The Coaching Cafe Podcast

Coaching in Action - Listen to a coaching demonstration (Part 1)

• Open Door Coaching

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Over the past few Coaching Cafés, we’ve explored the ICF Core Competencies through the lens of assessment: what competent coaching looks like at ACC and PCC levels, and what can lead to an instant fail. 

Over the next few Coaching Cafés, we invite you to shift from talking about coaching… to experiencing coaching in action. 

This week join us for a recorded coaching demonstration, where you’ll have the chance to: 
🎧 Listen to a coaching conversation 
🎧 Observe how the ICF Core Competencies come to life in real time 
🎧 Reflect on what you notice about establishing the coaching agreement, partnership, and curiosity 

This is a valuable opportunity to tune in, compare your observations with ICF standards, and deepen your learning through listening to an experienced coach. 

A chance to listen deeply and then debrief together. 

This week we listen to half of the coaching session, then, we will debrief the session and unpack what you heard. The following week we listen to the second half of the session – so you don’t want to miss this one. 

🎯 Raising the bar for ourselves as coaches. 

Editor's note. Approx 2 mins of silence in total was removed. Natalie gave the coachee time to really contemplate their answers. 

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed the podcast please leave us a 5 star review wherever you listened to us! It helps promote the podcast to streaming services and other listeners.

Watch the webinar of this episode on YouTube or read the blog by visiting our website.

Want to join us live on Friday? Register Here!

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[Music] Welcome everyone to the Coaching Cafe, my name is Natalie Ashtown and I'm here with Bridget Calvert. Hello to you Bridget. Hello there Natalie and hello to everybody. Good to be here. Well welcome to our Coaching and Action Series. We're going to look at a coaching demonstration today. And before we do let me acknowledge as always the traditional owners, the custodians on the lands on which we're all meeting today or perhaps you're listening to this on your favourite streaming service. And they're continuing connection to the land, waters and communities of Australia. The lands from all around the world where you might be joining us as I said today or on your favourite streaming service. We're paying our respects to them to their elders past, present and emerging and elders from indigenous communities from all around the world. And we are joined from all around the world. We've been saying hello as we always do and getting our weather report from all around the world. So this series we're kicking off today. We would like to give you coaching demonstrations. These are live coaching demonstrations recorded either by myself or by Bridget. And we're going to be listening to the coaching demonstration today. And then we're going to be debriefing. So you'll hear the first half of the coaching demonstration and then you will be debriefing it together. The coaching demonstrations are designed for you to be able to listen to, debrief with us, get insights into the ICF core competencies, have a listen to the coaching. And as always we're all about creating community, sharing learned experiences, having thought, provoking conversations and yes your CCUs are available at the end of the session. So with that in mind I would like to switch over to our coaching recording. This was a recording done last year. And what we're listening out for is the ICF core competencies. If you want to pick up the transcript you can off our blog and you can also listen to the recording again on our blog. What I want to share with you before we kick off is that we're listening for the ICF core competencies and because this is a live recording you may think that you would do different things than what you're hearing the coach do. But I would like you just to sit in a space of non-judgmental sit in a learning space and think about how the coach is bringing out those ICF core competencies. We know that this recording is at least PCC level, probably high PCC level. It hasn't been assessed as MCC but it will give you a good demonstration of PCC. So as I mentioned there might be things that you would do differently and I want you to be aware of your responses to the different things that are happening within the coaching recording. We do have permission to share this recording and so we're going to sit back for the next 15 minutes and have a listen. Here we go. And yeah it's as I said it's really nice to connect to you Ben. So thank you very much. So should we get into the coaching? You're happy to do that? Love to. Excellent. So is there something on your mind in particularly you want to focus on for that time together? It a multiple thing was that but I should say that I thought we might explore whether I go for my PCC accreditation. Yeah. What has he been thinking? Well completed ACC maybe 18 months ago. And in retrospect I probably should have just called my Jetson weighted and gone for PCC because I kind of went through all the effort of recording and exams and things. I already had 500 hours by the time I got through the process. So I think I'm starting to the deployment now. I want to continue to develop my practice. So I think yeah for me I'm just wondering if and when I'm going to PCC. And what would it mean to actually go to PCC? Well I think it would I look at it from two ways. So one is kind of like through my own feeling about my own coaching practice and feeling like I've grown, developed in a graduated ACC. Walked to run kind of thing. So there's probably a positive story for my own development but I think in terms of my clients and who I work with I feel like that might open up different opportunities that are sometimes reserved for PCC credentialed coaches. And is that feedback you've gotten from clients or a feeling that you have about that as well? The piece about PCC opportunities. Yeah. I'm referring to some specific feedback from a coaching house. I do three days a week in house you know, even I do two days of coaching but I do 95% of subcontracting. I don't want to run my own business and all that jazz. And there's a particular coaching organisation that would look at you unless you have PCC. Right. The challenge of course is if I do go ahead and achieve my PCC and invest the time and money there's no guarantee that will offer me a role. Of course of course. Yeah but it sounds like it's also about a feeling that you've grown so you know you're not ACC anymore you actually are, you've grown in your in your coaching skills as well. Yes. So how important do you think it might be to you then to to go for your PCC? How important. I don't think there's anything to lose from doing it other than cost and time. But the question was important, wasn't it? Yeah, important is it you go for it. You've got this feeling of growth and potentially the it could impact the clients in any sense of importance around this. I... I think sometimes I look around and see the ACC credential being pitched out quite lightly like I see. I'm kind of, oh that's interesting that's good for them they've got ACC but I feel like I had to work a lot harder for mine than other people. So I think maybe the point of my story here is about differentiation. So or demonstrating that that credibility externally? Validation, I don't know why I need it. Well, well, some of you demonstrating that credibility, validation, you know I'm hearing proving that you've done the hard work too, so much of ACC you've done the work, you've done the yards. I think the what's getting in my way, what person's still working through the diploma I need to require in hours, so I've got some time. I'm just sort of thinking about going back through the exam again. I can't wait. I have some of them. I thought, oh gosh, do I have the how important is it to me to be able to push down this path, you know, get some feedback from my recordings, I'm not to scratch, you know, revisit my practice, rerecord them, whatever that might look like. I think probably that's once making me question it and I can't remember how much it is to go for it probably another thousand bucks or whatever it is. Yeah, that's probably my little bit of doubt. You've got your recordings and the life, there's a bit of effort to go to get to getting it as well. Okay, so with that in mind, we've just got so far, what did you want to get out of our conversation then today? I'll be still floating around. It's a combination question of do I want to go ahead with that, but also then it's is it maybe a not now, like when, when do I do that? My ACC credential is due for renewal, I think in April 26th, it seems a bit crazy, I'm thinking about this now, but because of lead times and mentoring and all that sort of thing, I'm not sure whether I go through one more renewal of ACC and then potentially I could do it after that. Or instead of renewing the ACC, just imply for PCC, so I think probably that's what's in my mind around that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm hearing that there it's some motivating factors, but I'm not hearing sufficient motivation to do it. Yeah, so to go through all the feedback that you're trying to say. Yes, so I think that's a good call. Well, the coaching work I do now is part of a mix portfolio, and none of them actually need me to be a CC. So I haven't really seen the ROI from the time and effort to go through ACC. I don't know over time if I don't work in house and I just do coaching and consulting work, then maybe it will come more important. I also think I kind of look around and there's a lot of coaches that have no credentials at all. So probably in my mind, I'm a bit, yeah, just stacking it up in my mind going, I want to improve my practice, fabulous, but do I need to go through this process? Is that valuable? So yes, I think that's right, there's probably a little bit of, I like a commitment, but what's the drive to do it? I also married to an accountant who's saying,"Oh, it's interesting you've spent this money, or what's this other $1500 for? What's this $1,000 over here?" I think I've quite committed to growing, he's developing as a coach, but I probably don't think he'll work. So it's a bit like when's enough enough, and that's one kind of what's the right time? Why am I pushing myself to do this before the next renewal? Go through a renewal process? Continue to grow and develop whilst an ACC. What's this pressure I've put on myself to move up quite quickly? And so what's the answer to that question? What is this pressure to do it now? What is happening there? I'm a bit like with my decision making, I'm a bit like if not now when, while I put it off, if in the next few months I've all finished the diploma, I've developed my practice, while I don't go ahead and do it now if I've got skills and capability is, maybe there's actually, maybe there's doubt. We come to make it to the feedback point, maybe there's some doubt that I won't cut it. Maybe I'm prematurely going there. So the why not is because, yeah, go on, keep going, yes, the why not? Because you don't think you'll cut it because you're not ready. Maybe. It's been a bit of a journey with coaching where the ICF way is very descriptive and the work I have been doing isn't pure coaching. So I work with providers who want you to put a little bit of mentoring, consulting, talk about a model, so it's not the pure coaching. So I probably a bit scrambled in my coaching manner. So I'm probably a bit nervous about performance assessment and being really clean, not showing any judgment, not leading the witness, because over the last little while I've probably strayed away from that because that's the work I've been asked to do. So maybe the answer there is not just need to preserve some time and work with some people in the pure ICF coaching manner. And if you were to do that, how might that alleviate these doubts you have of that little performance? Well, I think it would test me, but if I actually went into a coach session, I might write no advice giving, no, you know, then I think maybe that would be a good way for me to test how I go through this. Yeah, sure. And I think that might help me size how much effort I need to put into reigning it back in. Right, yeah, that is them, yeah. Would there be any other doubts that might hold, or so when you said why not? Are there any other reasons you could think of that you wouldn't any other doubts? I really don't want to go back in that exam, I think. No, probably not. Just probably put my, you know, people are pants on, I'd be ready to get some feedback, you know, and maybe chuckle one day when you said, oh, you'll get different feedback, you would try enthusiastic. So is it like, yeah, like maybe just be, yeah, go into it with an open mind and go, I'm here to receive whatever they have to say and if I have to reduce something, that's not saying I'm a bad coach or whatever, I take it in and go great, good to know. And that's something for me to work on. And as you're saying, we're saying that this could be that feedback working your growth of the coach, how does that feel when you're thinking about things like that? It feels quite natural to me, like I feel like I can be a little bit growth mindset kind of person and I quite like in my own world, I quite like precise feedback, not overly precise, but if someone curable, actually, you did not have to listen, you asked this question here, which demonstrate you're pushing them down a path of that with your own benefit? That's actually probably quite helpful for me, rather than going, the coaching session wasn't that good. Yeah, so you're looking for a bit more of a natural kind of process, natural feedback and growth mindset. Yeah, and I think maybe that's right. So framing it up, to reframing it to myself as a big hurdle, as opposed, go through, obviously prepare, I've got some recordings to do for the diploma, which I've kind of been stalling on, partially because I wanted to work with someone who's done the models, but also be like, oh, I might go rogue. And you know, so I think I'd probably need to get over that hill and just start recording and be okay if it's not the one I showed you, Bridget, or someone comes. Yeah, what does it sound like a bit much more natural process for you than is this what you might have described as performance pressure? I'll go with the performance valuation, but yeah, I agree with you, I think, but yeah, I think that's a good way to see it. And I do feel actually more enthusiastic now about doing it, working through that process, whereas when I was thinking about it, yes, I'm like, oh my gosh, I just want to, yeah, just want to be able to achieve that quite easily. Yeah, yeah, and I wonder, like, what are you most afraid of when it comes to doing these recordings and getting the feedback and what are you most afraid of? You're listening to the Open Door Coaching Coaching Cafe podcast, and for more information on programs run by Open Door Coaching, head to our website at opendoorcoaching.com.au. Now back to the podcast. Alrighty, so we're going to stop it there. I'm just going to try to show you my video. Here we go. So we're going to stop it there, and I hope it's like, oh, suspense, and it's in, or it's in most afraid of, so that'll hopefully mean that you'll come back next week, and also to the second half of our recording. So we want to debrief what's happening so far, and in particular, point out the differences perhaps between ACC and PCC. Very keen to hear your thoughts or questions, so please feel free to interact with us in the chat box. And here we go. And so now we're thinking about what did you actually hear? And we want to debrief this half of the coaching session in terms of the core competencies number three, establishing and maintaining agreements, core competency number four, cultivating trust and safety, and also establishing a coaching mindset. So going back to core competency number two, establishing a coaching mindset. And of course, we have Bridget on the line with us. So Bridget, I'd be keen to tap into your thoughts very much, Bridget's done hundreds and hundreds of coaching recordings, performance evaluation assessments, and it is in a credit at ICF assessor at the PCC level. So we've discussed this recording quite a lot, Bridget. And I'm just thinking about coaching mindset to kick off. So I've got some notes here, but what are you hearing in terms of coaching mindset? Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's really clear to me, Nat, that you are staying out of that space and really partnering with your client to elicit his thoughts and feelings and ideas around what's happening for him. And you are facilitating that essentially through opening curious questions and staying out that space and beautiful silences and space was what really stood out for me in terms of being able to embody that coaching mindset and having that growth mindset where you trust that that person is going to have the answers for themselves and they can sit in the silence and you're quite comfortable sitting in the silence and allowing them to think and reflect. So you're not inserting yourself at all into that conversation other than to ask a genuinely curious question at appropriate times. So you are really allowing your client to lead the conversation and do his own exploration. There's certainly no sense of rushing through to get to an outcome or a result that's really at the coach's pace. Yeah. And so from a high PCC, you know, PCC, MC/MCC perspective, that's where you want to be in terms of embodying that coaching mindset. At an ACC level where potentially someone has less experience with their coaching, their building, their coaching skill set, they might have said,'Okay, so great. So what's the plan?' or 'How are you going to move forward on this?' What are your options to move forward rather than really digesting that space to explore? Yes, I think it's a really good point, Bridget. I remember when I first listened to a recording, which was similar to this when I was first going for my MCC quite some time ago now. And I was in that, 'What hasn't the coach just get on with it?' Why doesn't the coach just say, 'Okay, so if you want to go for your PCC, what's the next step? What have you done so far? What's the next step?' And that was a real eye-opener and awakening for me. That was the coach actually driving the conversation as opposed to the use of silence, the the partnering, definitely not inserting yourself because it's easy to do that. Then allowing that exploration to happen. I do make observations, I think, which is the difference as well. The coach is allowed to make observations. I'm hearing this, I'm hearing that. If it was a better coaching recording or a better coaching session, the coach might have said, 'Am I right on that?' So the difference between, I think, high PCC and pushing to MCC is the coach makes the observations, but then inquires, 'What are your thoughts? Am I right with that?' And what happened naturally in the coaching conversation is the client did say, 'Yes, or I agree with you, but a better way of framing that would have been the observation followed by a question. Have you got thoughts on that to be?' I do. So whilst there might be, it's almost like there's splatters of high PC, MCC, PCC, there's splatters. So that's a very good example of where you've got PCC, you've got the observation around growth, which was your observation in this particular conversation around your client's growth, and to confirm or to ask and to not be attached to the outcome of that would be more that MCC level. Because if I was going to be really picky without that offering of, 'Am I, is that right or or to check?' you could potentially, it could be seen as, 'Well, you've made an assumption, maybe', even though it's an observation. So by adding that little piece in, it's that this is what I'm observing. And also to what I really enjoyed here too was not only were you offering what you were hearing, but also what you were not hearing as well around motivation, which I thought was very good, and that was certainly at MCC level there. So, hmm. Yeah, I think that's a really important point. So it is about very strongly what you're hearing and what you're not hearing. So I'm not trying to be convinced that he's motivated to do this, but it's what he's not saying that then led to the conversation about doubts and other doubts. So it's been picked up. He is in a real feeling space and working this through. So it's allowing the client just to be uncomfortable and work things through explore without rushing as well. So let's move on then to maintaining an establishing agreement because here you might think, well, we've spent quite some time trying to understand, what is the agreement? What are we actually coaching? What's the goal here? And you will hear me ask the second time. So what would you like to get out of this coaching conversation? And then I check back in later about how it's adding value, but there was a lot of questions here that is trying to establish the agreement and the important thing here is first up understanding why are we talking about this? What's important? So rather than just go, okay, so you want to talk about PCC? Let's go both for it. We're trying, and I think this is what I pick up from your coaching bridge at. You do this so beautifully. You try to dig under the surface about why we're having this conversation in the first place and that is all about maintaining and establishing that agreement. So what are your thoughts around that? Yeah, look, I definitely think that in terms of establishing and maintaining agreements in this particular conversation, you ask really great questions around, what would it mean? What would it mean for you if, you know, that's a great question to get underneath the surface? And certainly how important is it? You know, these are really important as you say, it inspires that motivation, the driver behind will actually, yeah, why? Why am I actually doing this? What's inspiring me to move forward with this? So you try to work out obviously what they want to accomplish overall, but also what they want to accomplish in the session. What's important and what's meaningful to them, but also to what they need to address in order to achieve. So where you were talking about the doubts, you know, any other doubts and stretching for that, this is really great and part of that establishing and maintaining agreements because you're really getting into, well, what do I need to address or resolve in order to be able to meet the driver in order to meet the motivation and the inspiration because there's something else, not only, you know, it's not only to be inspired, to move forward and understanding the why, but what's getting in the way? What's potentially, what do you need to address or resolve to be able to do that, which is really important around that core competency three? And here also for those experienced coaches on the line, remember that at high PCC level, the coaching conversation, what we're looking for is that it's linked to a higher purpose. So that's where what would this mean to you is a really great question and you notice the coachy actually stop and go, oh, what would it mean? And what is the motivation? So we're linking through to some form of higher purpose and he then brought out that it would mean differentiation, credibility, validation, not that he needs it, but, you know, he brought out a lot of interesting reasons there why he might even be having this. And then of course, as you say, Richard, we're drilling down into what do they need to address and that's a very good thing that we should be focusing on and this is all part of establishing the coaching agreement. And as you could hear under the surface, what he needed to address is the doubts that he has and we'll hear more about it in the next half of the coaching session as well. The use of silence actually allows, now I'm coaching a coach and so the use of silence actually allows the coachy to do the re-frame as well, which is really nice if that, if we can use silence and then a re-frame happens. The observation was made about, well, perhaps this is about growth as you as a coach, rather than the pressure, etc. And then you can hear the shift in energy that happens, which is really nice. Yeah. So, and again, then the coach checks into what he wants to achieve. So I know we're on time, but let's just finish off our debrief of this part. And I'm interested, Bridget, on your thoughts about the next competency, which is cultivating trust and safety. Yeah. And you've expressed this and demonstrated this throughout from the start. It was a natural, curious coaching conversation. There was good rapport. You know, you trusted that space. You trusted that your client, your coachy, was going to take that time to think and reflect without you having to jump in or try and solve anything or fix anything. You just trusted the process. You know, the use of his words, natural process rather than performance pressure as an example leads to the question, what are you most afraid of, which is a fantastic, you know, a brilliant, powerful question, what are you most afraid of, which again digs into that, what they need to address or to resolve in order to overcome, in order to achieve what they want to achieve. So you've really placed a lot of trust into your coachy, who in turn trusts the process with you as well. So you're really demonstrating that throughout the way you are operating as a coach in this session. Yes. And as Ian points out validating that the clients views are actually okay. And I like this coaching session because a lot of us can relate to it that what he is talking about about inserting himself and having to reign himself back in, there's no judgment here actually. And he talked about going rogue, which was quite a funny moment. And I'm sure all of us experience coaches have thought about how we need to rein ourselves in or not go rogue or offer advice, etc. And there is a dance sometimes between what's required of us, etc. We know that the issue here, the cultivating trust and safety, there's no judgment, it's light. And I also point out that the coach was happy to feel vulnerable because he said in the past, I meaning I'm the coach, I've been accused of being overly enthusiastic. And I like, yeah, you're right. So there is a nice rapport there that allows the coach to say, well, I know you've been criticised naturally. And I make it, you know, I'm quite open in the criticisms that I've or the feedback that I've received. And he points that out. And I said, yes, you're right. I also have been criticised about being over enthusiastic. And then the point is that that trust and safety allows the coach to land another big question, which is, so what are you most afraid of? So we're going under the surface, we've flushed out doubts, we've flushed out, why is this important? And now 15 minutes in, we've established that and we can go into the next half of the coaching session, I suppose, which of course we will look at at our next time together. So there you are, everybody. I hope you enjoyed the first half of our coaching conversation together. And as we did at the next half of the coaching conversation, which we'll do next week, we'll dive into the next half and find out what is the client most afraid of and how does the coach work with that. So again, we're doing this so that you can understand the differences between ACC, PCC, how we manage silence, take the opportunity, perhaps to listen to it again and use the transcript as well. And then you can highlight the good questions that the coach asked. I also don't mind if you highlight where the coach has stacked a couple of questions as well. I could have tidied that up, I think, to make it a better recording, we've pointed out some of the things we would have liked to have heard. Watch out for stacking questions, watch out for overly commenting and include that offer back to the client about what they're hearing and feeling and thinking would have been a better coaching conversation in that regards, a higher level. And the pause on the sense of being criticism, yeah, we can look at that too Laura when we look at it again. So I hope you enjoyed that coaching conversation. We look forward to catching up with you next week and our next session to see what happens next. Thanks for listening to this episode of the coaching cafe podcast. You can watch the full video of this podcast on our website. I'll put a link in the show tonight. We'll see you at the next coaching cafe.