Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn. I'm your host, Claire Pedrick. Before I introduce you to today's guest, let me just say that the open house at The Coaching Inn was fabulous and we've decided that we'd like to find a way for you to talk to each other, our lovely listeners. So I've started a sub stack as a beta test to see whether that's the way to do it. Links in the show notes.
So if you want to talk about this episode or about anything else, click below, go to the sub stack and see if you can start a conversation. All feedback welcome. Thank you very much for listening to that bit. So today our guest is Abbi Buszard, who is just a fabulously all-round person. And when she told me she was doing a master's dissertation on coaching and play dough, what could I do? but invite her to come to the Coaching Inn.
For those of you who don't know what Play-Doh is, I'm sure that will become apparent in due course. Welcome, Abbi. Claire. Hello. I could see you. We did. It was. It was glorious. Three dimensions. That's what's so important. Yeah, Abbi came to the presence training, which was a delight. Also available online if you're not able to come to our UK venues. So Abbi, tell us about your journey into coaching first before we get to Play-Doh. Ooh, wow.
So I actually started in chocolate in my career rather than Play-Doh, which is a very good place to start. Having studied law at university and decided I would be a terrible lawyer, I thought I'd be much better at selling chocolate. And so I worked at Cadbury for, as was for nearly 10 years. And I was very lucky there to come across some amazing line managers. and do some amazing courses. And there was a real focus on kind of people development in organisations there.
I remember going on this course when I was about 25 called passion for people. And there was lots of these little stick figures with little purple hearts, which are stuck in my head. But I guess I was exposed in the organisation I was working in to what I didn't know at the time was coaching, because it probably wasn't called that. but was an amazing invitational style of development.
I, after you work in chocolate, you get a bit spoiled by that because everyone wants to talk about their favorite chocolate bar. So when I left Cadbury, I didn't really have any choice but to go into the drinks industry. Cause if there's one thing better than the people want to talk about rather than chocolate, it's cocktails. So I worked at Diageo for a while for six, nearly six and a half years. And that's when I had my first external coaching.
So I was doing commercial leadership roles there and I was leading teams. But I had my first external, what was called a coach there and kind of had a moment where I went, this is amazing as a leader, but also can I do this for a job? Like, is this a thing that I'm allowed to do? And then that sowed the seeds, I think. I, you know, I love. love my time in businesses and working with people, but that was just, I would always known at some point I would go and try and do my own thing.
I probably thought it was going to be 10 years later, but I just saw the opportunity and thought, right, I'll give it a go. I'll give myself a year and can always get a proper job if it doesn't work out. And that was seven years ago. I haven't had to get a proper job since. it's, know, and it's, so I went to Henley Business School, did my coaching certificate. I think I got my first client the week before I started my coaching certificate.
So I had an intense moment of imposter syndrome and then just got on with it and absolutely loved it. And then since then I've kind of added group coaching and team coaching to my repertoire and been lucky enough to work with some amazing clients. yeah, the certificate Henley led onto the masters at Henley. which led onto the Play Doh, which led onto here. So it's funny how the path unrolls. But yeah, it was that.
I think those turning points about working in organisations that took development seriously and then actually having the opportunity to experience coaching and realising what it was and that's what it was called. These were probably two of the big turning points for me. And what a beautiful thing you just said, because when you took that first person on before you'd started at Henley, you'd We're so nervous. Yes, and you have been having conversations like this for 16 and a half years.
Yes. And isn't it easy to suddenly lose confidence and go, well, I can't be a coach until I've done my proper training. When often we go into proper training because of how we've done what we're doing. Yeah, yes, that is a really good way of looking at it. Of course, I knew how to have a conversation. I knew to listen and I experienced it. As you say, I'd been doing it.
And it's interesting, I think you start your training and it takes you back a few steps because you go, I've got to remember everything. I've got to hold all these things in my head and it takes you away from the moment and being in kind of presence and... being able to respond and that is probably the past seven years have probably been my journey of unlearning that in a way as well and getting more and more comfortable with just being less ready and more responsive.
You're reminding me of my coach training because I'd also coached, I'd coached for eight years and that had been my job. And yet I still felt, maybe, no, I'd coached for more than eight years and it had been my job. And then I went into coach training. But in those days there was so little coach training around. It was kind of okay, I think, go, I think I, you know, I really want to learn and I want to do this better.
And I'm also aware that I may have more experience than some of the people who training me. And that's okay, because it's all about learning and throwing things up in the air and seeing how they land, isn't it? And seeing how they work and. Mm. but I think it's such a common thing what you're describing. And it's true and it's not true.
So, before we talk about whatever made you decide to think about play-doh, for the benefit of those... and for the benefit of those who don't know what it is, what is Play Doh? Well, I'm holding for the benefit of those who can see I'm holding for small parts of play dough here. Play dough is actually the thing I do, I don't know what it's made out of gluten.
I've got some gluten free play dough because I had a, when I did my risk assessment for my experiment, my research experiment, I went, what if someone's allergic to gluten? And I was thinking, well, so I found gluten free play dough just in case it turns out. you know, eat play dough so you don't need to worry about gluten free play day. But I did feel like I was very well prepared on my risk assessment. Play dough is this kind of colourful, squishy, modelling clay.
It's very evocative of childhood. If for anyone who's a parent of a small child, it may induce mild trauma from having watched depends how type A you are, guess, but having watched small children mash multiple colours together to make brown play dough which frankly, nobody wants. It's a it's it's kind of a tactile childlike playful material that seems and it smells it smells of it's got a very distinctive smell.
And the other thing I learned is actually it's it's vanilla apparently and the vanilla scent is made by a chocolate company for I think it's Hasbro that I don't know. Anyway, other play days are available. but they make it and put it in. So it's very distinctive. So it's got very distinctive smell as well. And it's very easy. I know a lot of coaches and trainers do use it or have it. And it's also, there's some interesting studies around how it can help concentration and focus.
And it's quite useful just to fiddle with it. been, I've probably, I reconnected with Play-Doh because I have a five-year-old a few years ago as an adult. But, and there's something. incredibly powerful about watching adults open it and play with it and delight over it and exclaim over the smell and make ridiculous models out of it. It's very joyful to watch and see what happens when it happens.
They use it a lot in nurseries and play groups and you can make it I've made it You and you you use flour and water and something else that I can't remember but there'll be a recipe on the internet So if you love the idea of this lovely listener You can look it up and you can make it yourself wherever you are in the world But you do need to keep it in an airtight container. Otherwise, it will go solid Hmm like a raw cake raw pastry it's a bit like pastry isn't it isn't it?
Like pastry, yeah, exactly. So it kind of, brings back those sense memories of squishing and pushing and mating and yes, it's very, I find it very, I'm very kind of sense based. I find it very evocative of childhood, but also of just like kind of possibility. And one of the reasons, one of the things I love about it as well is it's very hard to be a good play dough artist.
No one can make a sculpture that you look at and you go, wow, that is, and I think that's one of the things about sometimes using art materials and coaching is it does bring up that imposter syndrome for people around, gosh, I can't draw or I can't. And there's something around play day where you're like, well, yeah, but everybody can make like a blob.
So it's something around the, it levels the playing field around expectation really, because our kind of our picture of it in our heads is probably quite a childish little something that we make from it, which helps. Well, I mean, it's memorable, right? And my title for my dissertation is Life in Three Dimensions. So how And I kind remember the title of my dissertation because I've probably blocked out but it's around, you know, what's the impact on using modelling clay during group coaching.
And how did I come to Playdoh? Well, I feel I hold this kind of paradox within me as a human being, taking it right back. On one hand, I'm very, excuse me, very, very playful, very I like to find a bit of the humor in the situation. I enjoy finding that kind of lightness that comes and I think it comes really well through learning and through coaching and whole, you know, ability to see things and find something positive from them or something slightly elevated in them.
But I also carry this desire to get things right. And I've carried those two things with me and sometimes they feel like they're in conflict with each other. So, so this idea of playfulness in coaching, I and how we can use it to get rid of that, that requirement for kind of perfect or that expectation and just allow for this experimental try something and if it doesn't matter, try something else. It really calls to me.
I think it's one the things that calls me to coaching generally is this having this space to play and experiment and try things on and see what happens and what comes of it. And so that element really, and as I went through my masters, all the things that are very gestalt-y and embodied and present. really called to me around that.
And there was a concept called thinkering that came up, we added a module on positive psychology, and our tutor talked about thinkering, which is this idea of thinking with your hands and making stuff as you go. And it really, that really stood out to me as well, because there's something around using our full body intelligence, all the things that are our fingers, literally our fingertips that just gosh, that's that feels important in in coaching.
And so I guess that started to it started to call to me as we went through. And as I was thinking about my topics, I thought, gosh, I really want to learn more about something that matters to me and shows up in my coaching and what's important, what I think is important, because then I'll follow and I wanted to follow my nose. you around that and see what happens. So that kind of caused me and then there was something around.
Well, I mean, it's possible to make a really to do a really boring dissertation. I was thinking, yes, I could do there's lots of topics I could focus on and it'd be interesting and I'd learn something that actually, I'd quite like to do something that maybe it came from working in chocolate and everybody wants to talk about their favorite chocolate bar.
But I thought I want to do something that kind of when I think about it, I'm going to spend a lot of my my life over this year working on this, want to do something that makes me go, that's unexpected. And I wanted to do something that made other people go, that's like play do why would you want to why is that important? And so there was something around that. I started mapping out my possible topics.
And I was talking about play do and everyone all my fellow coach, like coaching MSc students who were all amazing, we're just like, yeah, no, that's very, you should do that. You should you should find that out. And this idea of kind of, I'm quite a head person, but that's been blocking like using my senses.
And I've probably been unlearning over the last seven years how to get out of my brain that I thought was very important and what was required and needed to be successful and the right thing to do and to be fully inhabit my body and my senses and then use them in service of. my co-jees and myself. Can I say, when you told me you were doing it, I was so excited because, I don't know if you know this, but Einstein said you can't solve the problem in the frame in which it was created.
That's a great quote. So we've got a principle at 3D that changed the medium and on our coaching courses we start off by training people to draw things instead of talking about them and then we train them to map them out using stuff that could be Lego or bits or you know. And when you said that you used Lego, I you used Play-Doh, I suddenly thought that's another level. of changing the medium because what you've now got is you've got something that you can really touch.
that will change form and shape. Whereas when you use stuff to map it out, you have to build something and you're building something out of somebody else's. So if you're using Lego in coaching, you know, you've got the bricks, it's great. You could do a thousand billion things, but suddenly with Play-Doh, you've got another medium. And I think that's amazing. of like making the invisible visible.
just, I'm really drawn to meaning making, but like the kind of almost unconscious, the beauty of play dough is that it, reveals itself quite slowly. You know, you ask someone to make a model art play dough and they go, firstly, they look at you and go, I'm sorry, did you confuse me with a five year old? Like, I think you'll find them very grown up, serious person. And then they go, and then they And it takes time and it takes experimentation and it reveals something.
then as, people make something and through their fingers, they feel the clay, they shape it, they allow something to come out of it. And then they look at their model and then they start to tell a story about it. And even as they tell the story, they're understanding more about it and what they've made and why, and they find a connection to it. And I think that is really... it's just, it's like another level of depth.
takes it beyond just, I, again, I'm really fascinated by doing the work in the coaching session, not talking about the work. so like modeling is part of that because it, helps people to understand and go deeper and Play-Doh allows it to stay, I guess, lighter, more experimental, more, just, there's a kind of safety to it that lets people look at harder things or unexpected things in a different way, which I love.
So yeah, that was why I, and so I wrapped in, know, and I think it's interesting now, kind of, I didn't finish my dissertation, it was almost exactly nearly a year ago and I handed it in. And there's loads of things, you if I think back on it, I I could have done this, I could have done that, but they're pulling in the elements of, so I did a an experiment.
I did a research experiment, had two groups, did group coaching, because it's, well, firstly, I didn't think I could manage to coach over 70 people individually within the time scale, but also group coaching reveals something different and gives a different medium as well.
And it was this, and I was trying to isolate, is it the touchy bit, touchy bit, through your technical turn, is it the kind of tactile bit of the using it that that matters or is it the meaning making or the model making and it is the meaning making that really matters. my experiment showed that firstly, firstly, it showed that group coaching has a massive positive impact on people's creative confidence. So I measured creative self-efficacy as a measure, creative confidence and wellbeing.
And that and I used a kind of mind body framework for both groups. my control group and my experiment group. so, and then one had Play-Doh, one set had Play-Doh, one didn't. And then I also measured, so I measured things over time as well. And so it also showed that all group coaching had this impact over time as well on creative confidence. So the impact of paying attention to our full body during group coaching and being really tuned into that.
is really significant and has a really strong positive impact on people's well-being and then on their creative self confidence. And then I looked at was it the touch bit that made the difference or is it something more and it's not just the touch bit. because I was kind of in is it like just the squishy squishiness but no there's something around the meaning we make about the from the models how we do it and I was a bit this frustrating thing about doing a masters I mean I is I was limited.
would like it was a very quantitative, very, you know, I did all the statistics and stuff and it was really, I learned a lot. It was really interesting, but I kind of really wished I'd captured some qual stuff with it, some actual, some anecdotal piece because the number of people, what people were saying in the groups that again, that reaction, that child, my gosh, this is amazing. Like the play dough. I don't know why I don't use this. Can I take this? No, you can't take it.
Yes, you can take you know, that side of thing, gosh, I feel so much lighter or it was really amazing to have that. I mean, I, again, that that's something where people feel really they connect to the more playful experimental childhood self. And I didn't capture that in my dissertation and my research because it wasn't part of my, I to keep it small.
but it, it was, it really, it made me think, gosh, this is, something here around people using actually using their sense, their touch sense during this, and the meaning making together that just allows for something, a different kind of conversation, a three dimensional conversation. Yeah. And what I love, Abbi, about the meaning making goes back to something you said earlier about it can't be very accurate and it can't be very arty.
So one of the things that really frustrates me in coaching is when coaches try and make the meaning. But of course, if you're making something out of Play-Doh, even if I think I know what you're making, it probably doesn't represent at all even the thing that you might be talking about as you're making it.
Therefore, I really can't, I haven't got a chance of trying to make the meaning for you because you have to make the meaning for yourself because the only meaning in this lump of clay is the meaning that you've given to it. But that's a sort of, it feels... the word that came to me is that saved you from your post. But there is something even there that actually it even more leads to this one. for the insight to come with the person whose model it is.
Yeah, because it's the ultimate you can't, you can't take someone's, I mean, you can't touch someone's play do like that's like, I mean, every five year old knows that right. But like, it's the, it's the people, you just have to let it unfold. If you're the coach, or if you're the coachee, you just have to give it the time and the space and then you make it and then people are really protective of their models as well. can see like they're holding on to it.
They're looking at it, they're describing it, they pick it up, you know, they, they keep it when they've made it. And I love that. And it's a kind of like an artifact of their own, you know, and then people would take photos of their models or, know, and I use it a lot in coaching now and people take photos of their models or they, you know, I've used it in a team value session where everyone's I've asked people to model one of their personal values and then talk about it and
It's just so, again, you get people talking, chatting, laughing, making it, and then they talk about their models and they go, oh gosh, I didn't realize how important this was, or I didn't know how to make it, and so I've made this and everyone's going, wow, that's really, you know, that's really, I can see what you've done there, or you know,
everything, even I think someone just literally like makes like a blob and be like, this is, this is like what the inside of my brain feels like when I'm, you know, when I'm. struggling, you know, when I'm in a meeting and I don't know what to to people and I can just feel this, like this lump in my throat or this kind of blob in my head.
And it's like, the learnings that they get about themselves and their own sensations and also other people can understand because again, there's something really, okay, with playdoh sometimes you need to have the model explained to you, which is part of the magic, but it's, it gives people such a visual way of understanding what's going on for themselves or for other people, that it creates something really, really different.
And I love that it's both the act of making it kind of calms people and allows people to get in touch with themselves. So it kind of primes them for the kind of conversations, but then you then have something really tangible to work with that you as a coach, can't.
be like I noticed your play do model has these very intricate details and you know it's it's like well tell me about it what's what's going on So there's something beyond words and there's something about enabling people to articulate things that they might not have been able to articulate before or see or sense or Wow. So how does that work in a group?
It really bonds people together actually and what I noticed, part of my research groups were in organisations but they were groups so they weren't teams, they were groups of people from across the organisations and so they didn't know each other very well which is good. and there was just this kind of collective... experience that brought people in to go, you know, and I noticed I had this contrast between my non-pladio groups and my pladio groups.
And the non-pladio groups were very, you know, they would still happily talk about it and they'd reflect on it. And we use this mind body framework to understand it and to get into their bodies.
But the energy levels that go up, the sense of it's that kind of childlike it's almost it's like gosh I'm allergic to like icebreakers but it's like that idea of people going being united behind something that they're doing together there's like a collectiveness in it and this playfulness and there's lots of laughter and people looking at each other's models and trying to understand it and then
that talking is that sense of understanding when you see someone else's model and they talk about it and you understand it it's that gosh yes I get like I get more of that why that is or tell me more about that it gives people that insight into each other. And I think the beauty of what I love about group coaching is this in group coaching have this these again, it's these two tensions, these two different elements that pull together.
So one you have people in a group, they find this familiarity, they find this, there's almost this collective exhale of gosh, thank goodness, it's not just me. Like, I yes, you say, you think that I think that too. gosh, that's, that's really familiarity is really reassuring. And I think that's what people get some benefit from group coaching.
But there's also this kind of tension around this, I never would have thought about it that way, or that unfamiliarity, that kind of different perspective. And I think when, like groups, all groups hold that and when group coaching really works is when people experience both of those things, not simultaneously necessary, but over the course of the session, because it gives them that sense of both collective understanding but also learning and stretch and challenge or different perspective.
And that's, and I think you get a bit of that with the model making because again, it takes people, you know, people look and they go, gosh, you know, even from the, I never would have chosen that colour into the, I didn't, you, you make things differently to me and what's, you know, what have we made that's different? It's just, it brings this real, brings it right there onto the table.
And it just allows people, and you could do a whole, I mean, I, We were focusing on why, so they say it's a like you write the book you need, you do the research you need. My research also centres around this idea of being stuck, so that's why I was measuring creative confidence.
So this idea of how do we get from... dark, you know, unable to move and it's and I, the reason I was doing it was because I think over my masters writing, there's always this period of, you know, I'm writing academic essays as going back to a place a while ago and relearning some skills. There was always this period of just being like, I can't do it like I'm like, and then there would be this something would shift and then it would all start to flow and it would be like this amazing feeling.
it's lit, I mean, I'm chasing that high all the time, right? That feeling of it suddenly the damn breaking and it all comes out. It's that, like, so was looking for like, what are the, how do you shift from that stuck state to that kind of flow state, that sense of just confidence. It's like that giddy. almost reckless, like I can do anything kind of feeling around, I've finally got there.
And I think you can't get to that without having the period of which I've learned, but I always forget every time I try and write anything, I always forget that's the essential part of experience. But there is something through exploring like, what does it take to like, what are the things because actually you can, even though it goes over time, you can shift it through trying stuff. And often it's very physical stuff. It's often changing your state.
And it's thinking about how do I move differently? What do I need to do? where do I, how do I get out of up here out of my left brain kind of stuckness? And what do I do? How do I use my right brain to allow that? How do I use my body? How do I, you know, pay attention to my emotions? Like what's going on? And so there's something around, I think the tactile, it just completes it. Like it's part of it. It's not the only part of it, but it's part of it.
And it's, it's a really interesting way around. no, I actually I believe I can do this. I can I can make that difference. And I think so many people often so often people in fact, think quoted you and my dissertation, Claire, think people often come to coaching with that kind of sense of stuckness. And how do we give them as coaches, more, you know, offer them resources that they can try that may work for some and not for others. And I love that's what I loved about actually less.
let's bring it all in. Let's not just stay talking about and I've you know, I've had I've definitely had those sessions where we've been talking around a problem or we've gone round in circles or we and you can see the coach he's trying to solve it up here in the head and I noticed myself stepping into that and feeling very like, yes, let's, let's really intellectualize this and actually it's, it's a short hand for going, that's not actually, let's not do that at all.
Let's find a different way of shifting it, because actually you take a step back and then you see a different way through or all that starts to flow. As you said, let's take it to step back. You just move back. There's a big shift for me. You know, when you do things and you're not conscious of them and then suddenly you are conscious and you think, yeah, that's quite a good idea.
So one of the things that I'm learning over the last year is that actually I lean back a lot and it's almost always to move from let's talk about it to let's look at it. because it just opens up the space and that's what you're describing and you're describing, let's look at it and maybe let's touch it a bit. Yeah, let's squish it a bit and see whether it squishes back. Yeah. when I started delivering coach training in 2003, we did half a day on stuckness.
How to support people when they're stuck in coaching. Now I have one line. Now I have one line. Move. It's, you know, and again, there isn't much research about stuckness in coach, which I think is interesting because it's because and I don't know, maybe it's just me overlaying my own lens. But and that's why I go to coaching. But it is. It's that I think everyone actually is really interesting. I did a session on my research. and was for the MBA students at Henley.
And it was quite fun to go back, although it was very weird being in like a teacher's chair and I was like, I'm not sure, I'm, ooh, this is a weird sensation. But it was very interesting to go back and talk about it. And I said to people, whenever I talked to people about that stuck state, and I get people to evoke that state and then explore the different kind of, what's going on for them in different areas.
And there was one guy, and I think he was from Scandinavia, he was like, no, I've never been stuck. I was like. What about now? I was like, he's like, don't know what to write down because I've never been stuck. was like, so how are you feeling right in this moment? And he's like, well, I don't know where to move. I feel a bit confused. I'm like, write it down. Right, you've been stuck. Great, great experience. And it was just, I feel like it is something that people can recognise and then...
Maybe not. mean, maybe if you haven't experienced stuckness, I can recommend going and trying to write a 10,000 word dissertation and you will then experience the highs and lows of that. And the highs are so high, like honestly, there's something about that rush of like when it's, when the words start to flow, it's just, I'm basically, that's what the play days for, I'm chasing that, that sensation now all the time. I could have done with you when I was writing in Spain the other day.
When after four days and 30,000 words, I think it was in the bin, I realised that that always happens. Exactly what you said, it always happens, it's normal. Just get through that and then you'll move. Well, Abbi, what an absolute delight to talk to you. I bet you wish. Have you got any Play-Doh in your house, Claire? Do you? I have got air clay. yes, Slightly different sensation. stuck because it dries and then it's something permanent.
yeah, but one of my adventures shortly is to go on a pottery throwing class. And I'm hoping that when I come back from the pottery throwing class, I will go to the air clay. I used to have a lot of Play-Doh in my house and I have been known to make it with glitter and all the shiny things. love it.
But like, and clay is another, like, so a lot of the researchers around using kind of clay, like, probably clay, and there's, I did one of my rewards to myself after I finished my dissertation was to go and do a few arty things without kind of purpose. So I went and did a six week wheel, like pottery wheel course.
And that is another, like, there's something about that, it's such a... grounding and sensation based experience using a pottery wheel, I think, and the strength that's required from it. it's the way it just, I found it just appears, like what you create just appears from nowhere, like your hands being led by your hands and seeing what comes and what's shaped and like, and then, and you get really attached to it and then it goes, and falls off.
And then you kind of, you're like, let's start again. it's such a like. sense based experience. just found it so intensely. It's probably the most present I've ever been, I think was using a pottery wheel because it's you're so focused on the that connection to the ground and your hands on the on the clay and the wheel and it's just yeah, I think you're gonna love it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a dance. That's so beautiful. how do people get in touch with you if they want to talk more, Abbi?
Oh, come and find me on LinkedIn. So Abbi Buzzard, A-B-B-I-B-U-S-Z-A-R-D, just to confuse everybody. It's the S and the Z, it freaks people out. Come and find me on there. I mean, I have a website, but it's kind of more of a sense of, come and find me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's the easiest way, I think. So thank you. Thank you, Claire. Thank you, Abbi. What a delight to have you here. And thank you everyone for listening.
And if you're the person who goes straight to make some or use it, send us a pic in the discussion on the sub stack. The details are below. Yes, I'd love to see everybody's model. What's going on in your head? What's blocking me? That's a good question. If people need a question, like, what's blocking me or what do I need today? Like ask yourself about your resources and might tap into something a bit more unconscious. Nice. There you are. There's a top tip in the final minute.
Thanks for listening everybody. See you next time. Bye bye. Bye.