E025: Coaching for Behavior Change

now on to this episode.

Hello. This is James and Jane, and here we are again with another episode of a world of work podcast. It's a bit of a special one today. Jane, it's pretty exciting. We've got a guest. Oh yeah, pretty good. So what we're what we're speaking about today is about coaching and the experience of being coached. And we're really doing this through our desire to focus on the series, which is about behavior change. So we're going to be looking at the experience of being coached, and how being coached can help people change their behaviors, and how all that kind of stuff works. And as I said, we've got a guest who's going to be speaking about that. It's a lady called Gillian McMichael, who's actually an ICF master coach. So that's great. And really, what our purpose with today is is it's about trying to help people really get closer to a master coach and learn a little bit about what they think about coaching, and their experience of coaching and how they see coaching contributing to behavior change. So that's pretty exciting, but before we get on to that, why don't we have a little chat about how people can get in touch with us? I think that's a great idea. Yeah, as always, there's plenty of information that underpins this episode, and you can find that at our website, which is www dot the WoW podcast.org you can also sign up for the WoW mail there, where you get an alert when a podcast comes out with a little bit of background info and additional links.

And we would love you to come talk to us on social media and tell us what you think you'll find us most often on Twitter and Twitter, Twitter at the wild podcast, but you can also find us on Facebook, on Instagram.

And finally, a special little plea from me, if you are listening, whether it's on Spotify or iTunes or something else, and you are enjoying it,

we would love it if you left us a little review. Yeah, it's really, it's helpful, isn't it? Well, but also, yeah, I get proper excited. And when I've seen your review come in, it is nice. We've had some lovely ones. Yeah, cool. All right, so that's getting in touch with us. That's what we're going to speak about. We're still going to be using the same structure that we normally use, so we've got definition discussions. The interview is going to be our research Roundup. We'll have a list of a week, we'll have some stories from a keyboard, a few final thoughts, and then we'll be checking out. But I guess before we get into that, how have you been it's been a couple weeks now since we recorded. It has been a little while, hasn't it? I'm good. I feel like, although it's still really, really cold

when we're recording, I do feel like the sunshine is coming, which is nice. It is. And when we recorded with Gillian, was sitting in a lovely, sunny room, yeah, in her offices, which was really lovely. So I'm good overall. I'm I'm excited. I'm feeling like there's a lot of good stuff coming down the road. Yeah, mention one of them. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, that's true. So there is good stuff I'm doing. Well, I've had a nice couple weeks. The sun is out. I'm one of these people who, in the gray, dark of the Scottish winter, occasionally feel a bit gloomy, like, not properly, but I just am like, dude, when's this gonna end? I like the way your voice changes when you talk about that, like you're reading the narrative of a children's voice. Yeah, maybe scary story. Yeah. I'm just like, why am I spending my life living in Scotland? I love a country, lovely. But why don't we just turn the lights on, like outside, like other places, you know, anyway, so So never sent out. I'm really excited about that, and generally, it's been a good time. But the exciting thing that we were going to mention was that we're building out a website, actually, to sort of restructure a lot of the types of things we're interested in, and to bring together sort of learning and development content in relation to other types of topics we cover. So, so we'll be releasing a website in June which is going to keep us busy for the next couple weeks, which is kind of fun

next couple weeks, whatever. James being slightly optimistic about how quickly we can move things, yeah. But you know, you got to aim right. Aim high, and, you know, build it and see what happens and see how it goes anyway. So, so that's a bit of a check in stuff that's coming up. But let's get into some definitions. And then, once we've got definitions, we can hear from Jillian. So in a bit of a turn up for the cards, I'm going to be doing some definitions today, and we'll probably learn why I do them less often than James, I think more likely you're going to show me how I'm meant to do it. I always think of the way James approaches everything is the way it's meant to be done, and then the way I do it is the way that it could be done if someone was a bit odd. Yeah, it's all great. I'm going to stumble over my words, I'm sure. Anyway, definition, definition discussion. Here we are. We're going to run through a series of definitions.

Questions, but we're just going to go quite light on it, because we've actually got another episode on coaching, and we'll cover some definitions there, and we've done some of these already. So we're going to run through mentoring, coaching, counseling. We're going to speak a little bit about life, career, team, exec coaching, and some of the differences between those. We're going to talk briefly about something called solution focused coaching, and then something else called perhaps transformational coaching as well. So some slightly different things there. So let's start at the beginning, mentoring. Oxford Dictionary says that mentoring is about an experienced and trusted advisor or an experienced person in a company or educational institute who trains and counsels new employees or students. So for me, a lot of what mentoring means is that you're having a conversation with somebody who is experienced in relation to the specific subject. So they can give you, to some extent, a bit of guidance, a bit of personal experience, lived experience, in relation to an area. So you can get some of a real, practical advice from a mentoring relationship. So that's mentoring. The next is coaching, and we're going to use the definition from the International Coach Federation, which is the body Gillian is a master coach of and they define coaching as partnering with clients in a thought provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. Now what coaching really is about is it's about becoming an expert in the art of conversation and questioning to help people discover things for themselves and progress. And coaches don't need to be experts in the subject around which they are coaching. They are experts as coaches, but not experts in the underlying subjects. And that's a bit of according to the key bodies that look after, yeah, yeah,

yeah, but within these definitions, that's sort of a distinction between mentoring and coaching. So that's those two. And next is another biggie, moving on to our number three, counseling and Oxford Dictionaries here says that counseling is the provision of professional assistance and guidance in resolving personal or psychological problems. Now, my take on counseling is that it's to some extent more psychological based. It deals with more problems. It can be slightly more retrospective and historic looking, and it's it's probably a little bit more important to be really qualified and experienced, because you you address through counseling some really challenging issues for people and help resolve some problems, would be my take on counseling. So you know, coaches don't do counseling, basically, and mentors don't do counseling. Counseling is a profession in its own right. There is a really interesting course, though, that is worth mentioning at University of London, and I think a couple around the world, where they are offering a dual specialism. Oh, right, that makes sense. It's new. Ish, I don't, I haven't met anyone who's done it yet, but I think that's really interesting. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know

how comfortable I'd be with that. I feel like there are two separate spheres, but I also understand how the skills could help you. Yeah, there's a cross the other Yeah, you just have to wear your right hat for the right day. I can absolutely see coaching going in that direction there. Yeah, yeah, coaching is evolving, and that's something that we chat a bit to Gillian about. Um, so next we're going to touch on a few different areas of coaching. So when, when you speak to people about coaching, they might talk about life coaching, they might talk about career coaching, they might talk about team coaching, they might talk about exec coaching. You know, there's all kinds of different bolt ons you can stick to the front of a word coaching to define different types of coaching. And really, it's about the subject, right? Yeah, it's about what the topic is that you're having coaching for, totally, totally, or how many of you are doing it, or, yeah, what stage of your career you're at. I mean, whatever. So life coaching is about coaching, for you know, improving your personal existence by looking at all the factors that affect you your I guess, sense of fulfillment in the world at that point in time. Career Coaching focuses specifically on your career. Team coaching is where a coach will work with a group of people who are in a team to address slightly different things, but it's kind of a one to many relationship. In that respect, exec coaching is coaching that focuses predominantly on leaders, executives who face potentially different types of challenges, and maybe more like realistically tend to get more funding for this kind of stuff and other people. So that's kind of a different types of coaching, or different types of focuses or audiences for coaching. And then there are two specific sort of approaches to coaching we're going to touch on. One is solution focused coaching, and the other is transformational.

Solution focused coaching, or goal focused or, you know, phrases like that, they're all about helping somebody achieve a specific goal, right? So in these things. What you the way the coaching works is you'll speak to somebody and you say, Well, where do you want to be in the future? You'll help them discover that. And then you say, Okay, well, how are we going to get there? And you look at defining actions and steps that people can take, and you support them, to some extent, through that transition from where they are now to where they want to be, right? So it's helping them achieve a goal. And there's a lot of benefit.

To best approaches to coaching. The other type of coaching we're going to touch on is transformational and transformational coaching from a location a website called animus, says that transformational coaching seeks to bring about increased awareness of a person's model of a world, in order to create new possibilities for how one sees oneself, other people and the world.

And I guess what that really means is that transformational coaching is not about helping somebody reach a specific goal or destination. It's about helping them re imagine themselves and change themselves, and change their worldview and change, I guess, to some extent, their patterns of thinking, to get rid of negative thought patterns, to bring in more positive ones, to reframe their perception of the, you know, the world that they operate in, to a better outcome. So for me, I'd say that transformational coaching is it's not about helping people get from A to B, as in the solution focused coaching. It's really not about that. It's about helping them change who they are,

so that they know if b is the right place for them, and they can be better at getting there themselves. So for me, that's kind of a difference between them. How's that fit with you? So I really like this definition. I'm not sure

how I feel about the phrase transformational coaching. Yeah, I It feels like a ticket seller.

I think when people are in two minds about where they want to go, it feels exciting to be transformed. I don't think coaching transforms people, but I do think it transforms your perspective of the world, and you in it if it's done right. And so I like the definition, whilst I don't particularly like the term, yeah. There's sort of these phrases are out there, right? Yeah, and, you know, marketing has a huge role to play in this, because it's an unregulated sector. People can say what they want, and people choose, you know, terminology that sounds like you're getting bang for your buck. The reality is that that change is hard, and the reality is that coaching is one of the tools you can use to help you in your journey to do that, but the coach is going to do it for you, and therefore, for me,

the definition is accurate in the sense that it can bring about a change in your perspective of your place in the world, whether that's personally, emotionally, from a career perspective, your earning potential, your relationships, whatever it is, yeah, cool. Well, why don't we introduce and hand over to somebody who actually knows what coaching is a little bit more than we do, and see what they say. Should we cut it there and see what everyone has to Yeah, I love this conversation. Yeah, great stuff,

right? So let's move on to the research round up. As we said earlier, it's going to be a little bit different this week. Normally it's just us, but what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be chatting to Gillian and focusing, as we said, a little bit on coaching and the role of coaching in behavior change and how coaching supports changing behaviors. But before we do that, Gillian, would you like to introduce yourself to everybody? Yeah, I would Hi. I'm Julia McMichael, and I'm founder and creator of full circle global. So we're a global coach, training and coaching organization, and we have offices in Edinburgh, London, but we also work in Dubai, and have offices there alongside our office in Germany.

Great. So how long have you been coaching in total? About, well, professionally, 18 years as a full time coach. But prior to that, I was in learning and development human resources for 12 years. Fine. Okay, so you've got a bit of a bit of experience to share with the listeners today. I have, yes, hopefully no, that's very exciting. So I guess as we're just starting things off, and as I said earlier, you know, we're focusing on the role of coaching and the role of coaching and behavior change. I guess we should start by exploring what coaching really is. Do you think you'd be able to say a little bit about what coaching means to you? What is coaching in your work? Yeah, sure, it's really interesting, actually. So for me, coaching very much is a partnership. It's working with an individual to help them understand where they currently are in their life, their career, or whatever it is that they want to be talking about. And I suppose it's my job to help them understand what they need to do to either achieve any goals or aspirations that they have, or even change behaviors if need be as well. Okay, and how do you think coaching really supports that change of behavior? I mean, we've talked in just, you know, in terms of context in some of the other episodes we've recorded, but not recorded but not released, we've talked about the process of behavior change, we've talked a little bit about motivation, we've talked about habit forming, things like goal setting. Where do you think coaching sits with all of these in all of them?

Yeah, yeah. I think for me, you know, coaching, I always describe it to when those that I'm training is that coaching is a conversation with purpose, so it's got to be a meaningful conversation that's going to help people really understand what it is that they want. And then I suppose, in a sense, you're helping them get them from A to B, cool, okay. And then I mean, like, I've been coached before, so I've been through that process, and I think you have as well. Jen, is that right? Yeah, probably the.

Most, the most significant changes I've made in my life have been started in a room with a coach without question, actually, when I think about it, yeah, so it's really, it's really interesting to me to hear you say about partnership, because I've never heard it phrased that way, but absolutely, that's how it's felt for me when I've been coached. How do you what's a healthy partnership in that context? For you? Yeah, I think the key thing as a coach is one where you remain objective in terms of that relationship, it's about holding the space, and we're not judging any of the content or what the individual is experiencing. In a sense, we're just there to ask questions, listen, provide observations and challenge, obviously, their thinking, their belief systems, if need be, their their values base, just to make sure that they are really kind of understanding themselves in the right way. And I think, as I said, that the partnership, for me is very much that it's there's no hierarchy in that partnership. So I'm not here to tell somebody what to do, whereas you might do as a mentor or advise and guide and share your stories. It's very much not about me as the coach. It's very much about, yeah, helping that under, helping that person understand what they need to do and where they want to go, but providing a self space, a safe space for that conversation to take place and unfold. And how much clarity Do do you think people have when they start the coaching journey? Are they clear on what they need? Is it a range of options? Yeah, I think it's a range of a range really. I think sometimes people quite clear, like, I want to change my career, or I want to get promoted, so very kind of some definite kind of ideas about where they want to go, and others are just kind of stuck, you know, that sense of where they're looking for either a little bit more purpose in their lives, not sure what it is that they want to address, but they know something's not right. And therefore that conversation, when those people come to us will be very much more kind of, initially, a much more of an exploration around well, what are the options? What are the possibilities for them and to help them find that clarity? Yeah, and how do you so? I'm really interested in this because I think some of the people that I mentor are afraid to embark or find a coach because they don't feel they have the question in inverted commas or in have the clarity of what they want to get out of it. What would you say to someone who's like, I feel like I'm stuck, but I don't yet know where I want to get to? And I think that's what's really exciting about our job as coaches, actually, is that, in a sense, you have to get to the root cause. And I think you know when, again, when we're training and when we're working with people, you know people might come presenting the symptom, which might be something's not right, but I'm not quite sure what it is. And so I suppose we need to do that deeper, deeper exploration, through questioning, through thought provoking questions, not questions that the individual knows the answers to already. So in a sense, we have to be a bit investigatory in our sense, in a sense, in a way that, again, is meaningful and thought provoking, but not in a way that will be judging in any way. So I suppose we have to work hard to ask the right question, okay? And I guess that's where the partnership bit comes in, because if someone feels like you're both trying to explore together, you've got a better chance of identifying those those meaningful pieces of information, absolutely. And I think the one thing I missed before is that it's actually about trust. I mean, it's so important that trust is important that trust is in the relationship. So, you know, to be able to ask those challenging questions or those thought provoking questions that actually the individual might not know the answers to, that safe space has to be one that's created and built upon trust. And we know that when people come originally, you know, we start to build rapport the first kind of times we meet, but after that, that trust will deepen and again, once we've set the kind of relationship in the way of operating, the way of working, and we can do that to be really effective, contracting at the beginning of a coaching session, then we can find that can really bode well in terms of, I suppose, pushing the boundaries a little bit more, of taking people out their comfort zones through the questions that we ask. It'll be great at some at some point, a bit later on, to talk through that coaching journey, because I think there's a lot that's relevant in that. But before we do that, what types of people or groups do you coach? Gosh, so it's the real varied mix. So last week, for example, I was with a couple of executives. I did a couple of life coaching sessions where private clients wanted to explore aspects of the life that they wanted to develop and improve on. And then I did team coaching with with the leadership team of a renewable of a renewable company. So actually, it's really mixed bag. I mean, I feel for me personally, I think coaching should be available for all. I think it's always been seen as a prerequisite for executives and so forth, you know, over the years. But I think as we progress now into much more, I suppose we're in times of complexity and challenge, more and more people are becoming aware of coaching and actually the benefits of it. So you find that actually get much more of a mixed bag of clients coming to you. And do you have you mentioned a couple of different ways that your coaching group and individual? Individuals and life coaching? Do you have a favorite? Is there one that you find harder or easier? Or do you want one you prefer? I always think team coaching is quite difficult because you've got lots of people in a room with different agendas, and so you have to spend a lot more time up front getting to understand, I suppose, more around what might hold them back from contribution.

Effectively, and trying to understand the dynamics, the stuff that's not necessarily been said in teams that you know, that we know, kind of sometimes exists. So that can be a bit more challenging. And I think you have to be with all coaching. You have to be alert, and you have to be present and in the moment, because you don't to miss anything that the client is saying. But with groups, you've got to really spot the stuff that's not being said because that obviously, that's the stuff that's going to add some real insight into the group learning. Yeah, that makes sense. I used to facilitate with leadership teams, while I still do in the nonprofit sector, and it never ceases to amaze me, they can tell me what the hierarchy is on a organization chart, and then you walk in and it's very clear that people are influential the room,

the whole shadow, it takes a good, quite often, a whole session to go, Oh, get what's going on now. Yeah, and that's not what it says on paper, absolutely. And you touched a little bit earlier on some of the things that you work with people on. Could you elaborate a little bit on the types of reasons that people come to you? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'll just give you some examples of the things that I'm working with at the moment. So I'm working with somebody who was asked to improve their presentation skills. And actually, when we got underneath the surface, it actually wasn't the presentation skills that we needed to address that was the symptom, but the kind of the root cause is very much that the individual lost her confidence in the role that she had, so she'd lost her voice in that leadership role that she had. And so we worked a lot on that, and that was really meaningful. And actually, on the back of that, her presentation skills improved, as you would imagine, absolutely. And then, you know, with the leadership team, for example, it was about helping them find their purpose. They were working in a matrix based operation where, you know, they were getting direction from the location head office in Germany, and they were also trying to develop a leadership culture within the UK operation. And I think for many months, or maybe many years, they've been blaming the system for the lack of their achievements. What a system for is exactly, yeah, absolutely. And so that was really all about behavior, in terms of leadership behavior and actually really showing up to be a leader within the UK operation, that was quite challenging for many of them, because they've been used to working in a way where, HH, you know, head office kind of thing was telling them what to do, and they were jumping saying, absolutely. So that was really interesting. So we had to break quite a lot of barriers down for even just to get to the first part of understanding around what a leadership team actually is and what it means to them. Do you find with with people like that and with clients of that sort of background, do you find there's a confusion about being a great manager versus being a great leader? And we spent a long time talking around, yeah, what is your role as a manager versus what should your role be as a leader? And actually, what we find in even when I'm working with executives, you I'm finding at the moment that a lot of people are working at that lower level, yeah, than they should be. So they're not really, truly leading them. They're doing a bit of a hybrid, but actually, maybe not so good hybrid of managing. And actually, most probably a lot of them are fine now, I would say, been caught in the weeds. You know, really kind of do a lot of operational stuff that they shouldn't really be doing. And I think it's probably a good thing to shout out to some of us, and we know quite a lot of you, are in relatively early stages of your career. And one of the things that I would flag that's, I think, so relevant from what you said, Julian, is you don't have to be in any particular position to be a leader, to adopt leadership skills, to show them, and I think a small amount of coaching earlier on in your career can really help you in my experience anyway, from a very personal point of view, completely changed my context about what my role was within a team. Yeah, and I think, I don't think I would have got it if someone else hadn't been able to sort of look at what I was doing, going call me out a little bit on it and say, Hang on a minute. Why you don't have to be like that? Just because that's your job title. Absolutely, it's very easy to fall into that sort of being a manager trap, or doing things the way that they're done, without reflecting on yourself and being clear on what's important to you and behaving in the right way. So really, really interestingly, a lot of listeners will know that I talk about my ex bosses a lot. Yes, I was having a conversation. I was having a text conversation with one in particular last night who texts me and he's having some coaching himself, okay? And he himself an exercise to ask me some questions. And he asked me what the single biggest thing I he did for me,

or what he did helped me prioritize my development and mental health. And I was like, he sent me to a coach and gave me a space to talk about that stuff. And it was, it was a very, totally irrelevant that we were recording this today. Yeah, I suddenly looked at it and went, Oh, that's how big it was. That's how significant it is. And I think, I think that's, for me, when managers do that, is it's an extraordinary thing. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think there's a real sense of, we value you as an individual, and we want to help you develop and grow. And I think when we're so time poor, and it's such a focus on traditional, bottom line stuff, we can get lost in all of that. And I think a lot of organizations are now kind of waking up a little bit more to the realization that actually, if you spend a little time developing your people, then actually you're going to get better results in the long term. Really simple, and it's, it's quite basic and, you know, but at the end of the day, I think.

It makes a massive difference. Yeah, and I think a lot of you know, my experience of sort of learning and development and change programs in organizations is that certainly his story, historically, a lot of the training used to be around helping people be better at doing what they do, or giving them rules and tools to use in different circumstances. But my experience of coaching is that it's not about the rules and tools. It's about understanding yourself and improving as a person and gaining more clarity so that you're consistent with yourself and you behave in ways that are better. And it, for me, leads to longer lasting benefits for people involved, it does. And I think that that sustained learning or that sustained growth, is something that I think is really unique in coaching. So you go on a training course to be an effective manager, and that's all great because it'll give you tools and techniques and and develop a skill set that you might need to grow into or use when you go back into the day job. But I think what coaching does is it's that, it's the unique journey. So it's about that's, as you said, it's a self awareness, it's and it's the creating more awareness about the impact that you have, why you do things, how you get triggered, and then how you behave and how you emotionally respond to situations and scenarios in the workplace or not, or just in general life. And I think it's that, for me that makes the difference, because it's specifically focused around you, and nobody's telling you what to do. You're figuring out the answers yourself, yeah, and what? So my somewhat mature mum refers to it as, are you doing? You helped your supportive naval gazing. She's like, you just

need to get up with it. Although I absolutely disagree with her, I have yet to construct a really good argument, because she's my mum. What would do you come up against that sometimes with organizations who may be a bit resistant to it, you do. And I think what I always say as well is that, you know, navel gazing is good for a very short period of time. I think if you spend two time too long navel gazing, you know, you lose yourself, and that sense of turning learning into doing and to take action. And I think that's the one thing that I really like about coaching, is that there is always a focus on moving forward. So we're not just having static conversations just for the sake of it, you know, we want to explore, but then there's okay. So what are you taking away from that? And how then can you put that into practice when you leave the session, whether that's into your wider life or into your work environment? And I think that's what I find quite powerful about coaching, is it's always got is, you know, you start from the current reality, you do a little bit of exploration, you might do a bit of navel gazing, but then you have to look up and say, right, okay, so where do I go now? And actually, how can I apply what I've learned and put that into practice? Yeah, okay, all right. So, so that's, I think, quite an interesting overview of what coaching is, and a bit of a reflection on the types of people who can benefit from coaching and the types of coaching that you do, and a little bit about what it's like, what, what I'd like to touch on now is, what's the actual, you know, what's the overall process like? So I think a lot of people haven't necessarily been coached. What's that sort of coach G journey like? I mean, where does it start? How do people find out? How do they engage? Whatever first stage is, how does it flow through? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I suppose, you know, it might start with an initial conversation the line manager around, what do they want to do in terms of the development? And more and more people now are actively taking a lot more responsibility for their own development and growth. So there might be something in that where they have an initial conversation and coaching. Might be something that the organization offers. If somebody wants to invest in it privately, then it would be more around, okay, to do some research, I suppose, on who's out there as a coach, and to then try and find a coach that you feel you can work with them, you know, because the relationship is so important, normally, what would happen after that would be a pre what we would class as a pre consultation, which is an initial kind of get together, where, I think some organizations call them chemistry sessions, Yeah, you know, might be a bit cheesy, but actually it's a good way to describe it, because it is about chemistry. It's about whether you can work together, whether you can start to build a rapport and trust, and then you would kind of agree the parameters in terms of how you're going to work, the confidentiality piece and everything else that goes with that, assuming that goes well, and then you agree to work with each other, then you would normally work for around six sessions on average throughout the course of a six to nine month period. Depending on how long you decide to work with each other, you could go longer, you know, could have more sessions or less sessions, depending on what the individual wanted to get out of the process. And then again, you would meet on a regular basis. You would agree the logistics of hard work. And then you'd have those conversations with purpose, those coaching conversations, you would hopefully either set a desired outcome and that first original coaching session around outcome. And I suppose whether that's a big goal you want, or whether that's just more specific, real time types of coaching processes, because there's the differences between transactional coaching and transformational coaching. And again, it depends on what the individual is looking for. And then after that, you would hope that the client would get to where they wanted to get to and hopefully be successful. And you mentioned that chemistry piece and finding the right coach. How do you so if someone, someone's thinking, hey, this is what I want to do, and I do need a bit of help, how do they know they're finding the right coach? What do you look for either when you're being coached?

Or what do you think people look for in you and your colleagues? It's a really good question, actually. So I think if I If so, I have a coach at the moment, and the way that I chose my coach was around compatibility. Was that chemistry. So I think there's something about gut feel. I think there's something about do I believe this person one understands me from our initial conversation? Are they hearing what I'm saying, and do I believe that they can connect with my content? You know, in terms of what I want to be talking about, what I want to be working on. I think sometimes where it can go wrong is when the coach starts saying, Oh, I can do this for you, and I can do the other for you. And actually for me, it's very important that I don't have those interactions. I want somebody to say, okay, so what are you looking for? What do you need from me in terms of support, so I can start to build and formulate that partnership? But I do think it's, I mean, we know within the first what, three or four or five seconds, that somebody can determine whether they like us or not, you know, in terms of first impressions. And I do think it's the same here. But I do think if you are looking for a coach, into choosing a coach, my advice would be, meet a couple, at least two or three people, and then you decide in that moment who is the right person best suited for you. Great, good advice. I think just a couple minutes ago, when you were talking about the coaching process, and you started to talk about, you know, the maybe six sessions, or whatever it happens to be, you referenced those some of the different types of conversations that you have. And you talked about transactional coaching and you talked about transformational coaching. Are there different approaches to coaching, and how do those differ, and what other types of coaching are there? Yeah, absolutely. There's a load, actually,

yeah. I mean, I really enjoy working at transformational level, because I feel that working at that deeper level, which is not therapy, it's definitely coaching, that you can actually create those long term shifts that I think people then can really achieve, x, y, z, in whatever it is that they want to achieve, and they don't go back to old ways as being old habits. But transformational coaching can can work in all guises, but also there's that kind of initial I need a one off session, or I need some I need a quick fix to a situation or a solution. And actually quite like to use a coach. And that's where I see trans transactional coaching coming in. But also transactional coaching can come in more around when a line manager decides to take a coaching approach to encouraging, having different dialogs with their team members at work. And that can be quite useful as well. So very much around the transaction of task or specific action based kind of results that need to happen, then that can be quite an equally good process as well. If you're looking for something not necessarily as deeper, but needs a quick fix. Yeah, there's other things like, you know, Gestalt, there's art therapy that's coming quite big now in coaching, which is quite interesting. And then obviously you've got the emotive and the rational, and then the solution focused. And I think for me, transformational coaching covers a number of those off, but isn't specific in either of those areas. So I think there's low I mean, for me, as I said, I mean, I'm a firm believer of transformational because I know it makes that it creates a long term shifts that need to happen, yeah, but, but we know that, depending on where the individuals at, they might need something else, fine, fine. So I guess if I just play that back a little bit, the two main ones that we talked about were transactional and transformational. And transformational brings in some other aspects to it as well. And transactional coaching seems to really focus on kind of actions and reaching goals and achieving an outcome without changing an underlying set of ways of working in beliefs and behaviors. Absolutely And whereas, when you're working more at that transformation level, you'd be looking at behaviors. So whereas the transaction is more about specific to dues that need to be done, but you won't be necessarily creating that, necessarily that long term change, because you're not focusing on what's going on inside. So when we think transact transformationally, we want to be getting a dual journey between what you know, having an external outcome, which might be the achievement of a goal, but we need to understand what's going on within us so that we can break down any barriers, any fears, any limiting beliefs that might help what may stop us from getting to that place where we need to get to. And so for me, it's about the balance between the inner and the outer journey at the same time, whereas the transactional piece very much focus on the external journey. So it's kind of like that classic iceberg analogy you see everywhere, right? Absolutely transactional. Does the top transformation of us both? Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you, if you think about in sporting terms, which is where really the concept of coaching go back a long time comes from. It's the difference between building a really great training plan, which is important, but convincing an athlete they have it in them to be able to achieve beyond what, yeah, and getting them to live that belief and to change everything about the way they do. And I think, I think we see it a lot in sport. We talk a lot about coaches that are great at pinpointing specific technical failings, and they're amazing. They were absolutely brilliant. And then we talk about the coaches who will take you on a journey, yeah, and I would agree, I think that's exactly what transformational coaching does. It will take. More on a journey, rather than just specific technical

Okay, so when you, when you do this types of coaching? So if you do transformational coaching with somebody, what kind of outcomes do you see?

Lots, lots. So I was coaching somebody last night who I've coached on and off for the last six to 12 months. And so, for example, she's given up a job in London. She's left a partner, unfortunately or fortunately, I'm not quite sure I could look at that, but she's just now moved to New York, and she set herself up as in her own coaching practice and leadership development consultancy business. Wow. So that was a mad that's a big life change, a big, big life change. Now she came knowing she wanted to make changes, and she needed to change things in a personal and professional life, but she has rediscovered who she is, and she's found a confidence again and a belief in herself. And on the back of that, she's made some quite significant changes in every in every aspect of her life, which is, I mean, that's a lot. I mean, we wouldn't expect somebody to do that all at once. We've had other people get promoted more recently, where they've they've moved from a kind of a middle management role into their first leadership role, which is always lovely to see and to support people through that process. And then you've had others build better relationships with their colleagues when we've done the team, the team piece in particular, you know that kind of whole sense of working better together as a team, moving more into kind of high performance team concepts, which can be quite useful, and certainly in terms of some of the requirements that organizations need today. I think that's probably my favorite ever coaching experience I've had was when I had a coach help me with a relationship, relationship of someone I was like managing, and it was utterly transformational, not just for our relationship, but for the way we both went on to behave in our careers. And of course, that support to your wider teams as well when your relationships fit. Yeah? I mean, it impacts my personal life, for example, in a way that I just hadn't thought about. So yeah, I get why transformational for you is the bit that it's they're both important, but why that's the one that kind of excites it. Yeah, and I think you can't really have one without the other. I think you said it's the iceberg thing. So you do have to deal with the tasky stuff, because that task stuff will help you get from A to B, which need to put things into action. But it's the learning about yourself that helps that, as you've said, there will actually allow you to have a different experience. And not only will it just impact the environment that you're working in, it will most probably impact the whole your whole life in many respects. And I guess that means for organizations, it's a better investment, really, because ultimately it's a much longer serving return. So stay because it's an ongoing, either change or learning journey that people can take with them, even if they may not be coached anymore. Absolutely. And just on the back of that, I've just been doing some work with the ICF, the International Coach Federation, around

coaching millennials, actually, and the need to, actually, as line managers, take that coaching approach as well for the younger generations coming through, because that old kind of, that old school mentality of, you know, kind of more command and control we know, is really fizzling out Anyway, and has been for years. But actually, the design now for people to have somebody to coach them on a regular basis throughout their career is absolutely huge. Yeah, and I think we're seeing people rather than do that, they might withdraw together their support thinking they're not able to help support newer employees or people with less experience, and that's equally fought, I would say absolutely. So I guess I think we're kind of getting towards the end of our conversation here. I had one question for you, which is that maybe not so much again, amongst our listener group, but certainly out there, there is a bit of skepticism about coaching, right? Some people aren't really sure about it. Aren't really sure it's for them. What would you say to somebody who was skeptical about it. What's your feedback of them? In a polite way, if you can, I would just say, you know, try it. You know, it's okay to maybe make judgment on something that you've not really tried. And I think, you know, we do get a lot of people, especially when they have been sent to coaching through an organization where the line manager might feel coaching is the right solution. And I always say to people that come in and they usually quite uptight about the whole experience and think that they've been sent because there's something wrong. And I say, Listen, you know, why don't we just have the first session? You know, if you don't like it at the end of it, or you feel it's definitely not what you want, then that's fine. We don't need to continue. But everyone who's been through the process has continued to remain through the process. So my view is, try it, you know, you'll never know until you try it. But if you don't fancy it, then that's absolutely fine. Cool. So give it a go, right? Yeah, give it a go. I would say, Well, I was in that skeptical camp a long time ago and benefited from it. And, oh, is this your old accountant head coming on? Well, I guess my accountant head is always there. I want to see the numbers. Show me the numbers, but I've benefited from catching and I enjoy it as well. So that's

good. All right, any last questions from you, Jane, before we wrap up?

No, I don't I sound gonna do my classic? No, I don't think so. But just one, I guess the one thing I'd be interested in. There are some people that will be listening that maybe don't have the resources to invest in coaching right now, but are aiming for that. Is there anything they can do right now to.

Start learning and helping themselves, so that when they do have access to those kind of resources, they'd be ready for their coaching journey. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, some simple tips would be to kind of write a list of to do's that you'd like to achieve. You know, people call it the bucket list, whatever it might be, but I think you can do something on your own to begin with. I always say keep a reflective journal. That might sound a bit airy fairy, but actually, if you start to write things down that you want to achieve or things that are bothering you, you can start to understand yourself in a very simple way. And it's actually quite a well. It's very non expensive way of doing it, apart from buying the journal or the notebook. The other thing is, is loads of self help books out there that I think could be really useful. There's a great book called The monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma, which actually is a brilliant it's a very easy, short story around a lawyer who basically gets ill and has to change his lifestyle, and he goes on a coaching journey. But it's not your typical coaching journey. So as a book, you know initial starting point, some of those things could be quite useful. Brilliant. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. All right. Well, let's just say thank you. I thought that was an excellent conversation. I really appreciate the time, and who knows, we might have another conversation at another point as well. So thank you. Thank you very much. Cool.

So, I mean, that was our chat with Gillian. It was really interesting, nice to hear all the things that she's got to say, and as I said earlier, we actually recorded another episode with her as well, which we're looking to bring out at some point a bit later, which is about how to become a coach and what it's like being a coach. But clearly the focus of this is around behavior change through coaching, which is, which is a fun topic. So that was good. Um, why don't we get ready and jump on to our list of the week? I think you've got a fun list of a week for us today. Yeah. I mean, don't hype it up too much, but I like it's probably, like the best list of a week. Like, if I had a list of lists, it would be the top one in the list of our list. Well, bear in mind, so quite often when I pick the list, I've got a real problem with lists generally, because it really frustrates me when people put articles up on social media saying things like, the single thing,

yeah. Secret habits of success. Get up at 427, exactly. Yeah, I read one this week. Me. It was Twitter, and it was the Twitter guy, but oh yeah, his life habits, yeah. It's like, I have an intravenous ice bath in the morning. The challenge I have with things like that, very specifically is that

it doesn't sound like any kind of life to me, but if it works for people, that's fine. The whole point is, it works for you, right? Yeah, we spend our lives trying to figure out what's the communality. So I'm a bit nervous about this, but I like this list because it's a survey. It's from the guys at Korn Ferry,

who do lots and lots of kind of work in supporting people in execs and and things like that. And they did a survey around

the challenges that people identify as wanting to be coached on most often. And they did a big survey of 200 coaches around the world from their network, and they said, these are the things that most commonly people are coming to us with, so things people want to be coached about, yeah, so challenges they want address,

right? And they did it, and they split it three ways. So they split it between C suite, so CEOs, CEOs, CTOs, etc, top level people who are senior managers or VPS, and then sort of middle management level. So I'm going to start with the top 10 things that middle managers went to, and then I'm going to tell you just a couple of the ones that I think it's really interesting about how they change as people move up through organizations. Yeah. Okay, cool. So starting at number 10, because I like to do it like countdown. There's a British reference, British 1990s reference of people there. Number 10, time and energy management. Number nine, mentoring, developing internal talent and succession planning. Number eight, working with uncertainty and ambiguity. Number seven, motivation, engagement. Number six, building effective teams. Number five, delegation, empowerment, number four, self awareness, number three, communication skills, number two, influence and number one, interpersonal relationships, listening skills and empathy. And really what you can see in that list is three sections, so the bottom three are around uh people's middle management skills at

things that they may not have been exposed to before, right? So when you, when you are middle manager, you may not in previous jobs, but had to work with so much uncertainty, you won't have had a mentoring role in the same way, and you maybe have to manage your time and energy differently. Yeah, then there's the middle section, which is very much about developing their teams. Which makes sense for middle manager, you quite often have, yeah, you might be, quite often the most significant part of your role, right? So it's delegation, building effective teams, motivation, engagement. And then the top four are really about skills that we all need, but that come to the fore when you start to become an integral part of a wider organization. And they're around relationships, communication, software.

This, yeah, which totally makes sense and influence. But what's really interesting to me is how it changes as you move up. All right, so which one's Professor we had, we had, so that was the middle management. That's like the lowest level. That's the earliest into their career, starting a bit of a bottom level. And yeah,

there are when you look at the other two groups, which is senior management, VPS, and then at the very top, CEO, C Suites, which is a corporate term for people at the top of the organization, nonprofits, are quite often called the leadership team. And what's really interesting is what ebbs and flows. So for example, there are some that are just consistent across a lot, right? So self awareness, communication skills, influence and interpersonal relationships, all there and there abouts in all of them, everyone, everyone acknowledges that these are things that are ongoing challenges, right? But what's really interesting to me is that

the VPs and senior managers so that the next level up are looking at mentoring and developing internal talents and succession planning more, yeah, and they're looking at leading during times of change more. And they're far less interested in or they're less interested in time and energy management and motivating time and energy management and

working with uncertainty, because largely, I suspect they've already had to do that. Yeah. And also, I think succession planning starts to become much more important, because you start to think about juggling your teams and their various talents and the competing ambitions, but leading in time during times of chain, it's the first time that appears as you look at the hierarchy. And I thought that's really interesting, interesting. And what's really interesting is, when you move to C suite, jumps to being in the top four. Okay, so that moves from being not at all in middle management, leaving during time to change being at number nine in middle management, in senior management, through up to being number four. Wow, C suite. Oh, that's a huge piece. Yeah. And I guess a lot of role of leadership is around change now, isn't it, absolutely but I just, I think that's really interesting, because the other one that's introduced at that point, and I can't believe it only appears at that point, but it does is strategy and strategic thinking, okay, is in the top 10 for the first time moving through. So not in middle management, not in senior management, only when you get C suite in the top 10. And I wonder how much that is about other people not having the time to step away and see the bigger picture. But my all time favorite, and maybe I'm really too much into it, but my all time favorite fact is that while self awareness was number four in middle management, yep, and number three in senior management, it is the number one thing, C suites, people are looking for that's so cool. And you don't know, I can't decide if it's cool or not, but I think it's well, I like it. I like it being there, but yeah, why it's there, I'm not so sure about. So is it? Is it because the people that make it there are maybe less self aware, or is it because they're increasingly aware of the importance of self awareness? So I have a theory. Okay,

I like both of your theories. They're true. I think they're quite possibly true. Mine is that when you move into senior leadership positions, it's much harder to get a level of honesty and scrutiny from the people below you. Okay, because you're in positions of power, and therefore it is increasingly important to be self aware and able to self check, because you may not be checked by surrounded by the yes people. I don't even know if it's that I think that I I think people are quite often they look at people in positions of authority and they assume they know more. Yeah. So when, when I was early in my career, and there were people I was on a particular project that engaged with the leadership team, and I thought they were completely wrong about three things, and I never said anything for six months, because I was like, they must know something I don't. And it was only, ironically, after I'd had too much to drink with one of them at someone's birthday, dude from work, who we both knew through other acquaintances, that I got a bit tipsy and told him all the things I thought were wrong with the project. And the next day I was working on the project, yeah, because he was like, you know more about this in the leadership team, so you should yeah, just for listeners. Maybe listeners take careful lessons. But my, I guess my point is that

those, some of those leadership people that I was dealing with, were blissfully unaware. Yeah, because they'd risen from the organization, they could not understand how their relationships had changed, such that people had changed, such that people had changed their perspective of what, how they give honest feedback. Yeah. And I know we done an episode on feedback, which I think is really important and relevant to this, because actually, I think one of the things that C suite people get from coaching is a level of honesty, honest conversation that they may not get internally. Yeah, and I'm not saying for all organizations, but I just it's one to throw in the mix about. Maybe that's why, yeah, that's interesting. I've got something else occurred to me while you were talking about that, and that's to do with the the impact and sort of

strength of, I guess, impact on others that leadership have. So when you're a middle manager, the impact that you have as an individual on others is maybe.

A bit less. So your self awareness is important, but maybe not as significant, and it's important as it is if you're, you know, a chief exec or one of the other chiefs out there, right? So if you're up a C suite and your behavior is unhelpful, then it can have a huge impact on a lot of people. So you've got to get some of that self awareness, right. I mean, like, leaders cast really, really long shadow, yeah, in organization, yeah. I think that's really true. So maybe there's something in that. I definitely think there's something in that. And I think the other one, just to mention, which I thought was really interesting, because it's a personal it's the thing I most consistently coach middle management on, is around delegation and empowerment. It's hard for people to and what's really interesting is number five with middle managers. Yeah, it's number eight with senior managers, and it's just not on the list. And My bet is they know how to do it when you to because to get there, you have to make room in your own space. And not only do they know how to do it, but the people that are working for them, for them know how to do it as well, right? So they're in that place where people are just doing doing that, and there's a lot of sort of personal accountability at that level as well, which is, yeah. So I guess the one bit that I'd be really interested in, which I don't think is great, is think is great is not great, but it's wrong word. I wish I had more information around the bit around influence, because I think influence is largely a catch all. I think it's a dreadful phrase. I think influence in what way and to whom and how, when and why and to what purpose.

So I think one of the things that I talk about quite a lot with what would be the equivalent of that, of that senior role, so below the C suite, is around influence over resources within their organization,

getting resources, making the argument, making the case, such that they have the access, and their teams have access to what they need to do the job they want, so time and money, yeah, and I think, I think it's big enough that it deserves a category of its own, given how often I spend my life talking about it, where people, the difference that I see between those two, those three levels, is that people in middle management are given a set of resources, and they make it work. People at senior management get more resources when they need to do the job that they want. Yeah, yeah. And that, to me, is the single biggest shift I see. Cool. Well, I like that list, good. Well, I've got all three lists, so the top 10 for the senior management, we're going to put that up on the website. Yeah, thank you to one ferry, yeah. I like your stuff, and I like the questions that you asked. I think it's useful, and I think it I will probably share it now with people that I'm coaching. Yeah, it's also a bit of a pick list. Well, that's what I mean. It's like, kind of a which list you're gonna pick from. Yeah, it's like, you know, like you shopping on, like, online types of supermarkets. And it's like other people who bought building effective teams also bought influence, right? You could, yeah, absolutely package it up. But I do. I just, I just, I am fascinated that being a bit underneath C suite, no one's talking and no one's asking for help with strategy. Yeah. I mean, how do you get is it? Is it because people are moving into sweet, sweet, literally, because they're good at what they do? Yeah? Yeah. I mean, so certainly in the large organizations that I've been part of, strategy is a function of its own at the corporate level. So you've got your strategy function that often sits kind of beside the exact Yeah. So it's just a different type of thing. And I guess maybe it's where and how people define that makes sense. Okay, so that's my list the week. Cool, very good. So we tell some stories from our

story. Jake, so my story, I guess this is experience of coaching and experience of, I guess, being coached myself. So

you know, I've been coached various different times in various different ways. And I guess for me, one of the things that's really important for me is that where coaching has been successful for me and really helpful. It's when I've been clear on why I'm doing it and my motivations. So when I've gone into coaching relationships, because, you know, coaching seems like a good thing that everybody's doing or that I should be doing because of my role, or whatever it is, I kind of go in and I it doesn't really, or hasn't really, done a huge amount for me. I've had that conversation with TV. Have you said to me? I said to them, why? Them, why are you having coaching? Because people say it works, yeah, to do what?

Yeah, be better, yeah. And once you get through some of that, great, but having clarity of motivation and purpose, I think, is helpful for coaching well. And fundamentally, you've got to be in some form dissatisfied with something in your life, yeah. And of course, utterly satisfied with everything in your life. You are not going to get a lot out of coaching, apart from less time, yeah, to lead your wonderful life anyway. So that's kind of a story for me about that is, is, you know, it's better when, when I have a purpose to it. Okay, what about you? I can't remember if I've told the story before, but I had,

as you know, my bosses and ex bosses play a major role in who I am and shaping me. One of one of them in particular, sent me for coaching, and they sent me for coaching, and I remember.

Were walking through SoHo in London to this really fancy office. Oh, I know it was tiny, really fancy, with lovely Rachel, who shout out to Rachel, she's amazing. And I remember walking along and I couldn't decide if the fact that I was being invested in by my boss was the best thing ever, or that I had screwed up so bad to fix it.

Right? And that he was that desperate and didn't know how to fix me, yeah? So I remember that, and I remember going in there, and I was really cautious about what I said, and I remember her saying to me, just say it out loud, yeah, you say it out loud, say it to me, and if it's not what you mean, you just tell me. That's what I mean. But it's just emotional. She says, I'm not going to hold you to anything you say. You to anything you say. And I just verbally vomited all over it, yes, because I'd been holding it verbalizing too much. We were an incredibly intense, small team. We loved what we did, and our relationships were completely unhealthy and unbounded from a personal, professional point of view. And that's been, that's been a bit of a marker in my career. So there's a number of teams that's been like that for me. And I just, I just remember saying it out loud, and as I said it out loud, I started to be able to pick out what was true straight away. And it's an astonishing thing. And she was amazing, because she was like, No, that's counseling, and that's not my second help. And this, I can't, and this is probably something else entirely, yeah,

but let's pick out the stuff. And then she when I when I'd spoken about it, she said, now, now what if that actually is true to you? Yeah? And I was like, Okay, well, this is emotional. This is me just being upset. And I would pick bits out, and I'd like, no, that's that's not true. I don't feel like that. I'm just, I'm angry, and I don't hate this, and I don't love this, and I'm not scared of this, even I've said I am. But actually underneath it, there is something so for me, that power of learning what it's like to say stuff out loud, and a safe place away from people who might be hurt by that, yeah, is massive. So for me, building work relationships and trust is really, really important, and I think it's really easy, particularly when you're managing someone to fracture that by hurting their feelings. Yeah. And so being able to critique my team in a safe space for the benefit of me to be better, to manage them, was a really, really helpful Yeah. And you know, I'm going to jump straight on to top tips with that. Because I guess what I noted down as a top tip was that, you know, if you're if you're

in a coaching position, and then you've really got to embrace it and give it a go and and if you're not saying stuff out loud, sometimes you're kind of processing and filtering before you say stuff anyway. So really, if you are saying it out loud, straight away, straight away, you're kind of doing that verbal, verbal vomit and saying things as they come into your mind, that's a way to really embrace what you're doing and really giving giving it a go, right? And you've got to give it a go if it's gonna have a chance to work. Otherwise, if you guard and shelter and protect the things you say and shape, then you're not really giving it a good go. You won't get a good outcome, no? And I would say that's why it's so important to find someone you trust. Yeah, you have you'll get the feeling so funny because I do some mentoring coaching now, and I find it baffling that I say to people, look, you'll know if I'm the right person a very within our initial conversation. And I'm always baffled when they say at the

end, yeah, why?

Like, with bits of catching I do, I do pre consultation, whatever you do, have a catch up, get to know people a little bit. And I'm not quite this strong, but I'm almost trying to get people to not come back, not quite, but I'm like, you know, really? And they're like, Oh, I'd like to go ahead. And I'm like, Well, why don't you go and think about it? Take some time, maybe speak some other people decide, you know, but I don't want to jump into any of those conversations. I want people to be comfortable with all that stuff before they do it. And so that right person, I think, is helpful, yeah? And I think I think that that helps in that top tip bit, because I would say, always speak to more than one, even if you absolutely yeah, right person, because if nothing else, it'll make you feel better about when you open. And my other top tip would be if you are going to engage in the process. And this is particularly true for both. This was not particularly true. It's absolutely true both, if you are an extrovert, in terms of the way you process information, or an introvert, and it's to prep before sessions. And I don't mean try and guess what people coach is going to ask you and answer it. I mean, give yourself 15 minutes. So I used to walk up to Soho from my office, and I used it was about a 15 minute walk, and I would sit in the caffeine area opposite and I would always be early, and I'm not early for a lot of things. I used to be dead on time for everything. And I would be stare at the office in a kind of vacant thought process, yeah. And I would just go through my notes of what we talked about last time, yeah, and that was about being able to speed through the beginning of the session. Yes, I got the most out right? So, yeah, in the headspace. I was in the headspace, and I was able, and if your coach is doing that, and you're doing that, you're going to get the best out of your time. Cool, all right. Well, that seems to me like some good top tips from us. Hopefully that's helpful. Um.

Um, I think it's probably time to wrap it up. Wrap up a guest episode. But we got another one. Yeah, we do. We've got another one, and we've got some more coming up. We've got some fun, fun guests coming up over the next,