Coaching Perspectives October 2017 by Coaching Perspectives

O C TO B E R 2 0 1 7 | I S S U E 1 5

T H E A S S O C I AT I O N F O R CO A C H I N G G LO B A L M A G A Z I N E

Supervision - Erik de Haan, Tatiana Bachkirova, Michel Moral and others explore its complexities, shadows, impact and rewards Dr Alex Hill on how the arts inspire high performance sport Clive Steeper convenes more Coaches in Conversation Maria Pattinson and Emma Haughton discuss The Tempest for leadership learning

â&#x20AC;&#x153;P ROMOTI NG EXCEL L EN C E & ETH IC S IN C O AC H IN G â&#x20AC;?

CON TEN TS

O C TO B E R 2 0 1 7 | I S S U E 1 5

Editorial Hetty Einzig Excellence in Coaching How supervisors attend to coaches, so that they can attend to leaders Erik de Haan

Interview As good as it gets? Improving your performance as a coach Sue Stockdale interviews Dr Alex Hill

Coaching Leadership What do we talk about when we talk about supervision? Dr Peter Jackson and Tatiana Bachkirova

Emerging Trends DIalogue, digitisation and supervision Edna Murdoch

The hidden dimensions of team coaching supervision Alison Hodge Coaching Impact Prosperoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Island: new possibilities, healthy leadership and the role of the arts Maria Pattinson and Emma Haughton Contemplating the mind: including the shadows Ana Paula Nacif

Coaching in Context Opening multiple eyes onto our relationships Felicity Hodkinson and Victoria Smith-Murphy

Coaching Passions How to grow a coaching nature Margaret Walsh

A superviseeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thoughts on the value of supervision Hamid Tavassoly

Global Research Supervision of supervision, where are we? Michel Moral, Eve Turner and Damian Goldvarg

Global Coaching Community Coaches in Conversation Clive Steeper talks to Jonathan Webb, Sherry Harsch-Porter and Martin Braddock

October 2017 | Issue 15

Coaching by Country Coaching in Myanmar John Farrell

Reviews The Future of Coaching Reviewed by Claudia Filsinger

Systemic Coaching and Constellations 2nd edition Reviewed by Ram Ramanathan

50 Top Tools for Coaching Reviewed by Kirstin Davis

Leadership Team Coaching 3rd edition Reviewed by Miranda Kennet

Deep Dive Coaching Supervision in the Americas Lynne de Lay, Damian Goldvarg, Pat Marum and Lily Seto

Editorial Team Editor: Hetty Einzig editor@associationforcoaching.com Deputy Editor: Sue Stockdale sues@associationforcoaching.com Sub-Editor: Sally Phillips sallyp@associationforcoaching.com Editorial Assistant: Cameron Harvey-Piper cameron@associationforcoaching.com

Getting involved in the AC

Design Designer: www.martinwilliamsondesign.com

join in the coaching conversations! Give us your feedback on the magazine

We are always happy to hear from people who are interested in volunteering . Click here.

Share your thoughts with us Follow us on Twitter @ACoaching and editor@associationforcoaching.com

Editorial Board Hetty Einzig - Editor, Coaching Perspectives. Coaching, Leadership and Training Consultant, Author Katherine Tulpa - CEO, AC. Co-founder and CEO, Wisdom8 Philippe Rosinski - MD Rosinski & Company Stanley Arumugam - Senior Leadership Advisor, ActionAid International, Johannesburg, South Africa Geoffrey Abbott - Director, Executive Coaching Programs, Graduate School of Business, Queensland University of Technology

Taaka Awori - Managing Director, Busara Africa

Association for Coaching Golden Cross House 8 Duncannon Street London WC2N 4JF UK enquiries@associationforcoaching.com Tel: +44 (0) 845 653 1050 www.associationforcoaching.com

Membership

The AC is an inclusive body for the coaching profession, not just coaches. This includes a full array of membership types - from coaches through to providers of coaching and coach training, academic institutions, not-for-profits and large global organisations or corporates that are building coaching cultures. Each type of membership offers its own type of benefits and services. Further details are available here: http://www.associationforcoaching.com/pages/membership/membership-new For membership enquiries: members@associationforcoaching.com Published by the Association for Coaching Follow us on Twitter @ACoaching and join in the coaching conversations! Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Association for Coaching. AC membership includes discounts for: Coaching at Work  AC members receive 20% discount on the Coaching at Work printed magazine subscription or 10% on a digital subscription. Criticaleye  Complimentary exclusive access to leading edge online interviews and TV content. People Alchemy  An easy-to-use online resource providing practical

associationforcoaching.com

advice, from subject matter experts on over 130 management topics.  Association for Coaching Supervisors An association dedicated to promoting the understanding and use of coaching supervision amongst coaches, mentors and organisations. Professional Indemnity Insurance  AC members receive preferential rates from the following organisations:  Howden Professionals - covers UK and ROI members only.

Oxygen - covers UK, Ireland and most of Europe though the pricing for this will be different. www. oxygeninsurance.com Towergate Professional Risks Westminster Indemnity Ltd - covers worldwide excluding US and Canada Inclusion of these offers does not imply endorsement by the AC. Members should satisfy themselves about the goods/services on offer.

ED ITORIAL

I’ve just emerged this September afternoon from a Skype supervision with a young coach in training. She wanted to reflect on endings, including a few that had been unsatisfying with her coaching clients. We explored what she felt, what an ‘ideal’ ending might look like, and how she could be more assertive in emphasising the importance of endings as much as beginnings – not just for herself, but for the sake of the client (dealing with endings is after all a skill leaders need). So the coach decided to re-contact a client who had not responded to her emailed request for feedback, but she proposed emailing in a year’s time, as a ‘reconnection’ call. When I challenged her, she agreed this was a long wait: ‘I’ll do it now!’ she said. Within the hour she reported back to me that she’d had a warm reply, detailing the continued benefit of their coaching. She was delighted and informed, and I spent the afternoon smiling! Coaching supervision is the theme for this edition of Coaching Perspectives. My brief tale reminds me just how layered the benefits of supervision are. As you will see from the wide range of contributions, coaches find supervision a satisfying and deeply useful process, full of surprises and mystery gifts along the way. We know, too, that supervision is important for the wellbeing of coach and client, and is an essential aspect of professional practice. And yet we’re still having to beat the drum for coaching supervision. Why is this? Clues can be found in the rich spread of articles you will find here from supervisors, clients and trainees. A focus on the coach’s shadow – our fears, blind spots and our capacity for hubris, collusion or denial – is the foundation of Erik de Haan’s compelling case for supervision. As guardian and conscience for the shadow, the supervisor enables the coach to challenge their clients with courage to address their fears and blind spots. I find myself asking: how ready are coaches to admit that their fault lines run as deep as those of their clients? Reading the conversation between Tatiana Bachkirova and Peter Jackson, who run the advanced programme in supervision at Oxford Brookes University, I am struck by the complexity of the process and the richness this offers – a particular kind of learning: nonlinear and textured. Is this fare perhaps too rich for some coaches? Other aspects affect the relational learning of supervision. Edna Murdoch explores the impact of digitisation, Alison Hodge outlines the additional dimensions of supervising team coaches, and Felicity Hodkinson and Victoria SmithMurphy provide insight, as coach and supervisor, into the

intricate dance of the 7-eyed model. Coach and civil servant Hamid Tavassoly reflects on the benefit of experiencing several different supervision approaches, while in this issue’s Deep Dive the authors outline the current status of supervision throughout the Americas, both North and South. Sue Stockdale’s interview with Alex Hill looks precisely at how we coaches can expose ourselves to other perspectives, just as top athletes do, to expand our learning well out of our comfort zone. And the role of art to help us do this is discussed in Prospero’s Island, a dialogue between Emma Haughton and Maria Pattinson. All of this spells complexity – a condition we coaches must get more comfortable with as the world gets ever more VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous). John Farrell’s piece on coaching in Myanmar was written before the horrifying sectarian violence against the Muslim minority accelerated and came to the attention of the world. John’s article reminds us of the challenges of introducing the coaching values of awareness, self-responsibility and purposeful work into a very different culture, with entrenched divergent values and behaviours. Complexity, rich and layered learning, taking supported risk – these are the themes threaded through this edition. And these are the capacities nurtured in supervision, that porous space where we can take supported risk, confront our fears, and uncover our blind spots. As coaches we offer this ‘growth lab’ to our clients; I truly believe it is incumbent upon as professionals to make sure we continue to enjoy the same learning space for ourselves. Read on – you will find much to interest and challenge you, I guarantee! Tell us what you like, what you disagree with, and where you’ve been prompted to go further. We always like hearing from you. With warm wishes

Hetty Einzig Editor

October 2017 | Issue 15

SUPERVISORS ATTEND TO COACHES, SO THEY CAN ATTEND TO LEADERS Erik de Haan, the Director of Ashridge Centre for Coaching, outlines how supervision can be a useful method of quality assurance for coaches, especially in organisations.

THE LEADERSHIP SHADOW: THE VULNERABILITY OF BEING A LEADER In today’s fast-paced, interconnected, and mercilessly competitive business world, senior executives have to push themselves and others hard. In order to succeed, leaders have to live the paradox of closely attending to and following others as much as they lead. They have to listen well to others, understand their concerns, give them personal support, and at the same time motivate them for results or take decisions on their behalf. It is precisely those leaders who can adapt to these conditions and who can develop a tough and relentless focus on competitive advantage who are most at risk of adopting unhelpful and ultimately unproductive patterns of demand, stubbornness, or frenetic activity. Instead of being open to possibility and ambiguity, willing to engage in creative conversations with themselves and others, these executives may instead become obstinate, resentful, inarticulate, or intense. Most often these are qualities executives have relied on to get

associationforcoaching.com

them to the top and to achieve outstanding results, qualities that overshoot under stress and challenge, into unhelpful drives that lead to business and personal catastrophes . Hitherto high-performing executives suddenly find themselves facing the prospect of relationship breakdowns, strategic failures or the risks of derailment.

QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR LEADERS – HOW COACHES AND ORGANISATION DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANTS CAN HELP The shadow side plays a role in every form of leadership. Stepping forward to make a leadership gesture always creates a rift within oneself: a rift between one’s sunny, active, constructive, or aggressive side that holds the ambition to contribute, create and prove something; and one’s doubting, pessimistic, needy and vulnerable, or careful and concerned sides, which craves for connection with oneself and others. This shadow side is therefore part and parcel of leadership1. In order to make the bid for power or put forward one’s drive

EXCEL L EN CE IN COACHIN G

to achieve, other aspects have to be left behind, pushed back and discarded, somewhere in the dark of our experience, including our experience of self.

have’; it is an essential prerequisite for maintaining quality, competence and professionalism for the executive coach7 and organisational consultant8.

If leaders have a strong-willed, confrontational spouse, as well as assertive colleagues who remind them of their human fragility and fallibility, the leadership shadow can be processed so that it does not cause too many problems. Unfortunately, many of our captains of industry and political leaders are not in such a well-balanced position. They are dedicated and even devoted to the job, they put in an exorbitant amount of time and effort, and they are rarely criticised or challenged by those near to them. Under such conditions, how will leaders remain fresh, balanced and inspired, to keep reflecting openly and self-critically alongside their own firmly held convictions?

Coaching supervision takes place both in groups and on a 1:1 basis. The purpose of supervision is to help the coach bring the best of themselves to their work with clients; in practical terms, this means ensuring that the coach is sufficiently well resourced to help their clients recognise their own leadership shadow and take responsibility for their leadership choices. Although supervision is a developmental process, in my view its fundamental purpose is for the coach to monitor and improve the quality of their work with their clients. By attending to their own emotional and intellectual resourcefulness, coaches will be in a stronger position to help their clients.

I believe that this kind of challenging, outspoken and fresh scrutiny can be provided to leaders by organisationdevelopment consultants and executive coaches (if they are worth the considerable fees they are paid!)2. This can help remind them of their personal leadership shadows and of the fact that they do have (hidden) doubts, needs and vulnerabilities. They may not say so in public, but at some level they themselves know how intrinsically fragile their leadership is3.

Interestingly, the type of quality assurance that supervisors provide for coaches is comparable with the quality assurance coaches provide for leaders. Just like coaches with their clients, supervisors are helping coaches to reflect more honestly and deeply, and to recognise, accept and get a handle on ‘shadowy’ aspects of their services, such as not speaking up to certain leaders, accepting inappropriate gifts from clients, or responding viscerally and unhelpfully to leadership shadows9. Supervision is often a last opportunity to become aware of deeply hidden and unhelpful dynamics in organisations. I have noticed on many occasions that a slightly stilted, awkward or telling moment in supervision has helped to indicate a pattern which was ultimately at the core of a leader’s problematic behaviour, and which the coach had picked up at a semi-conscious level – something that didn’t feel right. This helped the coach to go back to the client, respond and make a positive difference for the leader concerned.

These coaches and consultants are able to spot or guess the shadow sides that leaders have forgotten or may prefer not to consider. It is the coach’s task to bring back awareness of vulnerability or neediness, corruptibility or hubris, depending on the personal contents of the leader’s shadow. Coaching restores balance and looks after a leader’s ‘fitness to practise’ precisely by generating insight and inspiration around the leader’s most sensitive and vulnerable areas. A form of leadership is now required in turn from the coach or consultant: namely to speak their honest, fearless truth to power4 and to reflect freely and independently alongside the leader and leadership questions of the day. The question presents itself: how do coaches remain fit for practice and make sure that they approach their clients with the requisite level of freshness and robustness? The answer to that question is: supervision.

QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR COACHES – SUPERVISORS LOOK AFTER THOSE WHO ARE LOOKING AFTER LEADERS Most large corporations now make use of internal and external coaches, who are expected to have been trained and accredited by a recognized institution. However, the achievement of a coaching qualification cannot by itself be taken as evidence of professionalism and competence. Coaching is an extremely demanding and isolated activity, full of struggles: to find one’s voice to speak truth sensitively to power with one’s doubts5, with ethical dilemmas or invitations to collude with dysfunctional leadership behaviour6. For this reason, we expect coaches and consultants to be in regular supervision. Supervision is no longer a ‘nice to

Similar to leaders going into damaging overdrive and derailment, there can be parallel processes within the coaching and supervision too. The ‘very real dangers of executive coaching’10 are often aggravated by a coach’s lack of psychological understanding, so that coaches misjudge the situation, aggravate the status quo and abuse their own power. These can be picked up in supervision. Other ethical challenges in the coaching and consulting professions come from: l The many new coaches, often (internal) consultants, HR Directors and CEOs, who still enter the profession with only minimal training. l Low bargaining power of clients who mostly negotiate only small contracts. l A lack of regulation in the consulting and coaching professions. l Feelings of shame, anxiety and protectiveness when there are difficulties or concerns. l A certain ‘numbness’ or resistance to external quality assurance, particularly from more experienced coaches.

October 2017 | Issue 15

RECENT LARGE-SCALE RESEARCH INTO THE QUALITY OF SUPERVISION FOR COACHES Even if the professions and responsibilities of leaders, coaches, consultants and supervisors are very different, there is something they all hold in common – namely the need to open up a safe and secure space where others can thrive, be open and give of their best. This ability to ‘hold’ or ‘contain’ a trusted and safe space is immensely important for leaders11, but it is also essential for coaches as they challenge their clients, and also in particular for supervisors as they monitor quality and confront coaches on any boundary issues in their practice. Ashridge Centre for Coaching recently undertook a large-scale empirical survey into the satisfaction, trust and vulnerability of organisational supervisees12. 518 complete responses were received on the questionnaire, from experienced coaches and consultants from 32 countries. Statistical properties of the responses were computed to look at the influence of gender, age, experience, nationality, and amount and nature of supervision (i.e. group versus individual) on satisfaction and trust scores. Results were compared with results from other areas of supervision such as occupational therapy and counselling supervision.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Professor Erik de Haan is Director of the Ashridge Centre for Coaching and Professor of Organization Development at the VU University in Amsterdam. He is the programme leader of Ashridge’s MSc in Executive Coaching and PG Diploma in Organisational Supervision. He has an MSc in Theoretical Physics, a PhD in Psychophysics, and an MA in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. He has published more than one hundred and fifty professional and research articles and eleven books, covering his expertise as an organizational consultant and executive coach.

We employed a cross-sectional design focused on relatively experienced coaches, directed at large numbers so as to measure differences within the population in a statistically significant manner. We inquired into satisfaction and trust in general terms, and we also asked more specifically about the ‘most worrying, concerning or shameful episode in the coach’s practice’ over the last few years, whether they had brought this episode to supervision and if so whether the ensuing supervision had been helpful. The results show that these experienced coaches are considerably more safe, satisfied and trusting of their supervisor than was found in comparable research in counselling and psychotherapy. Significant differences were found in the appreciation of supervision by men and women, and also when supervisee age and relative exposure to supervision are taken into account. It appears from the perspective of this sample of relatively senior coaches that highly trusting and satisfactory relationships with supervisors are indeed emerging, although it should be remembered that coaches select their own supervisors and pay for supervision out of the proceeds of their own practice. Supervision, like leadership and coaching, is a caring and nurturing and yet disruptive activity, where deep trust and safety need to be paired with challenge and scrutiny. To summarise and paraphrase Garry Embleton (2002): Ethics are not problems to be solved. They are relational issues to be lived. Get in touch with your own pain and - whatever happens - do not inflict that pain onto others. This is the real task of supervision: to penetrate the celluloid respectability of coaching and explore the often brutal, destructive and mad forces operating within and among the leader, coach and supervisor.13

associationforcoaching.com

1. For more information and examples on the leadership shadow see The leadership shadow by E. de Haan and A. Kasozi (Kogan Page, 2014). 2. Nelson, E. and R. Hogan (2009). Coaching on the Dark Side. International Coaching Psychology Review, 4, 7-19. 3. De Haan, E. & Kasozi, A. (2014). The leadership shadow: how to recognise and avoid derailment, hubris and overdrive. London: Kogan Page. 4. De Haan, E. (2006). Fearless Consulting. Chichester: Wiley. 5. De Haan, E. (2008). I doubt therefore I coach – critical moments in coaching practice. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 60.1, 91-105. 6. De Haan, E. & Carroll, M. (2014). Moral Lessons – Part 1: what would you do? Coaching @ Work 9.1, January/February, 37-39. Part 2: further guidance. Coaching @ Work 9.2, March/April, 46-50. 7. De Haan, E., & Birch, D. (2010). Quality control for coaching. The Training Journal, August, 71-74. 8. De Haan, E., & Birch, D. (2011). Supervision for consultants. The Training Journal, January, 63-67. 9. For more examples, see De Haan, E. & Carroll, M. (2014). Ibid 10. Berglas, S. (2002). The very real dangers of executive coaching. Harvard Business Review, 80, 86–92. 11. As argued more fully in: De Haan, E. & Kasozi, A. (2014). The leadership shadow: how to recognise and avoid derailment, hubris and overdrive. London: Kogan Page. 12. De Haan, E. (2017). Trust and safety in coaching supervision. Some evidence that we are doing it right. International Coaching Psychology Review, 12.1, 37-48. 13. Embelton, G. (2002). Dangerous liaisons and shifting boundaries in psychoanalytic perspectives on supervision, in McMahon, Mary & Patton, Wendy (Eds.), Supervision in the Helping Professions: A Practical Approach (119-130). French’s Forest: Pearson.

AS GOOD AS IT GETS? HOW DO I DO THAT? IMPROVING YOUR PERFORMANCE AS A COACH Achieving high performance is an outcome that both coaches and clients seek. But what is high performance, how should it be measured, and how can we learn from others? In the second of a series of interviews with thought leaders on the Thinkers50 Radar, Sue Stockdale set out to find answers to these questions when she spoke to Dr Alex Hill, co-founder and Director of the Centre for High Performance.

Coaches measure their effectiveness in different ways. For some it may be client satisfaction, for others itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about how much revenue they generate, or the degree of change that has been observed by the stakeholders in the coaching relationship. Yet coaching can be quite insular, because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not often that coaches get to observe their peers in action, and learn from them, to improve their own performance. This idea piqued my interest and led me to interview Dr Alex Hill, who carries out research on what it takes to achieve, and sustain, high levels of performance. Dr Hill is co-founder and Director of the Centre for High Performance (a collaboration between senior faculty at the Universities of Kingston, Oxford and Duke, and the London Business School) and is identified on the Thinkers 50 Radar as one of

associationforcoaching.com

30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future of how organisations are managed and led. I was initially curious to find out how Hill got involved in researching high performance. He explained that the idea for the centre was created in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics. He spoke to Peter Keen, former coach to cyclist Chris Boardman and Performance Director for British Cycling. Keen believed it was possible to predict how many medals a team would win and that these data could be used by UK Sport to make investment decisions as to which sports received funding. He then played a key role in gaining funding for the British cycling team, and developed the investment model now used by UK Sport. However, the big question was: could high performance be sustainable over time?

IN TERV IEW

COMPARING YOUR PERFORMANCE WITH OTHERS IN THE SECTOR To answer this question, Dr Hill and his colleagues decided to learn from the arts sector, which has been very successful in developing sustainable high performance. Several pieces of research were then carried out with the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal College of Arts and The Royal Academy of Music. Hill defined ‘being sustainable’ as: doing mainly the same activity for over 100 years, constantly outperforming your peers, and being admired by everyone in your sector. Alongside this, Hill and his team carried out another piece of research that looks at how to transform something that is failing. Their focus was on schools, and what happens after a school is put in ‘special measures’ by OFSTED (the UK government body tasked with overseeing education performance) because the school is failing to deliver high levels of performance. From this study, they realised that the definition of ‘failure’ was much simpler to identify than the definition of ‘success.’ Achieving high performance in a school is measured by high exam results relative to those of its students’ peers, and being able consistently to outperform their competitors. In the world of education, there are league tables which make such comparisons easier, but in the world of leadership and coaching, performance is much more difficult to measure. Hill reflects that too often coaches and business leaders measure performance by looking at historical trends, but they don’t carry out any competitor analysis, which he believes would be much more useful. ‘I do a lot of work with businesses to compare cost structures, profits, sales and customers to give an insight into whether businesses are performing better than their peers. But the problem with most organisations is that failure hits due to external factors that they are unaware of. For example, it might just happen that the business is operating in a growing sector, say coaching. Their sales increase 10% year on year, so the company or coach thinks it’s doing well. What they don’t realise is that their peers are growing by 20% year on year, and the coaching market itself is growing by 30% year on year. So, in effect, they are doing worse.’ What Hill discovered is that consistently high-performing individuals and organisations are prepared to look outside their sector to learn what it takes to improve. For example, when British Cycling wanted to improve how the team operated on tour, they looked to the Royal Ballet, rather than another cycling team. Another example of this approach, says Hill, is the process used to recruit new teachers by one of the UK’s most prestigious fee-paying schools. The school doesn’t look at teachers initially but instead asks ‘Who is the best in the world at this?’ They’ll call these individuals ‘irregulars’ because they want people who are interesting and creative; then they work out if they can help them learn to teach. It’s about seeing your organisation within a much bigger picture.

Hill thinks that if you don’t look more broadly than your immediate marketplace, you may start to deceive yourself and believe that you are doing well, when really you are not. He comments, ‘Most people don’t analyse success, but they do unpick failure.’ This mindset is nicely captured in the quote by film actor Woody Allen:

‘I only go to see my psychiatrist ‘I only when go to see I’ my psychiatrist when I’m happy because I want to know why’.

Hill’s research has uncovered just how important it is to analyse our successes. US space agency NASA can take up to 18 months to unpick one of their missions, and that includes both successes and failures. If we don’t know what has helped us succeed, we are in danger of being derailed by an external factor that we were not aware of.

THE VALUE OF INTRODUCING NEW PERSPECTIVES Coaching supervision can be the route that coaches use to evaluate their performance. The benefit of this is that the coach, together with their supervisor, can reflect upon the coach’s practice, both the successes and the failures. The supervisor provides a valuable third perspective, to help the coach become aware of any blind spots. The value of seeking out, and sharing, new perspectives is not to be underestimated. There are many instances of coaches sharing different perspectives with their client from their experience of coaching in a variety of different business sectors, which generates new insights. For example, a client, who was struggling to ensure their team was being consistent in their approach, learned about surgeon and writer Atul Gawande’s concept of checklists from his coach, and realised this could be a useful way of tackling his issue. Gawande took the checklist concept1, proven to help aeroplane pilots reduce errors, and applied it in the operating theatre. As a result, there was a dramatic reduction in post-operative issues with patients. However, this type of benefit is less likely if a coach is not constantly keeping their skills and knowledge up to date, across a broad range of areas. Hill believes that the role of the coach is to use their perspective to make an intervention or to help create a change. He was impressed with what George Lois2, a successful graphic designer who designed many covers for Esquire magazine in the 1960’s, had to say on the subject: ‘What goes into you, comes out of you,’ which

October 2017 | Issue 15 11

Hill interprets as the need constantly to expose yourself to new perspectives, so you don’t get stale. ‘The real learning,’ says Hill, ‘comes from looking at people who don’t need coaching, or looking at other sectors that are doing things completely differently, and thinking about what you can learn from them. I think you must ask yourself: where do I get my learning and inspiration from? Coaches are selling new perspectives and ideas. If you are offering help to others, you need to keep helping yourself to be able to provide help to others.’ That help may come from a variety of sources, which may mean surrounding yourself with a good group of people who will challenge you. Hill does this by putting himself into environments and situations that he knows nothing about, and being prepared to learn in new ways. Perhaps strangely for an academic, Dr Hill does not think that books are always the best medium to learn from. He thinks that there is often more to learn from magazines, newspapers, videos and films, or other art forms. Because he works in a university he can see how the younger generation engage in a completely different way now compared to when he was a student. Dr Hill’s final thoughts were that coaches need to create some habits around how they evaluate and improve their practice. ‘We all need to revisit the habits we have adopted around self-development, and consider if they are still useful. Then, ensure that you build time into your life to reflect and think how do I do that? I’ve spent time with some amazing people and they are surprisingly systematic about how they reflect and learn, although they may not realise it. If you build in a habit of continual reflection, being willing to take in new perspectives and accept challenge, you can develop and sustain high levels of performance over time.’

1. Gawande, A. (2009). The Checklist Manifesto. New York: Metropolitan Books. 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lois

associationforcoaching.com

ABOUT DR ALEX HILL Dr Alex Hill is Co-Founder and Director of The Centre for High Performance, and has been identified as an ‘up and coming management guru’ by Thinkers50. He has written several books and published articles in leading academic journals such as the Harvard Business Review and International Journal of Operations and Production Management. His research has been widely discussed by the media in publications such as the BBC, Daily Mail, Economist, Forbes, Guardian, Huffington Post, Independent and Schools Week.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sue Stockdale is an accredited executive coach and coaching supervisor working with clients in FTSE companies, elite sport and not-for-profit organisations. She was the first British woman to ski to the Magnetic North Pole and has represented Scotland in track and field athletics. As an author, Sue has written and co-authored eight books including Cope with Change at Work, (Teach Yourself Books 2012); and Risk: All that Matters (Hodder & Stoughton 2015) and is Deputy Editor of Coaching Perspectives.

Start your Accreditation Journey The AC is passionate about all aspects of coaching and has a firm belief in establishing and upholding the highest standards of best practice within the industry. Our accreditation schemes have been developed so that buyers of coaching or related services can be assured that an individual or organisation has been assessed to rigorous standards using the AC Coaching Competency Framework.

COACH ACCREDITATION

Our Coach Accreditation Scheme has been established to allow coaches to benchmark themselves against high professional standards, and to provide reassurance to buyers of coaching regarding the level of experience and capability of coaches.

COACHING SUPERVISOR ACCREDITATION

As a supervisor, stand out in a competitive market place. Support from an AC Accredited Coaching Supervisor ensures coaches receive a good quality service and flags to users of their coaching service that their coach is receiving excellent professional support. Designed to accredit fitness to practise, it indicates that the Supervisor operates to core principles and demonstrates appropriate competencies within the functions of supervision.

COACH TRAINING ACCREDITATION

Our Coach Training Accreditation offers reassurance to buyers of coaching programmes that the courses have a blended learning approach with a balance of practical and theoretical content together with the application of coaching competencies. We offer four different levels of coach training accreditation to reflect the development of a coach from novice to mastery.

accreditation@associationforcoaching.com +44 (0) 845 653 1050 www.associationforcoaching.com

We have a great opportunity for you on May 11th 2018! The week of 7th –13th May 2018 celebrates International Coaching Week 2018. In partnership with the AOCS we will be celebrating International Coaching Supervision Day on Friday 11th May. In honour of this we are extending our exclusive member benefit of complimentary Group Supervision Experience calls to non-members. 41 people attended ACGSE calls in 2017 and we would like to reach more people and more countries in 2018. So, how can you play your part ? l Existing member – book your place by emailing karenb@associationforcoaching.com l Recommend a colleague – have attended a call yourself and have non-member colleague who you would like to share with? Invite them to attend a call on Friday 11th May 2018. Watch out for the email in Jan/Feb in order to book. l Want to help host a call? - If you are a trained coaching supervisor based outside of the UK and would like to help us host a call on ICS day, get in touch with karenb@associationforcoaching.com (additional AC training will be required)

For more information about our ACGSE calls take a look at our webpage www.associationforcoaching.com/page/EventsGroupSupervi

October 2017 | Issue 15 13

WHAT DO WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT SUPERVISION? Coaching supervisors and trainers Peter Jackson and Tatiana Bachkirova engage in a conversation to explore some of the difficult questions that come up for coaches in supervision training.

Our experience of developing supervisors has taught us that what students have most valued on their journey are dialogue, discussion and exploration. In this spirit, we did our own exploration as a dialogue, posing some tricky questions to each other. The following is a synthesis of our recorded exploration of a few of these questions. It is not definitive, but we hope it is helpful in stimulating your own thinking about supervision. PETER: So, Tatiana. We have three or four questions each. We haven’t seen each other’s questions, so I suggest we just take it in turns to ask and answer the other’s question ‘live.’ Would you like to go first? I’ll answer as best I can, then you can have your say, too. TATIANA: (laughs) OK. So - the first question: What do experienced coaches need to know and do, over and above their knowledge and skills as coaches, in order to become coaching supervisors? PETER: Mmm … you’ve gone right into the ‘What’s the difference?’ question. That’s quite hard. I think we should probably end up with that one. What’s your second question?

associationforcoaching.com

TATIANA: OK. The second question is: In what way can learning to supervise enhance your coaching? PETER: We’ve certainly seen coaches experiencing that enhancement, even down to coaches taking supervision courses when they have no intention of supervising. And their feedback is that the experience was very developmental for them. If I think back to where those people have said they’ve developed furthest, it’s been about enhanced reflexivity. It’s about thinking more deeply about how their practice works. That’s an outcome, but there is also a process answer, which is something about whatever route you take to supervision, then there is skills development and a rehearsal of the reflexive process. We do that through a model of practice, observed practice and supervision on supervision, and I’m guessing that other people do something similar. So, hearing all these perspectives, you gain from this multidimensional thinking process. It’s a self-awareness skill in itself, which we would say is also a critical factor in people enhancing their coaching practice. Not just ‘how to do it,’ but developing the actual process of change and enhancement.

COACHIN G L E AD ERSHIP

TATIANA: Is there a danger that this implies that everyone who teaches should be a better coach, which is not always the case? PETER: Well, only a better coach than they would otherwise have been, not necessarily a better coach than somebody else. Did you have a different answer? TATIANA: I was thinking much the same thing, but maybe thinking of it in terms of Kegan’s subject-object model1 - that is to say you just do what you do, your practice is an expression of yourself. But another approach is to take your practice and put it on the table (as it were), changing it from subject to object. And when you make your practice into an object, you can explore it more … and not just your own practice but everyone else’s too. PETER: Good point; thank you. Shall we move onto the next question? My first question is: Do we know what makes a difference in supervision? TATIANA: Do we know what makes a difference? OK, we need to get to it in a roundabout way. I don’t think there is a simple answer to this question. We can probably never answer questions about supervision as a whole, or coaching as a whole, because we do them in very different ways from each other. So you can answer your question – about what makes a difference – in relation to a particular person. You can know what would make a difference in their supervision; you can observe what they are learning. For some people it can be very simple things: not taking responsibility for having to move the process on … PETER: … or to stand back, while other people might need to facilitate more. Or any number of other things, because people have different habits. So in that respect, the question about ‘What makes the difference?’ is like having a question on paper, ‘How will therapy help me’? Well, it depends who you are. And it depends what you need. So potentially, just like some therapies will help some people with some things better than others, different types of supervision will help people in different ways. And I suppose as coaching supervisors we don’t really ‘put out there’ what our particular approach is most useful for, and perhaps we don’t have the vocabulary yet to do so. OK. Now it’s your turn to ask a question. TATIANA: The next question is: What are the factors that make supervision difficult? PETER: It’s easiest to start with myself – what do I find difficult? What I find difficult is handling the multidimensional aspect. There are so many layers we can look at. We can think about the client system; the system that is coaching practice in general – the norms and what we think coaching practice is; the coach’s own practice – we could go through the ‘seven eyes’2 here. You’re operating at so many different levels at once, and each of those levels is complex, and then you’re also managing yourself … in terms of style: Am I going to be more interventionist with this problem with this person, or am I going to be more exploratory? What

function does it feel like they need most at the moment? It’s as if you’re working in three or four different worlds and each of them is complex and multi-layered. And you might be aware of all that complexity, and that in itself can be a distraction. If I’m thinking about all that do I then start to try too hard; or otherwise ask myself if it would be better right now to relax and accept that all these things are somewhere in my consciousness. And therefore it’s enough just to be me, and those things will filter into my thinking by osmosis. TATIANA: That’s something about the nature of supervision itself, but I think there are some additional things because those complexities can also be true of coaching. But here you are working with a colleague one way or another. You are in the same business and there is often an expectation that you know more or understand more, so you are able to see more in this ‘second-hand’ information that is coming to you. I think this is incredibly difficult because it’s twice removed from what we’re exploring. PETER: You’re a further step removed and there’s an extra layer compared with coaching. It’s interesting that all these questions seem to be circling around the same central idea. My next question is: What is our sense of what’s happening in supervision? TATIANA: This is going to be very personal. My sense is that it’s a puzzle, and that I am kind of somehow involved in trying to unpick it. And that’s what makes it exciting. When you’re really engaged with a physical puzzle there is that sense of excitement: Will it work? Will it not work? What will happen? There is uncertainty, but there is also some way you can be surprised. PETER: When you said ‘puzzle’ I first thought of a jigsaw puzzle, but when you talked about unpicking it I got more of a picture of one of those three-dimensional puzzles made of rods and string which you have to transform from one shape into another. But what strikes me about the puzzle metaphor is that supervision is more creative than that. It’s not that there is a single solution, more a way forward. So your puzzle just turns into something else. It becomes another puzzle, rather than reaching a known end point. TATIANA: No, I agree. It’s not a jigsaw with a pre-prepared form, it’s a puzzle that creates something different at the end. PETER: More like a kaleidoscope than a Rubik’s cube? I think that’s good. That was my question. What’s your next question? TATIANA: This is my most important question: What do experienced coaches need to know and do over and above their knowledge and skills as coaches, in order to become coaching supervisors? PETER: I suppose since you asked that question earlier, we’ve played with a lot of ideas from which the answer emerges. One thread is that everyone’s different, and there are different needs. Then there’s complexity – your question about what’s difficult – which almost points to the same characteristics. So

October 2017 | Issue 15 15

in one way we could ask, ‘What then needs to change (from coaching to supervision)?’ And we could say actually nothing needs to change. You are who you are and different people might develop through changing different things. So at one extreme, we have quite a post-modernist answer. And then at the other end of the spectrum we can ask in a concrete way: What do people need to know? We can say that to operate at these different levels, it’s very useful to have knowledge of models that describe this multi-dimensional thing called supervision – and that’s why people find models useful. So you can take something like the 7-Eyed model, which gives you a ready framework to access different aspects of this complexity. And of course people form preferences for different models. I think that generally there is a greater demand for flexibility and reflexivity in supervision than perhaps there is in coaching – although in some coaching people will be working in that way. Perhaps reflexivity starts earlier in the experience of supervision than maybe it does in coaching. And of course it will vary according to people’s style. Then there’s the instructional or training type of supervision that you could do perfectly adequately without reflexivity. So there are some very concrete things at one end: what’s it for, how it works, what I need to think about. At the other end we’ve got something quite post-modern, which argues that everybody is wherever they are. And in between we’ve got some kind of journey, which is to some extent specific to the individual practitioner. TATIANA: What still remains as a puzzle in my head, is the coach who simply says to us, ‘But look, that’s what all good coaches do.’ Whatever you say, they can say it’s just what good coaches do. And even addressing the levels of complexity just means that you’re ‘coaching the coach.’ How is that different from supervision? And what I’m starting to think, along the lines that it’s all individualised, is that it’s probably impossible to answer the question, because you actually do very similar things. Even helping people to see things systemically and be more reflexive. So I would ask: Do you have to have an extra ability when you are supervising these people? Do you have to have more options than when you coach them? I don’t know. That’s why I’m still playing with that question: in what way would you ‘step up’ to do supervision rather than simply ‘coaching the coach’? Is that ‘stepping up’ about becoming more expansive, more spacious … being more available in terms of all your abilities? PETER: Where we’re probably getting to is that the difference is elastic. TATIANA: Elastic and individual. But I’ve noticed that people always want a definition at the outset. And this differentiation between coaching and supervision is actually a definition. But to ask that question at the outset already stops the enquiry. A proper enquiry doesn’t start with the definition; you end up with it. So this is what we’re doing all the time with people developing their supervision practice: opening up the enquiry. And then they may arrive at a definition, or a differentiation of how their supervision is different from their coaching.

associationforcoaching.com

When we looked back over this conversation, we realised that it said a lot – though not everything - of what we believe is important about developing as a supervisor: l Practice is complex; l The supervisor needs to develop reflexivity and a critical sense of ways of seeing the coaching situation; and l Each individual’s development will be different from that of other supervisors. Most of all, supervision is an exploration, not a destination.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Tatiana Bachkirova is Director of the International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies and Professor of Coaching Psychology at Oxford Brookes University. She has been supervising coaches for more than 15 years. Tatiana is an active researcher and author of many publications including Coaching and Mentoring Supervision: Theory and Practice. She is Convener and Chair of the International Conference on Coaching Supervision in addition to the Oxford Brookes programme in Advanced Professional Study in Coaching Supervision.

Dr Peter Jackson is Senior Lecturer in Coaching and Mentoring at Oxford Brookes Business School International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies. With Tatiana Bachkirova he runs an Advanced Programme in Coaching Supervision for experienced coaches

1. Refers to psychologist Robert Kegan’s model of child development - https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan 2. Hawkins, P. and Shohet, R. (2006) Supervision in the helping professions. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Ethical Guidelines for Coaching Supervisors

- An Invitation The Association for Coaching (AC) and the Association of Coaching Supervisors (AOCS) are collaborating to create a resource - Ethical Guidelines for Coaching Supervisors. All coaching supervisors are invited to contribute to this work by completing a questionnaire designed to gain more insight into how they respond to ethical dilemmas, and underpinning that, the core principles and models that they draw on when navigating these often tricky issues. Responses will confidentially inform our ongoing work in this field. We are open to further contributions to this work, so if you wish to contribute further or be kept current on new developments in ethical practice, please email: info@associationofcoachingsupervisors.com. The questionnaire also gives you the opportunity to leave your email address. You will find the questionnaire at: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Ethical-Dilemmas There are two case studies, each followed by some questions. It could take approximately 30 minutes per case study to complete. It is possible to return to a part-finished response, if you use the same computer/device. Thank you for participating in this questionnaire. We value your contribution. Peter Welch, AOCS and Anne Calleja, AC

Looking for a qualified coaching supervisor? AOCS has made the search easy for you!

Review and select from a wide range of friendly, professional, well-trained, and qualified coaching supervisors, by visiting our website (no log-in, fees or membership needed). Search by location, region, language, or name to view the profiles of our members: https://goo.gl/3MLkZ5 Then click through or call to connect and get a quote within your budget â&#x20AC;&#x201C; easy! AOCS is a professional network of coaching supervisors who provide high quality, cost-effective supervision aimed at meeting the needs of both internal and external coaches. Come and have a conversation with us!

Our mission is to 'Promote, Engage, and Develop'

October 2017 | Issue 15 17

DIALOGUE, DIGITISATION AND SUPERVISION Coaching Supervisor Edna Murdoch sounds the alarm on how little attention is being paid to the influence of our digital lives on our professional capacities.

At this year’s UK Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, commentator Stephen Fry was concerned that even in the midst of the UK general election, barely a single politician had made any mention of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its effect on our lives in the very near future. My own concern springs from my experience as a consumer of what writer Nicholas Carr calls the ‘interruption system known as the Net’1, and from many conversations with supervisees in different parts of the world. The key supervision skill of generative dialogue can be affected by over engagement with contemporary technologies: the intoxicating screens that fill our offices, homes and pockets. Digitisation affects our capacity to be present, to relate, to think together and especially our capacity to attend. These are foundational qualities for supervisors. So how, in our very digitised lives, do supervisors (and coaches) enjoy the benefits of technology while maintaining the subtle skills that are key to excellent work?

associationforcoaching.com

DIALOGUE – ESSENTIAL FEATURES Supervisors use dialogic processes to engage curiosity and encourage new thinking and also to co-create a healthy learning relationship with their supervisees. We ‘wonder together’ about the various entanglements and enquiries that are brought to supervision. Dialogue ensures that the best ideas and solutions emerge naturally out of collective reflection, imagination and cognition. Dialogue enables each person in a conversation to think and share clearly – allowing words to emerge at the right moment. In dialogue, each person contributes to the conversation, unattached to outcomes or to being right. Respect for the others’ thinking and the capacity to be in the flow of exchange appropriately are key ingredients in skilful dialogue processes such as supervision. Physicist David Bohm writes that dialogue ensures ‘an ever changing and developing pool of common meaning’2. He says that truly being in dialogue is ‘exploratory… its essence is learning… (it is) an unfolding process of creative participation between peers.’ This is an almost perfect description of the

EMERGIN G TREN D S

most potent moments in supervision sessions, when both supervisor and supervisee have gathered enough information about the issues in hand, to begin the deeper enquiry that will penetrate to the heart of the matter and yield new insights, new learning and change.

SUPERVISOR CAPACITIES Isaacs points out: ‘in dialogue, you are part of the method. To engage in dialogue is to engage with yourself in a profoundly new way’3. The biblical instruction ‘Know thyself’ is relevant here – who am I being as I supervise, how transparent is my thinking, can I hold the frame of our work and also encourage fresh thinking between us? How do I choose what I attend to? Do I listen deeply enough? Isaacs advises that we ‘listen from the silence within’ ourselves. Do we know what builds or erodes that silence? The capacity to be still and grounded and to co-create conscious relationships is key to good supervisory work. Supervision is more successful when we develop a quality of attention which encourages listening together, creating moments in conversation when we ‘let go… to let come’4; moments when we are present enough and can tolerate not knowing for long enough, so that new insights can emerge. In the learning dialogue of supervision, I believe it is the supervisor’s responsibility to create the conditions for profound attention and for a safe relationship in which both participants can ‘rest in open presence within whatever experience arises’5. In generative dialogue, supervisors require the maturity to be a peer-learner – not an expert and certainly not ‘super’. How do we place ourselves in the conversation? When we are at our best, we are delighted participants, knowing the value of the ‘beginner’s mind’6 and trusting in the meta-processes of deep dialogue. As William Isaacs explains: ‘We learn to enquire into what is.’3

DIGITISATION AND SUPERVISION Like everyone else, supervisors live in a digital world; indeed coaches and their clients are immersed 24/7 in the technologies that make our businesses possible. Yet digitisation alters who we are, our thinking, our capacity for attention, our relational intelligence and our patience – all essential capacities for supervisors. It alters our brains. The Net delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli—repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive—that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions.1 I am enchanted and supported by technology as much as anyone else; I am also challenged to consider how I am being altered by it and how my attention is affected by being one of what Carr describes as the ‘hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest.’ How about you? And how about your supervisees and their clients? Many of us are unwittingly drowning in the ‘repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive’ information overload that is part and parcel of corporate and professional life today.

ATTENTION For those of us who work with people in potentially lifealtering conversations, consistent attention is essential. Not only does it ensure that we hear accurately, but also that we hear more than words – we hear the whole person, we pick up ‘notes’ from the system. Full attention ensures that we offer a quality of presence that enhances professional conversations. Clinical research at McCombs School of Business at The University of Austin indicates that over-using phones and screens reduces our capacity for attention: We see a linear trend that suggests that as the smart phone becomes more noticeable, participants’ available cognitive capacity decreases… It’s a brain drain. To be everywhere is to be nowhere. (Seneca, Roman philosopher) We multifunction more now and we’re getting better at it; our brains are re-wiring accordingly. I believe that the new normal for many of us is, as described by writer and consultant Linda Stone, ‘continuous partial attention’ – a condition that is easily observed. We are too often everywhere but here, right here in this moment, fully here in this conversation. This is happening, subtly, day by day. As a result, it is becoming harder to inhabit the ground we stand on and so our attention, thinking, speaking and relating are impaired.

‘Never has there been a medium that, like the Net, has been programmed to so widely scatter our attention and to do it so insistently… the Net is, by design, an interruption system, a machine geared for dividing attention… frequent interruptions scatter our thoughts… and make us tense and anxious… we willingly accept the loss of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive.’ Nicholas Carr

October 2017 | Issue 15 19

RELATIONSHIPS IN SUPERVISION We know that ‘change happens in the crucible of relationship’7. And yet, recent research suggests that many of us use tech/social media to ‘dial down human contact’ – we’d ‘rather text than talk’8. It seems that the landline, and real talking, come way down the list of most people’s preferred means of communication. It is harder to be truly alone now or to disconnect from the avalanche of information that tumbles out of our screens, wherever we are. Yet we have known for decades that solitude and quietness are pre-requisites for empathy and therefore vital in creating sound professional and business relationships. The relationship with our clients begins with solitude where we can grow the relationship with our selves and so reflect more effectively on how we can best relate to others. Enchantment with our mesmerising ‘toys’ and their undoubted usefulness masks the dire side effects of a 24/7 engagement with phones, screens and social media. ‘Dire’ that is, for anyone for whom attention, relationship and conversational skills are key ingredients in their working life. The technological eco-system in which supervisors are immersed is one of constant interruption and disconnection. I am suggesting here that we need to care for ourselves and for our supervisees by attending to what is happening to us socially, spiritually and neurologically. We need consciously to re-balance and protect our core personal and professional capacities.

associationforcoaching.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Edna Murdoch is an accredited coach supervisor. She has been working internationally for over 30 years – as coach, coach supervisor and trainer. She co-edited Full Spectrum Supervision (Panoma Press, 2013) and has presented on supervision at many international conferences. The diploma in coaching supervision which she designed and developed is the global leader in supervision training. Her influence in the early development of coaching supervision is considerable; she has had a key role in shaping supervisory processes and ensuring standards of practice.

1. Carr, N. (2010) The Shallows – How the Internet is changing the way we think, read and remember. New York: W.W. Norton. 2. Isaacs, W. (1999) Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together. New York: Doubleday. 3. Bohm, D. (1996) On Dialogue. New York: Routledge 4. Senge, P.M., Scharmer,C.O.,Jaworski, J., Flowers, B.S. (2005). Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. London: Nicholas Brealey. 5. Welwood, J. (2000) Towards a Psychology of Awakening. Boston; Shambhala Oublications Inc 6. Suzuki, S. (2011) Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Boston: Shambala Publications. 7. Critchley, Bill (2010) ‘Relational Coaching: Taking the Coaching High Road’ (pdf) http://www.billcritchleyconsulting.com/pdf/Relational%20 coaching%20cs_2.pdf 8. Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming Conversation – The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. New York: Penguin Putnam.

EMERGIN G TREN D S

DIRECTIVE THE HIDDEN OR DIMENSIONS NON-DIRECTIVE? OF TEAM THAT COACHING IS THE QUESTION SUPERVISION * Master Drawing practitioner on a wealth andofDirector personalofexperience, Research atClare the CSA Beckett-McInroy Alison Hodge discusses looks at some how the of the usekey of non-directive elements of team coaching coaching coupled and with outlines selfreflection some of can the knowledge be a powerful andtool skills tothat helpaimplement team coacha needs coaching andculture how and supervision an effective plays leadership a vital role style to within support organisations. this work.

Executive coaches, often most accustomed to one-to-one coaching assignments, are now becoming increasingly engaged in team coaching interventions in organisations. Under closer scrutiny, these interventions seem to have significant similarities with what has previously been called ‘team-building’, ‘team development’, ‘team facilitation’ or ‘an OD intervention’. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that team coaching assignments often involve the coach being invited to work with a (senior) management team, either because the team is apparently not as effective or as productive as the CEO** would like or hope, and/or because the organisation is not achieving the desired results. ‘Dysfunctional relationships’1 often appear to be at the heart of the work of a coach. These may appear as a lack of trust between team members, colleagues avoiding challenging or holding each other to account, and varying levels of personal commitment within and to the team. However, these elements of ‘dysfunction’ may not be noticed readily or acknowledged, and this may then be challenging for the coach to address. It is these themes in particular that the coach then brings to supervision to explore and unravel how best to attend to.

LIMITED RESEARCH AND LITERATURE As yet there is a paucity of research-based evidence2 and literature to inform our appreciation of the complex range of methods and skills team coaches now require to facilitate this fascinating, challenging and arguably new practice. At the same time, in the UK, APECS*** has developed Team Coaching Accreditation Criteria and Guidelines3. Other professional bodies, including the Association for Coaching, are also defining the competences needed to do this work. A recurring issue for coaches is the ambiguity when terms such as ‘group’ and ‘team’ are used interchangeably. Needless to say, if participants in the client group don’t see themselves either being or wanting to be a team, but accept that they are members of a group, this will have a significant bearing on the work, especially at the engagement and contracting stages.

Coaching Supervision Academy (who may or may not assume they are the sponsor) Association of Professional Executive Coaches and Supervisors

***

October 2017 | Issue 15 21

THE TASKS OF TEAM COACHING Based on findings from a recent, online global survey that David Clutterbuck and I conducted in the early part of 20174, there are several key elements involved in the practice of team coaching including: l establishing goal clarity

(e) Three Pillars of Supervision9 helps the supervisor create the core conditions and safe container into which the coach can bring the complexity and at times ‘messiness’ and unpredictability of what might be happening in the client system; this supports the coach’s learning through reflecting in supervision on themselves and the work.

l contracting l multi-stakeholder engagement l group and team learning l group development l the impact of the wider organisational system l coaching the team (as distinct from one-to-one coaching) l managing the interpersonal dynamics within the team as well as those between the team and coach l managing the time for client sessions and between sessions Borne out by the findings from our research, what is evident is how challenging and demanding this work can be for the team coach. They are likely to be drawing on knowledge and skills from an extensive and diverse range of change interventions that may include a combination from any of the following disciplines: organisational development, executive coaching, group facilitation, process consulting, adult learning, systems and constellations, and family therapy. On this basis, team coaching might be described as a hybrid practice.

THE ROLES AND PURPOSE OF A TEAM COACHING SUPERVISOR From my own experience as a supervisor and based on our research, I suggest that team coaches are looking for supervisors who ideally have experience of team coaching themselves, have a strong psychological grounding in groups and group process, as well as an understanding of organisational issues and cultures. What is emerging in this field is that supervisors benefit greatly from understanding the major elements of what is involved in team coaching. Supervisors need to appreciate that the issues arising in organisational systems are complex and that these may show up in the client team being coached in many different ways. What is also apparent is that the interpersonal dynamics of and with team members impact on the coach. During any one supervision session we may be exploring content that includes the following: l Multiple layers of relationship l Team dynamics l Group development

TEAM COACHING SUPERVISION

l Unconscious group processes

Bearing in mind the diverse and complex range of knowledge and skills that inform the team coach, there are a variety of models that inform team coaching supervision. These include:

l Coaching the team rather than the individual l Staying with the messiness, complexity, unpredictability of the project l Impact of wider culture and organisational systems l Multiple stakeholders connected to the senior team

(a) 7-Eyed model5. This is familiar to many supervisors and enables us to explore through seven different lenses the coach, the coachee and the interventions that inform the one-to-one coaching assignment, while at the same time being aware of the wider context and how this may impact on the assignment. (b) The Six step model6 provides a clear guide to the steps in the process of managing a team coaching assignment. (c) The Full Spectrum Model7 at the heart of which lies relationship, energy and the use of the ‘unconscious’ parallel process. This allows both coach and supervisor to consider and explore the multi-layered relationships that co-exist in the team-coaching context. (d) Systemic Supervision with Constellations8 helps the coach to see the bigger picture beyond the individual team members and understand how the wider system and multiple stakeholders may impact on coaching work with the team.

associationforcoaching.com

l The coach’s own process; their role, their responsibilities l The impact of the work on the coach e.g. deference, projections, scapegoating l Relationship between coach and their client including each participant and the team as a whole And then of course there is the relationship between coach and supervisor and how we may use this to inform what might be happening in the client system. With this in mind, the supervisor needs a considerable range of knowledge and skills to create the container to explore this work with team coaches, which is similar to that required by the team coach. However, over and above this, the supervisor needs the additional skills to facilitate reflection on practice and thus learning from reflection. Equally, the supervisor needs to be able to provide the restorative space for the team coach to unpack what may have been happening in the client system and to resist the temptation to get drawn into acting as quasiconsultant, defining interventions or solving the client team’s issues.

EMERGIN G TREN D S

DIFFERENT METHODS OF SUPERVISION Based on our research, team coaches acknowledge that supervision is vital and draw on a range of methods to support themselves, which include one-to-one, group and peer supervision. What team coaches are seeking and value is a safe place to stand back from the client team to identify the patterns and themes that emerge. They want to explore from outside the system what may be happening, both within the team and for themselves, and how to stay with the unpredictability of what arises. Supervision also provides the platform for the coach to identify new ways to take the team forward.

OTHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR BOTH TEAM COACH AND SUPERVISOR Given the demands of this work, both team coaches and supervisors may also benefit from additional team or group context for their own development. Options might include group therapy, action learning sets and group analysis, where the practitioner is able to explore their own process, learning to recognise their emotional and often hidden psychological responses to being in a group and thus how these might arise in their client work. Particularly evident in supervising team coaches are the multiple layers of conscious and unconscious psychodynamic phenomena that may arise alongside the practical aspects that enable the client team to develop and meet their agreed intentions and purpose. A coaching supervisor needs to develop their own capacity and capabilities to support and facilitate the team coach to unravel what might be happening in the client system at any given time through their dialogue and reflection. This is a young, emerging field of coaching, and supervision practice and would benefit from further evidence-based research to inform how it is taken forward.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Alison Hodge has been practising as an executive coach (accredited EMCC Master Practitioner 2009) and coaching supervisor since 2000. Most recently she completed her Professional Doctorate in Coaching Supervision at Middlesex University. She is the Director of Research and a member of the Executive Board of CSA (Coaching Supervision Academy). In her private practice, she works globally with internal and external executive coaches including team coaches. Over the past 2 years she has researched and developed a 3-day team coaching supervision programme for coaching supervisors. www.alisonhodge.com

1. Lencioni, Patrick (2002) The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Jossey Bass San Francisco 2. Carr, C. & Peters, J. (2013) “The experience and impact of team coaching: a dual case study” International Coaching Psychology Review 8 (1) pp 80-98 3. Association of Professional Executive Coaches and Supervisors’ (APECS) Team Coaching Accreditation Criteria and Guidelines [https://www.apecs. org/apecs-accredited-executive-team-coach-category-description. 4. Clutterbuck, David & Hodge, Alison (2017) Team Coaching Supervision Survey http://www.emccbooks.org/book/book/research-conference accessed July 2017 5. Hawkins, Peter & Shohet, Robin (2000) 2nd Ed Supervision in the Helping Professions McGraw Hill, Buckingham UK 6. Hawkins, Peter (2014) 2nd Ed Leadership Team Coaching Kogan Page London 7. Murdoch, E., Adamson, F. & Orrisss, M. ‘Full Spectrum Model’ https:// coachingsupervisionacademy.com/full-spectrum-model/ Accessed August 1st 2017 8. Moral, Michel (2011) ‘A French Model of Supervision: supervising a ‘several to several’ coaching journey’ in Bachkirova et al (2011) Coaching and Mentoring Supervision Berkshire, UK: McGraw-Hill Whittington, John (2016) 2nd Ed. Systemic Coaching & Constellations Kogan Page London 9. Hodge, Alison (2016) ‘The Value Of Coaching Supervision As A Development Process And Its Contribution To Continued Professional And Personal Wellbeing For Executive Coaches’ International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring Vol 14, No. 2 pp87-102

October 2017 | Issue 15 23

PROSPERO’S ISLAND: NEW POSSIBILITIES, HEALTHY LEADERSHIP AND THE ROLE OF THE ARTS Maria Pattinson, facilitator and designer of Prospero’s Island workshop, discusses leadership and the role of the arts in fostering new realities, with coach Emma Haughton.

MARIA: The Prospero’s Island workshop came out of the series of coaching sessions that we had together. I knew when I approached you that I wanted some focused time to make sure that I was going to create an authentic expression of the strands of my work to date. I was at a crossroads where the next steps were crucial, so I wanted a space to support a critical enquiry into my imagined future. I needed to know that my coach would be able to pinpoint and ask focused questions to help me navigate through the whirl of creativity; this whirl is exciting, but I needed someone to help me steer through. I think Prospero’s Island mirrored our coaching process. The workshop offers themes of hope and possibility, and frames the space for creating something new. In designing the session, I wanted to find a process that everyone could engage with whilst being true to their own journey. I chose to work with Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, a text that has a great deal of resonance around the themes of creativity, loss and new beginnings. Shakespeare is great art: art that is sufficiently broad and deep to invite the spectator to engage with it personally; for each individual to make their own meanings and metaphors. Part of the greatness is that

associationforcoaching.com

it also speaks to people of very different backgrounds and cultures. Not all art goes that far, but Shakespeare does. So, Shakespeare is a great place to start a workshop that explores what it is to be a hopeful human being. EMMA: When we talk about art in a learning environment we are discussing the reverberations of the workshop. Once the session has ended, the experience isn’t over for the individual: they take that meaning and understanding away and then it has its own life. I experienced Prospero’s Island myself and I watched how others experienced it, and it seems to me that everyone engaged in their own way. I am curious about the steps you went through in putting Prospero’s Island out there? MARIA: The first step was sensing an opportunity to bring our coaching process into something tangible and realworld. This felt unexpected, exciting and at the same time daunting; two sides of a new possibility. That’s when I started to think of The Tempest because I don’t know of another metaphor which holds new possibilities better than this play. My background is theatre, and Shakespeare is an important teacher to me.

COACHIN G IMPAC T

The next step was to ask ‘What’s authentic here?’ This was important because a shadow side of creativity for me is that personal insecurity can lead me to use creativity to be all things to all people, or to be what I think people want me to be. The new opportunity to design the workshop required a step into the unknown. I could not know if anyone would like this, but I was willing to be as authentic as I could with the themes that are important to me – creativity, possibility, hope. I wanted to test their importance to others. The third step was to weave together the three themes; creativity, possibility and hope, mixed with a compassionate understanding of the difficulties of being hopeful, being optimistic, and believing that something new can happen. Part of the attraction of The Tempest is that life is challenging for Prospero on his island. He suffers, and he creates suffering in other people as well. And yet growth happens when there is difficulty. I imagined the workshop as a space to be present with things that feel painful, and an invitation to choose differently. EMMA: That is like coaching: a space to hold uncertainty, pain and things that we might frame as negative, alongside an invitation to be hopeful, to be creative in that place of difficulty, to see new possibilities for growth out of that difficulty. And to see that all of it is healthy. I can see that there is an emerging theme of healthy leadership. Prospero is the person with power on the island, the leader. What, for you, is healthy leadership? MARIA: Healthy leadership begins with self-awareness. We can all fall into ignorance and delude ourselves that we are doing the right thing. When we are self-aware we know our wounds or delusions, but we are now not acting from them. In addition, I firmly believe that we want balance in our physical and emotional lives. I don’t think balance is a fixed point; it is more a quivering movement. I think we are all constantly moving to bring things to a new stage of balance as we progress along the pathway of our lives. Healthy leadership means an awareness of when and how movement is happening so that the leader can help to maintain a state of healthy equilibrium. Without self-awareness we can also contribute to imbalance of the system. EMMA: Picking up on the qualities of healthy leadership and linking these to the arts, and to Shakespeare in particular, what is it about the arts that makes a unique contribution to the healthy leadership conversation? It is probably useful to make a distinction between creativity and arts as well. MARIA: The distinction is that everyone is creative, everyone has a facility to make and develop things and themselves. Art is creativity that is moulded and shaped as a metaphor that helps participants or spectators to understand deeper meanings, and it continues beyond the actual moments of engagement. There are theatre productions, for example, that have stayed with me long after the end of the performance. EMMA: Can you say more about what you mean by ‘stay’?

MARIA: This is about reflecting on an experience that has revealed something about who I am which is not easily accessed on a day-to-day basis. Art helps to connect to a way of seeing that is outside my usual experience, and I am uplifted to another perspective. EMMA: What can an arts approach do to facilitate that sense of healthy leadership? MARIA: I think that an arts approach to healthy leadership creates several anchors to enable an individual to stretch both deeper inwards and further outwards; to take risks. Great art immerses us; we can sit for hours looking at one painting, or in a theatre environment we are drawn towards the focal point of the stage and we surrender to it; or a piece of music opens up a whole inner landscape for us. Art enables us to be safe, take risks, and enter into a different reality. Another facet that art offers is the sense of story. In life, we don’t know the way things will unfold, but where there is a narrative you are looking towards a resolution. In terms of leadership development, creative workshops are a place to start shaping narrative and play with different possibilities. That is very exciting and opens our imaginations to the ‘what-if’ realm. This is central to the arts, to ask the ‘what-if’ questions. I would say that the third benefit of an arts approach is a focus on dialogue and conversations, where refined listening to oneself is about accepting and being curious about the small inner voices that get squashed because we are usually too busy. The more we can listen to ourselves, the better we are at listening to others and hearing their ‘what-if’ propositions. EMMA: We both have a belief that the arts bear a great responsibility – that the art is more than an end in itself, that it is a means of communication. I’m curious about the work of Shakespeare and how it enables people to look at themselves as a leader, as a responsible human being in society. What is it about that metaphor that enables people to do their own work within it? MARIA: Metaphor is a way for us to be both immersed in a process and at the same time stand back from it. The play is us – we see ourselves in the other – and it is also not us. Shakespeare was an Englishman, but his work has also been adapted across the world. So when we are looking for metaphors for the diversity and complexity of the bigger systems that are in play now, Shakespeare works. One mirror that Shakespeare holds up to us is the tension between an individual and their society, which seems a pertinent theme for all of us. The spoken text is constructed so precisely that the more I let the words tumble around in my brain and allow them to activate something deeper inside me, the more these sentences start to gain greater and greater weight of meaning. Shakespeare is a gift as a tool for reflection and understanding about words; what we say matters; how we are living in systems in which an individual’s consciousness affects those around us. The

October 2017 | Issue 15 25

plays provide us with a very sharp and complex mirror of our world. What is brilliant is that you can see the world of the play through a range of lenses, and I don’t think we’ve exhausted the possibilities. EMMA: Coming back to the personal engagement in a workshop, can someone work through a theme, such as grief, with no previous knowledge of Shakespeare? MARIA: I would say yes because you can take a theme such as grief and by following the narrative a range of choices and questions reveal themselves. For example, with Prospero’s Island I was trying to take people to their own imaginative islands, a metaphor of ‘my dream place.’ This is something that lots of people can relate to: that magical ‘somewhere’ within ourselves. What would it be like if you were there – that is the story of The Tempest. I wanted to explore ‘What stops us from being able to create something new?’ Then we can follow the story to suggest ways to find the answer. And as a workshop facilitator I trust the process of the living text, words as actions. And I trust Shakespeare. He offers tools for living.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Emma Haughton has over 25 years’ experience of supporting a diverse range of individuals and organisations to realise their vision and potential. Following a successful career as Creative Producer, in 2011 she became an accredited Relational Dynamics (RD1st) Coach and in 2015 joined the RD1st team. She is co-founder of Generate Coaching Partnership, a Time to Think Coach, and a certified Gestalt Groupwork practitioner. Emma is a Fellow of the RSA and Trustee of several arts charities. www.emmahaughton.co.uk

EMMA: It seems to me that you also trust other people to engage in uncertainty. There is uncertainty around how and if people will find their way into this material, but because you trust it you hold your ground. This is what we do in coaching: we invite people to take responsibility to make meaning, to get self-understanding. You are saying that Shakespeare is the word: you are inviting people to connect to something that is familiar and therefore easier for us to find our way in, and that’s where the real work can happen. MARIA: I feel that familiarity is an invitation to consider the reflective space also as an aesthetic space and to ask ourselves about what is beautiful, attractive, tasteful to us as individuals. In connecting to ourselves in this aesthetic dimension we become artists of our own lives. EMMA: To sum up our discussion, it would seem that the arts invite us to go to places that are uncomfortable, to sit with what we don’t know and yet provide a framework of risk-taking that leads towards deeper connection with self, with others and with the wider communities in which we are living and creating our lives. MARIA: I wonder whether, if the arts do everything that we have discussed, then perhaps intense immersive arts experiences, followed by one-to-one reflective coaching, might be a very powerful combination for personal transformation? Facilitating Prospero’s Island at the AC UK conference in 2016 has made me very excited about the potential for this approach.

associationforcoaching.com

Maria Pattinson is a theatre director and has a Master’s degree in Ethical Leadership from King’s College London; she is a certified MBTI Type practitioner and she is a National Trainer for Mental Health First Aid England. She works extensively in East Africa in community leadership development and is a coach and facilitator for Africa Federation Muslim community leadership programmes. Maria coaches executives and teams to communicate authentically with each other and in public. Maria is currently writing a book on leadership. maria.pattinson@gmail.com

COACHIN G IMPAC T

DIRECTIVE CONTEMPLATING OR NON-DIRECTIVE? THE MIND: INCLUDING THAT IS THE THE QUESTION SHADOWS Drawing In a world on awhere wealth the ofmatter personal of experience, poor mentalClare health Beckett-McInroy is becoming discusses increasingly howprevalent, the use ofitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s non-directive vital that coaches coaching arecoupled able confidently with selfreflection to recognise can be anda address powerfulthe tool problems to help implement that arise. Wellbeing a coachingexpert culture Ana Paula and Nacif an effective outlines leadership what coaches style can within do to organisations. equip themselves to best help their clients.

Despite recent progress, talking about mental health remains a challenge. Misinformation, negative beliefs and prejudices still permeate the fabric of society, even though a significant proportion of the global population will experience some sort of mental health issue during their lifetime. If the figures are anything to go by, the likelihood of coaches coming across clients who are living with psychological distress is high. According to the World Health Organisation, 1 in 4 people across the world will be effected by a mental or neurological disorder at some point in their lives. Depressive disorders are already the fourth-highest cause of the global disease burden, which measures the impact of a health condition in financial cost, mortality, morbidity, or other indicators; they are expected to rank second by 20201. The exact cause of most mental illnesses is not known, but research points to a combination of contributing factors: genetic, biological, psychological and environmental. If that is the case, then in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), it is no wonder that levels of mental illness are rising. VUCA is an American military term coined to describe the world after the end of the Cold

War, and nearly 30 years on no term seems more fitting to describe our world, one that appears to be unravelling â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from its economics to politics, through to its ideologies and social constructs. Under these circumstances, how can coaches best serve their clients? Coaches are not trained to diagnose or treat mental health conditions, which is rightly the remit of mental health professionals. However, coaches need to be able to recognise the signs of mental health conditions and feel confident in their ability to make informed decisions in relation to clients who may be showing signs of psychological distress. Coaches must reflect on the professional, ethical and legal implications. The use of supervision may be helpful here, and supervisors need to be equally aware of the issues at play to be able to support their supervisees.

BLURRED PICTURE Recognising and understanding the symptoms of mental health issues is not a straightforward exercise; even mental health professionals are not always in agreement with one another. Furthermore, no mental health diagnosis is value-

October 2017 | Issue 15 27

free; our personal perception of mental health is loaded with values and beliefs, including unconscious biases which are embedded in the cultural and socio-economic context. Equally, not everyone who shows signs of psychological distress or displays a certain behaviour or ‘symptom’ has a mental health illness. Feelings of being stressed, low, fearful, anxious or worried are part of everyday life and will make themselves apparent in many coaching conversations. With this in mind, coaches have a moral, ethical and professional obligation to be clear about the limitations of their professional training and experience, and contract with their clients accordingly. If the client has mental health difficulties, the options for client and coach are to delay, continue or stop the coaching programme. Although coaching can be used in parallel to other interventions, client and coach must give full consideration to the implications of this option, especially as to whether it could interfere with other treatments or put the client under undue stress or pressure.

PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY Coaches therefore need to be aware of their personal point of referral; the point where they recognise that they have reached the limit of their professional experience and skills, and the client needs to be referred to a mental health professional. The dimensional approach to assessing mental health (see diagram below) can give coaches a useful perspective in terms of reflecting on their point of referral and on where their clients might be in the mental health continuum. Dimensional or psycho-social approaches recognise the fluidity of mental health conditions; they view psychopathology not simply as absent or present, but part of a continuum which may vary over time. It is important to note, however, that this is not a diagnostic tool.

Source: Cavanagh, M. & Buckley, A. (2010). Coaching and Mental Health. In E. Cox, T. Bachkirova, & D. Clutterbuck (Eds.), The complete handbook of coaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

associationforcoaching.com

Coaches should also be aware that the coaching process itself could well be a trigger to mental illness. Coaching can be challenging and clients will have different trigger points. Coaches with no psychological training may not be able to pick up on early signs that clients are not coping well with the coaching process.

REFLECTING ON SIGNS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS Coaches can use the following to guide2 their thinking in relation to clients who are showing signs of psychological distress. l How long has the client’s distress or dysfunction been going on? l How extreme are the behaviours or responses (emotional, cognitive, or physiological) of the client? l How pervasive are the distresses and patterns of dysfunctional behaviour? (Does the problem occur in one or multiple areas of the person’s life, at one time or multiple times?) l How defensive is the person? Does the person actively seek to avoid addressing the unhelpful behaviours? Do they deny the existence of problems in the face of significant evidence to the contrary? Do they become overly aggressive, defensive or passive when appropriately challenged by the coach?

ENCOURAGING POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH The absence of mental illness does not necessarily equate to positive mental health, and clients who have no diagnosable mental illness may experience low mental wellbeing. Individuals move around the mental health continuum depending on personal circumstances. (See diagram below)

Adapted from Keyes’ model. Optimal mental wellbeing/flourishing and minimal wellbeing/languishing

COACHIN G IMPAC T

Where clients position themselves in the mental health continuum and whether they are flourishing or languishing will have an impact on their readiness for coaching and consequently on what they are able to achieve through a coaching programme. Perhaps coaches should add mental health to the list of considerations when contracting with clients and sponsors, assessing potential clients’ suitability for coaching, and designing coaching programmes. Whilst coaching itself may sometimes trigger mental distress, it is undeniable that coaches can play a key role in supporting clients to improve their mental wellbeing, whilst acknowledging their own limitations and professional boundaries, which, in turn, will have a positive effect on their clients’ lives. Some of the contributing factors to flourishing wellbeing can be seen as integral to coaching, for example helping clients to find their sense of purpose and personal meaning, to reconnect with themselves and their environment, to reflect on their identity and values, adopt a healthy life style, nurture positive emotions and pursue their goals. Alternatively, coaching may provide the support for a client to consider their mental health issues and seek further help.

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE As coaches, we are incredibly privileged to be allowed into our clients’ worlds and to become a transient, supportive companion in their journeys. To serve all our clients well, it is crucial that we educate ourselves in mental health issues. The coaching industry, and specifically training organisations, needs to rise to the challenge and consider how training in this area can be improved so as to include recognition and management of mental health and psychological problems. As professionals, meanwhile, we would do well to reflect on our biases and perceptions of mental illness and mental health, and the impact that these have on our practice. Along with the privilege of being a coach comes the responsibility to meet our clients where they are, acknowledge and validate their experiences, however uncomfortable and difficult these might be for them and us, and give them our best professional support and guidance. Mental health awareness is not about diagnosing or labelling people. It is about flexibility, nurturing compassion and improving understanding of the human condition. Removing the stigma around mental illness demands the courage to embrace, understand and discuss these issues in a transparent and helpful way. As the UK mental health awareness campaign Time to Change3 puts it: ‘Someone you know has a mental health problem. They just don’t know how to tell you.’ Let’s make it easier for our coaching clients to do so. 1. World Health Organization: The world health report 2001 - Mental health: new understanding, new hope. 2. Source: Buckley, A. (2010). ‘Coaching and Mental Health.’ In Cox, E., Bachkirova, T. & Clutterbuck D. (Eds.), The complete handbook of coaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [adapted from Cavanagh, 2005¬] 3. https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/ 4. Source: adapted from Cavanagh, M. & Buckley, A. (2010). ‘Coaching and Mental Health’. In:Cox, E., Bachkirova,T. & Clutterbuck D. (Eds.), The complete handbook of coaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

SIGNS OF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES4 These are only indicators, and an assessment by a mental health specialist is required to confirm any diagnosis. Many of these signs, when seen is isolation, are part of what is considered normal behaviour. l Acceptance: Is there anything unexpected with respect to dress and personal care? Are there any clues in how the coachee moves, or doesn’t? Is there any unusual body language? l Behaviour: Is there any agitation or nervousness? Is the coachee lethargic or uninterested? Repetitive behaviours can be a sign of problems. Is there incongruence between what is being discussed and expressions and body language? l Mood: Overly optimistic or pessimistic – especially if this doesn’t correlate with other information. Does the coachee appear fixed emotionally or inactive, possibly apathetic? l Thoughts: Any preoccupations or fixations? Are thoughts, as expressed, reasonably rational or are there some signs of irrationality, possibly delusions l Perception: Are there any signs that the coachee is not experiencing the world ‘normally’? l Intellect: Any changes in intellect over time? Does the coachee appear as expected intellectually? Are there any signs that the coachee is ‘not here’ today, not present and not taking part in the session? l Insight: Can the client offer an explanation for these unusual signs? Does the explanation or how the client attributes the unusual signs seem reasonable?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ana Paula Nacif is an experienced coach, trainer and facilitator who provides executive and team coaching to public and voluntary sector organisations. She is currently studying for a Doctorate in Coaching and Mentoring – with a focus on wellbeing. She also delivers wellbeing coaching programmes to people living with longterm health conditions.

October 2017 | Issue 15 29

OPENING MULTIPLE EYES ONTO OUR RELATIONSHIPS Felicity Hodkinson and Victoria Smith-Murphy use their experiences as supervisor and coach respectively to explore how the 7-Eyed model of supervision can support the coach’s client by introducing multiple perspectives on their issue.

FELICITY My passion for supporting the quality of relationships has recently led me to work in a supervisory role with other coaches, particularly those in the early stages of their coach development. I bring attention to the coach-client relationship.

HAWKINS AND SHOHET’S 7-EYED MODEL1 What I like about this supervision model (see diagram) is that it helps us see that what is going on in the coach-client relationship is not purely down to the skill and actions of the coach. This is helpful for coaches in the early stages of developing their skill and building confidence. It turns the lens away from what the coach is doing, to systemically exploring the patterns of what is occurring through seven ‘eyes’, each one showing us a different facet of the whole:

associationforcoaching.com

1. The client system: what does the client want help with? 2. The coach interventions: what was used to work with the client and why? 3. The relationship between the coach and their client 4. The coach’s own experience 5. The parallel process: what is being played out between supervisor and coach that mirrors the dynamic between coach and client? 6. The supervisor’s own reflections 7. The wider context in which the coaching is taking place

COACHIN G IN CON TEX T

ADAPTATION INTO A CLIENT COACHING FRAMEWORK

COACH INTERVENTIONS

Whilst working with Victoria as her coach mentor over the last year, I have used this model on several occasions and have discovered that it also forms a useful framework for coaching clients on their relationships. In this article, we share how I used it with Victoria and then how she used it with her client.

‘I often don’t respect where Tim wants to take a session; I want to control him.’

‘I THINK I LACK THE NECESSARY BELIEF TO COACH THIS CLIENT’ In our supervision session, Victoria shared a growing awareness of her lack of belief in her client’s, Tim, ability to change, and was wondering if she should continue with him as a client. I suggested we used the 7-Eyed model to see more clearly what was going on. In the table below, you will see examples of the questions I asked Victoria as we looked through each ‘eye’ in the order above. Here are some soundbites of what emerged, to start building up the story of how this approach helped Victoria:

‘I don’t know what interventions I use, they just happen’”

COACH/CLIENT RELATIONSHIP ‘Imagining us on a desert island, I’m standing up with my hands on my hips, next to Tim, looking down at him. He’s sat, arms wrapped around his knees, looking down at the sand.’

THE COACH’S EXPERIENCE ‘I feel more amateur with Tim than I do with any other client.’

THE WIDER CONTEXT ‘Last time we met at the Institute of Directors. As I walked in, I thought to myself “How can Tim not be intimidated by this place?”’

THE PARALLEL PROCESS ‘In our last session, I feel like I bullied him, criticised him. I shared that thought with him, and asked if he’d felt bullied elsewhere.’

THE SUPERVISOR’S REFLECTIONS (FELICITY)

THE CLIENT SYSTEM

‘I hear a whole story of belief systems — your belief in yourself, your belief in him, belief in the business, others’ belief in Tim. Is there a connection between belief and power?’

‘Tim was one of my first clients. I didn’t believe in the concept of his business from the start.’

‘Where are you focusing on presence of belief rather than lack of belief?’

‘I think I judge him — his accent and mannerisms aren’t befitting a successful entrepreneur’ Example questions using Hawkins and Shohet’s 7-Eyed model of coaching supervision both in supervision and for a coach to use with a coaching client. (Note: We have found that a more natural flow is to bring in Eye 7 before Eye 6, leaving reflections until the end)

EYE DESCRIPTION SUPERVISOR TO COACH

COACH TO CLIENT

Coachee and their story/ system

When you made first contact/ first met your coachee what did you notice? What was the coachee bringing to the session?

When do you first remember experiencing this relationship dynamic? What was happening? Who was it with?

Coaching Interventions (What happens when you are together?)

What methods & interventions did you use in the session? What connects these different interventions?

How did you interact in this relationship? What was your tone of voice / language / body language? How about theirs?

Relationship between coach and coachee (client and client focus)

How and why did this client choose you? If you were on a desert island together, what would you each be doing?

Find an image or a metaphor for your relationship. For example,if you were on a desert island together, what would you each be doing?

Experience of the coach (client)

How does coaching this person make you feel? What are you noticing about yourself now that you are remembering your coaching with this person? What do you want to say to your client now?

How does being in this type of relationship make you feel?

Parallel Process

In looking at how we have been working together, what do you notice that might reflect what is being played out in the coaching relationship?

How would you describe our relationship? How might that mirror other relationships?

Supervisor Self reflection and experience of the coach

What do you imagine that as your supervisor I will be noticing and saying to you about this?

What do you imagine that I’m noticing as you describe this relationship? What do you imagine I’ll say?

Wider environment and context of coaching

What are the factors within the wider context that are influencing the issue?

What else is going on in your life while this relationship is happening?

October 2017 | Issue 15 31

VICTORIA A relationship dynamic that Tim surfaced during our coaching was his tendency to see others as superior to himself. This affected his self-esteem and led him constantly to look for validation and often being taken advantage of. I was increasingly questioning my ability to help Tim. Using the 7-Eyed model with Felicity was transformational, and taking it into my next session with Tim resulted in one of our most powerful sessions. Using the model in supervision, I realised that lack of belief — his belief in himself, my belief in him, my belief in myself — was closely connected to personal power. Both of us were disempowered in the relationship, mirroring how Tim felt in external relationships. Questioning where this came from (eye 1), Tim admitted he blamed himself for his childhood bullying. We explored how the core relationship dynamic showed up in our relationship (eye 5). We discussed the ‘bullying tone’ I had used in previous sessions and how that might be reflective of other relationships. I shared the ‘desert island’ image I had found in supervision with Felicity, and he likened it to a gesture he often makes, putting himself several notches below others. We then shifted into making choices. I asked Tim what he wanted to do with the belief he still held about making himself a victim. He chose to release the belief, and replace it with a series of alternatives, which completely changed the tone of the session. Using this model in supervision had also revealed that I’d been using interventions that explored why something was absent (belief, equal relationships, self-esteem), rather than reinforcing where it was already present (eye 2). Following Tim’s choice to reclaim his personal power, we agreed to focus on ‘presence’; on relationships where Tim saw himself as a valued equal. Finally, we vocalised a commitment to use our relationship as a ‘role model’ of Tim being neither above nor below others (eye 5).

We identified that our tendency is to view from eye 4 — our own experience. Introducing even a few other eyes brings balance to this perspective; it widens the field of vision to see the whole situation and often opens up new options for action. It shifts the focus from self-centred or other-centred to process-centred and process-in-context-centred.

WHAT DO YOU FIND HELPFUL? We believe that the quality of our relationships affects our wellbeing, the work we do together and our personal growth. We’d love to hear how you coach or supervise clients towards flourishing relationships.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Felicity is an accredited leadership and workplace relationships coach. She coaches clients individually, in pairs and groups, on the capacity and dimensions of their workplace relationships, raising awareness of their interconnection with performance, growth and well-being for both the individual and their organisation. She’s recently given this topic focus during her research for her MSc in Organisational Development: Leading and Facilitating change at Metanoia Institute, London. She enjoys developing new coaches, helping them find their stance as a coach and supporting their relationships with their clients. www.bendtheriver.org

Tim later cited this session as a turning point in his selfesteem. This shift in our relationship generated more self-belief on both sides, and gave Tim a space to practise a professional ‘relationship of equals’.

JOINT REFLECTIONS We have found this approach to be helpful in the ‘exploratory’ phase with a client when working with their relationship dynamics. Victoria skilfully bridged the gap between surfacing the insights with Tim and helping him to take action. We recognise that seven eyes can feel complicated; even in writing this article, we found it difficult to separate out which eye gave which insight. But insight comes out of the layering of multiple perspectives.

Victoria is a holistic life coach, primarily working with head-led people to help them connect with heart and gut, in order to make choices from a position of wholeness. She studied Transformational Coaching at Animas Centre for Coaching, and has been practising for 18 months. Victoria is also a founding coach with www.sanctus. io, a growing start-up working to change the perception of mental health, which offers a space to organisations where people can be completely themselves, without judgement. www.victoriasmithmurphy.com.

1. Hawkins, P. and Shohet, R. (2006) Supervision in the helping professions. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

associationforcoaching.com

“Coaching Skills: Art & Mastery” A webinar series with Aboodi Shabi 2nd, 16th & 30th October & 13th November 2017 In the “Coaching Skills: Art & Mastery” webinar series, one of the field’s leading practitioners, Aboodi Shabi will explore a number of topics that will support coaches to reflect on ways of developing their skills and practice. These sessions are appropriate for anyone wishing to develop their coaching skills, reflect on their practice and consider ways of enhancing their effectiveness. The program will be highly interactive, and you will be encouraged to contribute with your experience and questions, as well as share the challenges you are facing in your coaching practice.

Topics covered: Monday, 2nd October 2017 Trust and Partnership while Coaching Monday, 16th October 2017 Coaching Presence and Effective Communication Monday, 30th October 2017 Awareness, Insight and Strategies Monday, 13th November 2017 Bringing it All Together: The Art of Masterful Coaching Recordings of past webinars available

“Future of Coaching: Vision. Leadership. Responsibility” A webinar series with Hetty Einzig 24th October, 14th November, 5th & 19th December 2017 Based on Hetty Einzig’s new book published by Routledge, this webinar series will invite you to reflect together with fellow coaches on the role of coaching today in a transformed and transforming world that is beset by crises and global challenges that affect us all – and I would argue implicate us all. This series is for beginner and mature coaches who wish to reflect on their practice, sharpen their skills and contribute to change. We will explore the four dimensions and 10 principles of New Generation Coaching; the changing nature of anxiety, stress, and chronic trauma and ways of working as a coach in these areas – and taking care of our own wellbeing.

Topics covered: Tuesday, 24th October 2017 Coaching comes of Age Tuesday, 14th November 2017 Surviving and thriving in the marketplace of today Tuesday, 5th December 2017 Respons-able leadership: strength versus the Strong Man Tuesday, 19th December 2017 Patchworks: women, millennials and Third Acters driving change

As with all our CPD events, AC members are eligiable for a reduced rate. Visit www.associationforcoaching.com to learn more and book your spot. For any questions, please contact Smaranda Dochia, Director of Digital Learning & Events at smaranda@associationforcoaching.com

October 2017 | Issue 15 33

HOW TO GROW A COACHING NATURE Coach/therapist Margaret Walsh promotes the benefits of improved mental wellbeing and the greater sense of purpose to be gained by integrating nature in coaching practice.

If you knew that you could help your clients to get a deeper connection with their inner worlds and ease some of the stress that they might be experiencing, would you test out the idea? If yes, then a closer connection to nature offers this potential gain. Nature is within us and surrounds us, but still we can so easily become disconnected from it. With the current pace of life, we find that many people tune out of themselves and the world and connect with technology instead. This often results in a shutting down of parts of their inner world. Many clients report the benefits of coaching as giving them ‘a space to think’ although, ironically, coaches often feel an internal pressure to ‘prove their worth’ through the clever use of tools and theories. The coaching process can then start to look, and feel, much more like an intellectual exercise, where only the conscious part of the brain is engaged. With neuroscience revealing that over 90% of our thoughts and behaviour come from our unconscious processing, so much more could be gained from tapping into our clients’ ‘hidden nature’1. Harvard biologist Edward Wilson2 examined our connection with nature and expanded the concept of Biophilia (a love of living systems), which he articulated as ‘the connection that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.’

associationforcoaching.com

THE ROLE FOR NATURE IN COACHING? In 2016 Government advisory body Natural England published a report3 which estimated that, each year, 1 in 4 people will experience a ‘significant’ mental health problem. It reports ‘there is now compelling evidence to show that contact with nature and the outdoors improves physical health and mental wellbeing’. Given that coaching involves working with the inner world and knowing that nature can enhance mental wellbeing, when is it used in coaching? My experience is that coaching is delivered in traditional ways, often in a bland office, with little or no connection to the natural world. However, when you stop and listen to the language of a coach, there are numerous references to nature/gardening, such as: l Sowing the seeds l Nurture l Adapting to the environment l Use of tools to improve performance l Managing your boundaries

COACHIN G PA SSION S

The processes involved in growing a plant are, indeed, very much like the processes followed when developing a new idea or, for example, deepening self-awareness as captured in the cycle below:

UNDERSTANDING COACHING’S PARALLEL PROCESS WITH NATURE

UNDERSTANDING OUR OWN COACHING NATURE The factor identified by Asay and Lambert5 as being most vital to successful outcomes in 1:1 therapeutic work, that can be transposed to coaching, is the quality of the relationship between coach and client. To achieve a robust coaching relationship, it is important that, as coaches, we have excellent self-awareness so that we don’t bring our own biases or pre-conceptions into the coaching space. Whilst no ethical coach would consciously do this, we are all subject to our own unconscious processes; gaining insight into these is part of our continuing professional development (CPD). So, why not build in time in your own CPD for a better connection to nature and see what happens? When we are in nature, we are aware of the rhythms and cycles of the seasons and of the changes in the world, and these can also connect us with the changes that exist within us.

HOW TO INTEGRATE NATURE INTO COACHING

Margaret Walsh Consulting - 2017

One of the most popular frameworks for coaching is GROW — Goals, Reality, Options and Way Forward – developed by the late Sir John Whitmore4 in the 1980s. It clearly contains a ‘nod’ to nature.

NATURE AS A METAPHOR IN COACHING A metaphor helps us to gain clarity by identifying hidden similarities between ideas. In coaching, one of the key objectives is often to increase a client’s self-awareness, and nature provides a perfect example of many of the issues that individuals grapple with, like change and resilience. By tuning more closely into nature, there is scope for an individual to tune more closely into their own, perhaps hidden, nature and to grow a stronger connection to both. You also see first-hand in nature that every day is different from the next, but there is also reassurance in repetition. A garden builds layers over the years and enriches its space. It also teaches us the payback of effort, as the more you put into a garden, the more you gain and, also, that results take time. Additionally, a garden encourages you to pay attention to the here and now. Nature provides a place to feel grounded and rooted in the moment, thus allowing an exploration of your inner landscape and imagination. Often, there can be a different sense of time that is measured in more natural ways, like the growth of a plant, rather than in minutes and hours.

1. Use nature as a metaphor and work with the seasons and not against them – the use of nature as a seasonal process offers rich opportunities to explore the changing cycles of life. For example, winter in a garden has a slower pace with less activity, so giving us time to think. In winter, we can see more of the underlying structure of things. We can create our own ‘winter’ in our lives (and those of our clients) which gives time for planning and building in change. 2. It is so easy to sit in an anonymous office. At the start of the coaching take time to consider how the coaching space is decorated. Consider having pictures of nature and bringing in seasonal flowers, berries, or pine cones. This does not need to be expensive or timeconsuming, but shows an awareness of the changes and development in the wider, natural world and this can influence change in the coaching space. 3. Work outdoors, while being mindful of confidentiality. There may be times when a walk would help to shift a client’s thinking or feelings in more productive and imaginative ways than sitting still in an office. 4. Encourage clients to grow something and observe the process of growth. Together you can tune into this as a metaphor for ‘growing’ an idea or project of their own. When we notice the needs of a plant and maximise its conditions for growth, we facilitate our own learning about our own nature and how best to respond to our own needs. Although increasingly popular, coaching outdoors is not the norm and so it is important to ensure the client is happy with this before proceeding. Some issues to consider in advance are:

October 2017 | Issue 15 35

l Unpredictability of the weather – have a plan to address ‘bad’ weather. l Maintaining confidentiality – consider the environment and material you cover if working outside so that you manage confidentiality. l Timing and maintaining boundaries – practical measures like setting a timer on your phone could assist here. l Be aware of staying in your professional role as coach rather than getting distracted by the pleasure of the stroll. l Safety and risk assessment – this does not need to be complex; a sensible assessment of the client’s fitness and the terrain and distance to be covered should suffice. None of these issues is insurmountable and just requires a little planning. Whilst working in nature may not suit all clients, it can be useful or inspiring for many.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Margaret Walsh is a coach/psychotherapist interested in what is happening beneath the surface of our awareness that drives our behaviour. Margaret worked in senior HR roles across all employment sectors and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development. As a registered psychotherapist, she has integrated her deep-level psychological knowledge and interest in nature to develop a new coaching masterclass. margaretwalshwork.blogspot.co.uk margaretwalshcoach@gmail.com

INSPIRE AND LEARN Looking deep into nature to gain insight is used by mathematicians, scientists, architects and IT professionals who construct buildings, develop new drugs and design IT networks based on what they find in nature. And, of course, nature has inspired legions of artists, poets and writers. Inviting nature to become a part of the coaching conversation adds another dimension to the process of change. When exposed to nature, people often connect more deeply and can have profound shifts of awareness. Deep down we know that the connection to nature is important. In our modern, technological age where connection with our emotions and with our inner world are under threat, it is vital to ask ourselves ‘How can we use nature in coaching?’

associationforcoaching.com

1. www.bbc.co.uk/horizon - search on ‘how big is the unconscious mind?’ 2. WILSON, E. (1990). – Biophilia – The human bond with other species. Harvard University Press, USA. 3. BRAGG, R., ATKINS, G., (2016). A review of nature-based interventions for mental health care. Natural England Commissioned Reports, Number 204. 4. WHITMORE, J.(1992). Coaching for Performance. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Ltd. 5. ASAY, T.P. and LAMBERT M. J. ‘The Empirical Case for the Common Factors in Therapy: Quantitative Findings’ in: Hubble, M.A. et al. (1999). The Heart and Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

COACHIN G PA SSION S

A SUPERVISEE’S THOUGHTS ON THE VALUE OF SUPERVISION Hamid Tavassoly, a coach in the British Civil Service, reflects on the benefits he has enjoyed from different types of supervision, and working with different supervisors.

My first experience of coaching supervision was through attending group sessions with Professor Ernesto Spinelli at i-coach academy. Most of the coaches in the group were independent practitioners with different philosophical and theoretical underpinnings. This created fertile ground for learning from each other. I found the sessions extremely rich in learning and transformative on both personal and professional levels, which has led me to believe in supervision as a key pillar of my learning and growth as a coach. The sessions also demonstrated the effectiveness of phenomenology and how, when used respectfully and skilfully, this can lead to a deeper understanding of my own and my clients’ experiences. I remember leaving each session challenged, uplifted and intrigued with how unpacking a sentence from the client can be such a rich exploration, bringing the client’s system into the room and allowing it to come to the fore. Many times, I have re-read my notes from these sessions and reflected again on some of the questions that Ernesto and fellow coaches posed to me, gaining fresh insights and learning. As part of i-coach Academy’s Masters in Professional Coaching course, and learning about psychodynamic theory and practice, I attended Dr Anton Obholzer’s supervision with my other fellow students. It is one of my regrets that I

was not able to fully engage with these sessions as a result of my own aversion to psychodynamic philosophy, as at that time I felt it put me in a position of ‘expert’ rather that co-creating the agenda with the client. Philosophically I struggled with an approach that felt like ‘diagnosing’ or sitting in judgement. However, in the last five years as I have learned more, both theoretically and practically, and have found strategies to involve the client in choosing the approach, I have become more interested in psychodynamic theory and more comfortable with integrating it in my practice. I wish that I had been more open to this powerful theory at that time as I witnessed how skilfully Obholzer surfaced ‘hidden’ issues, dynamics at play in the group, and explained the theory behind them. This also provided a wider lesson for me as I try to be far more aware of how my own values play out and impact on my learning and growth. When the Civil Service decided to organise their coaching provision centrally, it engaged Oxford Brookes University to assess and select internal and external coaches and also to provide coaching supervision (a mix of group, workshop and 1-1) to the internal coaches. I found the mixture of a half-day group supervision with a half-day workshop productive in embedding the learning from the supervision also. This emphasised that the whole day was about

October 2017 | Issue 15 37

learning, and allowed more vulnerability and openness in sharing of knowledge and experience. However, I feel that there is richer ground for learning when there is diversity of background and experience – as when groups comprise independent coaches rather than just those internal to the Civil Service. The dynamics of these two groups were also different to my previous experiences – understandable, given the similarities in culture and values of the departments we worked in and the common clients’ issues that came up. When Oxford Brookes’ contract with Civil Service ended, I started supervision with organisation development and change consultant Jenny Mitchell of the BBC. I find Jenny’s phenomenological methodology and working with the here and now, together with her deep understanding of the psychodynamic approach, aligns with my own learning preferences, but she also provides a good degree of challenge and stretch. The 1:1 format has allowed me to be much more open and explore issues at depth and length. In the last 12 months, the Civil Service has started to use internal supervisors to offer group supervision to its internal coaches. While I have not participated in these (I’m happy with my supervisor) I think the combination of group and 1:1 supervision with different supervisors could be ideal, especially if the supervisors have distinctly different approaches. Having experienced four different supervisors, I now understand better what works best for my personal learning. Further to this I have an interest in Gestalt and somatic coaching and am undergoing training in this area. Perhaps combining 1:1 supervision with group supervision facilitated by a supervisor of Gestalt or somatic orientation could be a great way of learning more about these approaches – I plan to explore!

associationforcoaching.com

I am now training to become a supervisor; coaching other coaches I have realised how much I enjoy working with fellow coaches. Becoming a supervisor was the natural next step. Having an engineering and analytical background I spent four months researching the options and chose Oxford Brookes. I have started to supervise coaches, which has been great learning for my coaching practice too. I plan to complete the next stages of the course over the next two years and know that it will support my growth both as a supervisor and a coach.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hamid Tavassoly is an experienced executive coach, and a faculty member of i-coach academy, who coaches clients from public, private and third sector. He has completed i-coach academy’s Masters in Professional Coaching and an MA in Executive Coaching from Middlesex University accredited by EMCC at EQA Master Practitioner level. Hamid is also a Chartered civil engineer with an MBA from Imperial College London and two engineering Masters. His ultimate aim is for clients to develop their skills to self-coach.

GLOBAL RESE ARCH

SUPERVISION OF SUPERVISION: WHERE ARE WE? Coaching supervisors Michel Moral, Eve Turner and Damian Goldvarg consider why there may be a need for supervision of supervisors.

We are only just getting to grips with supervision, so why are we now considering supervision of supervision? In recent years, many of the professional bodies have specifically advocated supervision – the joint Association for Coaching/ European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) Global Code states: ‘Members will engage in supervision with a suitably qualified supervisor or peer supervision group with a level of frequency that is appropriate to their coaching or mentoring practice.’ While this position is not universal, the International Coach Federation (ICF), the largest coaching body, recently strengthened its position on coaching supervision by actively recommending it1, with a further commitment to undertake regular research in the field. In its Supervision Guidelines the EMCC2 recommends selecting a supervisor who is themself supervised. Recent research3 suggests a large increase in the percentage of coaches who receive supervision, though with significant geographical differences. In 2006, 44% of coaches had supervision4, but that figure is now 83% globally, with the highest rate (92%) in the UK, and the lowest (48%) in the USA/Canada. Many supervisors also seek supervision as a reflective space to review their own supervision work. This can take the form of individual or group sessions, and involve external or internal supervisors.

WHY MIGHT SUPERVISION OF SUPERVISION BE NEEDED? Little has been written on supervision of supervision, and as far as we are aware, no research has been undertaken, despite this being widespread practice albeit mainly in the UK and some parts of Europe. There are only brief references in the literature5. So, the question of why it is needed, or how it differs from supervision, has not been asked. It reminds us of the adage: ‘It is difficult to make your bed if you stay in it’! The coachee needs a coach to get an external view of themself, the coach needs a supervisor, and the supervisor in turns needs to collaborate with a supervisor to gain perspective too. So, having a reflective space is essential to the wellbeing and professionalism of supervisors. It is also a principle of accountability, and models good practice.

BACKGROUND In October 2016, a webinar was held on supervision of supervision as part of the Global Supervisors’ Network (GSN)6, a membership community for coaching supervisors internationally to share best practice and resources, network, and continue their learning and development

October 2017 | Issue 15 39

through monthly webinars. Members subsequently formed a working group to explore supervision of supervisor issues. Actions from meetings included writing articles, opening an ongoing forum to explore how supervision of supervisors is different from supervision of coaches, and launching an international research project using an online survey with the research and writing led by the authors of this article. The questionnaire has been designed to understand the differences between supervision and supervision of supervision, look at implications for practice and suggest future developments including training. It includes reference to what are considered the three functions of supervision: qualitative/normative, developmental/formative and resourcing/restorative. There is a global flavour, as continental Europe and the USA are represented in the working group and members also have access to professional bodies like ANSE (Eastern Europe) and APAC (Asia Pacific) and to supervisors in Australia. As at the end of August, more than 80 supervisors had completed the questionnaire; 75 provided their geographical area as seen in Table 1.

TABLE 1

l Hypothesis 1: Supervision of supervisors is more complex and requires more sophistication and maturity from the professional conducting the activity: o Supervising supervisors requires a higher degree of sophistication. Supervisees already know distinctions (theories, models, concepts) that their supervisors are applying working with them. Many coaches may or may not be familiarised with these distinctions. Supervisors working with their own supervisors may not need as much of the normative or developmental function of supervision and there may be more emphasis on further reflection and awareness on self as instrument. (Damian Goldvarg) l Hypothesis 2: The more experienced the coach or supervisor having supervision, the more they share power and play an active role in deciding models and techniques. and leading the conversation: o When I am supervising another supervisor, I notice more personal ease around modelling psychological mindedness and thus expect to meet my supervisee in a greater place of equality than I always feel with coaches. (Julia Menaul) l Hypothesis 3: In supervising supervisors, there is a greater sense of ethical responsibility:

Region

Percentage

Numbers

37.33%

Western Europe

34.67%

USA/Canada

10.67%

Eastern Europe

9.33%

Latin America

4.00%

l Hypothesis 4: In supervising supervisors, there is a higher level of complexity in managing boundaries:

Australia/New Zealand

1.33%

Africa

1.33%

Asia

1.33%

o It requires an increasing ability to enquire into the intricacies of networks of relationships, navigating perceived boundaries in a way that helps my supervisees help their supervisees help their clients help their organisations. . . there are multiple layers. That said, the boundaries between the layers are matters of convenience rather than fact, and one of the important challenges is staying alert to that. (Julie Allan)

SCOPE OF OUR WORK Members of the working group are supervising and training coaching supervisors in Europe, US and Latin America. So, the research aim is to identify any factors we need to consider when working with these individuals. As well as setting up the survey questions, we also gathered opinions from members of the GSN working group, and were able to compile five working hypotheses which will be tested through the survey:

o In the pyramid of relationships that often underpin a conversation the ultimate client is three or even four times removed. Recognising these multiple boundaries and my need to protect and reduce greater risk, for all these multiple levels, is something I notice more with supervisors than coaches. Maybe our working alliance as two supervisors can be summed up by â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do no harm together.â&#x20AC;? (Julia Menaul)

associationforcoaching.com

l Hypothesis 5: Supervising supervisors is not a different activity from supervising coaches: o The richness of how we supervise is constant. There are similar issues: strengths we can use as coaches or supervisors; what we neglect as coaches we may neglect as supervisors, for example, contracting issues. When a group of coaches knows the different methods, I will

GLOBAL RESE ARCH

let them choose what we use. What can be different is going to a greater depth. More likely to share experiences, collaborate, but supervisors may also not be as clear in contracting because they know each other. (Eve Turner) These hypotheses are our first attempt at collecting ideas about the topic of the supervision of supervisors. We hope that the international survey will bring new light to the topic and explain with greater detail some of the hypotheses presented in this paper. If you have ideas please do contact one of us.

The survey is open until 12th November 2017 for coaching supervisors. Click here to take part.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr Michel Moral spent most of his career in an international environment as a manager and executive. Coaching and supervising since 2003, he holds a Master degree in Science & Technology and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. He has published ten books related to management, coaching and supervision. He trains coaches at university, supervises coaches and trains supervisors (ESQA) with Florence Lamy. mmoral5@orange.fr

1. ICF (2017). ICF Coaching Supervision. Retrieved on 13 August 2017 from https://coachfederation.org/credential/landing. cfm?ItemNumber=4259&navItemNumber=4265 2. EMCC (2016). EMCC guidelines on supervision http://www.emccouncil.org/src/ultimo/models/Download/7.pdf 3. Hawkins, P. and Turner, E. (2017). ‘The Rise of Coaching Supervision 2006-2014’ In Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17521882.2016.12 66002 4. Hawkins, P. & Schwenk, G. (2006). Coaching Supervision: Maximising the potential of coaching. CIPD: London. 5. Hawkins, P. & Smith, N. (2013). Coaching, Mentoring and Organizational Consultancy – Supervision, Skills & Development. 2nd edition. Maidenhead: Open University Press. 6. The Global Supervisors’ Network was set up by Eve Turner in early 2016, and is free to join for experienced and qualified supervisors who are actively practising. Details of the monthly webinars are available here: http://www.eve-turner.com/global-supervisors-network/ . If you are interested in joining please contact Fiona Benton, the VA to the Network: fionabenton@gmail.com

Eve Turner is a former BBC senior leader and holds an MSc (Coaching & Development), MBA and MMus. An accredited Master Executive Coach/Supervisor, and 2015 EMCC Coach of the Year, her research areas of interest include ethics, contracting and supervision. Eve set up and runs the Global Supervisors’ Network. eve@eve-turner.com

Dr Damian Goldvarg has 30 years’ experience providing services in executive coaching, and leadership development, in over 50 countries. An ICF MCC, Certified Mentor Coach and Coach Supervisor (ESIA), he facilitates certifications in Professional Coaching, Mentor Coaching, and Coaching Supervision. He was the 2013-2014 ICF Global President. damian@golvargconsulting.com

October 2017 | Issue 15 41

COACHES IN CONVERSATION In the latest in the series of Coaches in Conversation, coaching supervisor and executive coach Clive Steeper discusses the value of supervision with US-based executive coach and educator Sherry Harsch-Porter PhD, UK-based executive coach and coaching supervisor Jonathan Webb, and Dubai-based executive coach Martin Braddock.

What’s in a name? From the outset, the subject of our conversation had the assembled group of international coaches questioning whether ‘supervision’ was the most appropriate term to use, and what does it really provide to a coach anyway? The title ‘supervisor’ may well have different connotations for different cultures and generations. Each of us in this conversation recalled having worked for supervisors early in our careers who were strong on direction and low on empathy – not the combination we’d want in a coaching supervisor! We all, however, had fond recollections of mentors who had really helped to develop us.

East. Sherry had used several coaches to help her improve. ‘I have my own way of coaching, so I like to engage a coach to help me experience different kinds of coaching as well as learning from people who are operating from different philosophical backgrounds and disciplines.’ Martin, who is interested in becoming a coaching supervisor, recalled someone he had worked with some years earlier, who was a blend of mentor, coach and supervisor. ‘I would say to him, “I feel this isn’t working with one of my clients, or I am struggling with this.” He helped me tackle these challenges and find a way forwards using questions, input and advice.’

Jonathan Webb, who is a trained coaching supervisor, reflected on some of the reasons that clients come to him. He commented ‘they have a desire to be at the top of their game, so they want to fine-tune what they do. It’s like coming in for a health check. Or sometimes they have had a very difficult client. But whatever the reason, what they are looking for is not just to examine what happened, but to get some new insights. It’s my job as supervisor to use appropriate questions, or models to help them reflect.’

We agreed that the purpose of supervision as we experienced it was to:

This prompted Sherry Harsch-Porter and Martin Braddock to question whether they had experienced supervision, because the term is not so well-known in the USA or Middle

associationforcoaching.com

l Provide the coach with feedback on their coaching performance l Improve the quality of the coach’s reflection l Help the coach identify and address blind spots l Help the coach face up to challenges l Create a safe environment in which the coach may experience being uncomfortable or vulnerable and be able to learn from reflecting on their experience

GLOBAL COACHIN G COMMUN IT Y

Whilst the three coaches I was discussing this with all agreed on the benefits of investing in activities to improve their performance, they had also encountered coaches for whom supervision is only undertaken because it’s a necessary part of their coaching accreditation, and who were reluctant to receive feedback on their coaching.

CREATING A ‘SAFE-ENOUGH’ ENVIRONMENT TO BE ABLE TO PRACTISE DISCOMFORT In her coaching teaching Sherry notices that students can feel performance anxiety when an observer is watching them coach and then offering feedback. ‘“I hope I’m doing it right,” is the phrase that I hear often,’ she says. Martin had a similar push-back to the idea of feedback with his clients in Dubai. He suggested they undertook a feedback exercise where they each were to offer feedback on areas of improvement, and was told ‘That’s not how we do things here.’ He encouraged them to try, and they went through the process by adapting the feedback to first include recognition of a key strength and subsequently mentioning, indirectly and ‘softly’, a possible area for improvement. Although they initially approached the exercise with reluctance they ultimately derived great benefit from it. Sherry commented that the way in which feedback is offered is critical. She uses a tool with her students based on the idea of ratios. ‘After every meeting, I use this with the coaching students, based on the idea of 3+1; sharing three things that are positive, and then one thing which could be better.’ Jonathan uses a like-minded approach in group supervision. ‘One person is in the hot seat, and the other coaches all offer feedback on one thing they have observed that person being good at, and the coach can only say thank you, nothing more. Then we have another round and each coach offers one thing that the individual can continue to improve on, and again the only acknowledgement is “thank you”.’ The iterative nature of the process combined with it being an open forum, plus the limitation on right of reply and the opportunity to reflect on the observations led to less sensitivity to feedback and a more effective consideration of corrective action by the recipient. As we further explore the aspect of discomfort I recounted my own experience of accomplished coaches and coaching supervisors using their intuition or gut to guide them to try something different; they are notably OK about being uncomfortable and ‘not having the answer.’ I asked this group whether they thought that coaching supervision could also be an opportunity for coaches to learn to be experimental, by trying out new approaches they had not experienced before.

were trying out new approaches; for example, to invite the coach to write the next chapter of the story. I invited this coach to write the first paragraph just to see what came out. To her that was a risk. Then I also used coloured pens to ask her to draw what she was thinking and feeling. The result was fantastic. It got her to practise doing something different, and having done so in our safe environment, she took it forward with her client.’

SUPERVISION, REFLECTION AND LEARNING Another key point that came out from our conversation was that the goal of improving a coach’s performance through supervision can be viewed as a series of partnerships. Sherry commented ‘I see it as having a series of partners in my development. Whether that comes with the title ‘supervisor’, or ‘peer coach’, or ‘professional colleague’, it does not matter. What is important though is that if I am not willing to engage in the same continuing development as my clients, then it’s not good’. These partnerships can be external (with input from others), or internally with yourself.

External l With a coaching supervisor and/or mentor l Supervision with a group of coaches l Co-coaching or peer coaching

Internal l Your own reflections l Your coaching notes or journal Martin also believes that as a coach you don’t thrive unless you are continually learning, stretching yourself and being enriched by being open to challenge. Indeed, he found our conversation to be a stimulating experience – through speaking to others about the subject he learnt new ideas. He says ‘I recall working with one individual a few years ago, who helped me develop my reflection skills. He was naturally skilful. It made me think I needed to think more deeply. You don’t always need to have a “learning” label to get the benefit of learning.’ This notion brought our conversation back to where it had begun – about the role that supervision plays in learning and development. Coaches can benefit from learning and reflecting via many different routes, not just by working with a coaching supervisor.

Jonathan told us about one of his supervision clients who had left the corporate world and set up in business as a coach. She was still quite wary and cautious, and not sure what the next step was with her client after two coaching sessions. Jonathan recalls: ‘In the supervision session we

October 2017 | Issue 15 43

CONCLUDING We explored what constitutes good supervision and agreed that a coach must be clear as to what they want out of it, and identify whether this supervisor has the right qualities to be effective in supporting their coaching. Martin said ‘I have realised today that a supervisor needs to have a broad range of qualities, which include coaching, but also being a sounding board, and a desire to continue learning themselves, which can only serve to help develop and support the person he or she is working with.’ We were all agreed that it is a real advantage to have a variety of external sounding boards that help you as a coach review, reflect, resolve and project forward. Therefore, engaging a coaching supervisor is a good option; as is creating a partnership portfolio of support for personal development and performance review as a coach.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Martin Braddock is an experienced, executive board member and change management consultant. He specialises in resourcing and developing (through executive and leadership coaching) senior executives and their teams on a global basis. Martin’s coaching experience is enhanced by a Diploma in Advanced Executive Coaching and being a Professionally Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation. Fundamental to his service is supporting executives to recognise, assess and build upon their core strengths and achieve inspirational performance for themselves and their organisations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Clive Steeper is a highly experienced executive coach and coaching supervisor. In his coaching sessions, he provides clients with a space to think, reflect and explore new approaches. He also enjoys hosting the Coaching Conversations slot for Coaching Perspectives magazine and engaging coaches in discussion around relevant topics. Clive is one of the supervisors who host regular Coaching Supervision calls for the Association for Coaching and in 2014 received a Global Coaching Leadership Award at the World Coaching Congress in Mumbai.

Sherry Harsch-Porter, PhD is an executive coach and educator. Sherry has gained an impressive reputation for unlocking people’s potential. Since 2000, she has headed leadership development firm PorterBay Insight. She holds degrees in Social Science, Human Resources Management and Business Administration, and is a Board Certified Coach. Sherry teaches graduate-level courses at Washington University (St. Louis), is a contributing author to the reference book The Handbook of Knowledge-Based Coaching: From theory to practice and author of Education as Possibility: Coaching for Persistence.

Jonathan Webb is an award-winning facilitator, executive coach & coaching supervisor with over 25 years’ people development, coaching, team development and service experience working with organisations in the UK and worldwide. Jonathan founded and runs Webb Development, a Director/ Management development and consultancy business. His aspiration is to (i) continue to challenge and support people in identifying and achieving their true potential, and (ii) help share their energy, enthusiasm and drive with others to provide a positive contribution to the organisation.

associationforcoaching.com

COACHIN G BY COUN TRY

COACHING IN MYANMAR Slipping from the world stage Myanmar suffered two generations of isolation which evolved a culture of servitude, suppression and fear. Since the election of Aung San Suu Kyi as State Counsellor (akin to Prime Minister) Myanmar has struggled to embrace democracy: the recent escalated persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority reflects the worst of this closed society. But the country has also started to open up, with ‘soft’ skills training and coaching helping to change attitudes – John Farrell reports. My wife and I sailed to Yangon (Rangoon) seven years ago, just as the first quasi-democratic (army) party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was setting up office. This was four years before Aung San Su Kyi came to power. While we knew Myanmar was a third-world country, this didn’t prepare us for the reality. Although not destitute, the country is poor, with inadequate housing, education, and infrastructure. Approximately 42% of the population is below 24 years old. These dynamic young people are keen for a better life. During my time in Myanmar I have worked in the training and hospitality industries. The economic boom is having the expected side effect of a severe shortage of staff. Staff who can function in five-star establishments, interacting with foreign guests are even thinner on the ground. Businesses, both foreign and local, are investing heavily in training. But often that training is misguided and reinforces the social and cultural problems of the country. Unemployment is high, with applications for these types of jobs dominated by the young and relatively under-educated. Simply locating people with the right skill set or even English is challenging. Today 60% of the population comes from the

countryside, most living hand to mouth. Schooling, while freely available, delivers rote education. Today technical training is essential and ‘soft skills’ training (coaching) has also become indispensible, but this needs to reflect the population’s history and diverse culture. My background in coaching and development helped me recognise this, and to understand how to deliver effective basic technical training. Client-centred coaching, focusing on how to learn and on thought processes, is very different from Myanmar’s repetitive education, and has enabled staff to adapt to technical training more readily.

‘The music is not in the notes, it is in the musician.’ U.S. composer Charles Ives

October 2017 | Issue 15 45

For many decades Myanmar’s education has been by rote: the repetitive, regurgitation of facts and lines. ‘Facts not retained, questioned or analysed’. It’s the way the teachers are taught and the way the students have been wired to think, and act.’ This mindset plays out in all levels of society, from government to commerce, and in the daily lives of the population. Entrepreneurship training is a growth industry.

Coaching in the UK gave me the tools to facilitate the evolution of a coaching methodology that seems to have yielded good results. Coaching processes and questions from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) formed a framework to educate staff to self-process and to engage them in self-learning. I discovered the unintended influence we coaches may have, from basing my sessions on Clean Language1 and Emergent Knowledge2. In a population that defers authority, this approach was initially a struggle to introduce, as this approach is very different from the previous education. Clean Language helps me reduce the risk of bringing my own beliefs and (unintended) ego into the coaching sessions,by asking quesions that encourage thinking, rather than offering explanations. It’s easy in third-world cultures to think that first-world thinking will fix everything. Using Emergent Knowledge, however, allows staff to evolve their own view of success, empowering them to process their problems, to outcomes, they own.

Rote learning can be effective in repetitive occupations: problem-solving middle management is, however, hard to find in Myanmar. The GROW and SMART models became the way to introduce problem-solving techniques and overcome rote thinking. Learning to listen was critical. We often assume that a message has been heard, understood and interpreted. However, in a country with over 140 different ethnic groups and dozens of languages, the potential to miscommunictae the nature of coaching and its principles is always going to be a challenge. Business goal-setting was another big step, as the population tends to defer to seniors, relinquishing responsibility, meaning that the prevalent management style is very top-down. Modelling personal work goals into the job requirement, a new concept, made it easier for staff to understand their position and their actions to improve job performance while developing a future vision and owning it introduces a road map for staff to develop decision-making and planning skills. Buddhism and ‘living in the now’ are central to Myanmar’s varied cultures. The belief system and lifestyle is very much about today; thinking about the future and developing a vision are constant challenges. What the future holds as Myanmar rushes into the 21st century is an open question, and I find it exciting to be working here while it’s unfolding. Change is happening in a country where even simple coaching skills are challenging to teach and integrate into the workplace. But this challenge makes the successes even more sweet and inspiring.

The work starts as it does in any coaching situation: with creating short-term goals that are simple, direct and communicable. This was quite different from the present psychology; 80% of the population is Buddhist, and affecting the future in this way is at odds with some of the teachings of Buddhism. Introducing the GROW (Goals, Reality, Options, Will) and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) models was fun. Participants created goals, tested them, explored options and owned them. Using Clean Language helps develop a deeper relationship with goals; the upside is that staff can own their goals but, as Clean Language tends to do, this makes it more challenging for the facilitator.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Farrell qualified as a coach in the UK, before completing NLP master and trainer courses. He worked closely with David Grove and Steven Saunders in the early years of Emergent Knowledge, leading to work using horse whispering as part of business development and systems thinking. He has trained Myanmar employees in the hospitality industry and tourism.

In the 90’s while New Zealand psychologist David Grove was working with clients he recognised they created their realities with metaphor using images and senses. He developed a framework of attitude and questions to remove the facilitator’s influence as the client develops these metaphors.

associationforcoaching.com

John is now developing tourism in the south of the country, one of the few remaining isolated marine regions of the world.

1. Judy Rees is a leader in this field and working with businesses out of London: http://judyrees.co.uk/ 2. Steve Saunders is leading the development in the UK in Emergent Knowledge and runs regular courses.

REV IEW S

VISION, LEADERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITY IN A TRANSFORMING WORLD Claudia Filsinger enjoys a title that outlines the skills, philosophy and principles required of coaching in the future.

Hetty Einzig’s book, The Future of Coaching, fills a significant gap in the coaching book market, as the role of coaching in the 21st Century has to date mainly been discussed at conferences and in chapters of general coaching books. This collection of essays provides a thorough analysis of how coaching has evolved, the current coaching context, and the transformation required for it to stay relevant in the future. Several essays are dedicated to how leadership needs to evolve and how coaching can support this transformation. The thread running through all the essays is the importance of both coaching and leadership needing to be driven by values and global responsibilities to enable leaders operating in VUCA environments (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambigious) to achieve sustainable change. Einzig’s approach is that of a polymath, drawing on a wide range of well-researched sources from fields including the arts, literature, psychology, history and science as well as her own coaching practice. Even the most avid reader of coaching books will come away stimulated by a sharp analysis, stirred by challenging questions, and enriched by a large amount of new information. Equally, the book contains many models and coaching questions welcomed by coaches of any experience level. The use of stories, case studies and metaphors make it very accessible.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER Claudia Filsinger is an executive coach, coach educator and coaching supervisor. She specialises in systemic coaching and constellation workshops for business leaders and coaching supervisors in her coaching business Moving Maps Ltd. Further, she is an Associate at the Executive Coaching Consultancy Ltd. Her responsibilities at Oxford Brookes Business School include lecturing and writing in the fields of coaching and business.

TITLE: The Future of Coaching Vision, Leadership and Responsibility in a Transforming World AUTHOR: Hetty Einzig PUBLISHER: Routledge DATE: May 2017 PAPERBACK PRICE: £24.99 ISBN: 9781138829336

A particular contribution of the book is to highlight the importance of understanding anxiety and the requirement for coaches to work at a deeper level, one of the main challenges of New Generation. Furthermore, established assumptions and practices are debated, including coach impartiality, ‘safe space’ definition, goal and solution focus, and boundary management. The target audience is coaches and anyone engaged in leadership development. Everybody involved in coach training and coaching supervision will also hugely benefit from reading this thought-provoking and highly informative book. The format of eleven self-contained essays means that it can be read in any order. The content list includes subheadings which are a useful signposting tool, and there are notes to references at the end of each chapter, and also an overall index. In an age that favours time-limited TED talks (short, powerful talks devoted to the spreading of ideas), it is refreshing to see a title that demands real engagement of the reader, mirroring many of the writings the book is drawing on. Its broad approach, which not only discusses the skills, but also the principles and philosophy required of coaching in the future, will make it appeal to anybody interested in coaching and leadership development.

October 2017 | Issue 15 47

A STRUCTURED APPROACH TO LEARNING ABOUT SYSTEMIC COACHING Ram Ramanathan reviews Systemic Coaching & Constellations, a powerful aid to those seeking mastery in coaching.

Systemic coaching acquires a new meaning in this book – moving from merely team coaching to a much wider perspective of ‘systemic’ to include self, others, the situation, perhaps the team and the institutional framework of family, community or organisation one belongs to. The chapter on ‘Belonging’ included in this second edition adds meaning at the relationship level of a system with its elements. At one level, this book breaks up situations into elements of people and processes and at another level puts them back together after one has understood the systemic interactions between these elements. It is experiential and transformational. Its sections on Principles, Practice and Application allow a learning progression with the aid of several case studies.

Ram S Ramanathan is a master coach credentialed by ICF, EMCC and CCE and accredited trainer. Ram was a corporate leader as CEO and builder of a billion-dollar multinational conglomerate, later a business consultant, angel investor and for a while a monk in training. He writes on Hindu Buddhist spirituality and coaching related to leadership development. His company Coacharya has trained over 400 credentialed coaches globally and has won global awards. His website is http://coacharya.com

Many such books can be read once and set aside, the reader having absorbed the contents. Then there are some that demand several readings, going back and forth, reflecting, and practising the concepts presented. Whittington’s book would require several readings for me before I understand more. It will always remain by my side as reference.

TITLE: Systemic Coaching & Constellations

Basic concepts outlined in this book have been around for a while. The West since Jung, and the East for 5000 years, have understood the concept of ‘systems.’ I have been practising systemic coaching for several years after encountering incidents of reversion to less productive habits and patterns of behaviour with individual coaching.

PAPERBACK PRICE: $36.00

What is new in this book is how Whittington has blended these concepts into a process that can be intuitively, if not easily, applied to coaching both individuals and teams. It can also be used to develop individual coaching with a systemic constellation approach. To convince myself, I practised some of the recommended approaches on myself and with a group I work with. iincluding the ‘family-of origin’ exercise, the somatic approach and the introduction of Time as a fourth dimension to mapping. The learning was powerful. I would highly recommend the book and the processes it teaches to coaches, especially those who are comfortable using emotional, somatic and ontological approaches to aid client transformation. It is a powerful aid to those seeking mastery in coaching.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

associationforcoaching.com

AUTHOR: John Whittington PUBLISHER: Kogan page DATE: 2012; Second Edition 2016 ISBN: 978 0 7494 7549 9

REV IEW S

A READY-MADE, PRACTICAL COACHING TOOLKIT Kirstin Davis enjoyed the tools and techniques contained in this coaching book.

This book does exactly what it says on the cover. It is packed full of tools and exercises to bring into your coaching practice. It is a great handbook for new coaches as it has techniques for most coaching situations and explores different situations where different exercises would work best. In the first chapter, there are examples of a typical coaching process and a model for coaching, as well as coaching agreement templates. The authors very generously give the reader online access to the many templates that are provided in this book. For some, the sheer number of techniques could potentially be overwhwelming. However, if you consider one approach or technique at a time, I am sure that you will find this book is very useful. Covering a wide range of topics from leadership development to relationship coaching, the authors have provided a versatile toolkit to practise from. They advise when to use the different techniques, and each chapter has a hints and tips section. For the experienced coach there are many troubleshooting ideas with exercises that can transform situations. For me, this book also provided an element of grounding through revision of the basics and reminders of exercises long since forgotten. One aspect I like in particular is how this book is organised; it helps with preparation for a coaching session. I can immediately see there are many different options available to me, and can pick the one that I feel will suit a client, yet at the same time the book provides fall-back options should one technique not prove suitable.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER Kirstin Davis is a chartered psychologist with many years of coaching experience. She specialises in assessment, development and coaching and has worked with senior leaders in both the private and public sectors.

TITLE: 50 Top Tools for Coaching: A complete toolkit for developing and empowering people AUTHOR: Gillian Jones & Ro Gorell PUBLISHER: Kogan page DATE: 3rd September 2015 PAPERBACK PRICE: ÂŁ24.99 ISBN: 0749473444

This book is like a handbook for coaching and a useful addition to any coachâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s library, and one that I am sure I will be dipping into on a regular basis.

October 2017 | Issue 15 49

LEADERSHIP IS A TEAM SPORT The latest edition of Peter Hawkins’ book can help you learn the rules of the game for team coaching, says Miranda Kennett.

In his introduction to Leadership Team Coaching, Peter Hawkins suggests that, ‘while the field of individual coaching has expanded exponentially over the last 30 years, the field of coaching leadership teams has been relatively neglected.’ In the third edition of this influential book, Hawkins seeks to set this situation right by comprehensively reviewing relevant research and best practice, adding his own experience as a coach and consultant, and sharing a wealth of practical guidance on how leadership team coaching should be approached and delivered. The book charts the evolution of team coaching, from the early focus on individual team members and the team leader, via group interventions focusing on internally focused team dynamics and process facilitation, through to systemic team coaching, involving the whole team together as leaders, and focusing on purpose, process and task and the interrelation with the rest of the organisation and external stakeholders. Hawkins’ premise is that leaders today face global challenges, and that leadership team coaching, whether delivered by an external coach, the team leader or a competent third party within the organisation, can be a vital resource in helping organizations cope with today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world (VUCA) to become ‘future-fit.’ Despite this big-picture rationale for the importance of collective transformational leadership coaching, the book is intensely practical, providing chapter and verse on how to plan, deliver, and validate systemic team coaching. Hawkins notes that clients are not always sure of what they want team coaching to achieve, and so he provides frameworks, techniques and tips to ensure that when contracting work the core needs of the team, and the needs of the organisation and other stakeholders it serves, are fully met. The latter part of the book moves on to advice for CEOs on selecting players for high-performing teams and the key steps to moving a team to shared leadership – as Hawkins points out, ‘[l]eadership is a team sport’. There are suggestions for how to select a good systemic team coach, how to develop as a team coach, how to supervise team coaching, together with a section on methods, tools and techniques and when to apply these. As a transformational team coach, I was pleased to see many of the approaches and methods I have developed over the years paralleled in this volume, in a more formal but still accessible manner. However, I have a word of warning for coaches who aspire to become leadership team coaches and may be daunted by the plethora of models, disciplines and criteria presented here as essential to doing the work properly. Hawkins describes working with willing clients, who have the luxury of sufficient budget for an extended engagement and time away from their day jobs to get beyond the daily grind of fire-fighting.

associationforcoaching.com

This is an ideal; an ideal that does not reflect the reality for many organisations, especially small businesses and third-sector organisations who may have turned to a coach to help them with a pressing current issue, and have no knowledge or interest in the wider picture. Of course, it is worth explaining that, though focusing on the team dynamic or a particular process may temporarily ease the situation, there are bigger questions about the team’s performance to address, but ultimately it is the client’s decision on the scope of the job, and just how much commitment they and the team are prepared to give to it. This does not make your work valueless. Subsequently, if your initial engagement has been well received, you may get the opportunity to work with the team to move their focus externally and to the future, towards the team leadership ideal.

REVIEWER BIOGRAPHY Miranda Kennett has been working as a transformational coach for more than 20 years with individuals, leadership teams and whole organisations, across a great range of professions and industries, both in commercial and not-for-profit sectors. She brings her understanding of strategy, psychology and neuroscience and her creativity to the work of helping clients gain clarity on what they want to achieve and how to make it happen. As a columnist for Management Today she interviewed leading figures in UK businesses on the challenges of leadership.

TITLE: Leadership Team Coaching – Developing Collective Transformational Leadership AUTHOR: Peter Hawkins PUBLISHER: Kogan page DATE: 2017 (3rd Edition) PAPERBACK PRICE: £29.99 ISBN: 978-0-7494-7849-0

COACHING SUPERVISION IN THE AMERICAS Coaching supervisors Pat Marum, Damian Goldvarg, Lily Seto & Lynne de Lay provide an overview of how coaching supervision has developed in the Americas.

If you had googled ‘coaching supervision’ in 2009, not a single site would have emerged for the Americas. Instead, you’d have been directed to the UK, where coaching supervision had its roots in the early 2000s, and perhaps also to a scattering of South Africa, Australia and other countries where it was catching on. Many of the thought leaders in the field, principally from UK and Western Europe, were engaged in encouraging professional bodies such as the Association of Professional Executive Coaches and Supervision (APECS), the Association for Coaching (AC), the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), and the local chapter of the International Coach Federation (ICF-UK), to recognise the value of coaching supervision as a best practice, and as part of a robust Code of Ethics. Accelerating the use of coaching supervisors was the fact that global companies had begun to require external coaches who worked with their staff to ‘be in supervision’ as a quality control measure. These companies then began to request external supervisors for their own internal coaching staff. Several of the more mature coaching supervision programmes pushed for accreditation by the EMCC. Thus, coaching supervision began to be an intrinsic professional development requirement of membership of a number of global professional coaching organisations. While supervision within behavioural health professions has a long history in the Americas, the idea of supervision for coaches, post training, was inconceivable and often entangled with the concept of mentoring. The first international-model trained coach supervisor outside the UK and Western Europe was Pat Marum, who in 2009 completed the UK programme for Coaching Development (CD), the only programme then accredited by the ICF. Pat’s incentive was to provide guidance for a developing ICF global definition of coaching supervision. ICF Global had been watching with keen interest the development of coaching supervision as a professional development practice and as advocated by professional bodies outside the US, and in 2011 officially published its first global definition of ‘Coaching Supervision’, clearly distinguishing it as a separate and distinct approach from Mentor Coaching. In recent ICF-sponsored work (2016), Pat Marum, Sam Magill, Damian Goldvarg (ICF Global President 2013, Chair 2014) and others, honed further refinements

in terms of its definition, best practices and position in a Continuing Professional Development plan. A handful of years later, Sam Magill and Lynne De Lay initiated the very first accredited coaching supervision programme in the US (2013), graduating its inaugural cohort in May 2014. These new coach supervisors, averaging about 20 years’ coaching experience, represented Canada, US, and Argentina; several were bilingual and worked in Mexico and South America, and included Damian Goldvarg, Lily Seto, and Janet Harvey (ICF Global President 2012). In July 2015 Lily Seto, based in British Columbia, put together the first coaching supervision forum in North America under the sponsorship of ICF-Vancouver Island Chapter. Coaching supervision thought leaders from Europe (including ICF Global’s current Chair, Hilary Oliver) were also invited to share perspectives with Americas-based supervisors. Two of these supervisors continue to be strong advocates of coaching supervision and were key supporters of the ICF forum, whose purpose was to broaden the conversation around coaching supervision in the Americas – which it did.

CURRENT SITUATION Interest in coaching supervision continues to spread in the Americas. The coaching supervision programme described earlier began its third cohort, and will have graduated about 45 coaching supervisors, by September 2017. Coach Source (a private company which supplies coaches to global business and industry) recently initiated an internal supervision programme for its own coaches. The company bumped up against the importance of coaching supervision when it became clear that without it they could not bid competitively with companies who offered coaches in supervision – a hallmark of what was becoming standard good practice in the world market. A UK-based training programme, Coaching Development, is actively researching training options in the Canadian coach market. In the USA, the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara (HI) – often a pioneer in terms of best practices for coaches - had most of its trainers and external mentor coaches engage in coaching supervision training delivered by Erik de Haan, and recently took the concept of coaching supervision one step further,

October 2017 | Issue 15 51

now offering coaching supervision opportunities to its recent and past graduates.

offering misnamed courses. Nevertheless, interest and curiosity increase yearly.

The mix of coaches interested in coaching supervision also seems to be evolving. The rationale to engage in supervision is shifting from external coaches wanting to expand their offerings and/or continually develop coaching mastery, to a growing interest from internal coaches who work in companies with strong coaching cultures and welldeveloped internal coaching capability. These coaches are interested in the focus on quality that coaching supervision offers, as well as on-going professional development. Whatever the initial reasons for coaching supervision, however, a theme we hear repeatedly from those who engage in supervision is that it expands their knowledge and range of approaches as well as providing insights which enhance their confidence and energise their own coaching.

In terms of differences in approaches vis-a-vis international norms, one of the adjustments for US coaches is that the usual upfront contracting works best when split over two sessions. US action-oriented coaches with no supervision exposure haven’t yet grasped the full impact of strong contracting, and want to experience supervision on an issue as soon as possible. After a bit of impatience with contracting continuing into the second session, it is a rare US coach who doesn’t rethink their own contracting practices. There is still only one supervision programme available for US-based coaches unless they belong to a coaching group or business which imports training, or unless they take it upon themselves to head overseas for a personally chosen training programme.

NORTH TO SOUTH: CANADA, USA, MEXICO/CENTRAL AMERICA, AND SOUTH AMERICA

MEXICO/CENTRAL AMERICA

CANADA In Canada, as of September 2017, there will be an estimated thirteen accredited coaching supervisors across the country. The market in Canada is open to the conversation about coaching supervision, and momentum is picking up. In the ICF Vancouver Island Chapter, coaching supervision was offered as an official part of a pro-bono coaching project that served workers supporting Syrian refugees, and the coaches involved were very appreciative of the service. In addition, two coaching supervisors from North America (Lily and Scott Richardson) partnered with a coach from Romania (Daiana Stoicescu) to deliver demonstration webinars on the differences between coaching, mentor coaching and coaching supervision. By the end of 2017, this trio will have delivered close to 40 two-hour webinars on a volunteer basis, to groups around the world, ranging from Australia to Oman, from Malaysia to North America. There are now also at least 15 trained bilingual coach supervisors in the province of Quebec

USA As of September 2017, there should be about 60 accredited coach supervisors scattered across the USA from at least three coaching supervision training programmes - all with international roots. Although the US still has the largest number of coaches per capita, it has been relatively slow to embrace the concept of coaching supervision. Familiarity with mentoring and confusion about the purpose of coaching supervision contribute, as does confusion created by some training programmes whose incomplete understanding of mentoring versus supervision results in

associationforcoaching.com

As of summer 2017, only a few internationally trained coach supervisors are working in Mexico. Mexico coaches themselves are working on broadening the concept of and practice of coaching and haven’t as yet had the bandwidth to consider coaching supervision in any meaningful way. We expect this to shift over the next few years and are pleased that some coach supervisors are already at hand. Central America is still sparsely covered by coaches (fewer than two dozen credentialled at the time of writing), leading to the assumption that building the coaching concept is their primary concern; although there is an opportunity to build the concept of coaching supervision in support of those early adopters

SOUTH AMERICA Coaching supervision in Latin America, following professional standards, is a very new phenomenon. Since 2010 we have observed the development of professional associations supporting coaching growth in the region. The first coaching supervisors have been psychologists, and the first book written on the topic, Leonardo Wolk’s Coaching for Coaches1, has a strong psychoanalytic influence and lacks the integration of all publications on the topic that have been available in the UK for more than ten years. Some professional coaching bodies have worked to clarify the differences between mentor coaching and coaching supervision, and several groups have started offering webinars and lectures on the topic to promote more clarity on both the similarities and the distinct differences. This has had some consequences. For example, the first coaching training programme approved by ICF in Argentina decided to stop calling their mentor coaches supervisors. They recognised that their job of these individuals was mainly to provide specific feedback to students developing coaching skills, so they reclassified themselves as mentor coaches.

The first Spanish-speaking coaching supervisors were trained in the UK and US. In 2016, the first coaching supervision programme in Spanish was delivered, and a group of very experienced mentor coaches participated in a nine-month class. A requirement of the programme included providing supervision to at least five coaches for 25 hours. This meant that the cohort of twelve trainee supervisors worked with 60 coaches, thus increasing awareness of coaching supervision in the market. Some of the supervisees decided to attend the second cohort of training in 2017. Additionally, some coaches in Argentina used some of the participants from the programme as volunteers to provide supervision to coaches who were themselves volunteering to different non-profit organisations as part of a Chapter Social Service activity. By the end of 2017, South America is expected to have around 50 trained coaching supervisors in the region.

FUTURE PERSPECTIVES What might we expect to see unfolding? 1) More companies with internal coaching programmes might begin to explore the benefits of coaching supervision for their coaches - a natural evolution with an emphasis on coaching quality and continuing professional development for their staff, ultimately with the expectation of enhancing the potential for positive impacts on measurable return on investment (ROI). 2) As the number of large non-US global companies begin to ask coaches whether they have a supervisor, coaches in the Americas who normally provide coaching to those markets will seek coaching supervision. Increasing numbers of coaches in the US admit to having been excluded from a company’s ‘external coaching cadre’ because they were not in supervision. While we do not yet see that trend affecting companies based in and doing business in the Americas, it may well be just around the corner as the benefits of supervision become more noticeable in terms of ROI. 3) Coaching supervision particularly resonates with mature, reflective coaches who continually seek ways to provide more value to their clientele. We don’t expect it to be too long before a good number are willing to experiment with some coaching supervision.

WHAT’S NEXT? To re-use a popular expression: education, education, education. First, there is still confusion regarding the terms ‘coaching’, ‘mentoring’, and ‘supervision’. Coaching relates to levels of competency and capability – the focus is on the relationship between the coach and the client. Mentoring (mentor

coaching) concerns applying the skills appropriately in different situations and contexts; that is, with increased levels of competency and capability – the focus is still on the interaction between the coach and the client. Coaching supervision addresses deeper and broader capability and capacity; that is, the coach’s access to their own emotional intelligence and wisdom in complex coaching engagements, including when and how the personal may intrude on the professional. We expect that this will sort itself out over time as more people are exposed to all three approaches and begin to distinguish for themselves the benefits of each. Then, continuing to educate and expose coaches to coaching supervision practices is needed, similar to the work in familiarising the public with the concept of coaching in decades past: What is it? Why would I be interested? What do you do in supervision? These questions still abound. Like the term ‘coaching’ in its early days, the term ‘coaching supervision’ may not be the most apt and has been under discussion worldwide. At this point, however, the term is accepted and used globally and will probably prevail just as ‘coaching’ has. We do know, though, of a couple of US coaching organisations that have initiated group supervision for coaches they have employed as independent contractors. Those coaches pushed back against the term ‘supervision’ and in both cases abandoned it for a more general coaching term. But we don’t expect individual definitions to hold much sway over the general term now in global usage, since this would only exacerbate rather than reduce market confusion. We expect more and diversified coaching supervision education to develop. It is a fairly new concept and the questions that tend to come up for most interested coaches include the basics such as ‘What does it mean for me as a coach?’ Experiential samples will probably be the most useful education, just as a sample of coaching was in its infancy and adolescence. Finally, and under world-wide discussion, is the question: When is supervision appropriate in a coach’s professional life? Most coaching schools offer some supervision for coaches in initial training (the ‘formative’ and ‘normative’ stages) although they may not totally understand the differences between mentoring (also offered) and supervision. As we stated above, the Hudson Institute has taken this a step further with continuing normative supervision, post training. The danger is that it can still leave a distinct impression that supervision is primarily for new coaches: once you are experienced, you don’t really need supervision. Hopefully, though, such approaches build the experience of supervision as a best practice. Our own experience, both as supervisors of mature coaches and as supervisees ourselves, is that the value in terms of customised professional development is directly correlated to the coaching maturity level of the coach who undertakes it. Coaching supervision is about continually

October 2017 | Issue 15 53

honing our personal and professional development by examining our ‘work’ together with a trusted, trained ‘other.’ There’s nothing like it for eliminating blind spots and opening up new vistas of awareness, thus benefiting coach, client, and profession alike.

1. Wolk, L. 2014 Coaching para Coaches. Buenos Aires: Gran Aldea Editores.

Lynne De Lay’s career as a leadership coach, mentor, and coach supervisor spans over twenty-five years and three continents. As an independent Leadership coach and Coaching Practice Leader with the Center for Creative Leadership, she continues to coach senior leaders across the globe and supervise executive coaches to accelerate their professional development. www.oneworldleaders.com

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Lily Seto was part of the first North American Coaching Supervision training program. Her practice includes leadership coaching, mentor coaching, coaching supervision, as well as facilitating high impact workshops on coaching and leadership development. She is an Associate Faculty member with Royal Roads University in the Advanced Coaching Certificate Program and a member of the ICF Independent Review Board (IRB), which is responsible to investigate ethics complaints. www.lilyseto.com

Dr Damian Goldvarg trains and certifies coaches, mentor coaches and coach supervisors. He has thirty years of experience in leadership development training, executive assessment and coaching, talent management, facilitation, and team building services. Originally from Argentina, he has worked with individuals and organizations in over fifty countries, offering services in English, Spanish and Portuguese. www.goldvargconsulting.com

Pat Marum’s practice focuses on world leaders in government, business, education, and increasingly on coaching professional development. As International Coach (ICF) Assessor and Mentor Coach, Hudson Institute External Mentor Coach, and one of Fielding Graduate University’s Evidence Based Coaching program’s original trainers (2006-2009), Pat was the first internationally trained ICF-CCE certified (2009) coach supervisor in the Americas. www.balanceandpurpose.com

associationforcoaching.com

UPCOMING REGIONAL EVENTS BUCKS, BERKS & OXON BORDERS 4th December 2017 Art in Coaching: working beyond words 19 March 2018 The Mindful Coach: Cultivating Embodied Presence 15 May 2018 Birth Order: How it influences you, your coaching style and your client’s issues

HERTFORDSHIRE

GLASGOW

9th October 2017 Art in Coaching: working beyond words

9th November 2017 What is unique about coaching? A view from contemporary TA

SUSSEX

29th November 2017 How to get paid what you are worth

31st October 2017 Positive Psychology in Practice

WEST YORKSHIRE

CAMBRIDGESHIRE 8th November 2017 The Titanic, The Butterfly & U

16th November 2017 10 Things you don’t yet know about TA for coaches

DERBY

22nd November 2017 Creative Coaching: An aid to exploration, insight and learning

GLASGOW

DERBY BUCKS, BERKS & OXON CAMBRIDGESHIRE SUSSEX

events@associationforcoaching.com +44 (0) 845 653 1050

www.associationforcoaching.com

WEST YORKSHIRE HERFORDSHIRE