Episode 5

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Welcome back everybody. We are here with Vicky Murphy. I’m going to let Vicky introduce herself. Nick, how are you at the moment?

SPEAKER_02: 0:14

I’m fantastic, although you promised me you’d send me a packet of chocolate biscuits and you haven’t.

SPEAKER_01: 0:18

And after winning at cricket as well last week. So yeah, Vicky, it’s awesome to meet you again. Vicky and I have known each other for a couple of years now. She was my rock to get me through my ILM. Brilliant person to bounce ideas around and have some thought just really, really enjoyed going on that journey of ILM Level 7, mainly due to Vicky. But I’ll let Vicky introduce herself in a few words.

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

Thank you, Alan. Thanks for having me on. And Nick, also lovely to spend this time with you as well today. And hello to your lovely listeners. So yes, I’m Vicky Murphy. I’ve been at STEP for nine years in May there. I’m the director of HR and OD, but the reason that I’m here today on the on this podcast is because i’m also an executive coach and i run steps ilm center so that’s a center putting delegates through their level five and level seven qualifications apparently i have some words of wisdom to share but we’ll see we’ll see if that comes to fruition or not

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

thanks vicky great to have you on i’ll do a quick teacher’s recap and that helps all of us probably to where we are and then i’ll move into the first bit for you to really kind of expand on we like our interviewees to tell us a bit about their journey and things that may have inspired them people that may have inspired them and to talk about any models that they lean on or don’t lean on and any metaphors that sum up what they do for a job i can already hear that you must be a bit of a rock and a bit of a person for a journey alan said so that might be something that resonates with you take those three things your journey your metaphors your models as a starting point for you to share a bit more about you as a coach

SPEAKER_00: 2:04

so in terms of the The coaching process, I mean, for me, it’s very much, it is a coaching process and I try to get people to trust the process. It’s, you know, we’re all living in a very much fast forward world these days. So coaching is an opportunity to sort of stop that treadmill, to just take a minute, take a breath. I think we all get very lost in the moment sometimes and it’s a fantastic chance to stop and reflect. For me, e-coaching is very much about a journey for people who have got courage and a journey for people who can be brave. It can be quite daunting for people. So not only is it a minute to stop, take a breath, but it’s also to have the courage to look up and look at the other opportunities that are ahead of you. So, I mean, I suppose that’s how I look at it as a general perspective.

SPEAKER_02: 3:02

And are there any models that you’ve kind of lent on? We’ve You talked about things like grow and Alan’s talked about his T-model where he moves from side to side with the person and then drops down every now and then a bit deeper. Is there anything that kind of resonates with you as a model?

SPEAKER_00: 3:15

There’s probably, I mean, when we teach the course, we teach a plethora of different models, sort of explain it very much like a toolkit and say, you know, sometimes to hit a nail, you’re meant to use a hammer. But if you think it’s better to use another tool and it gets a different effect and it does the same job, job but with your unique application and that’s absolutely fine and actually something that peter hill once said to me and i’ll speak about him later but he said to me you need to know the rules to break the rules and that’s very much how i look at it i think in terms of the models that i use i think fundamentally things like grow always there there’s always a little bit of you know the the diagnosed design and do so your 3d model i’m probably particularly focus around a model called core qualities, which comes from Belbin’s two-dimensional model, which is a weakness is an overdone strength. But the core qualities model takes that to another level. I use that quite a lot in terms of demonstrating to people how they can be perceived by others. And it really reflects back to the the best of intentions but sometimes that intention overdone a little bit can come across as something negative so just holding the mirror up and showing them how it can be perceived by other people is a very valuable tool so I really like using that once trust and rapport has been built up to an acceptable level I quite like using cognitive behavioral coaching but in order to do that you’ve got to have a good relationship got to have a good level of trust Because ultimately you are challenging someone’s beliefs and values there, not telling them that they’re wrong, but you are trying to sort of unpick a little bit of that to give them another perspective. I mean, there’s loads of models, but there’s a few that I probably commonly use in application and that I like.

SPEAKER_02: 5:23

And do you think that if you are using things like CBC, that that’s part of the reason why the journey for some coachees is requiring bravery and courage? Or do you see generally that the issues they’re dealing with and the amount of change required does require that real bravery?

SPEAKER_00: 5:42

I think in general, I think CBC is another level of bravery. Sometimes it’s a level of bravery for the coach as well as for the coachee. But in general, I would say you need to be courageous to go into coaching if you really want to get the value out of it and you need to be brave. I mean, my experience is that over the last decade, I think that coaching has become less of a taboo, especially for certain professionals or certain executives at a particular hierarchical level. It used to be very much seen as a sign of weakness. And, you know, you wouldn’t tell anyone you had a coach, a little bit like you wouldn’t tell anyone you sought a therapist. It was, you know, a little bit private and people might have looked at it negatively. But now I think you still need to be brave because you’re opening up the fact that you’re talking to somebody about something that you know I might not have the confidence here or I need to develop or I need to grow and I need a confident on learning to chat that through with but at the same time it’s not the same sort of courage that you would have maybe needed a decade ago you don’t have to sort of be so secretive about it so the courage I’m talking about is the courage that you need to say I don’t know this this is an area that I want to grow and develop on and I’m going to be vulnerable and with that vulnerability the coach can really really dive in and explore the different opportunities of growth with you. But in order to do it, you need to be vulnerable. And that for me takes courage.

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

Do you feel that that’s because coaching has become more accepted or do you feel that’s a little bit more societal and systemic that people are willing to talk about their, yeah, they can explore their feelings more, that they’re more in tune with their feelings or they’re more in tune with being open and sharing their feelings with others?

SPEAKER_00: 7:34

I think there’s a couple of different things that contribute to this I don’t think it’s one singular reason I think one yes society is more open to sharing feelings and to be more vulnerable I think we’ve all seen that a lot with mental health people are more open to talk about it than they were again a subject that was really taboo and isn’t so much now this probably sounds a bit biased but I think that there’s been a lot of positive movement in the HR and training world that a lot of people now see the positivity in proactive development and you know working with an HR department and saying what resources are there available for me to learn and to grow and how can I do this and you’ve got training and you’ve got away days and you’ve got coaching and you’ve got courses and you’ve got mentoring and I think there’s now a plethora of options people are happy to pick from and they’re now starting to see it as a diverse development option. I suppose a little bit from a biased HR point of view, but I’ve been doing HR for a long, long time. And we were always the department that, you know, you don’t talk about, you’re an overhead, you’re there for the bad stories, you’re in the background. And a lot of us have worked really hard to be that strategic business partner to show an organisation how you can push things forward and you can be an asset and you can actually get an organisation to work proactively. And I think some of that is is kind of paying forward in terms of the thoughts that we’ve got about coaching. And I don’t know whether there’s also an element that I don’t know because I’m probably too focused in it, but I don’t know whether is it now become a bit more cool? Is it now become, you know, just more fashionable to have a coach? Is it gone from, I think it almost has gone from one swing to the other from, or don’t tell anyone to, or who’s your coach?

SPEAKER_01: 9:30

We’re back to that pendular sort of approach that from nothing to everything. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 9:36

it

SPEAKER_00: 9:36

feels like

SPEAKER_02: 9:36

that. Well, that’s, as an executive coach, that’s very encouraging that it’s less taboo now. I’m sure that us and many others will be very grateful for that. One thing you said that I’d like to unpick a bit with you is part of your metaphor, I suppose. We’ve talked before about signal and noise and many people have contacted me to say, how do we quieten the noise down? How do we find that space? And you talk about slowing that treadmill down and taking a breath. Can you explain a little bit about how your coaching tries to do that with people

SPEAKER_00: 10:06

so probably in particular the coaching that i do very aligned to the job and the company i work for to give a little bit of context to that the company that i work for step is an organization that supports businesses from the acorn to the tree so from startup right through to to growing and and exit strategies we work a lot with businesses who are smes it can be a family business it can be a small business of of maybe five or six people right up to the ones of two three hundred but these people that we work with that we’re familiar with that are part of the sort of community that we are as business support are so busy in their business they struggle to get time to stop look up and work on their business so you have a mechanic that wants to grow and he wants to open another garage somewhere else or he wants to buy more land and bring in car sales and not just do mechanics But he personally can’t get out the workshop because it’s busy and he’s firefighting and, you know, you need to grow to get more people and, you know, Rob Peter to pay Paul. So coaching gives us the opportunity to take that person out of sort of the rat race and get them to look up and have the opportunity to work on their business. So a thing that we will talk a lot about is working on the business versus working in the business. And that’s something we probably do a lot of with the companies that we support. And that ultimately is really working on growth, on forward thinking, on contingency planning, maybe it’s succession planning and development.

SPEAKER_02: 11:51

Yeah, thanks, Vicky. That’s really good. I really struggle sometimes to support my busiest clients with getting them into a meeting because as much as they love it, the much they see the benefits and enjoy it they’re the busiest people they’re the hardest ones to find a spot in their diary of course they’re the ones who are going to benefit the most from actually finding that time of doing it yeah is that something that resonates with you that the busiest people the ones who need the most are the ones sometimes that struggle to find the space to actually turn that dial down

SPEAKER_00: 12:22

yeah definitely and i think if they’re busy in their business then the benefits of you know organization and prioritization and delegation that that might be something they’re really going to find And it’s a difficult balance because on one hand, you want them to be engaged and ready. We quite often start a session with our coaches for something called a foe factor. So it’s focus, openness and energy. And, you know, we’ll say sort of where are you at the beginning of the session? And along with that, I’ll ask somebody on that particular day and maybe with a particular topic they’re talking about. Do you want high or low challenge? And do you want high or low challenge? or low support and that can waver depending on the topic they’re talking about or what they were doing 20 minutes before their coaching session it’s a challenge and I think what’s good is a lot of the people we work with we have built up a good relationship with and because of that we do sometimes get the opportunity to go right enough you’re either coming in and you see me on this date and we’re going to start this process or if you’re going to keep avoiding me we’re going to have to look at starting this another time because I need you to be 100% into this and we talk about that in our contracts when we contract with people it’s about what is your responsibility as a coachee as well as my responsibility as a coach but you’ve got to show up not just physically but mentally

SPEAKER_01: 13:49

this seems to be a recurring thought and a recurring process to go back to your it is a process and I know now I’m doing more and more exec coaching I’m starting with my version of foe it’s amazing how many people come in and the coaching is the afterthought or that hour is the afterthought even though there’s been pre-emptive emails or messaging of what do you want to discuss today what areas but then even people turning up in the right mindset or the right frame of mind is a really interesting one and I’ve now got to the point of saying well I’ve turned up like this today this is my phone as a coach how are you and then how do you want me to behave as well? Or who do you want me to be today? Do you want me to be 10 out of 10 challenge? Or do you want me to be the proverbial arm around the shoulder? And it’s an amazingly strong initiator of most conversations I have now.

SPEAKER_00: 14:51

I think just building on what you’re saying there, Alan, and that, you know, I do a lot of leadership management training. And one of the things that I speak to managers and leaders about is very similar to what you’re describing there in code. coaching to be the best version of a coach or a leader you need to be inconsistent and and I know a lot of us get asked you know what’s your coaching style etc and you will have an innate style and that will be there and it will come from your values and behaviors but at the same time we need to be inconsistent because we need to flex and to move to be the best coach that we can be for that person who has invested in that session so if they want us to be an empathetic listener that day then that’s what we are if they want us to be a sounding board for new ideas and we go away feeling like we’ve been hit by a Gatling gun. Sometimes it is like that. We still have that role to challenge, to support, to give them the space to innovate and be creative and to take a look at themselves and the options in front of them before they progress. But yeah, definitely what’s important is that inconsistency to be good.

SPEAKER_02: 15:59

I love to hear it articulated in that way, Vicky. It’s very empowering. one of the things that i enjoy so much about coaching against teaching is that you can be so bespoke some clients will have a story a journey a narrative right from start to finish for every session they’ve done all their homework in between they’ve done extra thinking they’ve read a book that you might have recommended or a podcast that you haven’t recommended and then you jump off from that and you respond to it others they look nick i haven’t had any time to think about this in the last week can you just manage me through it and you take on that role as well and i quite see why we need to do heavy lifting sometimes

SPEAKER_00: 16:39

and i think when it comes to being the different kind of coach you need to be it’s it’s different levels of energy you know that you take into these meetings as well but it’s it’s funny how you say you know from from being a teacher because obviously my day job is hr which a lot of people get the impression is it’s very black and white um i probably work more with businesses about finding a bit of the gray which i won’t go into and explain now, but basically it’s not about a yes or a no. It’s about finding that middle ground. But I think that’s why it’s the rebel in me that I still have boundaries within HR where it’s a yes or it’s a no and you still have to work very much to the framework, even if you are getting the business to get the best out of the legalities and the compliances. But with coaching, you have the freedom. You know, if you look at Catalytic Toolkit, you can just follow that free attention. So it’s a lot more fun

SPEAKER_02: 17:34

I’d like to just change the conversation slightly into something that we started talking about with other interviewees which is the challenge that we’ve got it seems internationally with levels of stress etc Gallup have recently published a global workplace report that says that there is a deterioration in mental health and that this is concerning and that a quarter of leaders are feeling burnt out often or always a quarter of leaders we talked about out with Gallup a lot of work around them promoting engagement and it suggests that engagement isn’t being promoted enough across the world in all kinds of work settings if we do engage people better recognition making sure they know their role supporting their well-being for example that the benefits are fantastic in terms of return investment and everything else and in the education in the UK retention is a real problem recruitment’s a real problem and we know there’s a at the last time I heard a 10% vacancy rate in the NHS. So what’s your perspective on either national or global concerns around stress and anxiety and all those kind of burnout things from where you stand?

SPEAKER_00: 18:45

I think that the two are intrinsically linked from my experience. The mental health slash burnout crisis and the struggles and challenges that we’re having to recruit and a lot of it I feel like we need to stop talking about it and one sense but a lot of it is driven from the pandemic we had a lot of early retirees as a result of the pandemic and a lot of that was due to the fact that employers didn’t know how to support people in the best way that they needed to be supported at work so people who were in the older generation left work before they planned on leaving work because employers didn’t know how to have conversations about part-time working or flexible working or hybrid working you industries across the world lost masses of experience and masses of skills and knowledge. So that gave a big gap. That then meant that there was more pressure on the next generation in the work. There’s more for them to pick up. There’s bigger gaps. So that continuation of workflow was interrupted because of that.

SPEAKER_01: 19:56

I have an analogy of a chessboard. And those who know me will be sick and tired of me using this analogy but if most companies and businesses or nhs or or schools nick as well are trying to deliver 64 squares on a chessboard with the resource for 48 so everybody’s doing one point whatever it is else if one person moves or leaves the business or retires early or is off with stress that one square then gets divided up among four people so that 1.2 that you’ve got now because 1.4. And if it builds up too big, we end up trying to deliver 64 squares with 40 people. So everybody’s working at 1.6, 1.8. And I kind of like it as a little simple analogy of finite resource is still trying to deliver 100% outcomes. And I guess that’s kind of where that thought process comes into my mind.

SPEAKER_02: 20:57

You’ve really articulately explained and described an example of this jobs resource demand model, Vicky, where we’ve got a change in the resources that have come about by a depletion of some of the more senior, experienced, skilled, knowledgeable people that have left a gap for the rest to pick up. And it’s a really clear, simple way to describe that. And I’m really grateful that from your HR perspective, you’ve made that really simple and clear.

SPEAKER_00: 21:25

I think that every business will always talk about trying to work smarter, not harder, because they’re trying to work lean you know everything is getting more expensive there’s more pressure on every business um there’s more pressure on costs that pressure is then passed on to the workers and the employees but if they’re already slightly under resourced or they’re they’re missing a lot of the mentorship or the experience then it just adds to the pressure we are at the point where the expectations are too high i mean the the government is is going to bring in once they’re finishing consultation you know the right to turn off it’s already the law in France that that expectation of after five I can still message just because I’m still working I’ll just and they’ll answer that expectation needs to change we need to change the culture and that work-life balance it’s a phrase it’s banded about it’s said but not necessarily meant and we really need to make that a meaningful culture across the UK I personally don’t think that that it’s a one size fits all and fix it with a four day week. I think that there’s the UK and the way that we approach work, the majority of people will just try to put five days work into four days work and we’ll end up getting even more burnout. That’s my personal opinion. And I’m happy to be debated on it, but that’s the way that I see it. I think it’s about clever working models in that, not just about chopping off a day. And I think we really need to look at flows rhythms I’ve spoken to people before about gear sticks and you know you go up and down the gears it’s not always at the same rate there needs to be that that transition within your your work and your life to be able to be healthy

SPEAKER_02: 23:18

when you say that Vicky what comes to mind is the Pareto number in my head the 2080 and the leaders are often in the 20 and key people in the organization are in that 20 and they are delivering a huge amount of the outcomes of the business or the organization and those people are working under sometimes a quite broken system where they haven’t got the resources they haven’t got the time they have to keep juggling too many plates and they really struggle to switch off their phones they’re the ones that will carry on with their phones on irrespective i fear because they realize that they are standing between success and failure for that organization

SPEAKER_01: 23:54

it’s got high resonance with high performance sport you’ve talked about flow you’ve talked about rhythms gear sticks etc in terms of going through the gears and cruising sometimes and putting cruise on, which is I’m now going to use moving forward using cruise mode rather than actually driving the car when you’ve got a long straight path. But in elite sport and even sub-elite sport, we use that. We use that. We use that annual plan. We use that periodization, which I think we talked about before, Nick, but also within that mesocyclist. And one of the critical areas… becoming better at your performance is to make sure you build in a period of active rest or adaptation so you can go hard for a number of weeks but then you’ve got to rest after or or take your foot off or go down to gear two however you want to frame it so you can come back better and i think a lot of people will just work it flat out without taking that adaptation that rest Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 25:06

definitely. I think what you have both described there, you know, Nick, you’re talking about it in a business sense and Alan, you know, relating that to high performance sport is the opportunity for these people to seek a coach because that rest that you need before you go again, or whether you’re talking about the 80-20, this is the opportunity to go, right, how do I regroup? How do I regroup? How do I regroup? do I take a breath? So things like executive coaching are the opportunity to say, right, I need to take a breath. I need to look at me. I need to look at what other things there are out there. Then just keep going until I fall over. And that’s the opportunity in business. I think in sport, you do it slightly different. You have maybe like a two week period where you just have to rest before you pick it up again. But if you put a parallel to that in an executive world, in the world of work, there needs to be that that breath and for me that’s what coaching provides um in particular those senior leaders that you were talking about their neck as well

SPEAKER_01: 26:10

so you mentioned first off vicky about courage and bravery and i know slightly off there we talked about the wizard of oz that’s two of the three and your journey being the yellow road so maybe if we look after ourselves that’s our heart that’s our beat of our rhythm how can i make sure my heart works when it needs to work to go up and go down and go forward but also be in a good shape for when I need to bring that courage, bravery and heart into a project or a process or a regeneration or growth of a business or growth of yourself as well.

SPEAKER_00: 26:47

Yeah, you need to be healthy, you know, and if we’re going to look at the mental health crisis that we’ve got and the pressures of business, which then obviously impacts society, in order to fight through what is going to become harder and more challenging for businesses and for people we need to be healthy and in body and in mind and and if we if we aren’t then we’re more susceptible to cracking and from you know if I look at it from an HR point of view prevention is better than cure look after the workforce give them the opportunity to work in a cycle that has ebbs and flows and different gears and you’re less likely to have them go off and then trying to get them back is really really difficult because there’s that fear of am I going to have to come back in into the same situation. If we can really look at the flow of work, of processes, of organisations and try and keep them healthy and keep the staff healthy, that helps in the longer run. And it might take more investment and more patience from organisations. But I think we’ve all heard the phrase, isn’t it? You know, you need to speculate to accumulate. And if you speculate in your people, in your staff, whether it’s, you know, health and wellbeing, employee assistance programmes, training, development, development, coaching, mentoring, you put all that in, then the quality of what comes out the other side is better, healthier people and better, more efficient, productive businesses.

SPEAKER_02: 28:12

And I think that if we go back to some of the findings from Gallup and other people that we won’t just find better, but we find functioning because currently some aren’t functioning and they’re going under and they’re highly underperforming. So that resonates with me massively. Vicky, I’d like to thank you as we come to an end for a few things that I’m going to take away now and I hope others will will see this too these are things that you’ve given me and I’m sure there’s more as I go through my notes but trusting the process I love the idea and I do this with my onboarding activities with new coachees but to be able to say particularly to those who are a bit worried that just there’s a process and it works just just trust it and then keep reminding of the process I like that that that seems like a nice stable thing to hang on to I always also like the fact that we can have this very varied toolkit but our unique application of it makes the difference so we might use grow or not use grow but if you have a unique way of using grow it could make it really bespoke i like that i like the idea of inconsistency yay permission to be inconsistent thank you very much indeed

SPEAKER_01: 29:23

that was music for both our ears

SPEAKER_02: 29:25

nick and and then the last thing is that in terms of optimism it is less taboo and i don’t really care why it’s less taboo having a coach but it is and if being less taboo to have a coach also opens people’s minds up to the possibilities in personal development of all sorts then I think that would be a great way to move forward so thank you so much for your time I really really enjoyed talking to you it feels very short could have done this for three or four hours but we haven’t got enough biscuits to last that long

SPEAKER_00: 29:59

Alan ate them all wasn’t sharing thank you both very much for the opportunity I was a bit unsure as to what am I going to share and would there be any nuggets at all of wisdom and I listen to myself and I think oh you know there might be something there and and if if someone listens and takes something small and positive where they can just take that breath and maybe get the opportunity to to get into coaching they maybe don’t understand it or learn a little bit more about it then that’s a win for me anything that that helps people look after themselves and you know this is the helping profession so everyone in it just wants to help other people that’s why we do it if anything like that happens I’d be I’d be really grateful so thank you so much for the opportunity thank you thank

SPEAKER_01: 30:46

you thank you Vicky I knew you’d be amazing all those uh worried emails we got about it and your business didn’t come across at all but yeah really really wanted to thank you for that it was amazing

SPEAKER_00: 30:59

no you’re very welcome I really enjoyed that actually really enjoyed it

UNKNOWN: 31:02

Thank you.

Episode 6

SPEAKER_01: 0:18

I had confidence, Alan. I trusted you completely.

SPEAKER_02: 0:22

We’ve had some fabulous feedback and some really good critiquing as well, and we’re trying to improve as we go along. Yeah, hopefully we will get better as the podcast gets better as well. And talking of better, Mr Rupert Newman, welcome aboard. Good evening, gents. How are you? Decent. Decent, I would say, yeah. Really well. Really well. Middling it up, I would say. You know Nick, and I don’t know you as well as Nick does. And this part in the podcast, I’m going to leave you to introduce yourself in a couple of sentences. But also, before we get to the teacher’s recap, to maybe have a think about one or two areas that you’re going to go speak about today, if that’s okay. So I’m going to hand over to Nick. who’s going to do his traditional teacher’s recap and then we’ll go on from there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14

Thanks, Alan. Thanks, Alan. Rupert, great to see you and great to see you again, given that we saw you at a recent community of practice event. So I know from your contributions there that you’re going to be a really great interviewee today. So thanks for coming along and spending some time with us. What we tend to do with our interviewees is ask them to introduce themselves using a standard model, which is, why did you get into coaching? Did anybody inspire you? Are there any models that you use? And we love our metaphors, Alan and I. So if there’s a metaphor that’s you, then that’s all the better. And if you don’t answer all those questions, that’s fine

SPEAKER_00: 1:51

as well. Okay, so first of all, thanks for inviting me on. My name is, as I said, Rupert Newman. I run an organisation called Stronger Humans, which is a kind of coaching and consulting business. And I started that about two years ago and about the same time started my ILM qualification, which I know you both know and love, having qualified in a similar way yourselves I got into it because after a 28 year corporate career I decided I wanted to do something different and I probably had three things that I wanted to do first was just to work less which I’m not quite achieving but we’re on the journey there second one was to work with you know spend more time working with good people good cool people and that wasn’t I didn’t in my corporate life but just that was just something I wanted to do and then the third one was really about do things that kind of almost made my heart sing so things that were more of the stuff that I really enjoyed about the job that I was doing before I came into coaching. That’s kind of how I got into it. In terms of what inspired me, I was fortunate actually over the course of my career to have five different exec coaches. And that’s not because I kind of, you know, they ran off from me or binned me off or couldn’t do. I

SPEAKER_02: 3:00

was just saying, were you the problem or were they the problem? Or was it just the length of

SPEAKER_00: 3:05

time you

SPEAKER_02: 3:05

spent?

SPEAKER_00: 3:06

Do you know what? As I’m the one talking here, I wasn’t the problem but they may well just they may well put something in underneath that said he was the problem so i would tend i worked for organizations that got coaching and therefore as part of my development or as part of you know helping me land in a particular space or role um it was something i valued i asked for and they uh you know supported me with and when i say inspired i had someone who worked with elite athletes i had somebody who came from an educational background i had somebody who was very much from a And so I had the kind of full range of people helping me out. And what I observed, one was they were brilliant at it. Secondly, they helped me through some real interesting times in my career, you know, tough times, good times, bad times. It helped inspire me to do the things I wanted to do. And the second thing is I’ve never forgot them. And therefore, there was a little bit that came out of that that said, actually, isn’t it great when you can have that kind of impact or benefit positive impact on someone’s career? So that was kind of the background and what inspired me i suppose

SPEAKER_01: 4:11

can i jump in there because i love that that phrase making your heart sink what gets you out of bed what is it about being involved in executive coaching the kind of work you do with stronger humans that gets you out of bed that you know where it’s not a drudge it’s not hard work well it may be hard work but it’s not the kind of hard work you used to do

SPEAKER_00: 4:29

yeah so i think for me look having sat kind of on the other side of the fence for you know many many years and found life you know enjoyable but really challenging. And the more senior roles I got within organizations, the more, you know, I was expected to know or do, you know, to deliver stuff of a higher quality and quicker with probably less resources each year went by. And so I kind of have an appreciation of how that feels. And, you know, I like to think that I bring my coaching from a position of wisdom rather than wound. So, you know, I come to it from the point of view of I don’t try and I feel like project that onto my clients, but I do have that kind of understanding of what life feels like. And so what gets me up a bit in the morning is I think there are some amazing people running UK PLC, working in charities, the sector, education, healthcare and the like. And I think more people who get to access coaching, the more people who become, I suppose, better, better able to do their job, better able to cope, better husbands, wives, partners, better mums and dads, you know, as a result of that relationship, because they’re You might be coaching in a work executive context, but the whole human being sits in front of you and, you know, inevitably that’s what shows up within the coaching session. So that’s what does it for me.

SPEAKER_01: 5:50

Thank you. That’s lovely. And I think Alan and I feel very similar that it might be a bit cheesy, but working with amazing people and being part of their journey is a real privilege, isn’t it?

SPEAKER_00: 6:01

Yeah, look, and I fundamentally have always held the view, you know, I try and, you know, my glasses are full and nobody gets up in the morning to do a bad job sometimes choices and circumstances conspire against people but inherently people are good and therefore sometimes they get lost sometimes they need a bit of a guide or a bit of support sometimes you know they need more but um fundamentally that as a coach you can kind of help that process in some way that’s got to be a worthwhile reason of for getting up of a morning

SPEAKER_02: 6:32

so having five coaches or having had five coaches and done two years three years of coaching and beyond your qualification. What are your sort of go-to thought processes? What’s your, do you have a favorite model or is it dependent on the client? Or do you have, I’ve got my kit bag and learning from Vicky last time, I’ve got my first aid bag that I can get out whatever I need in that certain situation.

SPEAKER_00: 7:01

So I would love to say to you, I have this huge kit bag, expansive range of things that I have tons of experience in, but I’m still relatively new to this kind of coaching business. So I have models that I have used through my kind of coaching journey, you know, whether that’s Grow or Clear or, you know, ABCD or whatever it might be. But I’m mostly studying at Henley at the moment for MSC and coaching for behavioral change. And so what that is brilliant at is throwing new insights, new information, new models at you and you get to experiment. So I think I’d probably say, I’m kind of, and this sounds like a cop-out volunteer thing, but kind of one of these kind of hybrid coaches where I kind of borrow from what’s required in the session, you know, and, you know, I might have a standard way of starting, but based on what I hear, then we’ll determine where I go. But actually at the moment, the thing that I’m quite into and I’ve just completed an assignment on is motivational interviewing, which, you know, yeah, which I love because brilliant in terms of enabling change, but also something that has its foundations more in a sort of healthcare addiction background, but has loads and loads of read across into the wider world of exec coaching.

SPEAKER_01: 8:22

It sounds to me like you picked up what I picked up from Vicky in that previous session, where we can be inconsistent. We don’t have to have that one model. We can actually go rogue. We can rewrite the rules. We don’t have to follow. We can go off piste. All those are ideas and I really like that and I picked that up from Vicky Murphy’s interview and that’s a real permission isn’t it to have a varied approach.

SPEAKER_00: 8:48

Yeah and look when I started coaching I was taught in a very kind of purist kind of way and in order to get the basics right I was quite rigid in what I applied and how I do it and quite formulaic as I get more confident as I experience more people coaching me more learners experiences around coaching I’ve realized that actually I do my best coaching work when I’m and this is going to sound wrong but right you know when I’m allowed to run crazily through the meadow working out as I go what’s best for the situation and for the coachee or the clients in front of me

SPEAKER_01: 9:26

now I’d like to move to a topic that I’ve been really looking forward to picking your brains about because we were put together by a mutual friend well he’s a mutual friend now isn’t he Andy and he’s one of the most beautiful human beings And he talks really highly of you. So I know that when I invite you to talk about what stronger humans look like, how you define them, I know you’re not going to give me tough, zip their suit up, soldier on. I know we’re going to get something really interesting from you. So can you unpick a little bit how you define yourself, what a stronger human looks like? Because I’m sure if we ask 100 people, we get 100 different answers. What does it look like for

SPEAKER_00: 10:06

you? Well, it doesn’t look like big muscles. and a weightlifter, right? It just doesn’t look like that. And actually the clue is in the ER at the end of strong, it’s stronger. And I suppose for me, I kind of, when I was thinking about what to call the business, what I was wanting to do, what I wanted to stand for, I kind of had this view that we all have the potential to change things for ourselves, for our teams, for our customers, for families, whatever the environment, the community in which we kind of inhabit. And for me, the stronger means It may be strength of character. It may be strength to collaborate. It may be strength of being able to deliver or be part of a change process. And so that’s kind of fundamentally what underpins stronger humans. And I suppose for me, there’s a kind of quote I have on the website, which is strength does not come from a physical domain. It comes from an indomitable will. And for me, that is, you know, the indomitable will is around something that’s impossible to subdue or defeat. And, you know, wherever we are in life and whatever we’re going through, we all have highs and lows. I think at every point in time, we would all say that we have that kind of strength within us that means that we can get better in whatever it is that we were trying to achieve that day, that week, that month or that year.

SPEAKER_01: 11:29

And I love that optimism. Would you say that all coaches are likely to be optimistic? Because you talk about that innate goodness that we see in people. as part of our DNA as coaches. So would you say that that optimism that you’re talking about, that potential ER, that change, do you think that’s typical of all coaches?

SPEAKER_00: 11:48

Do you know what? I have the great fortune to be learning with and be sit with parts of starting a business as you two will both know. You try and put good stuff out into the world and hope that one day that will kind of come back to you. And therefore, I sit in a lot of forums, talk to a lot of coaches. And fundamentally, one of the reasons I love coaching is because it doesn’t tend to attacked the kind of the psychopathic narcissist it tends to attract people who genuinely want to make a difference and so they will have their own reasons for being there they’ll have their own backgrounds their own approaches and they’ll have their own life experiences that shapes how they approach what they do but fundamentally at the heart of coaching you wouldn’t get into it and if you didn’t enjoy seeing helping people grow so i you know There’s a broad spectrum of what people deliver, but fundamentally at the heart of it, it’s got to be people look for the good in others. I

SPEAKER_02: 12:46

think that’s a fantastic way of looking at people and life and what people are and who they can be. So how does that emanate itself in a coaching without giving away any? How does that look? How do we know that someone starts and ends stronger? How do we know that that someone becomes and they put in place certain things that either you’ve discussed with them or they’ve worked out for themselves.

SPEAKER_00: 13:18

How does that look? So look, whilst I wouldn’t use the expression, you know, we’re going to make you stronger today and what does stronger look like as part of the contracting process, effectively as part of contracting, that’s what we’re doing. We’re kind of talking about what’s on their mind, what would be the best use of their time, you know, what do they want, what does success look like in the session? And that really helps me me define they’re stronger and then you know we go wherever we go and we check back along route to see whether we’re in the right place or whether something else has kind of arrived and then at the end of the session um you know there’s this wonderful uh question that i use quite a lot actually and it’s it’s one of i think it’s michael bungay stanley has seven questions which is you know what’s been most useful here today for you and his view of that asking that question is not to be clever it’s because actually neuro new neuro pathways sort of form once people get the opportunity to reflect on what’s been said. And so that’s a great way for me of checking back in that we’ve either delivered against what someone wanted or actually not delivered, but something else might have happened. And so that’s my definition within coaching of how I understand, you know, stronger.

SPEAKER_02: 14:29

Therefore, do you have long coaching relationships for these people? Because obviously it’s not going to be a one hit or two or three sessions. Is it an elongated process? And do you find that the frequency of that helps or not? Do you get to a point where you think, actually, they’re strong enough?

SPEAKER_00: 14:48

Yeah, look, at the end of the day, I am led by the coachee, the client, in terms of what they want. And actually, most of the time, I tend to work with individuals in organizations where they sign up for, or their organization on their behalf signs up for a package of maybe six sessions over a kind of six-month period. Now, what then drives that, they might have three of those in one month because they’ve got particular something that they want to focus on or an issue or something that they really want to get some support through. Some people might not then speak for two months, but they’re fine with that because, you know, they know that they’ve got some work to do in the intervening period and they need the space and time to kind of go and do that. So it tends to be over a six month period. What I am seeing more and more is single intervention kind of conversation. conversations and it’s interesting actually with motivational interviewing that’s a that’s a kind of big part of that quite often it’s just a single intervention in the first instance with you know the option of more but nothing that the coachee is beholden to and quite often people come to me for a conversation on a particular topic or a particular thing and the offer is there but they walk away and choose not to take that up and just sometimes the hindering coach within my head think oh crikey was i not good enough yeah of course You know, I’m human. But actually, in most cases, it’s because we sorted what they needed to sort and they’re off doing what it is that they wanted to do differently. And that goes back

SPEAKER_02: 16:16

to the half glass full.

SPEAKER_01: 16:18

And it is lovely, isn’t it? When every now and then, 35-minute conversation, people just see a penny drop. And you kind of think, you could have done that without me, maybe. You could have done it with an AI dummy. Maybe I shouldn’t be promoting that kind of idea for our industry. But it is lovely.

SPEAKER_02: 16:33

I’ll cut that out in the edit, Nick. I’ll cut that out in the

SPEAKER_01: 16:36

edit. It is lovely. It’s going to happen. You could already get counseled on Instagram, apparently. We do see that sometimes, don’t we, that there’s an instant clarity that people get from a new perspective and you don’t really actually have to say very much. And it is a wonderful thing where you see people’s potential to improve. I’ve got a specific question for you now before I start rambling. We’ve talked in previous sessions with people about boundaries and about boundaries of time, particularly, and people’s energy levels where the metaphor that been used quite a lot is this treadmill that’s going so fast that we may be speeding up, but systemically it’s being speeded up around us. What can a stronger human do to avoid that? What could that look like to try to get that boundary better? I really put you on the spot now.

SPEAKER_00: 17:28

Yeah, no, look, I think for me, and I can only really speak from what’s come from the coaching I’ve done and some of the things that coaches have chosen to do differently as a result of maybe walking in the room with with exactly that issue, which is not uncommon at the moment, as I’m sure we’ll all testify to. I think there’s a couple of things. One is creating space and time to think. There’s this kind of thing that I’ve learned about recently. It’s called your salience network. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. It’s a guy called Menon, I think, did the kind of work within that space. And effectively, it’s, you know, look, as you can both say, I’m not a neuroscientist, so forgive me for my rather rudimentary explanation of this. Yes, hello.

SPEAKER_01: 18:08

expert

SPEAKER_00: 18:09

yeah yeah no the salience network is the kind of switching process within the brain and and one side of it is is kind of largely uh you know operational and the other side is where the more creative side of things tends to inhabit and you can’t use both at the same time and so it’s probably the reason why you have your best ideas when you’re in the shower walking the dog on holiday or whatever having a swim or whatever it might be if you are fundamentally focused on operational thinking you’re doing delivering which a lot of the people I team to coach are, even if their natural bent is to be more creative, they’re having to force themselves into that operational space. They’re not necessarily creating the time to think, the space to have the kind of more strategic thoughts, the space to do the kind of, excuse the expression, but out of the box thinking. And so one of the things that I encourage people to do is create some space for them where they can not be bombarded and answering emails and on calls and doing X, Y, and Z, and just be with their team or by themselves, and whether that’s outdoors, whether that’s in a different context or otherwise. Because for me, that salience network is, you know, I recognize it in myself, but I see it that people are in the operational domain 90% of the time. And actually, that’s not where you make, you know, the problems that we’ve got in the world today are not going to be solved there, actually, sadly. They’re going to be solved in the other domain.

SPEAKER_02: 19:35

In the shower.

UNKNOWN: 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:37

Wherever.

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

I’d like to go back to something you mentioned, because we’ve got somebody coming on to the podcast soon called Danny, who’s very keen to talk about single session sprint coaching, which is a really interesting thing. I’ve seen, I’ve read a lot about it in therapy as well. And it’s kind of counterintuitive to say we build rapport, we develop a relationship, we spend time deeply, profoundly helping the person get an awareness of who they are, what their context is. And then we start thinking about changes. And then we suddenly say, oh, we can have these quick interventions. So I’m going to go away and Google single intervention conversations. Can you give us a bit more information about that?

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

Yeah, look, I’ve heard it said that it can take two to three sessions when you meet someone cold to develop the level of trust and rapport. Some people are better at it. Some people are more open to it. So you could say, well, it’s counterintuitive then that you could do it in one session. I think there might be, and certainly motivation will interviewing kind of proves this, that when it’s clear why someone’s showing up and there’s almost a pre-contracting kind of moment and someone walks in with a specific need, then I think you can set about that and together can find a way through. And also sometimes by saying that this is a one off session, it can focus the mind that says we’re not going to finish this in session two, three, four or five. It can really focus the mind of both the coach and the coachee. So I think there’s got to be a set of things in place for that to happen I think there’s some kind of pre-contracting I think maybe on specific topics maybe if the coach is an expert in a particular domain or area maybe that’s it but I absolutely can see it now from a business model perspective for a coach you’re kind of sitting there going well hang on how does that work because I’d rather sign people into packages actually do you know what it’s about what the individual wants and needs and therefore it’s you know it’s about doing the right thing by them

SPEAKER_01: 21:38

yeah I think I think what you’re saying resonates with me because there will be clients who will be phenomenally articulate, really self-aware, and have a really good grasp of what their context is, done a lot of pre-thinking, and then they can come to coaching for that sharper kind of chiseling rather than heavy lifting.

SPEAKER_02: 22:00

So on the back of that, and maybe a little bit tangentially, Rupert, how do you become a stronger human? How does your will evolve? How does the way you do things… How does that evolve to make you a stronger human so you can then be a bigger or better foil or faster foil for the people that you coach?

SPEAKER_00: 22:24

So look, it’s a great question because it’s no point them turning up wanting something and I’m complete and utter wreck in terms of trying to deliver that or the other side of things. So I think there’s a couple of things. Behind the scenes, there’s a bit about looking after my physical and mental health and whether that is through sport, through the friends I do through the motorbike tours I go on through the kind of the different things I choose to do outside of work to get myself kind of away that that’s one one element the second piece for me is the discipline of reflective practice actually I kind of when I started coaching I didn’t really fully understand the value I now do and I can now use that to spot themes see things that I could have done differently or better and also take things into supervision and talk with other coaches that can help support me if I feel like I’m not quite doing it right or something’s not working for me at the moment. So I think there’s probably an element of the physical and the mental. There’s an element of the self-reflection. And then the third element is this idea that you never stop learning. Look, I will never complete coaching. You know, there are so many cul-de-sacs, avenues, courses, things to go on, different types of coaching, different styles. And for me, I’ve made the call that says I will just continue but beyond, you know, more than just CPD, I will continue to keep learning in this space. And as a result of that, hopefully, all those three things, hopefully I’ll show up and do a good job for my clients.

SPEAKER_02: 23:54

I think that’s a fantastic answer. I really, really do. And it’s really interesting that they seem to be current themes that keep repeating themselves. And I know we had the community of practice last week and that ended up discussing wellbeing. And I know on the first few pod of this that one of the key things Nick and I talked about was that reflection that the bulk standard dead simple tool of plan do review when they get busy the first thing they stop is reviewing and reflect it I think it’s really really interesting you mentioned supervision then and and and that within that lifelong learning and again it’s something that that we are passionate about as individuals and it’s a fantastic foil to have it’s the old classic coach coaches the coachee then who can is the coach and and how how does that go about and that’s one of the reasons we set the community of practice up was to explore that we work in singularity relatively speaking we do a lot of work and I’ve seen your schedule over the past couple of weeks and months which seems full-on to say the least you know and you need that release and I don’t mean you generally I mean coaches need that release need that downtime but also need that time to reflect and it’s kind of where you started on this in that people need time. People need to come in having put one bit down of their work, but come in with an open mind and a freshness. And we need that as coaches. And I think that’s a beautiful thing to say and almost confirm that what we’re thinking and what we’re trying to do isn’t far off the mark either.

SPEAKER_00: 25:33

And by the way, as with a lot of things in life, I’m good at saying it. I’m less well at executing it consistently every day, right? So it’s a work in progress for me. from that point of view. But I think if you’ve got those three kind of pillars sitting behind you, at least if you’re clear about that, you can notice and spot when things are either going awry or when you need to just take a stop and take a break yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 25:54

Well, what did I get out of that? I love this selfish bit at the end to try and recap what I’ve got. Well, I’ve got three really nice CPD ideas for me to Google. Other search engines are available. And I love that because those are things that I haven’t read about. And if I have, I may just skimmed it so i’m really interested if it works for you it might work for me i love rupert hearing from a lovely guy like you about these amazing people it’s a good reminder that these people are amazing they are innately good and they do have that potential to improve and it reminds me of a maybe a bit of a strange connecting anecdote that when my my gran passed away at ripod age of 85 on the front of her booklet of the service it had a date of but it had a date of where she was born and then a dash and the date when she died. And the beautiful way it was described, it may be very cliche, but it was the first time I’d heard it. And what there was in the middle was this little dash and it’s a tiny little dash, but it meant so much. It meant three children, 10 grandchildren, 25 grandchildren, Wimbledon tennis, a husband, two wars, three houses, millions of rose bushes. It was the most beautiful way to take a very small thing and make it mean something. And that ER, when I, Whenever I see your website again, I will see ER. I won’t see the cool graphic. I’ll just see that word. That’s a really great reminder that we are changing people. So thanks, Rupert. Brilliant. Really, really appreciate

SPEAKER_00: 27:24

it. Thank you. Thank you both. Great to meet you. And also a quick shout out. Thank you to Andy who pointed me in your direction. Good guy.

SPEAKER_02: 27:32

Put your arm behind your back and go do it. Go do it.

SPEAKER_01: 27:36

No, good guy. He gets a name call. He’s going to

SPEAKER_02: 27:38

love it. Thank you so much. That was a fabulous way to spend time. Thank you.

Episode 7

SPEAKER_02: 0:03

Hey, Nick, how are

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

you?

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

So we have literally gone full circle in seven episodes. So we’re thrilled to have you on board. Would you like to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 0:42

Yeah, absolutely. So I’m Danny Leeds. I’m kind of, my background’s really broad and that kind of really shapes how I now work. So my career actually started in education. I was a PE teacher working with young people who were often overlooked or maybe underestimated. And that really set my experience rolling around how when someone really sees you and how behavior change can start with that often having someone who believes in you and having that bit of clarity and not just giving instruction constantly so that’s kind of where i probably really started my coaching experience was in that really early start of my career from there moved around a fair bit moved across to the harlequins foundation the charitable arm attached to harlequins rugby club heading up their hits program working with young adults re-engaging them in in education through rugby life skills and mentoring which was really really tough work but it was enjoyable work at the same time and again started to develop and build that coaching philosophy that I kind of kept through my career and then over the last few years since kind of COVID really it’s been a lot of coaching moved into business transformation and change management I’m leading a leading strategic initiatives for a UK world child care provider which really started to shift my thinking more towards systems thinking and how we can design some leadership behaviours that scale across kind of a variety of areas across the UK and then in the last few years been delivering leadership and management apprenticeships launched my own strategic advisory group called strategic advisory group where i work with organizations on strategy capability and kind of systems level performance and then the kind of day job really where i spend all of my time and get my big buzz from is my role with 10x managers as head of learning experience and delivery designing kind of high impact learning journeys for brand new managers middle managers senior leaders across a range of sectors so that’s kind of the the work we’re really. And then for my sins away from, away from the day job, I’m director of rugby at Hazemere Rugby Club as well. So a lot of long-term strategy, coach development, culture building, that kind of thing as well. I clearly have too much time on my hands, chaps.

SPEAKER_01: 2:47

You’ve obviously packed in a life’s worth of work into a very, very short time. So kudos to you. Kudos to you.

SPEAKER_02: 2:54

And you look about 27 for the listeners. So

SPEAKER_01: 2:58

close, Nick.

SPEAKER_02: 2:58

You’re in a very good paper route compared to me and Alan.

SPEAKER_01: 3:01

You might be our first, when we, when we go to live videos, you might be our first one.

SPEAKER_02: 3:09

A couple of things that I get from your experience, and I didn’t know that, Danny, it’s really, really varied, really interesting. I think that’s going to give you an interesting perspective. And the other thing I get from it is that I was also a PE teacher. So kudos to you because sometimes we PE teachers who put cones down on the grass and blow a whistle, we can actually turn our hand to other things. So all credit to you.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

Thanks very much.

SPEAKER_02: 3:33

Danny, what we normally do and this is the teacher’s recap is we want you to tell us a bit more about yourself and try and use these three lenses anyone who particularly inspired you I’m guessing some of those kids early on did because that was where you first had that spark where you could see that there was something in those children that needed to be done differently to get the best out of them but was anyone who inspired you and do you have any models that you go for or you don’t go for and is there a metaphor for your coaching style

SPEAKER_00: 4:01

yeah absolutely so kind of the end who kind of inspired me probably to step into this coaching sphere was was a was a teacher of mine actually was a PE teacher of mine Dave Spicer still semi in contact with him as well from from all those years before and yet he was an individual who threw me into into sports coaching basically and made me made me learn on my learn on my feet but also helped and guided me and mentored me to be able to ask some really challenging questions when I was kind of 14 15 and supporting others so definitely Dave comes to mind when I was thinking about this particular question and I said yes still in contact with him and he definitely started that journey for me into into coaching as you mentioned Nick that the young people that I worked with early on in my career most certainly guided my my approach now as I said and then finally there’s a really good friend of mine a bloke called John who I’ve known for the best part of a decade now he has very much provided me as as being a sounding board a mentor a guide almost coached me through certain situations as well without him even realizing he’s doing it so yeah they’re probably the three core inspirators for me really would be my PE teacher John and some of the young people that I’ve worked with across my early career who have really set that path going for me.

SPEAKER_02: 5:16

Do you have a model or because various people say different things some say I don’t like a model I like to be inconsistent and just play by you know by the skin of my teeth some people will have a definite model they will go to what they will work from how about you do you have anything that you have?

SPEAKER_00: 5:30

Yeah so when it comes to my approach to coaching and just my life in general. I don’t like being rigid and being stuck to one thing or one model. I think as even my career path tells you that, I don’t like being stuck in one area. Your CV

SPEAKER_01: 5:45

must be really long with a lot of bullet points, 18 months, two years, 18 months,

SPEAKER_00: 5:50

two years. Absolutely. And that’s because the experience side of things builds on that. And that’s how I approach my coaching style as well. So I’m not someone who sticks rigidly to one model. So the way that I’d probably describe it and look at it is the way that I coach is really really layered so blending kind of a bit of structure intuition some stuff around behavioral insights but there are a few core foundations or key foundations to my approach so i tend to use the grow approach as my backbone so rather than treating it as a checklist like some coaches might do just because it feels safe right to stay in that kind of structure i like to use it as a backbone and it gives us a bit of a clear shape to the conversation you know working through those areas but for me it’s about going deeper on the the reality and options phases and really kind of unpicking behaviors understanding stories looking at some blockers so not just setting goals but almost shifting an individual’s operating system away from here’s how I currently work okay let’s what are we what behaviors are we looking to change sort of thing so that’s probably where I start with that kind of first foundation I then move into kind of blending it with solutions focused thinking and this is a big part of how I coach it’s ultimately it’s there to stop people obsessing over what’s broken right and just start building from what’s already worked working by looking ahead so looking for those strengths the kind of small existing wins that are already there and more importantly in this section for me it’s about what are the moments of clarity that we can really scale that we can really hone in on and we can look to push on and move forward with almost keeping people out of the drama and into the driver’s seat to get them to where they need to go and then kind of the final part of my methodology if you will or my approach is kind of some behavioral pattern recognition so this is where it’s not just listening to what people are saying right we can all kind of going to sit down we can listen but it’s tracking how they say it so what’s the tone what’s the pace what are they repeating what’s being avoided understanding the body language so almost the the bottom line of my approach is without sounding too cheesy almost connecting those small behavioral breadcrumbs to the bigger picture so where are they getting in the way what story are they running how is it playing out in their their day-to-day performance and for me by combining all of these three areas it’s shifting from unaware behavior to intentional behavior almost going from from autopilot to taking control. And so that’s kind of my almost three-step methodology when it comes to a coaching conversation that I’ll have with someone.

SPEAKER_02: 8:11

I love the articulation. Really interesting articulation of that. But you said it was cheesy and you mentioned breadcrumbs so you’d make me hungry for lunchtime. You said small behavioral breadcrumbs. Is that a phrase that you’re used to using or is that something that’s just come in your head just now?

SPEAKER_00: 8:26

It’s something that I’ve been thinking about actually over the last few days. I’ve been kind of playing with some of my coaching bits and pieces this week actually I’ve had some time to dive into it and just kind of thinking about how I coach and I don’t know where it came from it was just something that popped into my mind and that I think I was kind of eating lunch at the same time actually so it might have kind of connected there subconsciously so yeah it’s kind of just come into my kind of approach this week really so I’m

SPEAKER_02: 8:52

going to feed you a metaphor it’s a Hansel and Gretel metaphor isn’t it because that idea of a story and the part of the story and being finally attuned to it is something that clearly says a lot about you. As you’ve been talking, you’ve reminded me about a book, and I’m holding it up for the viewers. It’s called More Than Miracles. It’s something that I got to through my counselling training. It’s called More Than Miracles, The State of the Art of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. Danny, is that something you’ve read? I

SPEAKER_00: 9:27

haven’t, no. I’ve just made a note of it, though, so I’ll definitely be checking that out.

SPEAKER_02: 9:30

Everything you’re saying seems to to be the executive summary of that book. So that’s really resonated with what I learned when I read that book about how we can do things at pace in the right way. So it’d be great to be able to unpick that with you now. So as coaches, we try to avoid bias, don’t we? We try to avoid too much going with our gut when actually that’s our story and it’s not their story. And one of the things I will often do is when I meet someone for the first time, I will write down what I instinctively think their issue is in reddit the bottom of the first page and sometimes steer away from it because often we can strategize conversations can’t we but you talk about behavioral insight and about intuition and could you see that that that skill that behavior of the coach is more important in this brief solution focused high impact coaching style

SPEAKER_00: 10:28

yeah absolutely I think it’s pivotal right if we’re looking to coach in in those short bursts, kind of the sprint coaching that I’ve been talking about via my LinkedIn and to you guys as well. I think you have to be really tuned into, okay, what is the key issue here? How are we going to get to that really quickly? And for me, it’s about almost creating a sense of urgency and a sense of pressure for the coachee to get right to the bottom of that really quickly, to cut through the complexity, cut through the noise, and really get to the crux of, okay, what are we actually trying to work on here? because those longer style coaching sessions, we can sometimes get stuck in the problem, right? As you mentioned there, Nick. And it’s for me, how can we cut through that noise? How can we get clarity? How can we shift the behavior or the mindset blocker that needs shifting? And then finally, what’s that impact, the high impact one action you’re going to take away and do next?

SPEAKER_01: 11:24

So how have you learned to do that, Danny? What key skills and behaviors have you evolved in order to pick that up? And then in reality what does that look like what’s the length of time and I was just saying to Nick I did a coaching yesterday it lasted for over two hours and I came off it absolutely shattered but it was a brilliant two and a bit hours so what sort of time lengths you use and what sort of frequencies that is at in a you know fitting three or four into a really tight tight time scale because that puts a lot of onus on on the coachee to be available to to digest to reflect to then go again and go again and go again

SPEAKER_00: 12:10

absolutely so i’ll tackle that first question for for you there chaps in terms of how how did i kind of pick up on that kind of process and that method and how did i learn some of those skills and And if I’m honest, trial and error, you know, giving it a go, getting it wrong, reflecting, getting feedback, that classic kind of feedback loop piece really. And then just kind of honing those skills over time, dropping them into kind of the various facets of my life from the rugby club to the day job to the freelance stuff I do, at points even at home as well, to which point my wife tells me to shut up and stop talking about coaching whilst we’re eating dinner. So yeah, it was a lot of trial and error to understand, okay, what’s going to work? And that’s constantly developing right I don’t think it’s at a point where it’s I’m completely happy with my approach and the method and I think over the time it’s going to get stronger and better and things are going to change right so it will be a lot more trial and error as well as I move forward in terms of that length piece though so the way that I kind of mapped it out in my head when I started playing with this kind of strategic sprint method is kind of focusing on 20 minute blocks kind of bringing cognitive load theory into it you know after about 20 minutes we tend to switch off so how can we really scale it down and make it focused, direct and behaviour-led. And what I have kind of said to people who have joined this journey with me is it’s 20 minutes a week for roughly 10 weeks. So 10 sessions in full. Obviously, that’s going to be completely individual dependent. There’s some people who are going to want shorter, some people are going to want longer. But ultimately, for me, it was about creating a rhythm of pressure release over the course of five to 10 weeks, having it as a performance check-in, recalibrating some behaviours. The reason why I think it works and I’ve seen it work is when we’re building that pressure we haven’t got time to overthink things so we have to move towards action we’re also looking to build that momentum and change in real time not just kind of yeah I’m going to do this in four weeks time okay what are you doing in the next week between this sprint and the next sprint really putting that pressure on and it’s also that 20 minutes you’re there to you’ve got to respect the energy and the attention in the room for those 20 minutes so there’s no chance of filter or waffle it’s just it’s just focus and that’s where we can remain a bit agile through each sprint, right? We have to adapt to what’s happening that week. It could have been, you know, a leader having a really difficult conversation with a member of the team that they’re struggling to piece together. Okay, let’s focus on that. What happened? What do you want to get better at? How can we shift? And for me, it’s a method and an approach that is matching the speed of the world that we currently operate in. Everything moves so quickly as we know. So how can we really come back to what actually matters? And that’s improving performance through coaching.

SPEAKER_02: 14:47

Can I ask a question? Has language… always been important to you in terms of your ability to attend to people’s language you talk about body language but their words the things they say has that been something that in your career has been something that’s been really really important to you

SPEAKER_00: 15:03

probably more so in the last few years than it was at the start it’s something that i’ve become more attuned to and you know when you build up a coaching relationship with someone you kind of pick up on things that they’re saying quite easily or that’s what i found anyway but yeah more more so in the last few years that the language piece and not just not just list to hear but listening to really understand okay there’s a a bit of a stutter when they’re saying this particular phrase or they’ve repeated phrase x y and z several times through this conversation okay what’s really happening here and I suppose that’s that’s only come into my practice more so as I’ve really started to formalize my coaching over the last four five years I’ve gone through the level five coaching professional apprenticeship and and almost broken down everything I thought I knew about coaching and built it back up again so yeah definitely now I’m more conscious of shifts in language as we’re having conversations and trying to pick up on maybe that change of tone or the change of pace or even the wording that’s being used by the coachee.

SPEAKER_02: 15:58

Thank you. The reason I ask is that the book that I refer to more than miracles, and I’m going to sound really clever here, really academic. It talks about Wittgenstein. There’s me dropping a philosopher, psychologist into the conversation. And I have not read any books by that person because I can’t speak German. But I know that language features hugely importantly in that kind of psychology and philosophy and in that book More Than Miracles one of the things it talks about is solution focused coaches which it sounds like you are Danny use more regularly the language of the client rather than taking their bias and reforming it into their own phrase and we know that we can paraphrase as coaches and as counsellors and as talking professionals but sometimes we have to use their words because they have real importance and and eminence so it’s interesting to hear that you’ve developed a fine tuning attention to language through your work and I think that’s something that resonates with me as well that sometimes I’ll say to a client you use this word dedication for example now is that just a word you’ve used or is that really really the right word or celebration or recognition or reward or notice and that fine tuning of language that’s something that I try to attend to sometimes of course it’s a dead end and they just use a word without that much conscious thought.

SPEAKER_00: 17:22

I suppose that’s then on us, isn’t it? When we go down that dead end, it’s about making sure that we then check ourselves and go, okay, we need to pull back here rather than trying to almost flog a dead horse and keep going. Are you really sure? I want to get under this layer a bit more. There’s actually nothing there. It’s important for us as coaches to check ourselves in those situations and just pull back.

SPEAKER_01: 17:44

As you’re probably aware, Nick and I are cricket fans and play cricket and watch cricket your 20 minutes is kind of paralleling me the development of test match to one day internationals to T20 can you see an evolution in your 20 minutes do we go to an 18 or a 15 do we do super speed do we do you know Usain Bolt level speed or do you think it will go the other way do you think it will go to 25 or 30

SPEAKER_02: 18:18

well maybe I can just pre what you’re going to say Danny because one thing I learned as a teacher I don’t know whether you’ve learned the same thing is the concept of the platinum minute you know you’ve got a minute sometimes when they first come through the door they traipse in from the corridor having had three other lessons already and you’ve got a minute to get their attention on what’s in it for them what you’re going to learn what’s going to be interesting how are they going to feel at the end of that lesson you’ve only got a platinum minute so if we’re not careful we’re going to be having 21 minute coaching sessions it’s going to be a nightmare to all No,

SPEAKER_00: 18:49

absolutely. I really like the thought process of that kind of evolution of it as well. For me, I can’t see myself going any lower than 20 minutes purely because I think you then start to lose some of the impact because then you’re having to go so quickly. You’re having to dig really deep, really quickly. And I think for me, that 20 minutes is a nice balance between striking enough pressure for performance, but also getting to the crux of an issue. I think if we go any shorter than that, if we went 15 minutes, for example, we’re almost in half-time team talk territory, aren’t we? And it becomes more of a monologue than a conversation. So for me, I can’t see my practice evolving less than 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01: 19:32

It might be the squeezing of the frequency that is the secondary pressure point. So rather than a week in between or 10 days, then it goes to three days or four days and go, right, you’ve got two days in the what you said you’ll go do and we’ll come back so it’s almost like a pressurized feedback go do and then we’ll review

SPEAKER_02: 19:57

something that really resonates from what you said and again goes back to that more than miracles book is you talked about people not being broken I think you used that phrase and they don’t need to be fixed and to take them from you said to take them out of drama into what

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

was it out of drama into into action something around yeah into action I think

SPEAKER_02: 20:21

well I really like that because the idea behind person-centered counseling just much like coaching is to say the people in front of me are innately good the people in front of me want to self-actualize they want to get better and the people in front of me perhaps have the right answer and the book talks about times of exception and the exception is in the past when things might have gone wrong they didn’t so the conditions were for failure but they you didn’t fail so what was it about that past but solution focus is very much about looking forwards yeah and when i when i first went to counseling training i i thought that coaching were pretty much future focused and counseling was quite often past focused and there’s there’s bits of both those and the belief in counseling is that you heal in the past to move forwards but sometimes in coaching we know we do that and sometimes in therapy we very much look for forward to building coping strategies that work for the future. So I’ve got a question for you. If people have strengths, if they have this capacity and potential to move forward quickly, is there a risk that the sense of urgency you talk about, which we get in change management, we know there’s that in Cotter’s seven stages, we know the sense of agency is right up front to get things moving. Is there a chance that it can be overwhelming, biggish problem that’s got to be solved quickly, completely could feel quite overwhelming for them even though they have strengths

SPEAKER_00: 21:52

yeah absolutely and i suppose for me it’s it’s about being attuned to that and understanding okay what is the size of the problem um and having that really honest conversation with with a coachee going how how big is the problem is it is it something that we can build into this this sprint style of coaching or do we need to adapt the way that we’re we’re working together and i know throughout this conversation i’ve spoken about this kind of fast sprint kind of 20 minute block coaching that doesn’t mean i’m completely moving away Yeah, absolutely. Not saying that at all. So for me, it’s about when we’re looking at that piece, if it’s overwhelming, okay, let’s recenter. Do we have to recontract here what we’re actually doing? Do we have to move from this sprint into more of a longer term coaching, traditional coaching relationship? Yeah, it’s about being attuned to coaching, what their needs are, and do we need to kind of take a step back?

SPEAKER_02: 22:45

So with that same method, I suppose, What I’m asking myself now is, are there occasions where I’m used to a 55, 50-minute, one-hour conversation on a regular basis? There’s going to be times where I could say, right, 20 minutes, we’ve done it. Crack it.

SPEAKER_01: 22:59

And it’s maybe within that as well. I know, let’s say, in the contracting phase, you’ll go away at the end of a session with a list of action plans to go do over the next three, four weeks. And I think sometimes that multiple layer of stuff can confuse the coaching. You forget some of the granular stuff you talked about in the middle all or where the natural conversation went to. And going short kind of keeps you focused, keeps you in the moment, and also gives you less chance of forgetting stuff, if that makes well. And as you say, going away and embedding three, four, five action plans before the next coaching or thinking about it rather than just one or maybe half. And I really liked your phrase about keeping people out of the drama, but also decreasing the noise. think if we go from 10 on the dial to zero that’s a really big change that’s really whoa hang on i’ve gone from having this noise to nothing so i think like gently dialing that down point by point or nine to seven or seven to six and a half is is a really nice way of looking at stuff

SPEAKER_00: 24:09

absolutely and i think that that piece there around cutting through the noise it’s also it’s it’s not switching the noise off completely it’s it’s understanding okay what noise do we need to be listening to

SPEAKER_01: 24:19

what needs to be dampened

SPEAKER_00: 24:21

and what needs to be absolutely yeah so i really like that piece around dialing it down ever so slightly but then tuning into okay do i need to go left or do i need to go right here with um with one for a better phrase so yeah dampening some of those busier noises that aren’t going to add as much value and understanding those noises that are adding value and what what needs to be done for me

SPEAKER_01: 24:39

yeah and it seems to me there are some common themes coming now through through all these episodes of that i think as you said you know we’re busy people and you trying to, not you are trying to, but looking at matching the pace of life. And I think that noise goes on a lot longer and a lot louder than it used to, says the old man sat in his chair. But it is that. It’s almost filtering out and listening to those noises that you need to listen to and understand the noises that you need to listen to rather than have everything going on and have everything impacting you, making you hyper aware of everything and hyper responsive to everything. I kind of feel that in that hyper response, you actually respond to nothing, but that’s just me.

SPEAKER_02: 25:30

I feel the sense to start to draw us together by sharing what my takeaways are, and I do this every session. I’m greedy and I’m selfish and I want to learn something from you guys that I can take forward. Apart from having the chance to show off and say Wittgenstein, which I’m saying again, which I’ve been waiting to do for

SPEAKER_01: 25:48

weeks. writing that all week.

SPEAKER_02: 25:50

I probably pronounced it wrong, but other German philosophers are also available. I would say that I’ve taken four things out of this conversation. One is I’m an optimistic person and you’re reinforcing that because you see the potential in people and they’re not broken to be fixed. And if they can do stuff in 20 minutes working within that kind of cognitive load theory, then that’s really optimistic and I like that. So it’s reassuring to hear that message you talk about signal and cutting through the noise and that’s something that people talk about before and if you are urgently looking for something that really matters there’s a great chance that we’re going to rather than have a search light looking at information we’re going to have a laser there’s a metaphor for you Alan I know you love your metaphors

SPEAKER_01: 26:41

just trip off your tongue don’t they I know there’s a

SPEAKER_02: 26:44

consistency bit which is great because what you’re talking about really kind of pragmatically is we can be inconsistent with the amount of time that we put into things. Really simple. I love that. I think that’s really something I will be taking forward and moving from the traditional one hour when it suits. And I think that the bit about that is quite useful because we’ve talked about stopping the treadmill for people that are really, really busy. If people who are really, really busy, and I’ve had a coach, I’ve had a coach here today who has said, look, you do know that this time we’re spending together is time that I’ve now got to add on to the end of my day, which I kind of get. Then the busy, if busy people can do stuff in a short amount of time more efficiently, then I think that kind of impact could really help motivate them to engage in a great way. So, Danny, can I thank you that you’ve given me four really nice things there that I’m weaving together from other stuff I’ve learned and reinforcing what I believe. So, can I really thank you? That was really interesting. I’ve got loads of things to go and research now.

SPEAKER_00: 27:44

My pleasure, and I think for me, as coaches, it’s in important that we stay curious right and pick up kind of some thoughts from others challenge our own thinking and and kind of have conversations like this so no thank you very much appreciate it

SPEAKER_01: 27:57

I’ll just echo Nick’s comment I’m just so thankful you’ve given up your time with your busy schedule Danny and um and taking the time to come on to here so thank you very very much and thanks to 10 times for releasing you as well for for this time

SPEAKER_00: 28:15

no it’s been an absolute absolute pleasure chaps and uh I’ve if I’ve I’ve got a metaphor to finish with. Oh, go, go. For the way that I see my coaching style. This

SPEAKER_01: 28:24

will make next week.

SPEAKER_00: 28:26

So I think for me, and we’ve spoken a lot around kind of cutting through the noise and the pressure that we face in busy, high performing, high stress environments. And for me, I think my approach is that of a pressure valve, kind of helping people release what’s been building up, cutting through that noise, the tension and the pressure to perform. And these 20 minute sprints can just be there to help them re focus and move that energy to what is actually matters so more clarity more confidence and ultimately more control so yeah there you go chaps there’s my my method so much

SPEAKER_01: 29:01

brilliant thanks very much and we’ll see you all very very soon