The Coaching Cafe Podcast

Coaching in action – listen for PCC-level competencies (Part - 1)

• Open Door Coaching

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This week in the Coaching Café Podcast, we are continuing our deep dive into our coaching practice with another coaching demonstration—where we are particularly listening for PCC-level coaching competencies. 

This is your opportunity to listen again with intention and curiosity. What does it sound like when a coach truly demonstrates: 
🎧 Coaching presence 
🎧 Evoking awareness 
🎧 Digging under the surface 
🎧 Creating metaphors 
🎧 Exploring new thinking 
🎧 Partnering—not leading 

This week’s Coaching Café Podcast is another chance to listen deeply—not to judge, but to grow. We invite you to reflect on what you hear, observe how the ICF Core Competencies come to life, with a particular emphasis on identifying what raises a conversation to the PCC level. 

Join Natalie and Brigitte as we listen to the first half of the session and then debrief the session together. 

Next week, we’ll come together to listen to the second half of the session and discuss how to apply these insights in your own coaching. 

🎯 Continuing our professional development as coaches. 

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] Well, it's a very good morning, a good afternoon or good evening to you wherever you are listening to this coaching cafe all around the world. We have Canada, we have down the road here in Melbourne represented and it's wonderful to have you all join us for this coaching in action or cafe today. My name is Natalie Ashdown from the Open Tool Coaching Group and I am joined on the line by our learning and development manager, Bridget Helbert. Hello to you Bridget. Hello there Natalie, nice to be here. So we're going to be listening for PCC competencies today and we're very excited to present this recording for you so we can all learn from it. Before we begin let me acknowledge the traditional owners, the custodians on the lands which we're all meeting today and then continuing connection to the land, the waters, communities of Australia and all around the world where you're joining us today either live or on your favourite streaming service. We pay our respects to them to elders past, present and emerging and elders from indigenous communities from all around the world. Well, I am moving quite quickly through our introduction everyone because we have got a coaching recording that we'd like you to listen to and at the end of that we will be debriefing just the first half of the recording. So we'll stop it about halfway, have a think about what you're hearing already and in particular Bridget is joining us as an ICF PCC assessor to share with us what she is hearing at the PCC level. We thought this recording might be squeezing into MCC actually but since it hasn't been assisted MCC level let's just stick with the high PCC that you're hearing. So we'll be able to listen to the first half of the coaching session and then we'll be able to debrief it together. Please feel free to interact with the chat if you'd like to do that. Tell us what you're actually hearing. We won't be interacting or commenting during the coaching session that will happen afterwards and what I'd like to share with you also is that this coaching recording has actually been edited and redacted and the reason for that is just to maintain confidentiality and the privacy of the people that we're talking about. So if you do hear skips in the audio it's not a glitch there has been some edits so if you just think about it from a whole of coaching point of view and don't worry if you hear a few skips if you like. So if you're new to the coaching cafe welcome we're about creating a community sharing learned experiences and having thought provoking conversations and over the last couple of weeks we've been really focusing on the ICF core competencies again and we've been packing live recordings which we have been doing with co-chise members of our alumni who have volunteered and I really do want to give a shout out to our alumni who give us permission to share these recordings so that we can all learn from them. If you are a regular welcome back as you know we love to come together live every Friday here or on your favourite streaming service and we enjoy your interaction and saying hi to you and doing the weather report from all around the world. So with that in mind if you are thinking about collecting your ICF CCUs they're available at the end of the session if you are listening to this live I'll put it up at the end of the session. Okay so we're going to listen to about 15 minutes it's the start of the coaching recording and I welcome you to sit back have a think about the ICF core competencies have those in front of you as you go and on our website we've also got the download of the the actual transcript as well that's a nice way of listening to it as well you can highlight what you're hearing okay over to the recording. Oh so let's just focus on that yeah yeah so is there something I can mind then that you want to focus on today? Yes so I'm I can see you're excited that's great and I kind of know why it needs to get done but I need some help just to walk through the the steps to get there and be massively helpful to talk through this so I'm this interest is that I'm tasked with putting together a whole new strategy for it's a big project and I've got some key influences who are the heads of the in the factory and one of those leaders who is very senior and highly respected is strongly resisting the idea that we need a strategy for that's working through the steps I need to say to really get to the point of having back conversation. Yeah thank you well thank you for sharing and it's a tricky one for that thing you've got to do they've conversations in any context really. Yeah so I'm wondering about the strategy so how how important is the strategy to you? It's something I've passed me believe in I have been in education my whole life and it's also important to me for me a professional sense but because my role is as the associate dean's board at education so it's my key purpose here so it's something that's personally very important to me it's something which is actually the essential piece of my role it's it's important to all layers. Yeah I can hear it you're passionate about it in a quarter from a professional point of view it's not just yourself but what it means to get the university. Yes and what would it mean to pull this off its strategy? It would be my biggest achievements and it would be it would make a huge difference to our students which matters a great deal to me we know from benchmarking and also to students satisfaction the surveys that have that sort of sense of achievement in education so yeah it matters. Yeah thank you for sharing yeah I can hear that and you know when we were talking earlier we talked about leadership and how we want to lead and sharpen the leaders so I was just wondering Josh like how do you want to lead this what have you want to be as a leader in this space? Yeah so I love and you know my personalised type of thinking preferences are all about the bigger picture and imagining the possibilities and so I resolutely show up being optimistic and thinking about what if what if these obstacles weren't here what if we did have the resourcing what if and that question I've discovered and that approach hits the target with quite a few people it doesn't with everybody but I've got a sense I've been a few men's and I've got a sense that I'm starting to build that's the coalition of the people who who are excited by that that sort of future for focus and that being clear about what what what the goal is and it was so yes so my how I show up is very much optimistic and make a point of that yeah engage the people very open and always looking into the future not getting pulled down in the all the things that aren't quite right to the movement yeah that makes a lot of sense so if you think about the person that you were talking about that person seemed like a bit of a road block he doesn't seem like he or that person has got got that vision that you have would I'll be right around that? Yes and this is and complexity there because although you're doing it this way for a long time it can't it can't be improved it doesn't get any better than this I think is perhaps the underlying so I think there's that yeah it's interesting for me if you think about well just the vision resonate with this person no and possibly because it requires a bit of dealing with some biases and recognizing that what we're doing right now isn't the best it could be and but not seeing that as a criticism or a fault is just life things things move on yeah yeah I'm hearing I'm hearing what you're saying and I can hear that you're reflecting on on that person as well so let me just check in with Josh you said at the beginning of our conversation you wanted to have some sort of steps or way forward or some way of structuring the conversation with this person yeah is that still what you'd like to get out of this conversation? Yes it is although your questions out of this help me see there's there's quite a bit more to this so although the obvious sort of tangible or tip of the iceberg is having the conversation around these specific instances of really unhelpful language probably I'm quite liking the idea of my head of an iceberg here where there's a lot going on below the surface and that's an approach that only addressed the unhelpful comments would be leaving that this large submerged mass untouched and so the visible bit would just quickly return again because we've not really got to the what's going on underneath here? Yeah so I wonder would it be helpful to explore what's going on underneath? It would. Yeah I noticed a hesitation go on. If I'm really honest I'm slightly, I'm slightly intimidated by this person. Right yeah and so and I know that a definite non-strength of mine is the you know don't like having difficult conversations although I've got much better at recognizing that and did dealing with it say it this one my slight hesitation was knowing that actually having getting to a point with this person where we could actually sit down and have a a solutions focused conversation about what's going on under the surface would be really important for me it would be at the moment that that's feeling like quite an intimidating or quite a big challenge to actually make happen. Yeah I got a sense of that yeah yeah that's okay I understand and I should say it's a person what makes that person intimidating or formidable for you? Additional power is intellect and I suppose knowing that he doesn't well what he's telling me is that he doesn't buy into this all value of this I it would feel like a very high-stakes conversation in that and this is a silly view but it's almost better to pretend that everything's okay or rather than get into what would be a really critically important conversation which would potentially either reinforce and validate his position or could unlock the whole thing. But I get the feeling like if I could be good about it could unlock you know it's a life-state it's very important it's a say. And is the kind of character where sort of winning and losing it's all under say-real and I don't work like that and but I have a learn with I'm guessing now but from my previous experiences you getting one shot at the conversation with people like that and then there's a sense that they've either won or lost and if they feel they've won then that's it you know against get sensory visit again but also the sense of them losing is not helpful either and that's not that's not how I approach these things but I suspect that will be how he views this that it's you know I'm at opponents with a different idea from him and it's about this and he's this word often gladiatorial struggle so this side who who's going to be right and who's going to who's going to win. Yeah I can hear it's a completely different approach like it is completely different approach to what you how you would approach it as well it's just just not you yes in a nutshell. Yeah so I'm wondering you talk about the power and his smart and he's an academic at an outgung when you mentioned earlier like Carmine to suggest is there sort of belief that you're holding about this situation Josh. Great question and yes so I've I've learned actually through doing me a third four that like many of us and I have beliefs which until you stop to till I stopped to think about well why do I believe that that and I realize I make a lot of assumptions about what might happen which then stop me doing the things because I have beliefs and you're right that a lot of what I've talked about are simply beliefs there are assumptions I make and those I know are limiting the way I'm thinking about listening I'm approaching it. Yeah yeah so if you were just to relate that belief Pat what what what would that mean? Yeah so excuse me so if I didn't have these beliefs that's lead and the project that I'm leaving isn't worthwhile and that we don't need to do it so if if none of those beliefs exist I would go into this conversation feeling really quite confidence with the sense that this is a very work this a vital project it's important to the university to hold support to students to start likely taught to friends at the start and that's that confidence would then guide me through this because the end points number one in search number one in education would be unquestionably good for everybody and so it would it would it would help me pass any obstacles including a personal obstacle and I'd have the confidence to and I suppose actually what you've got me thinking about now is that this is largely a confidence thing because um also let's just focus on it yeah yeah 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 okay everybody so welcome back um we will uh leave it there so it's a good spot to um to pause we're about halfway through the coaching conversation now and there's a lot that's happened so far so that's why I've invited a Bridget to come on the line and to talk to us about what she's hearing and we really encourage you to put some messages into the chat box as well we want to unpack what we're hearing so far in terms of the three core competencies establishes and maintains agreement cultivates trust and safety and listens actively but as you will be aware all of the core competencies they don't just exist in isolation there's a lot of interweaving so you're going to hear evoking awareness and a lot of other things happening already in the conversation but if we just unpack from a core composite point of view and we start with the first core competency uh which is number three establishes and maintains agreement we've got some notes um here bridge uh would you like to share with us what you're hearing just around establishing and maintaining the agreement to keep a sample yes I was just madly sprouting things down uh as I was listening to and like your slide there too Nat firstly you acknowledged directly what the coach he said around the challenge uh which in turn you know talking about establishing and maintaining agreement that's important too to you know you've you've really sort of looked at what the challenge is but also to how important and what would it mean to you so really getting into the purpose for which or the the purpose for which this is an important discussion as well so um you focus very much on who the coach he was and who they wanted to be um as opposed to just just the what but you certainly partnered with your coach he to identify what they wanted to get out of the uh out of the session you know and as well as what was most important or meaningful um to the to the coach he as well and and spent a bit of time on what they need to address so that challenge was really focused on as well uh what they need to address in order to achieve what they want so really really valuable there and like you've said he linking the goal to the coach he's higher purpose wise and important what would it mean to you how do you want to lead um strong read contracting yes there is more to this so you were checking in so you checked in on the coaching agreement uh and through that question of course your coach he has highlighted that yes I did that that is but through your questioning of course more evolved from that as well and so therefore you offered to explore and support him in exploring what was going on underneath the surface which was a deeper uh contract a deeper agreement than what initially had first presented yes and I think that's the importance if we're distinguishing between ACC and PCC it would still be good coaching if the coach talk the coach the coach he's uh first agreement the first goal which was think about steps to actually work through this conversation but the recontracting uh in the middle was to be able to get the coach here to go well is this still what you want to talk about given that we've we've had this this further conversation the PCC element here bridge which which we're highlighting is that the coach umpacks why is this important what would it mean linking through to the higher purpose rather than just taking the initial goal and and carrying on that's the real distinction absolutely yes so with all those experienced coaches on the line too uh you'll notice that bridge it and I are listening to the recording as though we haven't heard it before and I've taken a page and a half notes on the recording as well so we're learning from the recording and hopefully you're doing that as we go along let's go into um competency four cultivates a trust and safety here bridge and I think this is where we're hearing a really strong PCC element around trying to understand the client's context uh and we're eliciting values beliefs the assumptions everything's coming out in just a very short period of time as well yeah absolutely this um you know the belief work and the focus on the limit excuse me the limiting beliefs you know you really acknowledged and respected the insights and the work from your your coach you sought to understand your coach you within their context you know with who do they want to be what does this mean for them and about them uh and your coach he was very trusting and and open and willing to explore those deeper meanings as well it wasn't certainly wasn't a surface at all uh you were supportive you showed empathy you know you were supporting their expression of how they felt about what it was for them what it meant for them those deeper limiting beliefs and and and what that actually meant for the for the coach he um and you supported that you were there you were supportive and um you know it's partnered with him all the way through there you acknowledged who the coach he is as mentioned how he wants to be empathy as i've mentioned around that difficult conversation and you really demonstrated that trust and safety so that your coach he could explore more deeply you know the question what makes this person intimidating that was a really good chunk down it sort of below beneath the surface to find out more and you know the belief work was was really valuable really valuable so you know i think also to you put forward uh you offered your understanding of what you heard and you checked the accuracy of that as well rather than just assuming that was what it meant but you checked for that too so all of that cultivates that trust and safety for your coach he is leading the way yes thank you and the coaches on the line might have noticed there might have been a pivot point there when the coach he was unpacking all the assumptions and so it's the coach using their intuition here are in the safe space that we have created to to to go after the belief says opposed to continue to unpack the assumptions um and of course you might hear that if we go after beliefs that is actually a deeper level and you can't do that unless you have trust and safety here the other thing i'll point out bridge which i noticed which is again is the difference between a cc and a higher p cc is that an a cc might to try to understand the environment like tell me more about that person etc etc but here the coaches seeking to understand what is under the surface from the who the who the coach he wants to be here so the environment experiences the values and belief the context that's been elicited is to understand the real who of the person and not just what's happening uh is that the kind of thing you'd be hearing and resonating with you as well bridge most definitely see if the the focus is taken away from the other person as being it's about them and bringing it back to the coach he around well what do you make it mean for you and what do you make it mean about you that this you know this is this is happening it's in the environment but essentially the focus is still on the coach he and what it means for them yes indeed so the other competency that i wanted to explore and it will be interwoven with uh so we want to explore core competency number six listens actively this is very heavily interwoven with competency seven which is a vocal awareness and i'd like to pick up a vocal awareness and the critical questions that have been asked in our next session together excuse me when we listen to the second half of the session so if we're just focusing on listens actively are there's a number of things that actually come out here that i think we can highlight bridge yeah sure so you know you considered the coach's context so to enhance understanding of what they were communicating using their words to determine full meaning of what's communicated that's so important also recognizing an an inquisement there is more to what your coach he was communicating and the use of intuition there too so i think the active listening was really uh prominent in in this particular first half you responded directly to what the coach he was saying there was nothing generic about any of the questions it was really tailored and specific to what you were hearing and and your questions were directly related to what your coach he was saying so you know energy shifts those sorts of things you sensed a hesitation you mentioned what you what you saw as well in terms of looking and you look and feel calmer yeah so i think that essentially there was discussion around emotion there so you know you supported to explore emotion and also more learning more about what who the client is as well as their situation but who they are as well as the situation that's going around them so everything that was discussed you actively listened and responded directly in turn thank you for sharing that bridge and i think the other thing is is that the this is acknowledging a very high stakes conversation so i remember feeling feeling the tension of that high stakes conversation the the conflict the coach is not happy to go and explore that conflict just not what he wants to do what is important here is the coach is not trying to force the coachy down a path like you have to go and have that conversation so it is just allowing that space for the coachy to make their own decisions let the coach the conversation be coachy led but you can hear we are listening and and operating at a deeper level so the coach is the coachy i felt that big shift and i was coaching live obviously live that i could see the coachy and i could see the big change in in the coachy when we he just looked different uh and so pointing that out is a really good thing it's what the coachy is saying but also what they're not saying that's important here as well and and i really loved there was a part there where there was significant space and silence but for your coachy to think and reflect which is really important yeah great well we got to the point where we said uh what if this belief doesn't exist and and then we we had the big reframe and the other important thing here from a pc c level is allowing the coachy to that's where the inter-warving with the evokes awareness happens it's allowing them to gain the awareness rather than pointing out the awareness um so they're gaining the awareness and then the coachy makes the reframe themselves which i think is very nice yep agreed great well there you are hopefully you enjoy listening to it feel free to listen back again to the coaching conversation there's so much that we can learn uh just from this very short our coaching conversation uh we want to encourage you uh the the coachy has done our certificate for and workplace and business coaching uh has gone on to do the diploma so feel free to inquire about those things as well um as always we say thank you for joining us uh we look forward to unpacking the second half of the coaching conversation next week with you and as we always say uh most importantly enjoy your coaching and enjoy making the difference you make to your your individuals your teams and your organisations thank you very much to bridge for joining us today as well thank you a pleasure 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 notes we'll see you at the next coaching cafe