlines, underbelly, all sorts of stuff in terms of listening. But I think the most significant thing about listening that really hits me as I think again at this point in my journey is that we are listening so that somebody else understands, which is such an enormous shift from listening so that we understand. Because actually at the end of the conversation, what matters more than anything else is that they've got new insights into their own stuff, not that I have.

So we need to listen in a slightly different way. And if you want my kind of top tip is whatever your job is and however you do what you normally do. If you know that listening differently really matters as part of your development in coaching or in conversations, then start listening like this when you're sitting in a different chair or when you're standing up or when you're in a different room.

If you've been doing listening in the chair that you're probably sitting in right now for a long time, then you're going to find it really difficult to make the shift. to listening differently. And the thing that I've learned since the book went to print is that actually when we offer back what we hear, we always need to offer it as an author or a question and not a statement. Because if we use a statement tone when we offer back what we hear, then people will start correcting us.

and they think they're passing information to us. Whereas what we're actually doing when we're listening is we are facilitating them to listen to themselves. So it's like an improv, make an offer, they don't have to take it and they might take it and they might not. And actually that responds, I think, to your question, Mark, you said, in what way does naming emotions risk being diagnostic?

And I think... I think it does hugely risk us being diagnostic if for example they're sad and we say you're sad. Can you hear that that's a statement tone? You're sad. Whereas if you go sad, they can go, well, not sad, I'm this. So it allows us to enable them to really pick up and think differently. One of the other questions that we were asked is what's the role of us sharing our own feelings in response to listening, in response to what we hear?

And I guess my response to that is it depends what it's in service of and it also depends on whether it's going to give insight to them or whether they're going to make the conversation about us now. rather than about them. So it's a bit of an inexact science, I think, about whether we share our own feelings. And I think you've got to do that with discretion and wisdom and in a way that it doesn't take very long and that you can withdraw it if it's not very useful.

And I think the other question that you're asking, Mark, what's the role of us sharing information on the kind of climate, what's happening in the here and now? Absolutely, what's happening in the here and now, what's happening between us is very much a significant part of listening.

So we're listening to them, we're listening to what they're saying, we're listening to them in their context, we're noticing what we notice and noticing what's happening between us is super useful because it often reflects something that's going on somewhere else. That Daniel Goleman quote that's on page 21, that the range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.

And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds. And that's from Vitalized Simple Truths by Daniel Goleman. So, So there's something about noticing absolutely as we're listening and there's something about offering short and light and not making it the heavy theme of the conversation because they'll know what we need to pick up.

So some other things that have come up really in terms of insights. Mark Chappell, we listen for the thinker, it's not a way to gather information. We're listening so they can explore and notice for themselves. Reflect back what we notice, sight, sound and movement and potential double messages. It's interesting, isn't it? Because sometimes you're listening to somebody and they say something three or four or five times.

And actually the most useful thing to offer in the listening is I notice you've said that three or four times in this conversation so far. So offering.

What we notice and listening deeply is really at the heart of what then forms really great simple questions because simple questions are going to come from what we see or hear or sense and we'll pick that up when we get to the simple questions chapter but for now I think that listening deeply so that they understand is a really useful and important task in the role of coaching. Someone else said that there's a visual insight.

Notice how much the coaching container is filling up with information, which makes it difficult to see the headlines or feel the underbelly. The more information that we bring into the room that we ask for them, the more it feels like interrogation. but also the more they think we're going to do something with what they say.

And actually, if this is about them having the insights and feeling heard, they need to feel heard, but they don't necessarily need to overload us with information because we will miss then the other stuff, the insights and observations of what we're listening. Listening is the best gift of all. And I just encourage you to really continue on your journey to actively listen simply.

I just had a chat this afternoon with Susan, who's doing our social media for this, and she said that isn't interesting that there's such a difference between simple listening and simply listening. There's one to ponder. So next week, we're going to be looking at simple beginnings. and how to really get that conversation off to a brilliant start so that we're both clear what we're doing, how we're going to do it and how we're going to know we've done it.

And we kind of get the focus of the conversation into the right place early on because that's what sets the climate for transformation. So enjoy your read this week and see you next time. Thanks. Bye. Hello and welcome to The Coaching In. I'm Claire Pedrick and today our podcast is The Book Group. At the moment we're reading Simplifying Coaching and this week we've been reading chapter three about simple beginnings.

So I'll be sharing with you some of the things that people have said, things they've learnt, questions that have come in over the week. And feel free to add yours in the comments on the podcast or on our other social media channels as we go. Firstly, a shout out to Josephine, who's messaged in on LinkedIn and said, Stokers has changed my life. Well, Josephine, we're really pleased and happy to hear that. It's made such a difference in the conversations that you're having.

So I'm just going to pick up a couple of things that came in at the end of the last chapter, chapter two, which was about simple listening. And then I'll dive in into simple beginnings. So Liza sent her in a message and she said, in my role, I have to notice, but I don't always say what I see, either because it's not my place to say, therefore I'm waiting for someone else to say it.

However, on reflection, saying what I see would definitely help some of the interesting meetings that I facilitate between people. I think, Liza, what's interesting about that is how much we don't say what we see because we don't know what we're going to do next. And therefore we hold back from even saying what we see. And that's particularly true in meetings. And I really encourage you to try that out.

because there's something about how do you say what you see and then share responsibility for what happens next. And Susan sent in and she said that it's interesting to have a visual insight about that coaching container, that lozenge that holds the work and how much when it fills up with too much information, it's difficult to see the headlines or feel the underbelly. And absolutely, Susan, because I think we can get very swamped with information.

And often we're having conversations with people who are also swamped with information. So, so reducing the amount of noise in the conversation can make a significant difference. So chapter three, Simple Beginnings, is about... really beginning the conversation well so that we don't start doing the work until we're clear what we're doing, how we're going to do it and how we're going to know we've done it. And I think this is the thing that forms the partnership.

So of course the International Coach Federation like this because they call it establishing the coaching agreement and they see it as what they call a core competency of coaching. actually it just makes things more efficient. It gets us to the heart of the matter earlier and it allows us to really work out which bit of the work is it that we need to be paying attention to.

Because I think when we don't begin well what happens is that the person in the conversation who is perceived to have more power tries to pull out the thing that they think is most important and run with that. And almost always, that's not actually the most important thing to the person who perceives themselves to have less power. So kind of laying it out on the table and working out what we're doing is a great way of kicking off. It's important, it matters.

And for those of us whose tendency is to dive into the most interesting thing that comes up in the first three or four minutes. We need to wait. And these simple beginnings, and I've offered you in the book those questions that spell the word stokers, which are one way of doing it, the simple beginnings make all the difference. And they are iterative. So this isn't you saying, I can't possibly do any work with you unless I'm clear what we're doing today. That's not what it's about.

It's saying we need to be clear what we're doing today. And do you know, sometimes that beginning takes almost the whole conversation because as you iteratively go through those questions, people are gaining insights into their own stuff that are moving them forward. And what a delight that is. So don't get obsessive. I must finish those right sizing questions before we do anything. Use them as part of the person's emergent learning and their thinking and their developing.

So here's some feedback from some of our readers this week. So Mark says... that he absolutely loves right sizing the conversation. So that's about making the work the right size for the time that we have so that we're paying attention in the right place and doing the thing that's really useful. He also loves the focus on what's your question for today. And remember that what's your question for today really enables us to be facing forwards in the conversation.

And it also means that it's much easier to interrupt as we move on. So when somebody is talking a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot, and you don't sense that they're getting any insights, then you can say, and today. or and the question we're focusing on is or the question we need to focus on or that you want to focus on.

So those things can make a significant difference for you and also being clear about what direction you're headed in, even if subsequently, which will be covered in another chapter, we decide to change direction. and being positive about time. It is a fantasy to believe that we have all the time in the world in any conversation.

And I think culturally, many of us feel we can't talk about time because it's rude, but also it's really rude to cut somebody off in mid -flow because we've run out of time. And time, you'll discover, is going to come up right the way through the book as being a really, really important thing. As is... timekeeping. So in order to be able to use time in that beginning bit you need to know what time it is all the time. That means that a countdown timer on a phone isn't going to serve you.

It means that looking to the side at the time on your computer is also not going to serve you. You need a time device in front of you so all the time you know what time you need, what time it is. Mark also said he loves making explicit the pre -conversation. I agree with you, Mark, and interestingly, the more it was just a crazy idea that came up like most of the things in the book.

But actually what I observe is encouraging people to do the bit they need to do before we can do the work can make a really significant difference. He also, Mark also says he loves that the Stokers is used in a partnering way and creates the context for the partnership. And then he's got a question. Does Stokers sufficiently emphasize the partnership?

Ah, and he said potentially it's easy to respond to the how we're going to do this in terms of the thinking question rather than in terms of the nature of the partnership. How important is it to explicitly design the nature of the alliance, the space between us for the thinking partnership? Actually, Mark, that's such a great question.

And what you're describing here is perhaps the difference in the questions that we use when we're going to be working with somebody over time versus the questions that we might use in a single session. And you can use the Stoker's questions. to co -create your relationship for the whole of the coaching process. And those questions that you bring here are fabulous in relation to that. And then would make much more sense if you said, so what kind of an atmosphere do we want to co -create today?

Brilliant. And I also think that the role question, how are we going to do this, sets us up for checking in later on in a way that's going to make a really significant difference. Because what we're doing is we're saying we don't have to do it my way. And then you can say, let's do it a different way. But I love the question that you're asking there in your email, Mark, that says, how do we want to be together? when things get difficult.

That reminds me of a conversation I often have in organisations when we're working with people as they begin in the organisation, when we meet line managers and colleagues together and we say to them, what are you going to do when things go wrong? Because your question, Mark, how do we want to be together when things get difficult? Absolutely nail it that maybe things will get difficult and if you've pre -thought that, it means that you'll address the difficult much more early.

So Richard, thank you for your question about what's my role that doesn't quite make sense. And I agree with you. So when the Stokers questions were co -created with Adrian Hawthorne all those years ago in that training room, what role do you want me to take was the question that we used. But actually I now say instead of what role, I say, how should we do this? And most people say, I don't know.

And I hope that the thing that I've just said about it opens up the possibility to change direction later on. I hope that's begun to answer your question. The other thing is that many of us are in hybrid conversations. So as much as pure coaching says you don't put in, most people in normal conversations at work will put in sometimes. So if you say, how should we do this, Richard, at the beginning of the conversation?

You can say, because it sounds as though there's some stuff here that I need to put in and there's some stuff here that might be me helping you to think it through and there may be some stuff here that you need me to hear so I can share that somewhere else. So then you can keep changing hats as you go through the conversation. So it just allows us to be a bit more normal about There being different power differentials in different phases of the conversation when we're in hybrid conversations.

So happy to pick up more questions about that, Richard, and others, when we get to chapters seven and eight, where those kind of questions will come up again. I wonder what your insights were from chapter three. What have you learnt that's going to make a difference in your work? And where can you apply it? Straight away. Next week we're going to be thinking about simple questions. And so that's chapter four.

Do have a read and share your insights and your questions through any of our social media channels or in the comments on our podcast. See you next time. Thanks for listening. Hello there, it's Claire here. This Coaching In is a book group and we're thinking about chapter four. In the UK this week, it's been a public holiday and so we've had some fewer comments this week, but there's also some new learning to share with you about simple questions.

Mark, I love that you say that many of the insights from this chapter. emerge in the listening chapter and I absolutely agree with you because I think that great questions come from what we notice. They come from what we see or hear or sense and the only purpose of them is that they move the thinker forward in their thinking and it's so risky to start asking questions that we like.

One of the things that I notice as people move from being beginner coaches to being master coaches, I suppose you could say, is that actually at master coach level, the questions are far less impressive and far shorter. And the coach asks only as much as they need to ask. in service of the other person moving forward. So actually the best measure of the quality of questions is the impact it has on the thinker and that's why noticing and asking questions are inextricably linked.

In fact it's so important that we run a practicum which is training in noticing because until we notice well it's really difficult to ask high quality questions and high quality questions have a sell by date and can often not be repeated. Some of the things that I've been learning since I finished the book, one is about questions being more about the tone or the question mark than they are about the words that we say. So if you say, Let me think of an example.

If you say, so it's about empathy, that's an offer that they take up and continue to think about. Whereas if you say, so it's about empathy, that's a statement tone and it leaves the responsibility with you. So great questions. Give the flow back to the thinker. And my revelation this morning is that when somebody is in flow in their thinking, which is when the questions are really serving them and moving them forward, they are not fluent in the way they use language.

So internal flow, flow of thinking from questions, produces... what I'm doing now, which is hesitant thinking in the moment, wondering kind of language. And when the thinker responds to questions in a once upon a time, I had an answer to your question and the answer to my question was this and this and this and this and this. That's actually probably not giving them insights. It's just giving them it's them, them duly, diligently answering the question.

So. Susan noticed that every word you speak I said is using a piece of the time we have together. I can remember working with a coach years and years ago and he talked a lot, a lot, a lot and he asked really long questions and I said to him how much is this person paying you for coaching? And then we worked out how much each word was costing them and checking about whether that was value for money.

Mark liked the fact that the the Rilke quote about living the question now and sometimes just sitting with the questions and staying with them is the most powerful thing. Then Mark had a question and he said what's the place of outcome based questions? Questions like what do you want? What do you want to create? How do you want? What do you want to have happen? Mark I think those are amazing questions. Maybe they need to be in book two. Maybe we need to write it together.

They aren't emphasised because you can only put as much as you can put in a book. And what I wanted to say in simplifying coaching was that it's the foundation of the co -creation of the conversation that's the most important thing. Because when you have a great basis and a great foundation, then you can put small amounts of other stuff on top.

But of course, you're absolutely right, Mark, because if you're having a future focused conversation, outcome based questions are based in the future and begin with the end in mind, as Covey would say, and they're great. So I like your questions very much. So that's all for this week, because it's been a quiet week and also I'm only working for three days this week.

So next week the chapter that we're going to be thinking about is chapter five which is about simple exploring and of course that's where we create awareness. So see you next week and I think Ruth said that there's a couple of places left on the practicum where you can practice noticing starting on the 14th of June and you can find out more details on the website. Thanks for listening, bye. Hello, it's Claire here.

Welcome to The Coaching In and this week's book group, which is about chapter five of Simplifying Coaching, which is about simple exploring. But first of all, a big shout out to everyone who's on Transforming Conversations with us at the moment, because I know you're having discussions in your WhatsApp group about who asked which question. So a big shout out to you. And I look forward to seeing you at our next session where we're learning, guess what, to simplifying coaching.

So the thing about simple exploring, I think, is that if you think about the coaching container that we describe in the book, it's about the middle of the flight. So the beginning is about taking off the conversation, then the middle, the exploring bit is about traveling together so that at the end of that exploring, They know things they didn't know before and then landing the conversation, landing the plane and ending well. And I'm never ceased to be amazed by that C .S. Lewis, T .S.

Eliot quote that says, we shall not cease from exploration and the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. And that's what exploring is for. And I think that we really need to focus on this is not me exploring their stuff. This is about me facilitating a process in which they can look at their stuff in a different way that will give them new insights.

Because when I lead the exploring, I set up expectations that I'll do something with the information I've gained. So even if you know that you're not going to do anything with that, the question is why are you asking them to tell you all of that stuff? So it's all about getting them to look. And one of the shifts is to move from conversations where it feels like they're talking to you to a conversation where actually you're both looking at the situation together to give them a different view.

So get them to look. I think that there's a real pressure on coaches. to put in. We feel a kind of obligation to add value but until we recognise that we don't add value by trying to add value, we won't add value. Because that's like just kind of pushing stuff in. I think that for many of us, and I guess that's still also true for me, there's a bit of a mystery around... how doing so little in service of somebody else getting new insights can be such a useful process. And yet it is.

Because going back to that simple definition of coaching that we talked about in chapter one of the book, coaching is a conversation where someone feels heard and where they get new insights into their own stuff. So we need to move to that position when we are being with them as they're processing stuff, rather than talking to them or getting them to talk to us about it.

So all of our questions or offers or whatever it is needs to come from the let's look at this together from a different place standpoint. And of course, in that exploring phase, that middle phase of the conversation, the check -in that I'm talking about actually in next week's blog, the check -in is more important than ever. If somebody's moving forward as they're exploring, we need to check in. Where are we and what do we need to do next? I did my first walking coaching session this morning.

Now we've moved to a more rural area and we were walking in the fields and basically we were walking through unmade paths through very high long grass and it was very beautiful. But... it was quite a trek and the person who was the thinker was kind of leading the expedition because he knew the way through the fields and I didn't and I was following as we were talking. But when the coach is leading we need to keep checking in that this journey is serving the thinker's stuff and we need to...

Check in almost more than to ask questions and look, watch, see whether the person is moving forward as they are exploring. Great question from Mark about tools. Yeah, I mean, I have an aversion to tools as I think you probably know if you've read the book. I think one of the issues about tools is how easy it is. to become a slave to the tool rather than a companion in a thinking process with the other person. Because the challenge of tools is that people will do what we ask them.

So if you give somebody an exercise in a coaching conversation, they will follow you into it. And I think if you're going to use them, you need to be watching all the time. And as soon as the thing is useful to the person, you need to ask them if that's enough or whether they want to continue. But we're still in this challenge at this time and this place in history when coaching is, although it's well embedded in society, it's also quite new.

and there is still an expectation from people who come to a conversation that you're going to lead. So if you start doing an exercise or using a tool, there's a strong pull for them to follow you into it. So use wisely and use as a last resort if other things aren't useful. Unless it's skills coaching. So for example, I'm doing some coaching over time with somebody at the moment and it kind of turned into career coaching. And I said, what do you think we need to do now?

And the answer came back, not sure. So I scoped out. things like, you know, at this stage, some people need to get more clear about what their skills are. Some people want to be thinking about what jobs might be available, how they get them, how they do applications, interviews, what would be useful. So I offered a kind of basket and then asked the other person to say what would be useful. And they said, actually, it'd be really useful to get a sense of what my skills are.

So I guess I... probably engage them in a process then, which I've used over many years, which is get them to talk about the jobs they've had and what they've done while I catch the skills. So I guess you could say that was an exercise. And yet it was initiated by a question that they were asking. And when I said, how should we do that? They wanted a little bit of a steer. So sometimes they're useful. But sometimes it's like we enroll somebody in our game or our preferred thing.

You know, one of the stories in the book is when somebody, I was observing some coaching and they were doing an NLP exercise called time something. And he asked the person to move. And when she moved into the first position of his little exercise, she had a massive revelation. and I saw it and other people in the room saw it but the coach was staying faithful to the tool and then went on for probably 10 more minutes taking her through an exercise in which she got no other insight.

So it would have been amazing if he'd, I mean he was fairly early on in his coaching. journey, but it's really great in those contexts if we can drop things in service of actually they've done their usefulness and we don't have to keep going on them till the end. So that's one to really think about. Another question that came from Mark this week was about whether it's useful to map the journey as it were when we're working with somebody over time.

And I guess my question... about that mark is who would mapping the journey be in service of? Is that because you want to see the journey or is that because it's useful to them? So absolutely that's a great question to ask somebody and be aware that the answer to the question might be no. So there's lots in chapter five about simple exploring the idea that Einstein said you can't solve a problem in the frame in which it was created.

So moving away from words to movement or using stuff to hold the story can be really useful. But remember the thing that we're working in service of, and that is they feel heard and they get new insights into their own stuff. So if curiosity is the reason you came into coaching, make sure you are facilitating their curiosity and not following your hunch. As Nigel Wellings said, never know first, never know better and never think you know.

So for the coming week, we're going to be reading the next chapter, which is chapter six, and that's on simple endings. And of course, as T .S. Eliot said, to make an ending is to make a beginning. And the end is really dependent on having done a great beginning and on checking in all the way through that middle phase of the conversation.

So more about that in next week's audio, I'd really love to hear your thoughts about endings, because I know often it's the area in which coaches feel least strong. And if you're not confident about how the conversation went, you're often kind of running to the end, or if you get really caught up in the exploring phase, you often end quickly because you run out of time. But we need to give as much attention to the ending as we did to the beginning.

And it's interesting because it takes a plane half an hour to land, however far it's traveled. So there's one for you to mull over over the next week. And thank you, Liza. for reminding me in an email this week that you love that acronym WAIT, Why Am I Talking? So there's a great thing to think about in chapter five and exploring and in endings. So enjoy the rest of your week. See you next time. Thanks for listening. Bye bye. Hello and welcome to The Coaching In.

This is our book group and I'm Claire Pedrick and today we're talking about chapter six of Simplifying Coaching which is about simple endings. And thank you so much to those of you who've taken the time to comment, sending questions and observations. The good news about the book group is that we've managed to create a playlist on a podcast channel so that you can go back and listen to all of the book group podcasts if that's useful to you. And that will be in the program notes.

So you'll just be able to click and go through to all of them, past, present and future. So endings. I've learned so much since I finished writing the book about endings. One of the most significant things I think I've learned is that if you stick with the analogy of the plane, it takes 30 minutes to land a plane wherever you're flying. So if you're flying a short distance or between continents, it still takes 30 minutes to land a plane.

And I think that demonstrates the importance of really paying attention to endings. Now in chapter seven, we'll be talking about partnership. And you'll know from the rest of the book that for me, partnership is absolutely fundamental to doing great work together. Because if it's not in partnership, either I'm passive and leaving them on their own, or I'm over -involved and doing the work for them. So we must be working in partnership.

And you can tell whether a conversation is in partnership by what happens at the end. Because too often, the person who is perceived to have the power takes control and lands the plane or ends the conversation. So as much as you know inside your head that you are coming towards the end, if you haven't told them, it's not in partnership. And when you build trust brilliantly, which I think, hope, assume, wonder that you do, then... they're going to have completely lost track of time.

So you've got to tell them, you've got to count in the end and you've got to count it in a positive way. So if your nature is to go, we've only got 10 minutes left and this seems like a very big thing, then you need to start practicing another way. Because you can say in the 10 minutes we've got left, what is it we need to do? So that turns from something that feels quite... pessimistic into something that feels quite optimistic.

Because the thing that I have learned more over the last probably 10 years than anything else, really from demonstrating coaching in webinars and training sessions and all kinds of places, is that when you land the conversation well, when you end it well, the best learning happens afterwards. My goodness, there's a lot to think about there, isn't there? Because I think we have a fantasy that we can do the good work in the conversation and that's what we're there for. We're not.

We're there to get them to begin to move forward in their thinking so that the good work happens. As much as we'd love it to happen with us, that may not necessarily be true. So one of the principles of good endings, is to begin the end even if they haven't had the kind of golden nugget, the insight, the transformation. Because most often I observe that as you say, so in the 10 minutes we've got left, what's the focus we need to be having?

Usually the transformation emerges just after you've said that. So when you don't say it, you endlessly extend the great middle, the simple middle of the conversation. and yet you never quite get to that golden bit. So ending matters and if you think about the plane, the plane lands and interestingly when the plane lands the tone of the engine changes. So in that last three or four minutes of a plane journey there's a huge change of tone.

Then the plane lands and then it keeps moving to the stand and then the passengers get off and they continue to travel to their destination. That's why we need to land well otherwise it's like we're dropping people on a desert island and saying that they can only continue the thinking if they come back to us. Let me just go back to the tone thing. That thing about the tone changes, just a few weeks ago, I was doing a coaching demonstration on our transforming conversations training.

And we were doing some good work and I said to her, probably three minutes before the end, have we finished? And she went, yes, which I heard as no. So I was able to say in the three minutes we have left. What do we need to do to end well? And I think we landed, I think we circled round three times before we landed the plane, before we landed the conversation. And the third time she went, yes. Can you hear the difference in tone? So I observe that when we have landed, the tone will change.

That means that we need to not tolerate or challenge the not quite landed tone that we sometimes get in conversations. And if you work backwards from that, that means that we need to end with three or four minutes to go so that we've got time to circle again. And of course, sometimes they're going to bring up the biggest thing you've ever had to coach somebody with in that last five minutes. But then you can ask them, do you have a safe place to think about that?

And then you've still got two minutes left to work out what a safe place might look like if they say no. So the timing as you get towards the end of the conversation is the thing that really facilitates partnership in coaching. And that has to be timing together. They have to know you cannot keep it a secret. That means you need to be able to see the time all the time.

So if you're face to face, you need to have a clock behind them so that you always know what time it is without looking as though you're looking at the time. I learned that probably 35 years ago as an interviewer, but it's really, really useful principle. Smartphones don't serve us because you look at your smartphone and you don't know what time it is unless you press the button. And if you press the button, you look like you're checking your texts in the middle of the session.

There is an app called Clock. which allows you on a smartphone to get the clock on the screen and it doesn't disappear with the screen saver. So anything that you need to do to be able to have the time in front of you all the time so that you can look at it often and not look as though you're looking at it. That's the only way to partner with the time. And we need to be talking about time from about halfway through. always beginning with the end in mind.

So we've got about half an hour left in a one hour conversation. Where are we? And what do we need to focus on so that we've done what we need to do by the end? That's a partnership decision. That's not my decision. And the best bit happens after it's over. And how absolutely totally amazing is that? Interestingly, thank you to the person who sent me a message about their experience of a coach sticking rigidly to a model. And I love what you said.

Every time I returned, the coach would ask, so have you done what you set out to do? Because we always ended the session with a short, precise action list. When you end like that, they feel like obligations. And when the coach starts next time, have you done what you set out to do? Then you feel like they're really obligations. I love your comment that you felt constrained rather than liberated. And each time you didn't do quite what you said, you started to doubt yourself.

What I ask is, what's been the learning since last time? What have you learnt since we met last time? Unless the action was, I have been procrastinating on this thing for five years and the coaching has been about breaking the procrastination and having the courage to do something. And in that situation, I would check, but I would say something kind of slightly light and humorous, like, so did you do it then? Just as a gentle, a gentle thing. And...

Yeah. Accountability is one of the principles of ending a conversation well with the ICF. And I think, you know, accountability is about accountability to yourself or accountability to others. It's not about accountability to the coach. And I love that comment about reward rather than accountability, because that's a great, great shift, really. So endings matter and endings work well when we began well.

And if we begin with the end in mind and we have a clear sense of the right size of the conversation, then the ending is going to be much easier. The ending is very difficult when we began at the beginning with a very unclear sense of what we were doing or when there was no clear sense throughout the conversation. Those people who want to think out loud and resist any kind of right sizing, I would be checking in on forward movement rather than have we done what we need to do.

So I would be saying at the end of the conversation, so has this conversation begun to move you forward? Because again, that's respectful and it also checks in that they're beginning to do something. So, That's a few nuggets to share about simple endings. Next time, we're going to be thinking about chapter seven about partnership. I want to say how long have you got? Because I've learned so much about partnership even since that the writing was finished and it's my current learning journey.

So I'll pop in the program notes the the pod. the playlist channel where you can listen to all of the book group. If you'd like to leave a review on goodreads .com for simplifying coaching, that would be just lovely. Or of course on Amazon as you choose, but that would be lovely because actually reviews make a difference and I'd really appreciate that if you felt that you were able to do that. So have a good week, enjoy reading chapter seven. I will be rereading it again.

and sitting with the new learnings and talk to you soon. Thanks for listening. Bye bye. Hello, this is Claire Pedrick. Welcome to The Coaching In and this week's book group. And we've just been reading chapter seven. And thank you so much to everybody who's travelled on this journey with us. And a big shout out to the people who are on Transforming Conversations at the moment, who I know you're talking about this in your WhatsApp group.

So a big shout out for you and for everyone who's asked questions or commented on our different social media applications. So chapter seven is all about presence, it's about partnership and it's about power. And this is where I know I have still so much to learn and it's the thing that I'm focusing on really in the next phase of my learning journey. Great question from Joes who said, my favourite chapter by far.

I wondered why this wasn't earlier in the book as it's such a mind shift and foundational understanding to the rest. That's a great question and I need to tell you Joes that it moved up and down the book until the very last minute because I agree with you. I wondered where it needed to be too.

In the end, if it's useful for you to know, we made a choice to put it at the end of the foundation, the beginning, the middle and the end, because I think that seeing partnership in action in the other chapters makes it makes what could be a difficult read because it most challenges how we do what we do. I think it makes it easier. to understand when we've seen the kind of working out in the previous chapters. But you're right, because it is absolutely foundational to the rest.

And there's something about partnership that I think we forget. And I think that when we're paid to do a conversation with people, we can collude with needing to be expert or needing to lead. So one of you said, it's not about you is a wondrous gift to the world and absolutely it's not about you.

We need to work together with somebody else because it's all about them and unless we work in partnership, we're leading and when we're leading, they're following and when they're following, they're not doing the work. Another great question, how does gender and race intersect with power and partnership? What dynamics might we need to be aware of in a coaching partnership? What about our own privilege? Well, where can I start?

There was a great article in Ink Magazine a couple of weeks ago about privilege, and I'll put a link to that in the program notes for this blog, because that might be useful. I think that maybe it's me, maybe it's that the world is waking up to the fact that we need to have more conversations about privilege and we need to talk about privilege in conversations with others.

I had a really interesting conversation with somebody yesterday who's a person of colour about how we're just late to the party as a society about things that have been endemic. for so many generations and yet we are unwilling to name them.

So probably you need to listen to the blog about presence, partnership and power that I might come to in two or five years time if you want to know where my thinking is on this, because it really is a journey and I recognise that for me, I'm quite close to the beginning of it.

and there is much to learn and there is much to tweak in the way that we engage with others in order to have the most effective partnerships and in order to acknowledge the privilege that I come with and the privilege that you come with. Great comment from Mark, partner is central to coaching, perhaps it's at the heart of coaching. And I love what you said about What helps me, you said, is realising we can partner with different roles, thinker and facilitator of the thinker. Absolutely.

We don't need to be doing the same thing to partner because in a dance, you're each doing slightly different things. If you're doing the same thing, yeah, that's a certain kind of dance, isn't it? So here's a great question. Can I maintain the relationship? Whilst right sizing the conversation, checking in and ending well, can a focused conversation still be relational? What do we do if people experience this as too tight and constraining?

What I want to say to you is that right sizing is an iterative process that goes at the speed and in the direction that most usefully serves the thinker. So if you go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom at the beginning of a conversation with those right -sizing questions, then of course the other person won't experience it as partnership. But as you become more confident with them, you can begin to slightly tweak them to a way that feels, that is and feels more relational.

So for example, at the beginning when you're learning to be clear about those things, what are we doing? how are we going to do it and how are we going to know we've done it, you'll say, what would you like to be different by the end of this conversation? How will you know that? But as you begin to soften and to have that kind of in your muscle, you might say, so by the end of this conversation, you'll know that because...

So you can lighten it and you can, and that's what really keeps the relational relational. I think the other thing that's really interesting is that in the Stoker's questions, that question, how should we do this? Which I would call the role question really matters because what it's saying is, because this is in partnership and we don't have to do it my way. And people are so hardwired to follow the leader. They're so hardwired to...

You, when you're perceived to have the power, are hardwired to believe that you need to know what to do and have a cunning plan. People who are deferring power to the person who they perceive to have the power are hardwired to follow the leader. So we need to challenge this. And it takes a bit of getting used to. But if you can have a transformational conversation the first time you meet somebody... then they're going to love it and they're going to want to do it again.

So thank you for listening. The next book group podcast will be about chapter eight, which is about simple conversations in real life. And that will come out in the next two or three weeks because we're just taking a bit of a break for a little while. And we'll be back by mid July with that podcast. So enjoy reading. Do feel free to share or recommend the book to others if you found it useful. And thanks for listening. Have a good week. Bye bye. Hello, it's Claire here.

Thanks for tuning in to our latest book group, which is looking at simplifying coaching, simple conversations in real life. And actually that's where the rubber hits the road, isn't it? It's the real life. It's the places that you can apply the skills and the principles from coaching that actually make it the most useful thing it can be. I think we can't underestimate the fact that Coaching is a multi -million pound dollar business globally.

And there are reasons that people want to make it special so that it can be sold and costed and all those things. And having a coach is a really useful thing. And there is always going to be a need for independent coaches who charge money to people who want to pay a premium. for having a great place to think that's safe and accountable and all the other things. But actually, most importantly, the skills that we learn in coaching can be used in all kinds of different conversations.

So the thing about Chapter 8 is really giving you some real live examples of where it works.

So I often say to people on training courses, you know, there are some simple principles around coaching and if you want to have a look at them you can get the postcards on our website but actually the most important thing is that each of those principles can transform different conversations so you might take notice don't diagnose and use that in management conversations you might take change the medium and use it with your team you could use any of the different principles.

in other kinds of conversations and it's only when you use them all at the same time that actually it's formal coaching. And I can still remember so clearly that day when somebody said to the senior team in front of me, you've got to learn about coaching. I know you're not going to be coaches, but this will impact every conversation you ever have again. And I guess... probably the most significant one that applies, principle that applies across the board, is the principle of right sizing.

Because I think too often in one -to -ones what happens is we get very fixated on listening for the thing the other person wants. And the minute we hear it, we start offering a solution to the thing we think they've just said. But it may be that they're just downloading or thinking out loud. So actually getting clear on those three right sizing things, what are we doing today here in this conversation? What's the best way for us to do it?

And how will we know we've done it is truly transformational, even if nothing that you do after that is coaching. At least what you've done is you've agreed and that you've co -created some good work together. I think the other place that... that just becomes more and more significant for me as a concept really is the idea of using coaching as triage.

So I think often in organisations we think so and so needs to talk to somebody about that and it's not me, but it's really unclear who that somebody might be and what that thing might look like. And one of the great things about coaching is that we can have a 20 or 30 minute conversation with somebody where really all we're doing is working out what the thing is that we need to be thinking about.

And then at the end of the, of the talking about the thing, we can facilitate that person to think about where they might usefully take it because the danger is they've got some anxiety or mental health concerns around the workplace. and you send them, you suggest that they go for counselling. Counselling is a great thing. I am a great advocate of counselling. But they're going to have to wait. And then when they go, they're going to have committed to a series of six sessions.

So they need to be cut or whatever. They need to be kind of clear that it's counselling that they need. So in triage, what you do is you just get them to talk about the thing and then you help them think through. different ways that they might go and usefully take that, different places they might take it. So it might be that they go medical if it's something about anxiety, that there's a medical way forward. It might be that there's a counselling way forward.

It might be that having articulated the thing out loud to somebody else, that actually that's enough. It could be all sorts of things. So coaching as triage means that you don't unpack the thing, you don't dig into the thing, you don't try and fix the thing, but you work with somebody else to help them work out where they might usefully go. So mentoring and coaching are often described in the same sentence, coaching and mentoring.

And different people have different definitions of which is coaching and which is mentoring. One of them includes content, one of them doesn't. Call them whatever you wish. But my definition of mentoring is coaching with content and... Probably the most beautiful fit between coaching and mentoring is to use the coaching container in a mentoring kind of conversation.

Because the great challenge about mentoring is you're working with somebody that you really want to see grow and develop and flourish. They want you to be their mentor. You have so much wisdom and experience to share, they really want it. And the risk is that you give it too early and too much and too quickly, and the risk is they just suck it all in. But it doesn't actually give them the thing they need.

So right sizing in a mentoring, in every mentoring conversation, so that somebody can get really clear what their question is before you start offering wisdom and experience can really increase the power and the potential in a mentoring space.

So yeah, there's lots of ways of applying coaching and we would so love to hear your examples and if you'd be willing to come and be interviewed on The Coaching Inn and just have a conversation with one of us about where you're applying some of these principles in your day job, that would be phenomenal and I know that others would really appreciate the opportunity to listen to that. So just ping us an email and the office at info at 3dcoaching .com. And yeah, that would be great.

And the other invitation I want to offer you is that chapter nine is called the journey continues because actually we're all learning all the time. I'm learning, I've learned loads this week and I've got a lot of stuff to think about to see how that fits with what I know and, and. about simplifying stuff. I've just been rewriting, well, revising the handouts for our transforming conversations course and I've taken out 20 pages because I'm learning that simple works.

And I had a great conversation with somebody this week who's going to be on the podcast in a few months time, hopefully. And he said, if you understand something well, you can teach anyone. So my challenge to you is understand, learn your theories as well as you can, as Jung said, put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul and simplify, because if you can understand it, you can teach anyone. And that's a real sign of where you are in your coaching journey.

So instead of having me rabbiting on for the last chapter of our book group, My invitation to you is who's up for coming to have a conversation with me about what you've learned and what the next stage of your journey is. It's a great way to think out loud, it'll be fun, other people will enjoy listening to it and it's also good marketing for the work that you're doing. So I've asked you for two different things in this podcast. One is if you're up for coming and sharing with us.

how you're applying some of the coaching principles at work, then give us a shout and we'll have you on as a guest. That'll be great fun. And also, if you'd like to come and do a book group podcast with me about chapter nine, The Journey Continues, and about how you're continuing to learn and what your journey is in simplifying and refining your coaching, then you would be so very, very welcome. So thanks for listening, thanks for being part of the book group.

The podcast on this book will continue ad hoc as people put their hand up and say, yeah, I'm willing to come and talk to you about that. And we'd love to hear your feedback at info at 3dcoaching .com to see what you've thought about this engagement and whether you'd like us to start on another book. by somebody else in the autumn and if so it would be great to have your ideas. Thanks for listening, have a great day, bye bye.

So welcome to this edition of The Coaching In, where I'm in conversation with coach Fran Smith, who wrote in from Brazil and said, after we had the 3D book club around simplifying coaching, she said, I've read your book. So I said, why don't you come and do a book club edition where you talk about what you're learning. So welcome, Fran. Thank you. Thank you so much, Claire. It's really my pleasure to be here. I'm very happy to talk about the book.

I'm actually reading it for the second time at the moment. Wow. Well, first of all, let's find out a bit about you. So tell us a bit about your coaching journey. Well, my coaching journey began many years ago when I was in England and I was teaching English and I married a Brazilian and I came to, well, let me rewind. Before that, we went to live in Portugal and I couldn't do anything because I couldn't speak Portuguese.

And at that time, which was about 30 years ago, it wasn't so cosmopolitan there in Lisbon. And I had one option, which was teaching English. So I began teaching English and I fell in love again. I fell in love with teaching, having fallen in love with my Brazilian. And I carried on teaching back in London. And then a few years later, I came to Brazil again to teach. I found myself after a while staying in Brazil and working with, in the corporate world, teaching business English.

And I found myself of course listening because my students were the ones who needed to do the speaking and I needed to listen. So I became quite a good listener. And I also became for many of them, I believe, a confidant because I was outside of their normal corporate world. I was someone who would come in and listen. And a couple of things happened. The first thing is that they passed on their passion of business to me because they were all passionate about that.

And the second thing is that I formed this desire to be able to help them. I realized I had this special relationship with them, but I didn't know quite how. And then when coaching appears, I guess you're already seeing what happened quite naturally is that I thought, well, I could just be. coaching them in English. So it was quite a small step really from where I was to how I became a business coach, which is what I am today. Wow, that's amazing. So it's a little series of slight tweaks.

Yes, yes. And I think like many people, I was kind of almost coaching before I was coaching or I was being led in that direction. Even before I knew the profession existed. And interestingly enough, my first thinkers were those very same students who had the trust in me to say, yes, OK, you can you can carry on with us and coaches in English. That's amazing. So you were like me doing it before it was kind of a common thing. Yeah, yeah.

But I don't think I realized that I was doing something but not doing it very well. And I really wanted the skill set. And that's what I found in coaching. So you've been coaching for a long time. Well, not so much. I mean, officially seven years, I've been coaching for seven years. Yeah. So I'm on my pathway, my credentialing process, done my ACC, done my PCC. And I read your book as part of my preparation for my MCC, which is where I am now preparing. Yeah. So what difference did it make?

A huge, huge difference. I mean, it's by far the best book I've read on coaching in terms of helping me in a very practical way. And it was quite an annoying book. Yes, I was doing it all wrong. I was multitasking and reading it on my treadmill. And of course I didn't get any exercise done because every paragraph I would have to jump off my treadmill. and write down some gem that I wanted to use in the very next coaching session.

So it was really annoying, but I had lots and lots of pieces of paper. I still have pieces of paper with gems and tips and things that I should be following in the coaching session. And it has really, I would say transformed the way I coached. Wow. Well, thank you for the feedback. And you and I did that. Amazing interview, didn't we, for ICF Brazil a few weeks ago. Yes, and lots of people are reading your book. We formed three study groups. Oh, wow.

Yes, and I'm still raving, you know, and I'm still putting it into my practice. And I think the main way it changed, it gave me a role in the coaching conversation and my role, my value now. in my mind is I create the container and I keep the focus. And of course, all the MCC competencies which I'm bearing in mind, such as the learning and who the person is, the learning beyond that situation.

But just having that structure and realizing the value of that gave me enough value that I can control needing to give more, which is what was getting in the way. That's such an interesting insight, learning, giving more was getting in the way. Because I think mastery is so much about trusting the process more than we trust ourselves. Yeah, and I trust it now. And if I still, and I'm not saying I've been totally transformed, because it's really a process.

And every now and again, I won't be able to resist the urge of solving and advising, I won't be able to resist the invitation that comes very often from the thinker. And But I do know that it won't work as well as if I just trust in the process. And I see it again and again and again. You know? So these people you're working with, what are they saying? Well... It's interesting because sometimes they'll almost think it comes from me, but it's not. But I know it's not.

So they'll say, that was great. That was really good. And they'll look at me with admiration and I'll think, well, you know, I hardly said anything and it all came from you. And sometimes I'll say that as well. But you know, it's not like they realize it all comes from them, but it is all coming from them. They realize it works. Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest ethical dilemmas when you work in this way is that the less you say, the more the person that you're coaching thinks it's yours.

Yeah. And they go, Oh, that was really useful. That was really good. Yeah, that was great advice. More often, because I remember I had a mentor coach years ago, an MCC mentor coach, and I remember saying, Oh, that was great. Thanks. And she said, well, you did that. And so maybe I need to be highlighting that. more to them. I think though when I highlight it they still think it was mine. You want to go? No, I can remember.

I can remember years ago, I was working in partnership with somebody and she rang me up and she just had a 45 minute coaching session and she said, I don't know what to do really, because I only asked one question. And then the lady spoke for 45 minutes and said that was the best conversation that we've ever had. 45 minutes and I thought, you know, when I have a thinker who goes for 20 or 25, I think that's the record, but obviously. 45 is the record to beat. 45, wow.

But what listening skills as well. Yeah. And it isn't easy because it's simple. It isn't easy because there is a depth of presence, which is very, very deep. You know, it's like if you just move your eyes, people notice. Yeah. So it's quite tiring actually because of the concentration, not because you're solving, but because of the concentration involved. Last week's Coaching In is about coaching and the Argentinian Tango.

and how you have to have the heart to heart and the contact, you have to have that contact all the time in the way that you're partnering together and improvise. And that's what you're describing, isn't it? That absolute total focus.

Yes, and I'm still not quite there with that in terms of I feel the thinker should be leading and not me, but then I realize it's the dance and the fact that... it should be changing because sometimes, for example, if you're going to challenge someone, you will be leading a little bit. Or if you observe something they haven't observed and show it to them, there's a choice there. So I'm very aware, having read your book, that questions can be leading.

And I was leading an awful lot with questions and not realizing it. So now I'm trying to pick up just some people's words and not bring anything outside of what they brought. But even so, I'm not sure if the dance, when I'm leading in a dance, that's wrong, because I think of this leading, you know? I think it's... Yeah, listen to last week's podcast. OK. Because it's about leading and following and switching between. Yeah. Because actually that means that we're in sync.

because if you follow all the time, then you're not in sync. Yes, exactly. I almost feel like I've denied myself too much. It's like, you know, when you try and change your behavior and you go too far one way. So I feel that I've done that. And I feel that when I'm more in partnership, the thinkers prefer it as well. Yeah. You know, so I think it's allowing myself to go back again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like being on a really, really healthy eating plan, isn't it?

And saying, I can't eat anything and then saying, actually, I can eat some great healthy things. Exactly, exactly. And it's going with that instinct or that intuition of time. No, it's okay to come in here with something. It's useful. It's not, you know. So it's really finding that balance. And well, it's such an interesting journey. So interesting. It's such an art coaching. Yeah. I agree completely and it's an art that we need to master, fall over.

Yeah, there's learning all the time, isn't there? Yes, it's constant. It's constant. And I think it's helpful to listen to recordings. It's helpful to write after a session, be it a good session or not so good session, to write down why, to reflect. These kinds of practices are very helpful. And something else interesting about the journey is people keep asking me, well, when are you going to do it?

And for me, it's not about when I'm going to do it, it's about the journey because I know that when I get the MCC and I'm quite confident that one day I will get it, it won't be the end of the journey. It'll just be choosing another way to develop. And the main thing for me is the development. So as long as I feel I'm learning, that's fine. And I think that when coaches, sometimes I see them doing this, I'm going to get it by. That's almost like sabotage, isn't it? Because that's a lot.

pressure on you to perform and get your recording and that pressure in itself won't be helpful. Val Hastings, who was on the podcast on the 3rd of November, he had eight years mentoring for his MCC, his Master Certified Coach Credential. Brilliant. I love that.

I mean, it took me two years for the PCC and I said it very loudly and very often because I actually wanted to... to help coaches who are finding it difficult, realize, well, it's not easy and it shouldn't be easy, you know, because it's there to help us develop, right? And it wouldn't have any value if it were easy and it wouldn't be a great challenge. And I do like a challenge. Wow. Wow. And yeah, I mean, I agree with you because it's not about the destination.

Because if we think we've arrived, then we start taking power over people and then we're not working in partnership again. Yeah. Yeah, although I must admit, reading your book in a way, I have to be careful because I'm working with other coaches and I'll be looking at them and they're not doing the things that I've learned to do. And I'm sort of thinking, well, that's wrong. And I know also that if someone were to watch me, who's got more experience, they could also think that of me, you know?

So I'm trying to be humble, but I've changed so much, you see. Don't make me a guru. I'm not. No, it's just that I'm just so happy that you wrote the book because it's a side -cratcicle. It's something that I hadn't read anything like that. Yeah. I just wanted to throw a firework in. I think partly because I'd learnt so much about how less enables the other person to do more that I wanted to share that and it felt very counter -cultural.

in relation to an awful lot of stuff that says, and you also need to know this and you also need to know this and you also need to know this. So I've just had session two of an organisational coaching training. And I said to them today, so they did their first practice. And I said, that's the hardest practice that you're going to do. Cause every week now we're going to teach you one thing that will make it easier where you have to do less work. And they're all going, what?

They're going, you know, you can't be serious, but actually that's true. Yeah. It doesn't mean the training's easy because actually the training's really difficult because they're going to have to learn to stop doing things in order to do less. And that's the hard bit. Well, exactly. I think a lot of coaching is about learning not to, it's about unlearning. Yeah. And that's not easy.

You know, it's not judging, it's not assuming, it's not leading, it's not solving, it's not interrupting, it's not, not, not, not, not. And that's harder than learning something new because you've got your old behavior. If you go on automatic pilot, that's there and very, very ingrained. So the unlearning is really the hardest part and essential. And I think it makes you a better person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

So I noticed on LinkedIn, Fran, that you're doing a webinar about for coaches who are using English as a second language. And I'm really curious about the connection between simplicity and people who are coaching in a language that's not their mother tongue. That's very interesting because it's actually helpful. for coaches to be reminded that they don't need to be extremely eloquent or perfect in any way in their second language in order to help their thinker.

In fact, if you think about vulnerability and the creation of trust and power in the coaching relationship, there is actually an advantage to be working in your second language, I feel. Obviously you need a level of competency that you can understand your thinker, but you don't need to understand everything. And I feel that if you're open about the fact that you don't speak that language perfectly and that's all right, you allow them to not be perfect and that's all right.

And you create a very good connection, you know, possibly with that. So yeah, it's very interesting. I'll be giving a webinar on Thursday. Well, that's two days from now for South Florida, I see it. So coaches probably from Latin, Latin America who live there about this topic. And we'll be looking at how coaching in a second language affects the core competencies, which is something I've never seen discussed, but it must be happening all the time. Yeah. I thought that when I saw the advert.

I thought, my goodness, nobody's ever said that before. No, and I can tell you, because I coach in Portuguese as well as English, it's fascinating. And I was with a thinker the other day and we were having the coaching in Portuguese, but he suddenly started speaking in English in the middle because he'd been working with people in English and it was there obviously. And I saw myself, I looked outside myself, I thought, I don't want to do this, I want to say in Portuguese.

And I realised, and I thought, hang on a minute, friend, go with him, go with his language. And then I started mixing it up, Portuguese and English. And it was really interesting to see what was happening with that and with the dance. And he even mispronounced a word at one point in English. And I thought, well, do I repeat the word mispronounce? Or do I come in and correct him and then I'll be coming a teacher.

So you get into all kinds of conversations in your mind, which I mean, it would be great for supervision this, you know, which maybe we're not talking about this, but we should be. Yeah. No, I agree. That's just so interesting. So interesting, but you're right. There must be huge numbers of people coaching in a language, not their mother tongue. And being coached.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, There's some research that's been done about in counseling or therapy that says if somebody's experienced trauma in their early life, it's useful for them to have therapy in the language they spoke when they experienced the trauma. Because to re -engage in that early childhood experience, it's more impactful. if you do it in the language that was the language that they would have been speaking at that time.

Yeah. And I wonder what's happening when people switch between languages. I wonder because people often have roles identified with languages. So, and I, yeah, it's interesting to think about what their identity and how their identity changes with the language. And if they're working in business with English, if they're not bringing that mindset there to the coaching session. So it might be worth discussing it with the thinker, you know, if it comes up.

And another thing I noticed is when I learn from my thinkers, because sometimes they'll use metaphors that I don't understand in Portuguese. And the metaphor is so rich, you know, for our work. So I'll ask them. and they'll explain, they'll teach me. So again, you've got that power thing going on and then I'll be using that. So it seems, I also have to think, when do I ask, when don't I ask? When is it about me? When is it about them?

Yeah. But yeah, it's like a perk of doing it in another language. You do prove your language knowledge, but that's a perk of coaching in general, isn't it? You don't go in there for your benefit, but you come out. Wiser. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, because you just get some wisdom absorbed through your skin on the way. Yeah, but what stops a lot of coaches coaching in another language is they want to be perfect, you know, so they're making it about them.

They're not making it about the coachee or the thinker. And I'm actually in this webinar, I've got this right in front of me, and so I'm going to say it. It's a quote from you that I've got on the slide. And it is your value does not come from how many words you use or from the eloquence of your questions. The value you bring is to be fully present and enable another person to do what is needed to see things differently. Too many words reduce the challenge. Less is more.

I'm just sitting here thinking, did I really write that? Yes, you did. And I think it will give people confidence to remember it because it's so much more than words. It's feeling and emotion and intuition and energy, you know, and people, it's such a shame because I see coaches who could be working in English and they're not because they think they need to be perfect. I did an introduction to coaching, just a one day course.

which we run all over the place just to kind of introduction in organisations. And it's an organisation that has a, they have a recruitment programme from the Philippines, I think it's the Philippines, where they bring nurses from the Philippines to the UK to work in their hospitals. And they're quite senior nurses and they come over and one of the issues is that they have an anxiety about the level of their English. And these two women came on this training day.

where people had lots of different countries of origin in the room, like they do in London hospitals. And at the end of the day, these two ladies came over to me and said, this is amazing because you've given us permission to not feel that we need to understand every single thing that people say to us.

Yeah. And so they were beginning to regain the confidence of their experience because the confidence of their experience had been suppressed by the fact they were so bothered that they didn't understand every single word that people said that they thought therefore they weren't good enough. But they didn't need to understand every single word. They needed to understand enough. Yeah. And in fact, sometimes the words will lead to a mislead you.

Because, you know, I was... I was with a thinker the other day who was very, very stressed and you didn't need to understand a word that this person said to know because the speech becomes very accelerated. You know, you feel it. And at some point he said, but life is good and everything's fine and my family's great. But the energy hadn't changed at all. The dialogue had changed, but the energy was exactly the same.

So, and then later on in the conversation, the energy dropped and I said, oh, I feel the energy's dropped, what's happened? And it had nothing to do with the words, you know, there was something that was going on there, obviously, that he'd realized or thought, but if you were just really basing your analysis on the words, you wouldn't have got to the reality of it, the truth of it, let's say. So words can be misleading. Yeah. And you were paying attention to the musicality.

tone and the pitch and the pace. Yes. And the sensing. Yes. Yes. Because you get into kind of empathy with the person and you feel stressed by them. I mean, they're calm and suddenly, what's this? What do I do with this? Which brings us back to the dance. I mean, should you kind of accelerate a bit to get in there and then calm down or do you just confront them with your calmness and not go there? That's interesting, isn't it? Because there's that saying match for rapport, mismatch for change.

And I guess that's a judgment call in the moment about whether the most appropriate thing is to match or to mismatch. Because, so for example, if you... If you meet somebody in the street and they've lost their mobile phone and they go, well, I can imagine in Brazil, I suspect that the musicality of I've lost my mobile phone will be different in different cultures around the world, won't it? But it will be quite an agitated, loud, I've lost my phone kind of thing.

And often if that's what happens, the person who's trying to support them will say, let's just sit down. Where did you last see it? Yeah. So that's a really good example of mismatching. Yeah. But then there are other cases where it might be the other way round, where somebody might be quite flat in their tone, where to mismatch straight away could seem really disrespectful. So you say to me, I've had a really bad day and a really difficult week and I've just lost my biggest customer.

It's really hard. And I go, so what would you like to do today? You go, well, well, well. It's all going to be fine, your coach is here. I am your magical inspirer. So, so my gut feeling as you say that is that I think you have to take a judgment call in the moment, don't you? Yeah, yeah, which is part of the art. You just never know what's going to come to you and you never know there is not a recipe really.

I mean, there's a recipe with the container, with the structure, but that's the only part there's a recipe for, you know. And that's what I'm holding on to for dear life. And the rest, you just got to have faith in the process, but it works, you know. And if it doesn't, that's okay too. You know, you're learning. And we can work out what to do together, can't we? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one to really think about.

And the cultural kind of undertones and overtones of that are also really interesting to think through. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what... what I'm really interested in at the moment. And that's what I want to be talking about with people more because I feel this conversation, we're not having it. And it's important at least to investigate it. So I have never heard anyone else talk about it ever apart from when I read your little advert for your piece of work in Florida, never heard a word.

Yeah, well, I'm going to start a stick for the ICS. Yeah, we're going to launch it after the webinar and I'm going to start co -creating with people some kind of course, some kind of training, some kind of a safe space for coaches to practice coaching in their second language and receive feedback and discuss these kinds of topics, how it affects competencies and vulnerability and power and all the rest of it. And so let's go. I'm beginning. I'm very excited. Let's see what happens.

That sounds amazing. So if any of our listeners are interested, how do they get in touch with you? Well, you can get in touch with me by LinkedIn, Fran Smith Coaching, and just write me a message and I'll reply. There aren't thousands of messages, I might reply slowly, but I will reply. And you're most welcome to join us, yes, and to create something new in the world of coaching. Wow, there's an invitation to our listeners. Thank you so much.

So if there was one nugget that you would want to leave with listeners as a result of this conversation we're having today, what would your nugget be? Well, coaching is much more than understanding every word the person says. You know, there's an awful lot going on in a coaching conversation. So what I want to say is to people who are coaching in a second language, please bear that in mind. Right. And I think that's it. But I have a question for you, Claire, because... Fire away.

Well, I don't know. Should I be asking you about this? I believe there's another book in the making. There is another book in the making. Right. OK. OK. And anything you want to reveal or is it top secret? No spoilers. It's about the path to mastery. Right. And it's about the at the moment, the running total is 10. It's about what's underneath the ICF coaching competencies or any coaching competencies that actually demonstrate mastery.

So one of the issues about us getting very fixated on the coaching competencies is that actually people can demonstrate them and it's still not mastery. So mastery is what happens underneath them. So it's about... what's underneath and actually it's about, I'm just looking at my little list. It's about things like, I'm not gonna give you all my spoilers. Okay. It's things like vulnerability. It's things like musicality, the tone and the timing of conversations. It's something about not knowing.

And there'll be a chapter on each. And it's not a spoiler to say. the chapter on partnership is all about the Argentinian tango. And I went into a sort of, I'm writing the book in, in, in consultation with a coach in Italy. And we've been toying with the idea of coaching as a dance. And last week, it was my job to research the Argentinian tango because the Argentinian tango is improvised. which is the closest dance to coaching because it's not choreographed.

So I spent hours writing like one paragraph. And then as everybody will know who's listening, last week's interview was meant to be about power and partnership. And then she lets out, she's an Argentinian tango teacher. No. Well, that's the universe conspiring, you know? So now I go back to all that jolly work I did last week and I'm going to delete that paragraph. And she's given me permission to transcribe what she said, which was a million times better than what I'd written. How wonderful.

So she will be quoted. So that's kind of the way it's going at the moment, the new book. But you know me, I reserve the right to learn, so it might change direction. Yes, yes. And thanks for telling me and I'll tell you what, any idea when it's coming out? At the moment, we're still faffing with the first chapter. OK, so don't hold your breath, Fran.

No, don't hold your breath, Fran. Although, if you read our blog, it'll probably give you a bit of sense of what's coming up, because actually that's where I work my things out. that then go into the book. So Simplifying Coaching was actually a whole load of blog posts put together in an order that made sense. So I suspect that if you were to do Google search, probably you'd find whole phrases on our blog from any book I've written.

So. Okay, I'm going to Google Simplifying Coaching blog and take a look at that. The blog's called 3D ideas. So you can get it from www .3dcoaching .com slash blog. Okay. And there's a hyperlink at the bottom where you can sign up and get it every week. Excellent. Thank you. I'll do that. And if you're a reader of our blog, I promise that I won't write every single one about dancing, although the last six I think have been about dancing. Which makes it really clear that's my learning edge.

Right, okay. Well, you know, you could go into jazz a bit because there's a lot of improvisation for jazz. Don't even go there Fran, because I have, there was somebody at the ICF, the International Coach Federation Conference, who knows all about jazz and coaching and is going to come as a guest. Ah, perfect. There you go. I'll be listening to that one. Well, I listened to them all, of course, because I'm... world's biggest fan, as probably people have noticed.

Anyway, I'll be listening, paying a special attention to that one. And I could talk about the competencies in terms of the fact that they do get in the way, because there are so many of them, and they're all about us displaying things. But the whole point of coaching is it shouldn't be about us. So I'm tackling that as well. I'm really in a process here, and I have some complaints. But okay.

That's one of the things that I'm going to talk about in the next book, because the issue, as you've so beautifully said there, is that actually, just because you measure somebody on their capacity to meet the competencies and ask great questions and do what needs to be done, unless you also notice how it's received. and notice the partnership from the other end, then it's not mastery.

So Lucia Baldelli, who I'm writing the next book with, she and I have been having an ongoing conversation that actually says, can you assess mastery audio only? Because actually watching the video gives you a much better sense of how people are switching the lead and follow between them.

I often think that because I record in audio and I think, sometimes I almost I'm giving what could I say like subtitles to it I'm saying oh I noticed you opened up your hands like that and I will be never saying that but I think what they can't see so I've got to say otherwise it won't make any sense you know but then you're performing for the recording so I wouldn't prefer video but I don't know how the thinker would feel about the video. Yeah it's a complexity isn't it?

But It's definitely a work in progress. Working out what, you know, what is mastery and how do we know, how do we know it when we see it is one question, but how do we begin to aspire to that? So, so the other spoiler on the book is that Lucia is a coach that I have mentored. I am mentoring towards her MCC. So she's talking about what needed to change. and what she did to change it. So it's really exciting. Okay, but don't hold your reference because it's maybe on chapter one, but all right.

Correct, but the good news is, well, it's not chapter one, it'll probably be like chapter six, but. Okay. My experience of writing is that it takes months to write the first chapter and to find your voice and to get a structure that's going to work. But once you've written the first chapter, whichever number chapter it is, the others come out really easily. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. The hardest, the hardest step is the first.

So we're not going to take four months to write each chapter. Just so don't worry about that bit. Okay, I know. And you told me to go to the blog. I'll be going. Great. Yes. So what a pleasure to talk to you and. Thank you for being a super fan. That's all right, anytime. And it's been really great to talk to you today. So I'm Claire Pedrick and I've been in conversation with Fran Smith. All right. Thank you for listening, everybody. Bye bye.

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