September 21, 2023 • 51 mins
Today we welcome Jeffrey Hull to the podcast. Jeffrey is a highly sought-after facilitator, keynote speaker and executive coach to both nonprofit and for-profit global organizations.
He is the Executive Director of the Institute of Coaching, based at McLean Hospital. Jeffrey is also a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and an adjunct professor of leadership at New York University. His latest book is called Flex: The Art and Science of Leadership in a Changing World.
In this episode, I talk to Jeffrey Hull about the new landscape of leadership. The world is changing, and alpha leadership is not the only way to manage a team. Jeffrey highlights the importance of beta leadership, a style that values emotion and collaboration. According to him, the most effective leaders know which style to lead with, depending on the situation. In addition to learning other ways of being, Jeffrey believes we need to leverage perspectives from the indigenous and neurodiverse communities. We also touch on the topics of emotional intelligence, coaching, creativity, and authenticity.
Website: www.jeffreyhull.com
Twitter: @JeffreyHullPhD
Topics
02:18 The beta boss
09:07 Inclusivity in all ways
12:50 Flexible communication
18:29 Emotional intelligence and vulnerability
25:48 Physical energy of being
28:27 Engagement: productivity or creativity
30:35 Collaboration occurs in safe spaces
33:01 Self-coaching
37:49 The future of coaching
43:46 We all have unique gifts
46:40 Dialogue, not disagreement
49:08 Age of convergence
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coaching is not about having power over other people and
being directive or advisory. It's really about creating more of
a sense of equality, right, and so asking questions and
listening and sort of making the space equal among people
so that everyone participates.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast Today. I'm happy
to welcome Jeffrey Hole to the show. Jeffrey is a
highly solid after facilitator, keynote speaker, and executive coach to
both nonprofit and for profit global organizations.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
He is the.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Executive director of the Institute of Coaching based at McLean Hospital.
Jeffrey is also a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard
Medical School and an adject professor of Leadership at New
York University. His latest book is called Flex, The Art
and Science of Leadership in a Changing World. In this episode,
I talked to Jeffrey Hole about the new landscape of leadership.
(00:53):
The world is changing and alpha leadership is not the
only way to manage a team. Jeffrey highlights importance of
beta leadershi, a style that values emotion and collaboration. According
to Jeffrey, the most effective leaders know which style to
lead with depending on the situation. In addition to learning
other ways of being, Jeffrey believes we need deleverage perspectives
from the indigenous and neurodiverse communities. We also touch on
(01:15):
the topics of emotional intelligence, coaching, creativity, and authenticity. This
is a really great chat with my friend.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Who is really leading the way in the coaching world.
He is very sensitive, compassionate, and very forward looking. So
without further ado, I'm pleased to bring you Jeffrey Hold.
Jeffrey Hold, so great to finally get you on the
psychology podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
That's been It's fun to finally be here.
Speaker 5 (01:41):
Oh man, We've been trying to get you on for
a while. You're a legend in the coaching field, and
I know I have so much to learn from you today,
as I'm sure a lot of people have a lot
to learn from you today. How are you doing.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I'm doing well, thank you. I am happily home in Amsterdam,
just got back from India over the jet lag and
settling back at home for a few days, which is
kind of nice.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
How about you, Yeah, I'm you know, I'm doing pretty good.
I'm doing pretty good. Jeffrey. Okay, you know, where do
we begin with this kind of conversation. I like to
begin with the concept of the beta boss. Now that
doesn't sound hot, but you're telling me, no, it is.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I need to rethink this. It is good. This is
a good thing.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I am. That's true.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Talk to me, tell me about your reconceptualization of leadership.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Well, I think that the traditional sort of authoritative leader
that fits the patriarchal mold that we all kind of
grew up with in the West, it's still alive and well,
you know, I mean, there's still top down leadership, there's
still hierarchies, there's still very directive bosses out there. They
(02:49):
have not been replaced completely. But there's quite a few
things that have changed over the last few years. And
I think there's a confluence of a couple of major shifts.
One is that the senior ranks of many organizations, especially
global organizations, are much more diverse than they had been until,
you know, a decade ago or so. There's more women,
(03:11):
there's more people of color, there's more people from all
different kinds of cultures all over the world that are
part of the global leadership teams of many organizations. So
that is a major change that's taking place over time,
and it continues to diversify, which is a good thing.
And then secondly, in confluence with that, is this desire
(03:32):
for most organizations to be much more nimble, much more agile,
much more creative. We have a highly disrupted world these days,
with technologies and economic disruptions, and you know, we could
talk about all the different disruptions, not even mentioning a
pandemic of course, which shifted things for everyone in the world.
(03:53):
So you know, the world is that much more complex
and the need for creativity and innovation is that much greater.
So having a one stop or one's you know, one
trick pony approach to leadership is no longer going to
be as effective as what is needed in today's world.
And I think you know where I started doing research
(04:15):
in this space as a coach is recognizing that over
the last five to ten years, my clients were changing
and they didn't necessarily want to be coached on how
to be bossy, or how to be authoritative, or how
to be directive, or how to be alpha as you
might call it. So that started me thinking about what
(04:36):
are the other ways of being as a leader. And
the emergent theme I call beta is really about building
an environment where you hear that you get the best
out of everyone. You really try to elevate the performance,
the creativity, and the capability of everyone on the team.
And that requires a leadership style that's more flexible that
(04:59):
maybe directive may be authoritative at times, but also needs
to be consensus oriented, needs to be collaborative, needs to
be inquisitive, needs to be a good listener, It needs
to be empathic, and empathy is key, and so developing
this much more diversified portfolio of capacities and capabilities is
(05:19):
really key to success. So I don't think it's either
a it's not beta or alpha. It's, in my world,
a development of a flexible portfolio so that leaders can
actually choose what's appropriate in the moment or in the
situation that we'll get the best out of everyone.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
I love that about your approach. So there's definitely a
place for assertiveness and for making decisions when everyone else
is like undecisive, you know, or indecisive in this sensive Yeah, yeah,
I just made up a word, but you know, so
there's definitely a place for that. But if that's all
you are and you don't listen and you're not flexible,
you know, if you're not affiliate affiliative at all, if
(05:59):
you're not a team player, that will come to bite
you in the butt right.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Well, not only that, but if you're part of a
leadership training program, for example, of high potentials, which a
lot of companies at least used to have and many
still do.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
You know, the.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Way that they were training leaders was to be all
of that kind of alpha energy, you know, directive visionary,
know where you wanted to go, have your goals in mind,
motivate the troops. You know, it was kind of almost
militaristic historically. Well, the problem with that is twofold number one.
(06:36):
It's going to attract a particular type of leader, and
so that limits the kinds of people that are going
to get identified to take leadership roles because introverts are
not going to get chosen. People that are naturally more
beta are not going to get chosen. So that's one issue.
And then secondly, what happens when you want to create
(06:58):
an environment where where your goal is creative brainstorming, getting
new ideas, new ways of operating. You're not going to
get that from a top down, directive approach because you
can't you know this because you know we've read your
book and self actualization, this is a key theme. You
(07:19):
cannot direct creativity. It doesn't come from being told what
to do. It's like you will go into the shower
and when you come out of the shower you will
have great new ideas.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Well.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
I wish it were that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Simple, right, You know, creativity and innovation comes from from
a different part of the brain. It comes from a
different experience. It comes from being in nature. It comes
from a fluid, more relaxed space for the so your
brain is more mindful, more present. And if you're trying
to get that level of creativity out of your people
(07:53):
in an organization and you're a top down sort of
bossy boss, it's going to backfire. It's the bottom line.
And like you said, there are times like at the
beginning of the pandemic when people were panicking and they
were like, oh my god, what are we going to
do and how are we going to get work done
in this crazy environment? There was a need for some
(08:14):
very strong directive. You will be okay, we'll go hybrid,
people will work at home, we'll figure it out. You know,
those kinds of authoritative leadership styles are useful especially in
an emergency. But it's no longer going to be appropriate,
and it's no longer going to elevate all the key
(08:34):
talent that you have to ask everyone to be that
kind of leader.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Yeah, I mean that's that's a real theme of this
whole your whole research project is diversity in a very
very broad sense of the term. I feel like you're
trying to look at it from like every possible perspective.
I know that you also care deeply about the indigenous perspective,
something that you don't see that often in coaching discussions.
And then you're also interested in neurodiver which I am
(09:01):
very interested in as well. I wotted you very loudly
at the recent Better Up conference when you were talking
about that on the panel.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I was like, whooping you. I was like, whoa, yeah,
yeah that was me. That was me. Yeah. So I
love that.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
I love that really really broad approach. Real diversity, to
me is is one that is really inclusive of all
different ways of being, but doesn't mock even maybe standard
ways of being you might even call patriarchal.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I don't use that word. It's funny.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
We think we may differ on that. I think you're
more woke than me, Jeffrey, to be honest, to be honest,
but you know, I wouldn't use that word because I
guess real and I just want to get your thoughts
on this. It just seems like, you know, like real
inclusivity is one where we have more of a spirit
of like everyone's welcome to the table, not like everyone
but white men, you know, like everyone, but there's no
(09:51):
everyone but the alpha. You know, now the alpha is excluded.
You know, I just I don't like that spirit. I
want the Alpha. I do neither people with everyone else.
You know, there's room for the alpha, you know, oh.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Not only room, there's a need, yeah for it. Absolutely no,
I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah. I don't think we're disagreeing all here.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
I think we're saying, like, real inclusivity is one where
we just have this really welcoming spirit of kind of
like everyone's welcome at the table, and historically disadvantaged or
historically excluded people are very welcome and we need to
open up opportunities for them.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And so I totally get that totally. I do totally
get that point.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
I am so excited to announce that registrations are now
open for our self actualization coaching intensive. While the coaching
industry has taken great strides over the years toward integrating
more evidence based coaching approaches, there's still a lot of
work to be done. Many coach training programs still lack
strong foundations and science and do little to incorporate research
(10:52):
informed tools, methodologies, or approaches for helping clients thrive. For
twenty years, I've dedicated my career to rigorously testing ways
to unlock creativity, intelligence, and our potential as human beings. Now,
for the first time ever, I've compiled some of my
greatest insights to bring the new science of self actualization
to the field of professional coaching. This immersive three day
(11:13):
learning experience will introduce you to self actualization coaching, an
approach intended to enhance your coaching practice by offering you
evidence based tools and insights from my research that will
equip you to more effectively help your clients unlock their
unique potential. Self Actualization coaching is a whole person approach
to coaching that aims to help the client find their
most alive and creative center of being, connect deeply with themselves,
(11:37):
and become who they truly want to become grounded in
the foundational principles of humanistic psychology. Self actualization. Coaching also
draws from the latest psychological science, including the fields of
positive psychology, coaching, psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, neuroscience, and
the science of creativity. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity.
(11:59):
Join us and take your coaching practice to the next level.
Register today and get twenty percent off. Don't miss out
on this very special event. Go to sacaching dot org.
That's SA coaching dot org and get twenty percent off today.
I look forward to welcoming you in December. You cover
a whole wide range of different skills that are important
(12:21):
in this unpredictable environment that we live in today, the mental,
the emotional, and the somatic. Would you mind if we
went through this we went through them, and we could
start with the mental and why those skills are important?
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Great?
Speaker 5 (12:34):
Yeah, absolutely, Okay, So flexibility and intentionality are within the
mental sphere. Can you talk a little bit more about Yeah,
what are they? Why are they important?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Well, I think you know, when you're thinking about coaching,
I'm always kind of coming at this from how to coach,
because that's what I do as a psychologist and as
an executive coach, and of my work is trying to
coach and support leaders to develop their full capacity, their
full potential, which is why I love your work because
it's also about that same kind of continuing learning journey
(13:08):
right expansion and around the themes of decision making and
intentional communication. There's a whole spectrum, you know, when you're
thinking about what we would call like a traditional authoritative
or alpha approach, it would be very rational, it would
be very data driven, it would be very directive, it
(13:30):
would be very goal oriented, and all of that, as
we just spoke to, is absolutely appropriate under certain circumstances
where you want to set a marker for where you
want to go to in the future, what you want
to accomplish, having a clear vision, having a strategy, all
of which is absolutely appropriate. But there's a spectrum that
includes a whole other, more diverse approach, or an expansive
(13:54):
approach that I call the beta side of things, which
is really more positive curiosity, slowing down and really listening
into the space of hearing all the voices in the room.
Because sometimes you're mavericks, you're more creative. People tend to
be maybe introverts, they're not quite so quick to speak
(14:17):
up against authority or in the face of authority. So
that is where the decision making process can be more
collaborative and more consensus oriented. And same thing with your
communication style. If you're purely rational and data driven, then
at some point you're going to kind of lose your
audience because you're not going to be very inspirational. You know,
(14:39):
people want to know why, what is the purpose, what
are we driving towards, and what's the goal, what is
the reason why we're doing it, what's the value? And
so that requires a storyteller, someone who can share their
personal perspective and why it's really valuable for us to
do X, Y and z, and maybe be able to
tell a story or a metaphor. So those are the
(15:02):
kinds of more flexible style of communication, which is really aspirational,
you know, sharing why we're doing what we're doing. And
again it's not an either or proposition, it's really almost
like expanding the instrument as a leader.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Yeah, the flexibility part does that from a neuroscience perspective,
kind of relates to certain executive functions of the brain,
like the dorsalato prefront the cortex, and I mean and
training those areas to be intentionally flexible. Is that Do
you ever link that to neuroscience?
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, well, especially when I get when when you get
into the emotional intelligence part of it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Right, Oh, yeah, we'll get there.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
So that part of it probably even more than the uh,
you know, rational decision making piece, which is an executive function.
But I think of the intersection between what Richard boyatsis
for example, would call the default network, the task oriented
network in our brain, versus the being network in our brains.
(16:13):
And you know, if you want to create an environment
where you have more creativity, people are more relaxed, a
little bit more mindful than the you know, you have
to create a safe space where people feel they're able
to be calm, they can regulate their feelings and not
(16:34):
feel like it's an intense decision making rational experience. And
that again requires a certain flexibility in a leader to
know how to basically regulate their own emotions, but also
to create a space for others to be expressed, to
be able to feel safe enough to disagree or come
(16:58):
up with a creative way of approaching things. So in
the emotional regulation or the emotional intelligence space. It's really
crucial for leaders to have this more diverse or more
expansive approach that we're talking about.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Well, I want I want you to be my leader, Jeffrey.
You got the right idea. You got the right idea.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
And then you're gonna I know you're going to ask
me about the somatic piece, right.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Oh, well not there yet.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
Well, well, I'm going in order of the mentally emotional
and the somatic. Okay, you haven't covered uh you know,
well you started to touch an emotional intelligence a little bit,
but that's a whole deep dive, you know, is so,
and so let's let's do a little bit of a
deep dive into emotional intelligence because this is I mean,
the you're a world's expert on this, and particularly in
(17:48):
the coaching realm, you know, applying it to the coaching
is I think it's quite novel. You know, a lot
of coaching programs are so doing oriented and and maybe
and you would say, I'll you know, and so the
idea of emotional intelligence, you know, it can be very alpha.
You know, an alpha can can have it can use
a little bit of emotional intelligence. Can you tell us
(18:10):
a little bit about about how you define emotional intelligence.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Do you take them out?
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Do you take the Salave Mayer Caruso model, do you
like the Daniel Goleman model. There's so many different models
of emotional intelligence, you know, do you adopt one or
do you have your own? I'll shut up now and
just want to listen to you.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I mean, I think they all have value. You know,
Dan Goleman basically popularized a lot of the work that
Salavi and others had done in research a few years
before that, and so I give him a lot of
credit for bringing to the masses that framing. You know,
(18:46):
self awareness, social awareness, emotional regulation, all of those kinds
of things were you know, now they're part of our
vernacular in the leadership space and in the coaching space,
but they really weren't there twenty years ago. It was
all IQ, it wasn't EQ. So you know, Dan and
his colleagues, there's a number of them, Richard Biasis as
(19:07):
I mentioned, and others that have brought that to the
public sphere. I think have a real have added a
lot of value. I personally am a big fan of
the EQI two point zero emotional intelligence assessment, which I
think goes back to Peter Sellaby and his colleagues originally.
But what I love about it, and it's funny because
(19:29):
I was just coaching someone today using it, and it
was a physician, a very rational surgical surgeon, and you know,
he took this emotional intelligence assessment and he was a
little confused as to how it could be so complicated.
And but what I shared with him, which I think
he found valuable, was to break down the leadership activities
(19:50):
that he's involved in leading a team right of nurses
and technologists and anesthesiologists and all these other practitioners, all
these other clinicians, and recognizing that in almost every single
thing they do, there's an emotional component. You never completely
escape the feelings in the room, the feelings of the
(20:10):
people on the team, the feelings that you bring as
the leader, whatever. So emotions are always at play. And
what this assessment does is it breaks it down into
multiple categories like self awareness, self expression, independence versus interdependence,
a sense of social responsibility. One that you would like,
(20:31):
which is self actualization. Whether you feel like what you're
doing emotionally in your day to day world brings a
sense of satisfaction and contribution. There's also stress related emotional intelligence.
There's problem solving, like how do you solve problems when
there's emotions in the space, and then things like self
(20:52):
esteem and optimism. All of these are components. And what
my client, who tends to be very rational obviously as
a surgeon, loved about it was because he could actually divide.
He could see how the emotional components are so key
to all of these different activities as a leader, and
(21:13):
so it made a whole lot more sense. For example,
when we talked about problem solving, his initial reaction was, well,
you solve your problems with rational thought, with data, with analysis,
And I said, yeah, that's always true, but think about
when you're interacting with a patient another human being, or
when you're talking to your spouse or you know, you're
(21:36):
making decisions in your life, is it really true that
there's no emotional component? And he of course recognized, he
was like, you're right. I'm like, I'm always trying to
think about the especially with my patients, like how do
they feel about the data that I'm sharing with them? So, yeah,
problem solving is an emotional activity anyway, Just to summarize,
(21:57):
I mean, I think there are ways that we can
break down intelligence into very practical, useful domains that then
can be coached and developed. And I left out probably
one of the most important ones, which is empathy, right,
developing your sensitivity to what's going on with other people.
So those are just examples.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
Great examples. Well, how does realness come into play here?
I think that's a fascinating angle that you bring into
the emotional realm of life. What does that mean realness?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Well, I used realness just as part of a euphemism
for the acronym that I created in the model that
I wrote about in my book called Fierce. So realness
in that sense was just a quick term related to authenticity,
which is a much bigger context, a much bigger concept
construct Right. But what's interesting about this spectrum we talk
(22:54):
about alpha versus beta in the space of authenticity is that,
again on the more authoritative or alpha side, you have
authenticity that's very competent and strong and stoic, and you
want that quality and a lot of leaders at certain times.
But then think about the other end of the spectrum,
(23:15):
which is humility, vulnerability, relatability, and trust, and those are
also key components of authenticity, but they require what we
often think of as the softer side, right, And so
the key to success is developing the entire spectrum and
(23:37):
then being able to recognize when it's appropriate to be vulnerable,
to share your humanity. And what I always find is
interesting for clients, you know, when I'm working with executives,
they sometimes struggle with this because they think that if
they share vulnerability, or if they open their kimono and
share transparency about their own fears or their own insecurities,
(24:01):
that they will be viewed as being weak or less powerful.
And the irony is the opposite is true. They'll be
trusted even more, they'll be respected even more, they will
be followed more willingly because their humanity is one of
the core elements of their leadership capability. Right. People love
(24:24):
to follow someone who's both strong but also human.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
M that's why I hit the gym. Get that strong part. No,
I love it.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
I love it. So we got the mental the emotional. Basically, folks,
what we're doing here is we're going through his fierce model.
We've already covered, we've gotten into fire, and now we're
going to.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Go for the CE part.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Okay, so let's talk about the somatic elements of your
fire model. First of all, before we go into the
specifics of collaboration and gay what does somatic mean? What
does that mean?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Well, the simple version is it's anything and everything that's physical, right,
the physical energy. Somatics are the physicality of the beings
of r of how we show up. And the reason
it's so relevant in the space of collaboration and engagement
is because the neuroscience studies and other research that's been
(25:26):
done around the way human beings interact with each other
is that a lot of what happens between people that
creates a sense of trust, connection, relationship is based not
on the words, not on verbal but on your physical presence,
your nonverbals, your eye contact, your smile, which I don't
(25:51):
do enough of. I think you know, all of those
kinds of things. And even in zoom calls, you know,
I coach my clients make sure they show their hands
so that they don't look like they're just like from
the neck up right. So it's all of those kinds
of things that are really crucial to creating an environment
of safety and connection and trust. And if you're alive,
(26:14):
like in a room with people, then you want to
pay attention to the energy of the space. And I
always give a simple example, which is the difference between
a long, rectangular power oriented table versus a circle. And
when people sit in a circle, there's no automatic boss,
(26:36):
there's no automatic leader, so people relax a little more,
they feel like they're part of a community, Whereas if
you're sitting at a boardroom, there's someone at the head
of the table that automatically physically creates an energy of power.
So that's just one example, but those are the kinds
of things that leaders need to think about when they
(26:59):
start to do to reflect on their somatic presence.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Okay, so the two main components of that. Thank you
for elaborating that. The two main components are collaboration and engagement.
I think a lot of us can wrap our head
around collaboration, but what is engagement?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
How is that relevant?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Well, with engagement, I think what you're trying to focus
in on here is the age old dichotomy of productivity
versus creativity, because when you want to engage with your
team as a leader in an organizational context, you often
want to get both. And this is a bit of
a double edged sword because productivity is very much management oriented,
(27:42):
time oriented structure disciplines. You know, you have a perk
chart you want to follow to get productivity, whereas creativity,
as we mentioned earlier, requires a much more fluid space
where people are more relaxed, they allow themselves to have
daydreaming and kind of see what comes up. And the
(28:05):
engagement space that creates one or the other. They're very different.
They're very different. And I've worked with clients with leaders
that tend to be leaning in one direction or the other.
And I think I wrote a couple of case studies
in the book of both examples where I had one
leader who really wanted to have it. He had a
very creative team that was in the media space, but
(28:29):
his team never got any projects finished. They always came
up with new ideas. They were constantly brainstorming, and it's
because he was so flexible and fluid and created this
wonderful creative environment. But then they didn't have enough discipline
to get the work done. So he had to inject
some alpha productivity approaches to his creative space and vice versa.
(28:53):
You know, you have the highly productive, like get the
work done kind of leader, and then he demands his
team to be more creative and they all kind of
look at him like, we're totally burnt out. You want creativity,
we're exhausted.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So anyway you get the idea, Yeah, I do, I do.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
And then collaboration. How can leaders foster better collaborative spirit?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, the first thing it gets back to that topic
of creating psychological safety, right, yeah, And the key, one
of the keys there is creating an environment where people
feel safe to speak up. You know, my friend, my
friend and colleague Amy Edmondson at Harvard Business School when
she started, you know, she's now the world renowned expert
(29:37):
in that space. But she started that project many years
ago by studying the operating rooms at mass General Hospital
and what was the reason that some of them worked
well and some of them didn't. And there were a
lot of more mistakes in the operating room than was acceptable.
And the fundamental key was whether or not people felt
(29:59):
safe enough to speak up. And that had to do
with the leadership style that was created in the environment.
And so if you extrapolate that research that she did
into other organizations where you want to create collaborative space,
it starts with psychological safety and people having permission to
say what they think and not feel like they're going
(30:20):
to be chastised or criticized. And then I think the
second component, and I spent some time on this in
my book, is to have leaders recognize the difference between
being an advisor and a delegator and a coach, and
they need to do both. There are times when you
need to delegate and advise and give direction, but if
(30:42):
you want to create collaborative spaces, then you also need
to coach. And coaching is not about having power over
other people and being directive or advisory. It's really about
creating more of a sense of equality, right, And so
asking questions and listening and and sort of making the
space equal among people so that everyone participates. And that's
(31:08):
more creates a coaching dynamic. So those are some of
the key elements of creating the collaborative energy.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Mm I gotcha.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
The idea of coach, well, yeah, let's dive into coaching. Yeah,
let's let's dive into that world is a good segue
because something I really like a concept of your book
is this notion of self coaching. You know, we can
we can be our own leaders, our own best leaders
as well, right, And I think that's a really cool,
really cool way of thinking about life. You know, Karen Horney,
the psychoanalyst called it, called it self analysis. You know,
(31:39):
like like using psychoanalysis for yourself. But I think the
new age, the newer version of it is self coaching.
So what is self coaching?
Speaker 3 (31:49):
How can you be?
Speaker 5 (31:50):
How can you be your own leadership coach?
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Well, it's funny you would mention Karen Horney, because of
course my training is originally from Carl Jung. I was
a young and trained psychology just love it. And you know,
his whole fundamental theme was individuation. Right, that life is
a lifelong process of first developing an ego as a child,
(32:14):
as an adolescent, as an early young adult, you develop
your ego, which is giving you a sense of competency, capability,
being able to operate in the world, right, And you
get that mostly from your family, traditional parents, your family system,
your school system. But at a certain point later in
life that can become problematic because it becomes rigidified and
(32:38):
you get sort of stuck in your personality, your belief
that this is the way the world is, this is
the way I am, and so young would always say,
you know, part of your challenge in life is to
get over your childhood right and to constantly be looking
for opportunities to break through into what he called like
(33:00):
a more permeable transcendent space. And I think that that
it's it's interesting because that's from like twenty thirty forty
years ago, but I think self coaching is very much
along those same lines. It's recognizing that you're on a
learning journey and that you know your personality is not
(33:21):
a rigid it's not etched and stone. You know, studies
have been done that brain is a great deal of
brain plasticity, that we're constantly growing and changing. And so
if you want to develop yourself, you think of yourself
almost like a musical instrument, and you learn to see
it as a lifelong expansion of your capacities, and you
(33:45):
want to keep an open mind, and fundamentally to self coach,
you want to create feedback loops. You know, where do
you get feedback from your colleagues, from your partner, from
your friends, from your employees. You know, are you willing
(34:05):
and open to taking feedback from wherever it's offered, especially
if it's done with the best of intentions, But you
know that is that is a key element of self
coaching is and my my colleague Marshall Goldsmith, who's you know,
the number one coach in the world so to speak,
you know, and he's a great human being.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
He developed this very simple form of self coaching which
I mentioned in my book also, which is called feed forward,
where you and I use it all the time. Where
you literally whenever you do something, you give a presentation,
or you put together a new paper, or you do
something you know where you're producting presenting a product of
(34:47):
some sort, and you just ask the people you respect,
people that colleagues or the audience, you know, people then
that you know that you respect their opinion, to give
you you one specific thing that you could do even better.
That's called feed forward. What would I if I do
it again and I do it even better?
Speaker 3 (35:09):
What would you think I could do so good?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Right? So it's just continuous learning basically, and being open
to recognizing that you're never finished, you're always on an
improvement process.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Literally taking notes doing this interview.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
I don't normally do that in podcasters, and I'm like
continuous learning and being it's so good, you're saying such
good stuff. I actually met Marshall Goldsmith for the first
time the other day at a Better Up Coaching after party,
when Prince Harry was in the room, right, and we
were all drinking, and I met him a little bit tipsy,
and he think he was a little bit tipsy, and
(35:47):
it was just he was, this is really funny. You know,
he's just a you know, I assume he's like that sober,
but just we were just really funny.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
He was just really funny. But anyway, I really like
meeting Marshall Goldsmith. He's very great guy. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
You know, you had this great panel at the Better
Up conference and you were asked what do you see
as some of the most important things for the future
of coaching now? Most my listeners were not at that panel,
So if you don't mind talking a little bit more
about that, what you see as the most exciting areas
(36:21):
of coaching for the twenty first century, especially the kind
of the world we live in right now.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, no, you're right. I was a really nice panel
and the theme was the future of coaching, the future
of human development? Where are we headed? What kind of
research should we be doing? And I think what you're
pointing to is that there were two or three key
themes that came up not just from me, but from
the other experts on the panel. One is that we
(36:47):
have to become much more aware of the strengths and
the potential liabilities of being very Western in our approach.
That we now live in a global village. Were literally
a global village.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
And I mean it.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It's a small planet, right. And when I go to
do coaching in other countries in China and India, which
is one of the fastest growing democracies, and coaching is
huge there. I was just there last week. You know,
they don't always appreciate having a Western overlay to everything
that's being taught. There's value because we bring a scientific approach.
(37:26):
We bring thousands of years of Western civilization and knowledge,
but there's also a lot to be gleaned from Eastern approaches,
from indigenous approaches, from the wisdom traditions of indigenous tribes
in South America, and the Aborigine Aboriginal tribal approaches. I
(37:46):
read a book by Tyson Jung Komporda recently called Santok,
which I highly recommend.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
That sounds great.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
You know, he's interweaving the West and the Eastern narratives
and it's really powerful.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Stuff.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
So that's one thing, as I think we need to
become a little bit more permeable and broad in our
perspective on human development and include some of these non
Western approaches. So that's because we will all benefit from that,
and for too long many of them have been marginalized.
But there's a lot of wisdom there. So that's one area.
(38:23):
And then the second one that I brought up that
I think is also kind of emerging on the scene
is how can we leverage people that have what we
call neurodiversity, you know, that are bringing in a wide
range of intellectual capacities that may not always look sort
(38:44):
of mainstream. They may be and I'm always worried about labels,
you know, people that are on the spectrum or autistic
or have aspergers or whatever. You know, it's a little
bit of a double edged sword because on the one hand,
they need to have some recognition, and our psychology communities
have a tendency to diagnose and then label. But it
(39:08):
does bring those things into the conversation, which is probably
a good thing. But I also want to be careful
not to label people and then have them feel denigrated
or judged because there's so much potential. There's so much brilliance,
there's so much wisdom, there's so much creativity, and I
did share that on the panel. I think that what
(39:28):
is it, ten or fifteen years ago, we had the
American Disabilities Act in the US and mainstreaming of people
that had been left out of work, the work world,
the education systems, all of which was really great. But
now we need to go to the next level, and
we need to not just allow people that are different
(39:49):
into our mainstream systems. We need to leverage their talents
and their capabilities. And so this is an opportunity for
coaches because I've seen the power of where coaching can
really bring to life someone who has perhaps a different
way of seeing the world, and it's just powerful, and
(40:13):
I'd like to see more of it. I'd like to see,
you know, rather than giving a lot of pharmaceutical approaches
to like ADHD and things like that, which may be
appropriate under certain circumstances, yes, but I'd love to see
more coaching, yes, and brought into those spaces of add ADHD, autism,
all of those kinds of things. So neurodiversity is an
(40:35):
area that I think is one that we could do
better research and also equip our coaches to be more
capable and comfortable.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Oh, I completely agree.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Well, obviously, obviously my whole career is a bit supporting
the neurodiversity movement. But I got a LinkedIn message the
other day from someone, a woman who is a neurodiversity coach,
and I thought that was interesting because I never heard
of that before as like a specific thing. And she
reached out she liked my book Transcend, and I was like, wow,
(41:06):
this is amazing what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
I'd love to hear more. And we had a zoom call.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
And and she said, you know, she feels a little
bit lonely in the coaching space. You know that there's
not many who identify as neurodiversity coaches or who work
with that specific population, and so there's just so much
potential there in the coaching community, as you've astutely pointed out.
So absolutely, Okay, what else about the do you want
(41:30):
to keep going?
Speaker 3 (41:32):
We got, Well, you say.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
One more, I'll say one more thing about it, please do,
and that is that there's a there is an intersection
between the two themes that I brought up, the bringing
in the indigenous wisdom traditions and neurodiversity because and I
can give a reference. There's a wonderful woman that I
(41:55):
had to do a webinar for us at the Institute
of Coaching at Harvard on neurodiverse City and Community building.
And her name is Lana Yelenev, and she's a Filipino,
but she also comes from a indigenous tradition in the Philippines.
And what she brought to us was this idea that
in many indigenous traditions, if you look at African traditions,
(42:19):
you look at North American Indian traditions, you look and
I learned from her about the Filipino and digit I
didn't even know there was such a thing. So even
I was taking notes, in many of those indigenous traditions,
people that are considered odd or unusual, or what we
might call even retarded, which is a really inappropriate term,
(42:42):
or disabled, right, those individuals are actually included in the
community because they bring talents, they bring gifts, and so
those indigenous communities actually ask the question, what is the
gift that this individual needs to bring to our community?
(43:06):
Why we have someone Yeah, it's like, why do we
have someone who has this so called inability or disability?
Or different ability in our community? What is there? What
is their gift? And that is a wonderful way of
reframing what in the West has led to almost a
(43:26):
monochromatic approach to normalcy.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Right, I agree.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
So anyway, there's there's this wonderful intersection between the wisdom
traditions and some of this indigenous approaches and not just
welcoming and respecting but literally leveraging neurodiverse individuals getting them
to participate and actually be part of the creativity of
that we need in the world.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Well, it's beautiful and I mean it's it's also a
very powerful coaching question. You know, what is the gift
that you bring to the world? You know, it's just
you know, that's from an individual coaching perspective as well,
having a very you know, I'm a very strengths based
oriented guy. What can I say? So I really resonate
with that a lot. How far can we take this?
(44:11):
Can we take this Tulso viewpoint? Diversity? That's a little
bit more of a controversial topic. But you know, in
politics right now, everyone's ripping their heads off. You know,
if you disagree with my political viewpoint, you're dead to me.
You know, it's as opposed to, like, I don't know, like,
would it be cheeky to be like, let's say you're
a Democrat and you're talking to a Republican, you know,
(44:33):
asking the Republican, Oh, what are some of your gifts
you can bring to the table with your unique perspective
on the matters, you know, like as opposed to just
immediately saying, oh, you're a Republican, get out of here,
you know, or vice versa, you know, the Republican looking
at a you know, a Democrat.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
I don't know. Can we further extend this powerful coaching
question to viewpoint diversity as well, or is that destined
for failure?
Speaker 4 (44:55):
No?
Speaker 1 (44:56):
I think it is. It's destined as you're pointing to,
what is a great opportunity actually in the coaching space,
because I think one of the fastest growing skill sets
for coaches is group coaching and team coaching and facilitation,
And if you really want to learn how to do that, well,
then you're creating spaces for people to feel safe enough
(45:19):
to share what their deepest fear might be, or their
deepest aspiration might be, their deepest desire might be. And
at the end of the day, what we often find
when we have enough safety created in the listening space,
is that as human beings, we all want the same thing, right,
We're not really as far apart from each other as
(45:41):
we think. I often go back to my political science
classes where when they talked about the far right and
the far left, and then you realize that the far
right enough to go around and they end up being
in the same players.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, there's great opportunity for coaches to be come good
facilitators in this space to create dialogue because at the
end of the day, what we're talking about is how
can we have more dialogue rather than not what's the
word for disagreement, right, dialogue instead of yes.
Speaker 5 (46:13):
That was actually next to my list to kind of
end the interview with you saying we live in an
age of convergence, and I was going to ask, how
do you reconcile that with all of our talk about
you know, diversity and indifference, But you just answered it.
I mean, you just did it. Yeah, So we in
a lot of ways, while it seems as though we're
living in the age of discord and strife, you actually
(46:38):
think we live in the age of convergence. And that's
that's a very unique spin on the situation. Can you
elaborate in that and kind of us end us here
today on a positive hope for humanity?
Speaker 3 (46:47):
My friend.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Yeah, I'll just say two things about that. One is
that where I came out on the on what I
call the Age of convergence is the recognition that all
of these dichotomy ease that are embedded in our culture
left brain, right brain, male, female, masculine, feminine. Oh god,
you can go on and on. You know, computers are
(47:11):
you know, bits and bytes right on and off system
kind of in system one thinking and system two thinking,
all of which is incredibly valuable on one level. Yeah,
but it's also pointing to sort of a black and
white mindset. And if we want to transcend that again,
(47:33):
I'm so much of a Jungian. It's always about breaking
through the ye you know, the splits, right. If we
want to transcend it, we have to recognize that the
only thing that keeps us from moving through the fluidity
of those dichotomies and bringing them together is fear.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I go back to the Buddhists like Pema Children, who
basically said is there's only two ways of being in
the world fear and love. You're either in fear or
you're in love ool, And that's matt In fact, maybe
that's the one dichotomy that's worth having, is recognizing the
(48:17):
difference between fear and love, because if you're in a
dialogue and you're talking Republicans and Democrats and blue states
and red states and all that, at the end of
the day, the rankor the anger is really about fear.
You know, we're afraid of each other. We're afraid we're
going to get hurt. We're afraid that we're going to
lose something, We're going to lose the Great American Dream
(48:38):
or whatever it is. If we can shift our mindset,
and this is where coaches can help, if we can
shift our mindset to recognize that we're all the same,
We're all human beings. We all want to feel safe,
we all want love, and if we can love each
other across the table, then that opens the energy to listen.
(49:00):
And when we start listening to each other, we begin
to realize that we're not really all that far apart.
So that's my note of optimism, I guess, and maybe
some people will say I'm doing the rose colored classes,
but I am an optimist. What can I.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
Say, Well, what I would say is this, there is
a really important place for you in this world. And
your perspective. I'm saying, even if there are people listening
and it's not their perspective and they're like more of
like a dominant, you know, kind of personality, you can
imagine a real a real you know, like dominant you know,
like jacked up on testosterone listening to you and rolling
(49:41):
their eyes. But but your perspective is incredibly valuable. And
that's and I think that's what I want to highlight today.
In this world. There's a great place for there's a
great place in the coaching world to you know, it's
almost wide open to the coaching world. We need to
you know, we need to put this more in there,
you know, emotional intelligence and all the things you talked
about today. Seriously, thank you so much for I'm so
(50:03):
glad we finally recorded this, and I'm so glad I
can't wait to share this with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
So thank you so much for all the great work
you're doing.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Jeffrey, Well, thank you for having me. It's ever since
I read your book. I love all of the work
that you did and upgrade, you know, and updating Abraham
Maslow's work. And I love your sailboat metaphor. And you
know a lot of the themes that you write about
in terms of self actualization, they just resonate so powerfully
(50:30):
with me that you know, maybe there'll be people out
there that don't just disagree with us, but I think
what we're trying to do is positive for the world,
and I think your work also represents that in a
really powerful way.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Thank you so much, Thanks so much.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
I always get confused when someone disagrees with a humanistic
perspective than this is really what we're presenting here, you know,
but look, I just thank you so much. That means
so much. And glad we recorded this.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Yeah, me too. Look forward to seeing you again soon.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
Likewise, thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast.
If you'd like to react in some way to something
you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
at thus psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube
page thus Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos
(51:25):
of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so
you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such
a great supporter of the show. And tune in next
time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.
Coaching is not about having power over other people and
being directive or advisory. It's really about creating more of
a sense of equality, right, and so asking questions and
listening and sort of making the space equal among people
so that everyone participates.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast Today. I'm happy
to welcome Jeffrey Hole to the show. Jeffrey is a
highly solid after facilitator, keynote speaker, and executive coach to
both nonprofit and for profit global organizations.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
He is the.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Executive director of the Institute of Coaching based at McLean Hospital.
Jeffrey is also a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard
Medical School and an adject professor of Leadership at New
York University. His latest book is called Flex, The Art
and Science of Leadership in a Changing World. In this episode,
I talked to Jeffrey Hole about the new landscape of leadership.
(00:53):
The world is changing and alpha leadership is not the
only way to manage a team. Jeffrey highlights importance of
beta leadershi, a style that values emotion and collaboration. According
to Jeffrey, the most effective leaders know which style to
lead with depending on the situation. In addition to learning
other ways of being, Jeffrey believes we need deleverage perspectives
from the indigenous and neurodiverse communities. We also touch on
(01:15):
the topics of emotional intelligence, coaching, creativity, and authenticity. This
is a really great chat with my friend.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Who is really leading the way in the coaching world.
He is very sensitive, compassionate, and very forward looking. So
without further ado, I'm pleased to bring you Jeffrey Hold.
Jeffrey Hold, so great to finally get you on the
psychology podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
That's been It's fun to finally be here.
Speaker 5 (01:41):
Oh man, We've been trying to get you on for
a while. You're a legend in the coaching field, and
I know I have so much to learn from you today,
as I'm sure a lot of people have a lot
to learn from you today. How are you doing.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I'm doing well, thank you. I am happily home in Amsterdam,
just got back from India over the jet lag and
settling back at home for a few days, which is
kind of nice.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
How about you, Yeah, I'm you know, I'm doing pretty good.
I'm doing pretty good. Jeffrey. Okay, you know, where do
we begin with this kind of conversation. I like to
begin with the concept of the beta boss. Now that
doesn't sound hot, but you're telling me, no, it is.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I need to rethink this. It is good. This is
a good thing.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I am. That's true.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Talk to me, tell me about your reconceptualization of leadership.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Well, I think that the traditional sort of authoritative leader
that fits the patriarchal mold that we all kind of
grew up with in the West, it's still alive and well,
you know, I mean, there's still top down leadership, there's
still hierarchies, there's still very directive bosses out there. They
(02:49):
have not been replaced completely. But there's quite a few
things that have changed over the last few years. And
I think there's a confluence of a couple of major shifts.
One is that the senior ranks of many organizations, especially
global organizations, are much more diverse than they had been until,
you know, a decade ago or so. There's more women,
(03:11):
there's more people of color, there's more people from all
different kinds of cultures all over the world that are
part of the global leadership teams of many organizations. So
that is a major change that's taking place over time,
and it continues to diversify, which is a good thing.
And then secondly, in confluence with that, is this desire
(03:32):
for most organizations to be much more nimble, much more agile,
much more creative. We have a highly disrupted world these days,
with technologies and economic disruptions, and you know, we could
talk about all the different disruptions, not even mentioning a
pandemic of course, which shifted things for everyone in the world.
(03:53):
So you know, the world is that much more complex
and the need for creativity and innovation is that much greater.
So having a one stop or one's you know, one
trick pony approach to leadership is no longer going to
be as effective as what is needed in today's world.
And I think you know where I started doing research
(04:15):
in this space as a coach is recognizing that over
the last five to ten years, my clients were changing
and they didn't necessarily want to be coached on how
to be bossy, or how to be authoritative, or how
to be directive, or how to be alpha as you
might call it. So that started me thinking about what
(04:36):
are the other ways of being as a leader. And
the emergent theme I call beta is really about building
an environment where you hear that you get the best
out of everyone. You really try to elevate the performance,
the creativity, and the capability of everyone on the team.
And that requires a leadership style that's more flexible that
(04:59):
maybe directive may be authoritative at times, but also needs
to be consensus oriented, needs to be collaborative, needs to
be inquisitive, needs to be a good listener, It needs
to be empathic, and empathy is key, and so developing
this much more diversified portfolio of capacities and capabilities is
(05:19):
really key to success. So I don't think it's either
a it's not beta or alpha. It's, in my world,
a development of a flexible portfolio so that leaders can
actually choose what's appropriate in the moment or in the
situation that we'll get the best out of everyone.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
I love that about your approach. So there's definitely a
place for assertiveness and for making decisions when everyone else
is like undecisive, you know, or indecisive in this sensive Yeah, yeah,
I just made up a word, but you know, so
there's definitely a place for that. But if that's all
you are and you don't listen and you're not flexible,
you know, if you're not affiliate affiliative at all, if
(05:59):
you're not a team player, that will come to bite
you in the butt right.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Well, not only that, but if you're part of a
leadership training program, for example, of high potentials, which a
lot of companies at least used to have and many
still do.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
You know, the.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Way that they were training leaders was to be all
of that kind of alpha energy, you know, directive visionary,
know where you wanted to go, have your goals in mind,
motivate the troops. You know, it was kind of almost
militaristic historically. Well, the problem with that is twofold number one.
(06:36):
It's going to attract a particular type of leader, and
so that limits the kinds of people that are going
to get identified to take leadership roles because introverts are
not going to get chosen. People that are naturally more
beta are not going to get chosen. So that's one issue.
And then secondly, what happens when you want to create
(06:58):
an environment where where your goal is creative brainstorming, getting
new ideas, new ways of operating. You're not going to
get that from a top down, directive approach because you
can't you know this because you know we've read your
book and self actualization, this is a key theme. You
(07:19):
cannot direct creativity. It doesn't come from being told what
to do. It's like you will go into the shower
and when you come out of the shower you will
have great new ideas.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Well.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
I wish it were that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Simple, right, You know, creativity and innovation comes from from
a different part of the brain. It comes from a
different experience. It comes from being in nature. It comes
from a fluid, more relaxed space for the so your
brain is more mindful, more present. And if you're trying
to get that level of creativity out of your people
(07:53):
in an organization and you're a top down sort of
bossy boss, it's going to backfire. It's the bottom line.
And like you said, there are times like at the
beginning of the pandemic when people were panicking and they
were like, oh my god, what are we going to
do and how are we going to get work done
in this crazy environment? There was a need for some
(08:14):
very strong directive. You will be okay, we'll go hybrid,
people will work at home, we'll figure it out. You know,
those kinds of authoritative leadership styles are useful especially in
an emergency. But it's no longer going to be appropriate,
and it's no longer going to elevate all the key
(08:34):
talent that you have to ask everyone to be that
kind of leader.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Yeah, I mean that's that's a real theme of this
whole your whole research project is diversity in a very
very broad sense of the term. I feel like you're
trying to look at it from like every possible perspective.
I know that you also care deeply about the indigenous perspective,
something that you don't see that often in coaching discussions.
And then you're also interested in neurodiver which I am
(09:01):
very interested in as well. I wotted you very loudly
at the recent Better Up conference when you were talking
about that on the panel.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I was like, whooping you. I was like, whoa, yeah,
yeah that was me. That was me. Yeah. So I
love that.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
I love that really really broad approach. Real diversity, to
me is is one that is really inclusive of all
different ways of being, but doesn't mock even maybe standard
ways of being you might even call patriarchal.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I don't use that word. It's funny.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
We think we may differ on that. I think you're
more woke than me, Jeffrey, to be honest, to be honest,
but you know, I wouldn't use that word because I
guess real and I just want to get your thoughts
on this. It just seems like, you know, like real
inclusivity is one where we have more of a spirit
of like everyone's welcome to the table, not like everyone
but white men, you know, like everyone, but there's no
(09:51):
everyone but the alpha. You know, now the alpha is excluded.
You know, I just I don't like that spirit. I
want the Alpha. I do neither people with everyone else.
You know, there's room for the alpha, you know, oh.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Not only room, there's a need, yeah for it. Absolutely no,
I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah. I don't think we're disagreeing all here.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
I think we're saying, like, real inclusivity is one where
we just have this really welcoming spirit of kind of
like everyone's welcome at the table, and historically disadvantaged or
historically excluded people are very welcome and we need to
open up opportunities for them.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And so I totally get that totally. I do totally
get that point.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
I am so excited to announce that registrations are now
open for our self actualization coaching intensive. While the coaching
industry has taken great strides over the years toward integrating
more evidence based coaching approaches, there's still a lot of
work to be done. Many coach training programs still lack
strong foundations and science and do little to incorporate research
(10:52):
informed tools, methodologies, or approaches for helping clients thrive. For
twenty years, I've dedicated my career to rigorously testing ways
to unlock creativity, intelligence, and our potential as human beings. Now,
for the first time ever, I've compiled some of my
greatest insights to bring the new science of self actualization
to the field of professional coaching. This immersive three day
(11:13):
learning experience will introduce you to self actualization coaching, an
approach intended to enhance your coaching practice by offering you
evidence based tools and insights from my research that will
equip you to more effectively help your clients unlock their
unique potential. Self Actualization coaching is a whole person approach
to coaching that aims to help the client find their
most alive and creative center of being, connect deeply with themselves,
(11:37):
and become who they truly want to become grounded in
the foundational principles of humanistic psychology. Self actualization. Coaching also
draws from the latest psychological science, including the fields of
positive psychology, coaching, psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, neuroscience, and
the science of creativity. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity.
(11:59):
Join us and take your coaching practice to the next level.
Register today and get twenty percent off. Don't miss out
on this very special event. Go to sacaching dot org.
That's SA coaching dot org and get twenty percent off today.
I look forward to welcoming you in December. You cover
a whole wide range of different skills that are important
(12:21):
in this unpredictable environment that we live in today, the mental,
the emotional, and the somatic. Would you mind if we
went through this we went through them, and we could
start with the mental and why those skills are important?
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Great?
Speaker 5 (12:34):
Yeah, absolutely, Okay, So flexibility and intentionality are within the
mental sphere. Can you talk a little bit more about Yeah,
what are they? Why are they important?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Well, I think you know, when you're thinking about coaching,
I'm always kind of coming at this from how to coach,
because that's what I do as a psychologist and as
an executive coach, and of my work is trying to
coach and support leaders to develop their full capacity, their
full potential, which is why I love your work because
it's also about that same kind of continuing learning journey
(13:08):
right expansion and around the themes of decision making and
intentional communication. There's a whole spectrum, you know, when you're
thinking about what we would call like a traditional authoritative
or alpha approach, it would be very rational, it would
be very data driven, it would be very directive, it
(13:30):
would be very goal oriented, and all of that, as
we just spoke to, is absolutely appropriate under certain circumstances
where you want to set a marker for where you
want to go to in the future, what you want
to accomplish, having a clear vision, having a strategy, all
of which is absolutely appropriate. But there's a spectrum that
includes a whole other, more diverse approach, or an expansive
(13:54):
approach that I call the beta side of things, which
is really more positive curiosity, slowing down and really listening
into the space of hearing all the voices in the room.
Because sometimes you're mavericks, you're more creative. People tend to
be maybe introverts, they're not quite so quick to speak
(14:17):
up against authority or in the face of authority. So
that is where the decision making process can be more
collaborative and more consensus oriented. And same thing with your
communication style. If you're purely rational and data driven, then
at some point you're going to kind of lose your
audience because you're not going to be very inspirational. You know,
(14:39):
people want to know why, what is the purpose, what
are we driving towards, and what's the goal, what is
the reason why we're doing it, what's the value? And
so that requires a storyteller, someone who can share their
personal perspective and why it's really valuable for us to
do X, Y and z, and maybe be able to
tell a story or a metaphor. So those are the
(15:02):
kinds of more flexible style of communication, which is really aspirational,
you know, sharing why we're doing what we're doing. And
again it's not an either or proposition, it's really almost
like expanding the instrument as a leader.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Yeah, the flexibility part does that from a neuroscience perspective,
kind of relates to certain executive functions of the brain,
like the dorsalato prefront the cortex, and I mean and
training those areas to be intentionally flexible. Is that Do
you ever link that to neuroscience?
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, well, especially when I get when when you get
into the emotional intelligence part of it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Right, Oh, yeah, we'll get there.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
So that part of it probably even more than the uh,
you know, rational decision making piece, which is an executive function.
But I think of the intersection between what Richard boyatsis
for example, would call the default network, the task oriented
network in our brain, versus the being network in our brains.
(16:13):
And you know, if you want to create an environment
where you have more creativity, people are more relaxed, a
little bit more mindful than the you know, you have
to create a safe space where people feel they're able
to be calm, they can regulate their feelings and not
(16:34):
feel like it's an intense decision making rational experience. And
that again requires a certain flexibility in a leader to
know how to basically regulate their own emotions, but also
to create a space for others to be expressed, to
be able to feel safe enough to disagree or come
(16:58):
up with a creative way of approaching things. So in
the emotional regulation or the emotional intelligence space. It's really
crucial for leaders to have this more diverse or more
expansive approach that we're talking about.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Well, I want I want you to be my leader, Jeffrey.
You got the right idea. You got the right idea.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
And then you're gonna I know you're going to ask
me about the somatic piece, right.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Oh, well not there yet.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
Well, well, I'm going in order of the mentally emotional
and the somatic. Okay, you haven't covered uh you know,
well you started to touch an emotional intelligence a little bit,
but that's a whole deep dive, you know, is so,
and so let's let's do a little bit of a
deep dive into emotional intelligence because this is I mean,
the you're a world's expert on this, and particularly in
(17:48):
the coaching realm, you know, applying it to the coaching
is I think it's quite novel. You know, a lot
of coaching programs are so doing oriented and and maybe
and you would say, I'll you know, and so the
idea of emotional intelligence, you know, it can be very alpha.
You know, an alpha can can have it can use
a little bit of emotional intelligence. Can you tell us
(18:10):
a little bit about about how you define emotional intelligence.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Do you take them out?
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Do you take the Salave Mayer Caruso model, do you
like the Daniel Goleman model. There's so many different models
of emotional intelligence, you know, do you adopt one or
do you have your own? I'll shut up now and
just want to listen to you.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I mean, I think they all have value. You know,
Dan Goleman basically popularized a lot of the work that
Salavi and others had done in research a few years
before that, and so I give him a lot of
credit for bringing to the masses that framing. You know,
(18:46):
self awareness, social awareness, emotional regulation, all of those kinds
of things were you know, now they're part of our
vernacular in the leadership space and in the coaching space,
but they really weren't there twenty years ago. It was
all IQ, it wasn't EQ. So you know, Dan and
his colleagues, there's a number of them, Richard Biasis as
(19:07):
I mentioned, and others that have brought that to the
public sphere. I think have a real have added a
lot of value. I personally am a big fan of
the EQI two point zero emotional intelligence assessment, which I
think goes back to Peter Sellaby and his colleagues originally.
But what I love about it, and it's funny because
(19:29):
I was just coaching someone today using it, and it
was a physician, a very rational surgical surgeon, and you know,
he took this emotional intelligence assessment and he was a
little confused as to how it could be so complicated.
And but what I shared with him, which I think
he found valuable, was to break down the leadership activities
(19:50):
that he's involved in leading a team right of nurses
and technologists and anesthesiologists and all these other practitioners, all
these other clinicians, and recognizing that in almost every single
thing they do, there's an emotional component. You never completely
escape the feelings in the room, the feelings of the
(20:10):
people on the team, the feelings that you bring as
the leader, whatever. So emotions are always at play. And
what this assessment does is it breaks it down into
multiple categories like self awareness, self expression, independence versus interdependence,
a sense of social responsibility. One that you would like,
(20:31):
which is self actualization. Whether you feel like what you're
doing emotionally in your day to day world brings a
sense of satisfaction and contribution. There's also stress related emotional intelligence.
There's problem solving, like how do you solve problems when
there's emotions in the space, and then things like self
(20:52):
esteem and optimism. All of these are components. And what
my client, who tends to be very rational obviously as
a surgeon, loved about it was because he could actually divide.
He could see how the emotional components are so key
to all of these different activities as a leader, and
(21:13):
so it made a whole lot more sense. For example,
when we talked about problem solving, his initial reaction was, well,
you solve your problems with rational thought, with data, with analysis,
And I said, yeah, that's always true, but think about
when you're interacting with a patient another human being, or
when you're talking to your spouse or you know, you're
(21:36):
making decisions in your life, is it really true that
there's no emotional component? And he of course recognized, he
was like, you're right. I'm like, I'm always trying to
think about the especially with my patients, like how do
they feel about the data that I'm sharing with them? So, yeah,
problem solving is an emotional activity anyway, Just to summarize,
(21:57):
I mean, I think there are ways that we can
break down intelligence into very practical, useful domains that then
can be coached and developed. And I left out probably
one of the most important ones, which is empathy, right,
developing your sensitivity to what's going on with other people.
So those are just examples.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
Great examples. Well, how does realness come into play here?
I think that's a fascinating angle that you bring into
the emotional realm of life. What does that mean realness?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Well, I used realness just as part of a euphemism
for the acronym that I created in the model that
I wrote about in my book called Fierce. So realness
in that sense was just a quick term related to authenticity,
which is a much bigger context, a much bigger concept
construct Right. But what's interesting about this spectrum we talk
(22:54):
about alpha versus beta in the space of authenticity is that,
again on the more authoritative or alpha side, you have
authenticity that's very competent and strong and stoic, and you
want that quality and a lot of leaders at certain times.
But then think about the other end of the spectrum,
(23:15):
which is humility, vulnerability, relatability, and trust, and those are
also key components of authenticity, but they require what we
often think of as the softer side, right, And so
the key to success is developing the entire spectrum and
(23:37):
then being able to recognize when it's appropriate to be vulnerable,
to share your humanity. And what I always find is
interesting for clients, you know, when I'm working with executives,
they sometimes struggle with this because they think that if
they share vulnerability, or if they open their kimono and
share transparency about their own fears or their own insecurities,
(24:01):
that they will be viewed as being weak or less powerful.
And the irony is the opposite is true. They'll be
trusted even more, they'll be respected even more, they will
be followed more willingly because their humanity is one of
the core elements of their leadership capability. Right. People love
(24:24):
to follow someone who's both strong but also human.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
M that's why I hit the gym. Get that strong part. No,
I love it.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
I love it. So we got the mental the emotional. Basically, folks,
what we're doing here is we're going through his fierce model.
We've already covered, we've gotten into fire, and now we're
going to.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Go for the CE part.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Okay, so let's talk about the somatic elements of your
fire model. First of all, before we go into the
specifics of collaboration and gay what does somatic mean? What
does that mean?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Well, the simple version is it's anything and everything that's physical, right,
the physical energy. Somatics are the physicality of the beings
of r of how we show up. And the reason
it's so relevant in the space of collaboration and engagement
is because the neuroscience studies and other research that's been
(25:26):
done around the way human beings interact with each other
is that a lot of what happens between people that
creates a sense of trust, connection, relationship is based not
on the words, not on verbal but on your physical presence,
your nonverbals, your eye contact, your smile, which I don't
(25:51):
do enough of. I think you know, all of those
kinds of things. And even in zoom calls, you know,
I coach my clients make sure they show their hands
so that they don't look like they're just like from
the neck up right. So it's all of those kinds
of things that are really crucial to creating an environment
of safety and connection and trust. And if you're alive,
(26:14):
like in a room with people, then you want to
pay attention to the energy of the space. And I
always give a simple example, which is the difference between
a long, rectangular power oriented table versus a circle. And
when people sit in a circle, there's no automatic boss,
(26:36):
there's no automatic leader, so people relax a little more,
they feel like they're part of a community, Whereas if
you're sitting at a boardroom, there's someone at the head
of the table that automatically physically creates an energy of power.
So that's just one example, but those are the kinds
of things that leaders need to think about when they
(26:59):
start to do to reflect on their somatic presence.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Okay, so the two main components of that. Thank you
for elaborating that. The two main components are collaboration and engagement.
I think a lot of us can wrap our head
around collaboration, but what is engagement?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
How is that relevant?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Well, with engagement, I think what you're trying to focus
in on here is the age old dichotomy of productivity
versus creativity, because when you want to engage with your
team as a leader in an organizational context, you often
want to get both. And this is a bit of
a double edged sword because productivity is very much management oriented,
(27:42):
time oriented structure disciplines. You know, you have a perk
chart you want to follow to get productivity, whereas creativity,
as we mentioned earlier, requires a much more fluid space
where people are more relaxed, they allow themselves to have
daydreaming and kind of see what comes up. And the
(28:05):
engagement space that creates one or the other. They're very different.
They're very different. And I've worked with clients with leaders
that tend to be leaning in one direction or the other.
And I think I wrote a couple of case studies
in the book of both examples where I had one
leader who really wanted to have it. He had a
very creative team that was in the media space, but
(28:29):
his team never got any projects finished. They always came
up with new ideas. They were constantly brainstorming, and it's
because he was so flexible and fluid and created this
wonderful creative environment. But then they didn't have enough discipline
to get the work done. So he had to inject
some alpha productivity approaches to his creative space and vice versa.
(28:53):
You know, you have the highly productive, like get the
work done kind of leader, and then he demands his
team to be more creative and they all kind of
look at him like, we're totally burnt out. You want creativity,
we're exhausted.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So anyway you get the idea, Yeah, I do, I do.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
And then collaboration. How can leaders foster better collaborative spirit?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Well, the first thing it gets back to that topic
of creating psychological safety, right, yeah, And the key, one
of the keys there is creating an environment where people
feel safe to speak up. You know, my friend, my
friend and colleague Amy Edmondson at Harvard Business School when
she started, you know, she's now the world renowned expert
(29:37):
in that space. But she started that project many years
ago by studying the operating rooms at mass General Hospital
and what was the reason that some of them worked
well and some of them didn't. And there were a
lot of more mistakes in the operating room than was acceptable.
And the fundamental key was whether or not people felt
(29:59):
safe enough to speak up. And that had to do
with the leadership style that was created in the environment.
And so if you extrapolate that research that she did
into other organizations where you want to create collaborative space,
it starts with psychological safety and people having permission to
say what they think and not feel like they're going
(30:20):
to be chastised or criticized. And then I think the
second component, and I spent some time on this in
my book, is to have leaders recognize the difference between
being an advisor and a delegator and a coach, and
they need to do both. There are times when you
need to delegate and advise and give direction, but if
(30:42):
you want to create collaborative spaces, then you also need
to coach. And coaching is not about having power over
other people and being directive or advisory. It's really about
creating more of a sense of equality, right, And so
asking questions and listening and and sort of making the
space equal among people so that everyone participates. And that's
(31:08):
more creates a coaching dynamic. So those are some of
the key elements of creating the collaborative energy.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Mm I gotcha.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
The idea of coach, well, yeah, let's dive into coaching. Yeah,
let's let's dive into that world is a good segue
because something I really like a concept of your book
is this notion of self coaching. You know, we can
we can be our own leaders, our own best leaders
as well, right, And I think that's a really cool,
really cool way of thinking about life. You know, Karen Horney,
the psychoanalyst called it, called it self analysis. You know,
(31:39):
like like using psychoanalysis for yourself. But I think the
new age, the newer version of it is self coaching.
So what is self coaching?
Speaker 3 (31:49):
How can you be?
Speaker 5 (31:50):
How can you be your own leadership coach?
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Well, it's funny you would mention Karen Horney, because of
course my training is originally from Carl Jung. I was
a young and trained psychology just love it. And you know,
his whole fundamental theme was individuation. Right, that life is
a lifelong process of first developing an ego as a child,
(32:14):
as an adolescent, as an early young adult, you develop
your ego, which is giving you a sense of competency, capability,
being able to operate in the world, right, And you
get that mostly from your family, traditional parents, your family system,
your school system. But at a certain point later in
life that can become problematic because it becomes rigidified and
(32:38):
you get sort of stuck in your personality, your belief
that this is the way the world is, this is
the way I am, and so young would always say,
you know, part of your challenge in life is to
get over your childhood right and to constantly be looking
for opportunities to break through into what he called like
(33:00):
a more permeable transcendent space. And I think that that
it's it's interesting because that's from like twenty thirty forty
years ago, but I think self coaching is very much
along those same lines. It's recognizing that you're on a
learning journey and that you know your personality is not
(33:21):
a rigid it's not etched and stone. You know, studies
have been done that brain is a great deal of
brain plasticity, that we're constantly growing and changing. And so
if you want to develop yourself, you think of yourself
almost like a musical instrument, and you learn to see
it as a lifelong expansion of your capacities, and you
(33:45):
want to keep an open mind, and fundamentally to self coach,
you want to create feedback loops. You know, where do
you get feedback from your colleagues, from your partner, from
your friends, from your employees. You know, are you willing
(34:05):
and open to taking feedback from wherever it's offered, especially
if it's done with the best of intentions, But you
know that is that is a key element of self
coaching is and my my colleague Marshall Goldsmith, who's you know,
the number one coach in the world so to speak,
you know, and he's a great human being.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
He developed this very simple form of self coaching which
I mentioned in my book also, which is called feed forward,
where you and I use it all the time. Where
you literally whenever you do something, you give a presentation,
or you put together a new paper, or you do
something you know where you're producting presenting a product of
(34:47):
some sort, and you just ask the people you respect,
people that colleagues or the audience, you know, people then
that you know that you respect their opinion, to give
you you one specific thing that you could do even better.
That's called feed forward. What would I if I do
it again and I do it even better?
Speaker 3 (35:09):
What would you think I could do so good?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Right? So it's just continuous learning basically, and being open
to recognizing that you're never finished, you're always on an
improvement process.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Literally taking notes doing this interview.
Speaker 5 (35:26):
I don't normally do that in podcasters, and I'm like
continuous learning and being it's so good, you're saying such
good stuff. I actually met Marshall Goldsmith for the first
time the other day at a Better Up Coaching after party,
when Prince Harry was in the room, right, and we
were all drinking, and I met him a little bit tipsy,
and he think he was a little bit tipsy, and
(35:47):
it was just he was, this is really funny. You know,
he's just a you know, I assume he's like that sober,
but just we were just really funny.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
He was just really funny. But anyway, I really like
meeting Marshall Goldsmith. He's very great guy. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
You know, you had this great panel at the Better
Up conference and you were asked what do you see
as some of the most important things for the future
of coaching now? Most my listeners were not at that panel,
So if you don't mind talking a little bit more
about that, what you see as the most exciting areas
(36:21):
of coaching for the twenty first century, especially the kind
of the world we live in right now.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, no, you're right. I was a really nice panel
and the theme was the future of coaching, the future
of human development? Where are we headed? What kind of
research should we be doing? And I think what you're
pointing to is that there were two or three key
themes that came up not just from me, but from
the other experts on the panel. One is that we
(36:47):
have to become much more aware of the strengths and
the potential liabilities of being very Western in our approach.
That we now live in a global village. Were literally
a global village.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
And I mean it.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It's a small planet, right. And when I go to
do coaching in other countries in China and India, which
is one of the fastest growing democracies, and coaching is
huge there. I was just there last week. You know,
they don't always appreciate having a Western overlay to everything
that's being taught. There's value because we bring a scientific approach.
(37:26):
We bring thousands of years of Western civilization and knowledge,
but there's also a lot to be gleaned from Eastern approaches,
from indigenous approaches, from the wisdom traditions of indigenous tribes
in South America, and the Aborigine Aboriginal tribal approaches. I
(37:46):
read a book by Tyson Jung Komporda recently called Santok,
which I highly recommend.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
That sounds great.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
You know, he's interweaving the West and the Eastern narratives
and it's really powerful.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Stuff.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
So that's one thing, as I think we need to
become a little bit more permeable and broad in our
perspective on human development and include some of these non
Western approaches. So that's because we will all benefit from that,
and for too long many of them have been marginalized.
But there's a lot of wisdom there. So that's one area.
(38:23):
And then the second one that I brought up that
I think is also kind of emerging on the scene
is how can we leverage people that have what we
call neurodiversity, you know, that are bringing in a wide
range of intellectual capacities that may not always look sort
(38:44):
of mainstream. They may be and I'm always worried about labels,
you know, people that are on the spectrum or autistic
or have aspergers or whatever. You know, it's a little
bit of a double edged sword because on the one hand,
they need to have some recognition, and our psychology communities
have a tendency to diagnose and then label. But it
(39:08):
does bring those things into the conversation, which is probably
a good thing. But I also want to be careful
not to label people and then have them feel denigrated
or judged because there's so much potential. There's so much brilliance,
there's so much wisdom, there's so much creativity, and I
did share that on the panel. I think that what
(39:28):
is it, ten or fifteen years ago, we had the
American Disabilities Act in the US and mainstreaming of people
that had been left out of work, the work world,
the education systems, all of which was really great. But
now we need to go to the next level, and
we need to not just allow people that are different
(39:49):
into our mainstream systems. We need to leverage their talents
and their capabilities. And so this is an opportunity for
coaches because I've seen the power of where coaching can
really bring to life someone who has perhaps a different
way of seeing the world, and it's just powerful, and
(40:13):
I'd like to see more of it. I'd like to see,
you know, rather than giving a lot of pharmaceutical approaches
to like ADHD and things like that, which may be
appropriate under certain circumstances, yes, but I'd love to see
more coaching, yes, and brought into those spaces of add ADHD, autism,
all of those kinds of things. So neurodiversity is an
(40:35):
area that I think is one that we could do
better research and also equip our coaches to be more
capable and comfortable.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Oh, I completely agree.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Well, obviously, obviously my whole career is a bit supporting
the neurodiversity movement. But I got a LinkedIn message the
other day from someone, a woman who is a neurodiversity coach,
and I thought that was interesting because I never heard
of that before as like a specific thing. And she
reached out she liked my book Transcend, and I was like, wow,
(41:06):
this is amazing what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
I'd love to hear more. And we had a zoom call.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
And and she said, you know, she feels a little
bit lonely in the coaching space. You know that there's
not many who identify as neurodiversity coaches or who work
with that specific population, and so there's just so much
potential there in the coaching community, as you've astutely pointed out.
So absolutely, Okay, what else about the do you want
(41:30):
to keep going?
Speaker 3 (41:32):
We got, Well, you say.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
One more, I'll say one more thing about it, please do,
and that is that there's a there is an intersection
between the two themes that I brought up, the bringing
in the indigenous wisdom traditions and neurodiversity because and I
can give a reference. There's a wonderful woman that I
(41:55):
had to do a webinar for us at the Institute
of Coaching at Harvard on neurodiverse City and Community building.
And her name is Lana Yelenev, and she's a Filipino,
but she also comes from a indigenous tradition in the Philippines.
And what she brought to us was this idea that
in many indigenous traditions, if you look at African traditions,
(42:19):
you look at North American Indian traditions, you look and
I learned from her about the Filipino and digit I
didn't even know there was such a thing. So even
I was taking notes, in many of those indigenous traditions,
people that are considered odd or unusual, or what we
might call even retarded, which is a really inappropriate term,
(42:42):
or disabled, right, those individuals are actually included in the
community because they bring talents, they bring gifts, and so
those indigenous communities actually ask the question, what is the
gift that this individual needs to bring to our community?
(43:06):
Why we have someone Yeah, it's like, why do we
have someone who has this so called inability or disability?
Or different ability in our community? What is there? What
is their gift? And that is a wonderful way of
reframing what in the West has led to almost a
(43:26):
monochromatic approach to normalcy.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Right, I agree.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
So anyway, there's there's this wonderful intersection between the wisdom
traditions and some of this indigenous approaches and not just
welcoming and respecting but literally leveraging neurodiverse individuals getting them
to participate and actually be part of the creativity of
that we need in the world.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Well, it's beautiful and I mean it's it's also a
very powerful coaching question. You know, what is the gift
that you bring to the world? You know, it's just
you know, that's from an individual coaching perspective as well,
having a very you know, I'm a very strengths based
oriented guy. What can I say? So I really resonate
with that a lot. How far can we take this?
(44:11):
Can we take this Tulso viewpoint? Diversity? That's a little
bit more of a controversial topic. But you know, in
politics right now, everyone's ripping their heads off. You know,
if you disagree with my political viewpoint, you're dead to me.
You know, it's as opposed to, like, I don't know, like,
would it be cheeky to be like, let's say you're
a Democrat and you're talking to a Republican, you know,
(44:33):
asking the Republican, Oh, what are some of your gifts
you can bring to the table with your unique perspective
on the matters, you know, like as opposed to just
immediately saying, oh, you're a Republican, get out of here,
you know, or vice versa, you know, the Republican looking
at a you know, a Democrat.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
I don't know. Can we further extend this powerful coaching
question to viewpoint diversity as well, or is that destined
for failure?
Speaker 4 (44:55):
No?
Speaker 1 (44:56):
I think it is. It's destined as you're pointing to,
what is a great opportunity actually in the coaching space,
because I think one of the fastest growing skill sets
for coaches is group coaching and team coaching and facilitation,
And if you really want to learn how to do that, well,
then you're creating spaces for people to feel safe enough
(45:19):
to share what their deepest fear might be, or their
deepest aspiration might be, their deepest desire might be. And
at the end of the day, what we often find
when we have enough safety created in the listening space,
is that as human beings, we all want the same thing, right,
We're not really as far apart from each other as
(45:41):
we think. I often go back to my political science
classes where when they talked about the far right and
the far left, and then you realize that the far
right enough to go around and they end up being
in the same players.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, there's great opportunity for coaches to be come good
facilitators in this space to create dialogue because at the
end of the day, what we're talking about is how
can we have more dialogue rather than not what's the
word for disagreement, right, dialogue instead of yes.
Speaker 5 (46:13):
That was actually next to my list to kind of
end the interview with you saying we live in an
age of convergence, and I was going to ask, how
do you reconcile that with all of our talk about
you know, diversity and indifference, But you just answered it.
I mean, you just did it. Yeah, So we in
a lot of ways, while it seems as though we're
living in the age of discord and strife, you actually
(46:38):
think we live in the age of convergence. And that's
that's a very unique spin on the situation. Can you
elaborate in that and kind of us end us here
today on a positive hope for humanity?
Speaker 3 (46:47):
My friend.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Yeah, I'll just say two things about that. One is
that where I came out on the on what I
call the Age of convergence is the recognition that all
of these dichotomy ease that are embedded in our culture
left brain, right brain, male, female, masculine, feminine. Oh god,
you can go on and on. You know, computers are
(47:11):
you know, bits and bytes right on and off system
kind of in system one thinking and system two thinking,
all of which is incredibly valuable on one level. Yeah,
but it's also pointing to sort of a black and
white mindset. And if we want to transcend that again,
(47:33):
I'm so much of a Jungian. It's always about breaking
through the ye you know, the splits, right. If we
want to transcend it, we have to recognize that the
only thing that keeps us from moving through the fluidity
of those dichotomies and bringing them together is fear.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I go back to the Buddhists like Pema Children, who
basically said is there's only two ways of being in
the world fear and love. You're either in fear or
you're in love ool, And that's matt In fact, maybe
that's the one dichotomy that's worth having, is recognizing the
(48:17):
difference between fear and love, because if you're in a
dialogue and you're talking Republicans and Democrats and blue states
and red states and all that, at the end of
the day, the rankor the anger is really about fear.
You know, we're afraid of each other. We're afraid we're
going to get hurt. We're afraid that we're going to
lose something, We're going to lose the Great American Dream
(48:38):
or whatever it is. If we can shift our mindset,
and this is where coaches can help, if we can
shift our mindset to recognize that we're all the same,
We're all human beings. We all want to feel safe,
we all want love, and if we can love each
other across the table, then that opens the energy to listen.
(49:00):
And when we start listening to each other, we begin
to realize that we're not really all that far apart.
So that's my note of optimism, I guess, and maybe
some people will say I'm doing the rose colored classes,
but I am an optimist. What can I.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
Say, Well, what I would say is this, there is
a really important place for you in this world. And
your perspective. I'm saying, even if there are people listening
and it's not their perspective and they're like more of
like a dominant, you know, kind of personality, you can
imagine a real a real you know, like dominant you know,
like jacked up on testosterone listening to you and rolling
(49:41):
their eyes. But but your perspective is incredibly valuable. And
that's and I think that's what I want to highlight today.
In this world. There's a great place for there's a
great place in the coaching world to you know, it's
almost wide open to the coaching world. We need to
you know, we need to put this more in there,
you know, emotional intelligence and all the things you talked
about today. Seriously, thank you so much for I'm so
(50:03):
glad we finally recorded this, and I'm so glad I
can't wait to share this with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
So thank you so much for all the great work
you're doing.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Jeffrey, Well, thank you for having me. It's ever since
I read your book. I love all of the work
that you did and upgrade, you know, and updating Abraham
Maslow's work. And I love your sailboat metaphor. And you
know a lot of the themes that you write about
in terms of self actualization, they just resonate so powerfully
(50:30):
with me that you know, maybe there'll be people out
there that don't just disagree with us, but I think
what we're trying to do is positive for the world,
and I think your work also represents that in a
really powerful way.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Thank you so much, Thanks so much.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
I always get confused when someone disagrees with a humanistic
perspective than this is really what we're presenting here, you know,
but look, I just thank you so much. That means
so much. And glad we recorded this.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Yeah, me too. Look forward to seeing you again soon.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
Likewise, thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast.
If you'd like to react in some way to something
you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
at thus psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube
page thus Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos
(51:25):
of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so
you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such
a great supporter of the show. And tune in next
time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.