July 2, 2025 • 39 mins
Claire Pedrick and Andrew Cain are in conversation about why improv skills make great coaches. They discuss how stepping into the unknown can lead to discovery, the importance of partnership in coaching, and the value of creating a playful and open environment for breakthroughs. Andrew shares his journey into improv and how it has shaped his approach to coaching, the need to unlearn perfectionism and how to embrace mistakes as part of the learning process.
Key Takeaways:
- Improv allows us to step into the unknown and discover new insights.
- Some lessons can only be learned through experience, not books.
- Going into a liminal space can lead to valuable discoveries.
- Coaching is about partnering with people in their journey of not knowing.
- Breakthroughs in coaching often come from playful exploration.
- Treating people as poets and geniuses fosters creativity.
- Everything in improv is disposable, allowing for flexibility.
- Creating space for emergence is crucial in coaching.
- Unlearning perfectionism opens up new possibilities.
- Mistakes should be embraced as part of the learning process.
Sound Bites:
- "Improv helps us step into not knowing."
- "We can't learn everything from a book."
- "There's value in going into the liminal space."
- "Discovery means partnering with them in not knowing."
- "Everything is disposable in improv."
- "Improv is about unlearning rather than adding more."
- "Breakthroughs in coaching are not linear."
Contact:
- Contact Andrew Cain through playconnect.co.uk
- Contact Claire by emailing info@3dcoaching.com or check out our Substack where you can talk with other listeners.
- Check out Showstoppers on YouTube
Promotional Information:
- THECOACHINGINN 10% off Coaching with Presence online if you sign up before 15 July 2025
- The online programme will be Tuesdays 09.15-11.30 (UK) 11th | 18th | 25th November 2025
- The next onsite programme is November 2025 in Warwick, UK
Further Information:
- Subscribe or follow The Coaching Inn on your podcast platform or our YouTube Channel to hear or see new episodes as they drop.
- Find out more about 3D Coaching and get new ideas and offers in our weekly email.
Coming Up:
- Writing a coaching or leadership book…
Keywords:
improv, coaching, presence, discovery, creativity, partnership, learning, transformation, experimentation, vulnerability
We love having a variety of guests join us! Please remember that inviting someone to participate does not mean we necessarily endorse their views or opinions. We believe in open conversation and sharing different perspectives.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn.
I'm your host, Claire Pedrick.
And if you want to get every episode as it downloads or is released, remember to subscribeor follow on your podcast platform.
Check out our Inside The Coaching Inn sub stack to see what's going on behind the scenes.
And then we know who you are, which would be fantastic.
(00:37):
Today, here we have the one and only, Andy Kane.
who is our online improv teacher for our Coaching with Presence training.
Not to be confused with Stuart Reid, who is our on-site presence teacher.
What a delight to have you here today.
(00:58):
Andy, how are you?
it's great.
I'm excited to see you again, Claire.
It's been a long time.
Feels like a long time anyway.
Six months maybe.
I know, too long.
Too long.
too long.
That's what I feel, yeah.
And uh you were on it more than I was to remember that our lovely listeners might like tomeet you to find out a bit more about why we use improv uh and about what improv training
(01:28):
with you is like uh in our Coaching with Presence training.
And I've just come off a podcast recording with the fabulous Georgina Woodstra.
who does team coaching training and she is so convinced about improv being a way ofteaching people to step in when they don't know what to say.
(01:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
We've run there coaching with Presence twice, haven't we?
uh Thus far.
And I know you've done it with Stuart as well.
um
think for me, the biggest, the juiciest part here is this stepping in when we don't know.
(02:17):
People often, just to back up for a second, I think people often have a particular view ofimprov as being about kind of like clever, witty people coming up with things very quickly
and making other people laugh, like on TV or in a theatre show.
(02:39):
And that's a beautiful form of it.
And there are different aspects to improv, a bit like dancing.
So we could...
Dancing could be professionals who are dancing and an audience watches it like in the UKon Strictly Come Dancing or something like that.
That's for performance.
(02:59):
And there's also dancing at a party or there's dancing at five rhythms, which is as a selfdiscovery.
And certainly for me, I'm much more interested in improv that's more like the second twokinds, either for the...
the pleasure of it, or um as a way to help us step into not knowing and discover somethingnew inside ourselves and in that with our clients.
(03:34):
I love that because I am really of the mind that some things we can't learn from a book.
However much we read or learn or research or anything else, there are some things that weactually have to just jump in and fail.
All right.
Yeah.
(03:54):
Yeah.
Well, but yes, being, being more okay to try things out.
My way of talking about failure.
Yeah.
Also a great value.
I'll be just said something that.
There's part of us that loves to make sense of experience and put it in a box.
(04:18):
And you said, there are things we can't learn from a book.
And I would go even a step further that there are some occasions where going into sort ofbook learning, stroke, thinking about it, stroke, analyzing actually takes us further
(04:38):
away.
from what would be helpful for us.
It's like we have, and I'm speaking, this is sort of my life experience as well, assomeone who started from like a very thinky kind of background and found a lot of value in
discovering this.
Other approach we can take of going, know what, I don't know.
(05:02):
And there's a value in going into that sort of liminal space between one set of knowingand this potential other way of knowing.
But we don't get to go straight there and we can't get there by thinking about what's onthis side.
We only get there by to you.
(05:22):
If it was one Island and another, you know, we have to paddle into.
open water and be like, okay, let's see where we get to.
Yeah, so what was your journey to improv, Andy?
My journey to improv.
Well, I've sort of hinted at it already that if we go way, way back, being a kind of avery sort of thinky teenager, I remember seeing it on TV when Whose Line Is It Anyway was
(05:52):
on TV and going, Whoa, what kind of voodoo is this?
And then many years passed.
then seeing it again live here in Brighton.
particularly with a group called the May Days who are excellent and having that samefeeling of, I, there's something magical happening here that I can't quite comprehend.
(06:17):
I need that.
And so that's what drew me in and drew me in with an equal proportion of really wanting itand being quite afraid of it and both at the same time.
So yeah, that was my way in.
I love your honesty.
I just have to tell you and our lovely listeners, there is a musical version of improv andthere's a musical troupe or whatever they call themselves called the Showstoppers and I'm
(06:49):
going to see them.
Oh way!
Great!
In London?
Or were on tour?
Ah!
Ah great!
Yeah, wonderful.
to walk and see them and then I'm going to walk home.
Wonderful.
Yes, yes.
They perform a lot of course, they perform a lot in London and there are some showsavailable online for some people who are aboard.
(07:14):
But show, yes, yeah, Showstoppers will create a whole show and musical numbers and songsfrom the audience suggestions.
And yeah, I just found that so entrancing.
and
(07:36):
At the time I just knew the feeling.
I knew I'm scared of this and I need it.
And now I realize it was just, it was part of me that I had sort of lost track of.
It's part of all of us, but as we grow up, many of us, particularly people who may be,sort of have been identified or kind of get called and praised to sort of being clever and
(08:00):
knowing the right answers and things, we can accidentally lose track of.
willingness to experiment, to step into not knowing, to explore, to be willing for thingsnot to work out.
We get hooked, we get too serious and our thinking...
(08:23):
I came across a quote the other day from Paracelsus, think he was an ancient Greekphysician, he says the dose makes the poison and what it means is like
little bit of salt.
That's good for you.
We'll need that.
Too much salt give you a heart attack or whatever.
And the same thing I think is true for thinking.
(08:47):
Enough thinking, really helpful.
Too much can begin to...
diminish our connection and presence in a coaching context or in any context and can lockus in a hall of mirrors where we're just looking at more and more symbols and reflections,
(09:11):
not seeing that there's a way out.
In simply in the human behind the coach, one of the lines that I wrote said, ouroverthinking creates under thinking in others.
And what you've described, all of what you've described is about co-creating, it's aboutpartnership, it's about bouncing off someone else to create something new and different.
(09:35):
Hmm.
Yes.
Because that's what I would guess your coaching clients want something new.
They don't want to just go around the same circles they've already been around.
And that means partnering with them in discovering.
(09:56):
And discovering means being willing to not know for a while.
Both you as the coach and
and embodying that for them too, for you to show them that it's okay not to knowimmediately.
I love that.
I love what you said.
(10:17):
Discovering means partnering them in not knowing.
Because if we know what we're doing and we're in control of what we're doing, then we'renot partnering them in not knowing.
We're trying to get them to not know in a space where we have got it absolutely tied downand nailed.
Yes, this and this was my background is as a solution focused hypnotherapist, so notmillion miles away from coaching.
(10:48):
as I was beginning, I would chat to people on the phone first before they came, what didthey want?
And I'd already be kind of thinking up, yeah, you know, we'll probably do this and thiswill probably come up and, you know, that kind of thing.
And
Yeah, it's good backup, but it's been really helpful to be able to let go of that and go,oh, what I thought would be happening is not what's actually happening.
(11:14):
And improv can really help us tune into like, not what should in inverted commas, whatshould be here, but what is here, what's actually happening.
to notice it and not freak out.
Hmm, be okay with that,
because if I'm not going to be okay with it, then I don't want to notice it.
(11:35):
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
that we're in a different place, then I don't know what to do, so I'm not going to look.
Mmm.
Yeah, I call it our safety brain, but part of us loves the known for very excellentevolutionary reasons, right?
(12:00):
It's much better to keep going to the same water hole that you always have been to than tojust chance it going somewhere else, right?
And so Deep Inners is a
a pull towards safety and knowing and known territory.
(12:22):
And so yeah, it can often feel a bit uncomfortable going into not knowing as coaches andfor clients too.
And yet that's where we can discover something new.
In improv, that can be just delightful and fun and joyful and filled with laughter.
In coaching, that's what a breakthrough is, right?
(12:43):
When somebody goes,
I see it in a new way.
This is not just another tactic for time management or whatever.
When they suddenly go, my goodness, everything's changed.
That's the discovery.
And I think probably that's what people really want.
Yeah.
(13:03):
is.
It is because they could do the other bit themselves.
Yes.
And that's in books.
You can type that into ChatGPT and get like 10 tactics straight away.
The massive added value from a coach, I would suggest, is that magic in the moment thatcan happen.
(13:28):
And improv is not the same, but it's pointing at that same willingness to discover.
and its willingness to step in, to take another step into the unknown and possibly anotherstep into the unknown after the last step into the unknown and push into new space,
(13:53):
because that's where we find new thinking.
what's he called?
Timothy Clark says that we have a first mover obligation to be vulnerable.
But maybe we also have a first mover obligation to not know.
(14:15):
to be willing to know and to have the humility of to know all that we don't know.
So even if we've seen a client before, even if they're filled in an intake form, there'sthat safety bit of our brain loves to put it in a box and go, oh, okay, it's one of those,
(14:36):
it's in that category.
And we can never know someone else's experience.
That's just reality and we kid ourselves if we think, oh yeah, this is that kind of thing.
(14:57):
What do you see in people who you train that makes you smile?
Oh, constantly.
You know what I love is
It's when people have the delight of surprising themselves, they do or say something thatthey could not have prepared, could not have predicted, and it just kind of comes out of
(15:31):
them.
it's joyful for them, and it's just magical to see those little moments.
And the...
is a
Improv pioneer Del Close used to say, uh treat your audience and stage partners like poetsand geniuses.
(15:53):
And I think we all have that.
That's what I love is when people are in a class or whatever and like something amazingwill happen and they're like, whoa, where did that come from?
that's a beautiful, magical thing, which happens quite a lot.
It's like several times per class probably.
(16:15):
Yeah.
And that's that same point where we've got out of linear thinking and found a newparadigm, a new way of being, a new way of seeing.
So let's treat the people we coach as poets and geniuses.
Yeah, right.
(16:36):
You talked about overthinking and under thinking, right?
If there's a sneaky bit of us as coaches, that's like, secretly, I know what you need todo about this.
And I'm just gonna kind of guide you to get there.
It's like, oh, we're not treating them like the poet and genius that's there.
(16:57):
That has something new that we could never have thought of.
Improv is very much a relational thing, was just going to say, that it's not about oneperson being really, really clever.
It's an emergent property that comes from relationship, trust, openness and willingness.
(17:22):
I love the principle that everything is disposable.
So I love it when either with you or with Stuart, we do scenes where somebody starts andthen someone else responds to exactly what's happening in the room and then the other one
does.
But often when I'm, because I participate, don't I, in every course as a delegate, andoften you have a little cunning plan of what you think the story is going to be and you
(17:47):
offer back your offer and they turn it into something else altogether.
And you've got to chuck whatever it was that you decided that this scene was about twopeople going on holiday.
And suddenly it's about people in the bottom of a basement in a castle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a constant letting go, right?
A constant letting go of what we think is going to happen and tell you, no, no, back here,what is happening?
(18:13):
What is happening?
Yeah.
And then that beautiful thing, if we don't know what to do, look at them.
When you don't know what to say, look, what, how does that go as a principle?
Yeah, I think Sanford Meisner, who was an acting teacher, said the answer is in the eyesof the other person.
(18:37):
Thank you for that.
All right.
Yeah, Sanford Meisner.
You might have heard of the Meisner technique.
And feel like we're having quite a serious conversation about, which is fine.
I quite like that.
And I like how improv can be like both, it's both, right?
(18:59):
It's frothy and deep.
I think this is perhaps an interesting point to nail as well, I think in.
common conversation, we often think things can either be fun or important, like they'reone or the other.
And there's this other place where something can be laughter-filled and fun and joyful andimportant at the same time.
(19:26):
I wonder what game we can play now.
Yeah, well, since we just mentioned it, we could.
we could comment on how each other speaks.
(19:47):
First person will say you seem and then however we read, we're reading the other person.
And then second person, you will agree with it, which is a general principle in improvjust to keep, keep things rolling along and say like why, why that is.
(20:07):
And we might carry on a little bit, but that's, that'll be the beginning.
And if you're watching, if you're listening on audio, then you can imagine what the otherperson is looking like from what we say.
Do you want to have a go at that?
Okay.
You seem kind of nervous.
(20:32):
I am nervous.
cause.
because I don't know what to do next!
Yes, right, yeah, cool.
Right, let's just rewind a little bit.
do you me to...
Maybe we'll do it the other way.
So, we're going to...
(20:54):
You can say, I will just be however I am.
You can say, you seem this emotion and I will...
say yes and because and give the reason why.
And then it might carry on a little bit or we might just.
Okay.
You seem thoughtful.
(21:17):
Yes, I am thoughtful.
I have a poem just waiting to...
and
feel like it's nearly there.
hoping you're my muse.
(21:37):
And I am your muse, so...
Oh, great.
You finally come.
Amazing.
Wonderful.
Hooray.
Cool.
uh Yeah, I'm in the news.
Cool.
Yeah, great.
Thank you for jumping in, Claire, with zero planning of what we were going to do and how.
(22:04):
Yes, and like even then it's like, or just from there, we ended up with
Oh, me being a poet in my, I didn't say it, but in my head I was on a riverbank sort ofwatching some flowers go by.
Uh, and then, oh, then even the fact that, um, you weren't offering much apart from kindof going, or at least you weren't offering lots of words, we say, it sounds like, and, and
(22:32):
took me to this completely new place of, oh, you must be my muse.
Oh.
And then that was super exciting for me because was like, oh, that's a fun scenario that'semerged just from that.
And because I was watching you, so if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see I waswatching Andy and I was watching the poem emerging inside of you.
(22:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And yeah, so that, you know, and then we're just in this new place already.
And you know, that's if people listening have uh friends or they're willing to play with,so that'd be a lovely one to do.
You seem second person, yes, because, and then the first person might play along and, youknow, there might be a little interchange after that.
(23:22):
until you find yourself somewhere new.
And it often provokes laughter, right?
We were both laughing.
The is the laughter of discovery, I don't know what it is.
Because there wasn't like a joke, right?
It's just, how delightful.
Because it's fun because something's emerging and we're kind of playing together to watchit come out.
(23:47):
Which I think is what happens in coaching is we're lightly holding it.
as it emerges and it emerges because of the lightness not because of the heaviness.
Because if I'd said to you Andy, I think there's a poem inside you so I'm going to sithere with you while your poem emerges.
(24:14):
You're gonna go, I haven't got a poem.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
Yes.
In improv we say bring a brick, not a cathedral.
um Which is...
So you were just bringing like the tiniest little...
tiny little brick or pebble, just and.
(24:35):
And you could have brought more, but that was already beautiful.
And...
Yeah.
One of the things we practice is not, you say, oh, you look thoughtful.
And I say, yes, because I'm a poet sitting on a rubber bank about to write a poem, andyou're my muse who's come to help me.
And then it's like, we're not in partnership anymore.
(24:59):
I've just kind of steamrolled the whole thing as to how I think it should be.
And there's something there for coaching as well, isn't there, of just allowing thatspace.
allowing it to be a third thing that emerges between you.
(25:19):
Yes, genius and absolutely.
So Oscar Trimboli talks about the three parts of a conversation, you and me and theconversation.
And that's where I'm doing some really interesting work at the moment.
So I love what you said, I like this morning.
Did you read my mind?
(25:41):
Cool.
But I think when we get too close to each other, that third thing can't emerge in thespace between us.
And one of the things that people will notice that I use now that I didn't used to use,instead of saying I ask a question, I say make an offer.
(26:01):
And I got that from you and Stuart, an improv.
Yes.
And it only needs to be a little offer because you and I are watching this conversationbetween us grow.
So I only needs to be a little offer because what's really happening is happening betweenus and inside of you or inside of me.
(26:28):
And we probably all have habits around that.
some of us, I would say this is true for me.
tend to be, my tendency is to like be pushing a bit too much and be taking up like, I sortof have a bit of an agenda and with the best of intentions, like, yeah, I want to get a
(26:50):
good result, and some of us tend to be a bit too, like not offering enough, being too.
there for everybody.
If they're like, huh, like where, what's my default and where am I doing that too much?
what you just did really interests me because you lent right into the camera and then youkind of went horizontal.
(27:18):
So interestingly in a class I was running this morning I invited somebody to stand up andstay vertical and move backwards.
So to make the space bigger but to stay vertical.
Yes.
which is not the same as leaning back and going horizontal because they were equallypresent, but the space was bigger.
(27:42):
Hmm
There's so much to learn, isn't there?
Yes.
And these more subtle things, I feel like that this is where the, the deeper value ofcoaching lies.
And it's what the extent to which coaches can embody the things they're talking about andusing that's, that's the difference between being fine and being amazing.
(28:12):
Um, and
You know, can all be, the first step here is being aware of it, isn't it?
And having the idea or reading a book or whatever, but then practicing it, getting it inour systems and getting used to it, embodying it.
(28:33):
That's where it becomes part of the, you know, the presence that we talk about in thecoaching for improv session.
It's interesting that you, you decided the title Claire.
But it's not cool actually, improv for coaches, it's called coaching with presence.
Because that's sort of the outcome, that is practice in developing that like a, this ishow I read it anyway, like.
(29:05):
Like going to the gym helps you get stronger rather than just reading a book about howit's really good to lift weights or something.
You know we actually can experience it.
Yeah, go on.
I love sending people a detentance certificate for six and a half hours continuingprofessional development or coach education hours.
(29:27):
nobody wrote, well, people do write notes because they stop and they go, oh yeah, butthey, but it's about, it's about doing it.
It's about jumping in and doing it.
yeah, so it's quite content light, I think it's fair to say, right?
In fact, there is almost no...
(29:51):
sort of directly didactic element, which kind of we run some experiential improv games andthen Claire, you help people draw out what they've been experiencing and learning.
Yeah.
every time it's different.
And the thing that makes me laugh so much about what you do and what Stuart does is thatif there's a really good one, which seems to be complete revelation to the delegates on
(30:20):
this course, if we ever try and run it again, thinking, there's going to be a revelationfor all the delegates if we do this game, they would never understand why we've done it
because what we've done is we've gone back to
a little bit of a curriculum, which I know for us is only a little word on the back of anenvelope.
(30:41):
But it doesn't work because it's the emergent that's the thing that makes coaching unique.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
there's a thing, know I'm having a quote festival today, aren't I?
another one's just come to mind.
If I can get it right, this is around meditation and mindfulness.
(31:07):
I think it's from the Dalai Lama, and it says something like...
enlightenment happens as an accident.
We can't make it happen on schedule, but we can make ourselves more accident prone.
And yes, right.
(31:29):
And if we substitute enlightenment for sort of breakthrough moment in coaching and inimprov, it doesn't happen for schedule.
It's not like, okay, we're going to do this exercise, people are going to have thatexperience and that happens.
No, it's not like that.
However, when we create the right conditions and trust and we're there and we're presentand if you're a coach and you're present with your clients, you don't know when a
(32:00):
breakthrough is going to happen, but you can create the environment.
In one of my books I said you can't make transformation happen but you can learn to stopstopping it.
Yes, lovely.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like how you put that.
Yes.
(32:20):
Yes.
That's exactly how I would talk about improv as well, actually, the kind that we do isthere aren't a ton of things to learn.
In fact, more kind of like book learning is probably going to get in the way of anything.
But what we can do is unlearn.
some of the ways we block ourselves, resist, get tight and tense, get stuck and allowourselves to flow more naturally.
(32:49):
So it's a lot of unlearning rather than adding extra tough stuff in.
and safely noticing when we're stopping ourselves stepping in because we're overthinking.
yeah, I just can't.
Oh, look, I did that.
Oh, right.
Yeah, because it's actually simple.
Yes.
(33:11):
But simple is not easy.
No, I would say for many of us, it was probably automatic.
When we were children, kind of playful creativity and just trying things out.
If it doesn't work, we just try something else.
(33:32):
No big deal.
And somewhere along the way for many of us, often through education or messages we getfrom
others growing up, we get rewarded for getting the right answer.
And then over time, we become fearful of not knowing the answer.
(33:54):
And then that can tip us into the kind of protective, overthinking perfectionism that'slike, it's trying to keep us safe, but it's actually dragging us, it's holding us back,
it's dragging us down often.
quite like the distinction that
(34:21):
Perfectionism is a fear of making mistakes.
and as opposed to healthy striving as a willingness to do our best, which might includesome things not going to plan.
I was talking to a coach the other day and he was saying that a dance teacher of his hadsaid, it's not about learning to stop making mistakes.
(34:48):
It's about learning to stop being afraid of making mistakes because that's what stops us.
Yes, that's when we can explore and experiment.
I think there's...
another beautiful overlap here is a kind of experimental mindset.
(35:14):
in school, they say, if you know the answer, then put up your hand, right?
And raise your hand.
And improv is like, if you'd like a go, then raise your hand and we'll see what happens.
And the other way around.
And that's also...
That's also like a scientific experimental mindset as well, right?
(35:36):
It's like, OK, we want to discover something here, so we have to, we're going to do 10experiments and we expect nine of them to not help and just go, yeah, that's fine.
That didn't work.
We can do another thing.
No big deal.
I love the Wii.
(35:58):
Because actually that's what we're doing in coaching.
We are doing an experiment to see if we can discover some things.
It's not, I am doing an experiment to you or on you or at you.
And we won't get it right all the time.
This isn't scientifically proven, but I reckon that probably 80 % of what the coach saysin coaching isn't very useful.
(36:21):
But 20 % is transformation.
You just don't know which bit it's going to be.
Yes.
Yes.
I think someone said the same thing about advertising.
said like, I think it was even more.
was like 90 % of money spent on advertising is wasted.
The problem is we just don't know which 90%.
(36:41):
So yeah, it's the same thing about that.
We can't, it's not a linear thing.
Discovery is not a linear thing.
breakthroughs in coaching are not linear, they don't go one, two, three, four.
(37:02):
paradigm shifts that happen when the circumstances are right and
We don't know when it's going to be, but a lightness and an openness and a trust.
helps that happen.
we need to be looking.
(37:23):
So can't wait to be running another course with you, Andy, because so.
uh So if you're listening and this is season five, uh it's the next online course isTuesday morning, starting on the 11th of November 2025.
Every other course, we do Asia Pacific one cohort, and then the next cohort is America's.
(37:50):
So this one will work for you if you're Asia-Pacific, the next one will work for you ifyou're in the Americas.
If you're in Europe, they should all work for you.
We've also got an online one, on-site one with Stuart coming up in the autumn.
And if you use Coaching In at the checkout, we'll put the link in the show notes.
If you use Coaching In at the checkout, you'll get a discount if you book now.
(38:15):
What's not to like?
What's not to
So if people want to find out a bit more about the improv that you do generally, Andy, howdo they find that out?
Best place is on my website, is playconnect.co.uk playconnect.co.uk
And if that's not about coaching, what is?
(38:43):
Yes, thank you so much for the chat, Chloe.
It's been great.
Thank you for listening, everyone, and we'll be back next week with another episode.
And we'll be together.
and I, in the autumn, do come and join us.
It's such fun.
And if you want to know more about it and you're in contact with my colleague Zoe, ask herabout olives.
(39:04):
which came up when Zoe and I did the course together and she'll tell you about olives.
Take care everyone.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
Cheers, bye.
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn.
I'm your host, Claire Pedrick.
And if you want to get every episode as it downloads or is released, remember to subscribeor follow on your podcast platform.
Check out our Inside The Coaching Inn sub stack to see what's going on behind the scenes.
And then we know who you are, which would be fantastic.
(00:37):
Today, here we have the one and only, Andy Kane.
who is our online improv teacher for our Coaching with Presence training.
Not to be confused with Stuart Reid, who is our on-site presence teacher.
What a delight to have you here today.
(00:58):
Andy, how are you?
it's great.
I'm excited to see you again, Claire.
It's been a long time.
Feels like a long time anyway.
Six months maybe.
I know, too long.
Too long.
too long.
That's what I feel, yeah.
And uh you were on it more than I was to remember that our lovely listeners might like tomeet you to find out a bit more about why we use improv uh and about what improv training
(01:28):
with you is like uh in our Coaching with Presence training.
And I've just come off a podcast recording with the fabulous Georgina Woodstra.
who does team coaching training and she is so convinced about improv being a way ofteaching people to step in when they don't know what to say.
(01:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
We've run there coaching with Presence twice, haven't we?
uh Thus far.
And I know you've done it with Stuart as well.
um
think for me, the biggest, the juiciest part here is this stepping in when we don't know.
(02:17):
People often, just to back up for a second, I think people often have a particular view ofimprov as being about kind of like clever, witty people coming up with things very quickly
and making other people laugh, like on TV or in a theatre show.
(02:39):
And that's a beautiful form of it.
And there are different aspects to improv, a bit like dancing.
So we could...
Dancing could be professionals who are dancing and an audience watches it like in the UKon Strictly Come Dancing or something like that.
That's for performance.
(02:59):
And there's also dancing at a party or there's dancing at five rhythms, which is as a selfdiscovery.
And certainly for me, I'm much more interested in improv that's more like the second twokinds, either for the...
the pleasure of it, or um as a way to help us step into not knowing and discover somethingnew inside ourselves and in that with our clients.
(03:34):
I love that because I am really of the mind that some things we can't learn from a book.
However much we read or learn or research or anything else, there are some things that weactually have to just jump in and fail.
All right.
Yeah.
(03:54):
Yeah.
Well, but yes, being, being more okay to try things out.
My way of talking about failure.
Yeah.
Also a great value.
I'll be just said something that.
There's part of us that loves to make sense of experience and put it in a box.
(04:18):
And you said, there are things we can't learn from a book.
And I would go even a step further that there are some occasions where going into sort ofbook learning, stroke, thinking about it, stroke, analyzing actually takes us further
(04:38):
away.
from what would be helpful for us.
It's like we have, and I'm speaking, this is sort of my life experience as well, assomeone who started from like a very thinky kind of background and found a lot of value in
discovering this.
Other approach we can take of going, know what, I don't know.
(05:02):
And there's a value in going into that sort of liminal space between one set of knowingand this potential other way of knowing.
But we don't get to go straight there and we can't get there by thinking about what's onthis side.
We only get there by to you.
(05:22):
If it was one Island and another, you know, we have to paddle into.
open water and be like, okay, let's see where we get to.
Yeah, so what was your journey to improv, Andy?
My journey to improv.
Well, I've sort of hinted at it already that if we go way, way back, being a kind of avery sort of thinky teenager, I remember seeing it on TV when Whose Line Is It Anyway was
(05:52):
on TV and going, Whoa, what kind of voodoo is this?
And then many years passed.
then seeing it again live here in Brighton.
particularly with a group called the May Days who are excellent and having that samefeeling of, I, there's something magical happening here that I can't quite comprehend.
(06:17):
I need that.
And so that's what drew me in and drew me in with an equal proportion of really wanting itand being quite afraid of it and both at the same time.
So yeah, that was my way in.
I love your honesty.
I just have to tell you and our lovely listeners, there is a musical version of improv andthere's a musical troupe or whatever they call themselves called the Showstoppers and I'm
(06:49):
going to see them.
Oh way!
Great!
In London?
Or were on tour?
Ah!
Ah great!
Yeah, wonderful.
to walk and see them and then I'm going to walk home.
Wonderful.
Yes, yes.
They perform a lot of course, they perform a lot in London and there are some showsavailable online for some people who are aboard.
(07:14):
But show, yes, yeah, Showstoppers will create a whole show and musical numbers and songsfrom the audience suggestions.
And yeah, I just found that so entrancing.
and
(07:36):
At the time I just knew the feeling.
I knew I'm scared of this and I need it.
And now I realize it was just, it was part of me that I had sort of lost track of.
It's part of all of us, but as we grow up, many of us, particularly people who may be,sort of have been identified or kind of get called and praised to sort of being clever and
(08:00):
knowing the right answers and things, we can accidentally lose track of.
willingness to experiment, to step into not knowing, to explore, to be willing for thingsnot to work out.
We get hooked, we get too serious and our thinking...
(08:23):
I came across a quote the other day from Paracelsus, think he was an ancient Greekphysician, he says the dose makes the poison and what it means is like
little bit of salt.
That's good for you.
We'll need that.
Too much salt give you a heart attack or whatever.
And the same thing I think is true for thinking.
(08:47):
Enough thinking, really helpful.
Too much can begin to...
diminish our connection and presence in a coaching context or in any context and can lockus in a hall of mirrors where we're just looking at more and more symbols and reflections,
(09:11):
not seeing that there's a way out.
In simply in the human behind the coach, one of the lines that I wrote said, ouroverthinking creates under thinking in others.
And what you've described, all of what you've described is about co-creating, it's aboutpartnership, it's about bouncing off someone else to create something new and different.
(09:35):
Hmm.
Yes.
Because that's what I would guess your coaching clients want something new.
They don't want to just go around the same circles they've already been around.
And that means partnering with them in discovering.
(09:56):
And discovering means being willing to not know for a while.
Both you as the coach and
and embodying that for them too, for you to show them that it's okay not to knowimmediately.
I love that.
I love what you said.
(10:17):
Discovering means partnering them in not knowing.
Because if we know what we're doing and we're in control of what we're doing, then we'renot partnering them in not knowing.
We're trying to get them to not know in a space where we have got it absolutely tied downand nailed.
Yes, this and this was my background is as a solution focused hypnotherapist, so notmillion miles away from coaching.
(10:48):
as I was beginning, I would chat to people on the phone first before they came, what didthey want?
And I'd already be kind of thinking up, yeah, you know, we'll probably do this and thiswill probably come up and, you know, that kind of thing.
And
Yeah, it's good backup, but it's been really helpful to be able to let go of that and go,oh, what I thought would be happening is not what's actually happening.
(11:14):
And improv can really help us tune into like, not what should in inverted commas, whatshould be here, but what is here, what's actually happening.
to notice it and not freak out.
Hmm, be okay with that,
because if I'm not going to be okay with it, then I don't want to notice it.
(11:35):
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
that we're in a different place, then I don't know what to do, so I'm not going to look.
Mmm.
Yeah, I call it our safety brain, but part of us loves the known for very excellentevolutionary reasons, right?
(12:00):
It's much better to keep going to the same water hole that you always have been to than tojust chance it going somewhere else, right?
And so Deep Inners is a
a pull towards safety and knowing and known territory.
(12:22):
And so yeah, it can often feel a bit uncomfortable going into not knowing as coaches andfor clients too.
And yet that's where we can discover something new.
In improv, that can be just delightful and fun and joyful and filled with laughter.
In coaching, that's what a breakthrough is, right?
(12:43):
When somebody goes,
I see it in a new way.
This is not just another tactic for time management or whatever.
When they suddenly go, my goodness, everything's changed.
That's the discovery.
And I think probably that's what people really want.
Yeah.
(13:03):
is.
It is because they could do the other bit themselves.
Yes.
And that's in books.
You can type that into ChatGPT and get like 10 tactics straight away.
The massive added value from a coach, I would suggest, is that magic in the moment thatcan happen.
(13:28):
And improv is not the same, but it's pointing at that same willingness to discover.
and its willingness to step in, to take another step into the unknown and possibly anotherstep into the unknown after the last step into the unknown and push into new space,
(13:53):
because that's where we find new thinking.
what's he called?
Timothy Clark says that we have a first mover obligation to be vulnerable.
But maybe we also have a first mover obligation to not know.
(14:15):
to be willing to know and to have the humility of to know all that we don't know.
So even if we've seen a client before, even if they're filled in an intake form, there'sthat safety bit of our brain loves to put it in a box and go, oh, okay, it's one of those,
(14:36):
it's in that category.
And we can never know someone else's experience.
That's just reality and we kid ourselves if we think, oh yeah, this is that kind of thing.
(14:57):
What do you see in people who you train that makes you smile?
Oh, constantly.
You know what I love is
It's when people have the delight of surprising themselves, they do or say something thatthey could not have prepared, could not have predicted, and it just kind of comes out of
(15:31):
them.
it's joyful for them, and it's just magical to see those little moments.
And the...
is a
Improv pioneer Del Close used to say, uh treat your audience and stage partners like poetsand geniuses.
(15:53):
And I think we all have that.
That's what I love is when people are in a class or whatever and like something amazingwill happen and they're like, whoa, where did that come from?
that's a beautiful, magical thing, which happens quite a lot.
It's like several times per class probably.
(16:15):
Yeah.
And that's that same point where we've got out of linear thinking and found a newparadigm, a new way of being, a new way of seeing.
So let's treat the people we coach as poets and geniuses.
Yeah, right.
(16:36):
You talked about overthinking and under thinking, right?
If there's a sneaky bit of us as coaches, that's like, secretly, I know what you need todo about this.
And I'm just gonna kind of guide you to get there.
It's like, oh, we're not treating them like the poet and genius that's there.
(16:57):
That has something new that we could never have thought of.
Improv is very much a relational thing, was just going to say, that it's not about oneperson being really, really clever.
It's an emergent property that comes from relationship, trust, openness and willingness.
(17:22):
I love the principle that everything is disposable.
So I love it when either with you or with Stuart, we do scenes where somebody starts andthen someone else responds to exactly what's happening in the room and then the other one
does.
But often when I'm, because I participate, don't I, in every course as a delegate, andoften you have a little cunning plan of what you think the story is going to be and you
(17:47):
offer back your offer and they turn it into something else altogether.
And you've got to chuck whatever it was that you decided that this scene was about twopeople going on holiday.
And suddenly it's about people in the bottom of a basement in a castle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a constant letting go, right?
A constant letting go of what we think is going to happen and tell you, no, no, back here,what is happening?
(18:13):
What is happening?
Yeah.
And then that beautiful thing, if we don't know what to do, look at them.
When you don't know what to say, look, what, how does that go as a principle?
Yeah, I think Sanford Meisner, who was an acting teacher, said the answer is in the eyesof the other person.
(18:37):
Thank you for that.
All right.
Yeah, Sanford Meisner.
You might have heard of the Meisner technique.
And feel like we're having quite a serious conversation about, which is fine.
I quite like that.
And I like how improv can be like both, it's both, right?
(18:59):
It's frothy and deep.
I think this is perhaps an interesting point to nail as well, I think in.
common conversation, we often think things can either be fun or important, like they'reone or the other.
And there's this other place where something can be laughter-filled and fun and joyful andimportant at the same time.
(19:26):
I wonder what game we can play now.
Yeah, well, since we just mentioned it, we could.
we could comment on how each other speaks.
(19:47):
First person will say you seem and then however we read, we're reading the other person.
And then second person, you will agree with it, which is a general principle in improvjust to keep, keep things rolling along and say like why, why that is.
(20:07):
And we might carry on a little bit, but that's, that'll be the beginning.
And if you're watching, if you're listening on audio, then you can imagine what the otherperson is looking like from what we say.
Do you want to have a go at that?
Okay.
You seem kind of nervous.
(20:32):
I am nervous.
cause.
because I don't know what to do next!
Yes, right, yeah, cool.
Right, let's just rewind a little bit.
do you me to...
Maybe we'll do it the other way.
So, we're going to...
(20:54):
You can say, I will just be however I am.
You can say, you seem this emotion and I will...
say yes and because and give the reason why.
And then it might carry on a little bit or we might just.
Okay.
You seem thoughtful.
(21:17):
Yes, I am thoughtful.
I have a poem just waiting to...
and
feel like it's nearly there.
hoping you're my muse.
(21:37):
And I am your muse, so...
Oh, great.
You finally come.
Amazing.
Wonderful.
Hooray.
Cool.
uh Yeah, I'm in the news.
Cool.
Yeah, great.
Thank you for jumping in, Claire, with zero planning of what we were going to do and how.
(22:04):
Yes, and like even then it's like, or just from there, we ended up with
Oh, me being a poet in my, I didn't say it, but in my head I was on a riverbank sort ofwatching some flowers go by.
Uh, and then, oh, then even the fact that, um, you weren't offering much apart from kindof going, or at least you weren't offering lots of words, we say, it sounds like, and, and
(22:32):
took me to this completely new place of, oh, you must be my muse.
Oh.
And then that was super exciting for me because was like, oh, that's a fun scenario that'semerged just from that.
And because I was watching you, so if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see I waswatching Andy and I was watching the poem emerging inside of you.
(22:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And yeah, so that, you know, and then we're just in this new place already.
And you know, that's if people listening have uh friends or they're willing to play with,so that'd be a lovely one to do.
You seem second person, yes, because, and then the first person might play along and, youknow, there might be a little interchange after that.
(23:22):
until you find yourself somewhere new.
And it often provokes laughter, right?
We were both laughing.
The is the laughter of discovery, I don't know what it is.
Because there wasn't like a joke, right?
It's just, how delightful.
Because it's fun because something's emerging and we're kind of playing together to watchit come out.
(23:47):
Which I think is what happens in coaching is we're lightly holding it.
as it emerges and it emerges because of the lightness not because of the heaviness.
Because if I'd said to you Andy, I think there's a poem inside you so I'm going to sithere with you while your poem emerges.
(24:14):
You're gonna go, I haven't got a poem.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
Yes.
In improv we say bring a brick, not a cathedral.
um Which is...
So you were just bringing like the tiniest little...
tiny little brick or pebble, just and.
(24:35):
And you could have brought more, but that was already beautiful.
And...
Yeah.
One of the things we practice is not, you say, oh, you look thoughtful.
And I say, yes, because I'm a poet sitting on a rubber bank about to write a poem, andyou're my muse who's come to help me.
And then it's like, we're not in partnership anymore.
(24:59):
I've just kind of steamrolled the whole thing as to how I think it should be.
And there's something there for coaching as well, isn't there, of just allowing thatspace.
allowing it to be a third thing that emerges between you.
(25:19):
Yes, genius and absolutely.
So Oscar Trimboli talks about the three parts of a conversation, you and me and theconversation.
And that's where I'm doing some really interesting work at the moment.
So I love what you said, I like this morning.
Did you read my mind?
(25:41):
Cool.
But I think when we get too close to each other, that third thing can't emerge in thespace between us.
And one of the things that people will notice that I use now that I didn't used to use,instead of saying I ask a question, I say make an offer.
(26:01):
And I got that from you and Stuart, an improv.
Yes.
And it only needs to be a little offer because you and I are watching this conversationbetween us grow.
So I only needs to be a little offer because what's really happening is happening betweenus and inside of you or inside of me.
(26:28):
And we probably all have habits around that.
some of us, I would say this is true for me.
tend to be, my tendency is to like be pushing a bit too much and be taking up like, I sortof have a bit of an agenda and with the best of intentions, like, yeah, I want to get a
(26:50):
good result, and some of us tend to be a bit too, like not offering enough, being too.
there for everybody.
If they're like, huh, like where, what's my default and where am I doing that too much?
what you just did really interests me because you lent right into the camera and then youkind of went horizontal.
(27:18):
So interestingly in a class I was running this morning I invited somebody to stand up andstay vertical and move backwards.
So to make the space bigger but to stay vertical.
Yes.
which is not the same as leaning back and going horizontal because they were equallypresent, but the space was bigger.
(27:42):
Hmm
There's so much to learn, isn't there?
Yes.
And these more subtle things, I feel like that this is where the, the deeper value ofcoaching lies.
And it's what the extent to which coaches can embody the things they're talking about andusing that's, that's the difference between being fine and being amazing.
(28:12):
Um, and
You know, can all be, the first step here is being aware of it, isn't it?
And having the idea or reading a book or whatever, but then practicing it, getting it inour systems and getting used to it, embodying it.
(28:33):
That's where it becomes part of the, you know, the presence that we talk about in thecoaching for improv session.
It's interesting that you, you decided the title Claire.
But it's not cool actually, improv for coaches, it's called coaching with presence.
Because that's sort of the outcome, that is practice in developing that like a, this ishow I read it anyway, like.
(29:05):
Like going to the gym helps you get stronger rather than just reading a book about howit's really good to lift weights or something.
You know we actually can experience it.
Yeah, go on.
I love sending people a detentance certificate for six and a half hours continuingprofessional development or coach education hours.
(29:27):
nobody wrote, well, people do write notes because they stop and they go, oh yeah, butthey, but it's about, it's about doing it.
It's about jumping in and doing it.
yeah, so it's quite content light, I think it's fair to say, right?
In fact, there is almost no...
(29:51):
sort of directly didactic element, which kind of we run some experiential improv games andthen Claire, you help people draw out what they've been experiencing and learning.
Yeah.
every time it's different.
And the thing that makes me laugh so much about what you do and what Stuart does is thatif there's a really good one, which seems to be complete revelation to the delegates on
(30:20):
this course, if we ever try and run it again, thinking, there's going to be a revelationfor all the delegates if we do this game, they would never understand why we've done it
because what we've done is we've gone back to
a little bit of a curriculum, which I know for us is only a little word on the back of anenvelope.
(30:41):
But it doesn't work because it's the emergent that's the thing that makes coaching unique.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
there's a thing, know I'm having a quote festival today, aren't I?
another one's just come to mind.
If I can get it right, this is around meditation and mindfulness.
(31:07):
I think it's from the Dalai Lama, and it says something like...
enlightenment happens as an accident.
We can't make it happen on schedule, but we can make ourselves more accident prone.
And yes, right.
(31:29):
And if we substitute enlightenment for sort of breakthrough moment in coaching and inimprov, it doesn't happen for schedule.
It's not like, okay, we're going to do this exercise, people are going to have thatexperience and that happens.
No, it's not like that.
However, when we create the right conditions and trust and we're there and we're presentand if you're a coach and you're present with your clients, you don't know when a
(32:00):
breakthrough is going to happen, but you can create the environment.
In one of my books I said you can't make transformation happen but you can learn to stopstopping it.
Yes, lovely.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like how you put that.
Yes.
(32:20):
Yes.
That's exactly how I would talk about improv as well, actually, the kind that we do isthere aren't a ton of things to learn.
In fact, more kind of like book learning is probably going to get in the way of anything.
But what we can do is unlearn.
some of the ways we block ourselves, resist, get tight and tense, get stuck and allowourselves to flow more naturally.
(32:49):
So it's a lot of unlearning rather than adding extra tough stuff in.
and safely noticing when we're stopping ourselves stepping in because we're overthinking.
yeah, I just can't.
Oh, look, I did that.
Oh, right.
Yeah, because it's actually simple.
Yes.
(33:11):
But simple is not easy.
No, I would say for many of us, it was probably automatic.
When we were children, kind of playful creativity and just trying things out.
If it doesn't work, we just try something else.
(33:32):
No big deal.
And somewhere along the way for many of us, often through education or messages we getfrom
others growing up, we get rewarded for getting the right answer.
And then over time, we become fearful of not knowing the answer.
(33:54):
And then that can tip us into the kind of protective, overthinking perfectionism that'slike, it's trying to keep us safe, but it's actually dragging us, it's holding us back,
it's dragging us down often.
quite like the distinction that
(34:21):
Perfectionism is a fear of making mistakes.
and as opposed to healthy striving as a willingness to do our best, which might includesome things not going to plan.
I was talking to a coach the other day and he was saying that a dance teacher of his hadsaid, it's not about learning to stop making mistakes.
(34:48):
It's about learning to stop being afraid of making mistakes because that's what stops us.
Yes, that's when we can explore and experiment.
I think there's...
another beautiful overlap here is a kind of experimental mindset.
(35:14):
in school, they say, if you know the answer, then put up your hand, right?
And raise your hand.
And improv is like, if you'd like a go, then raise your hand and we'll see what happens.
And the other way around.
And that's also...
That's also like a scientific experimental mindset as well, right?
(35:36):
It's like, OK, we want to discover something here, so we have to, we're going to do 10experiments and we expect nine of them to not help and just go, yeah, that's fine.
That didn't work.
We can do another thing.
No big deal.
I love the Wii.
(35:58):
Because actually that's what we're doing in coaching.
We are doing an experiment to see if we can discover some things.
It's not, I am doing an experiment to you or on you or at you.
And we won't get it right all the time.
This isn't scientifically proven, but I reckon that probably 80 % of what the coach saysin coaching isn't very useful.
(36:21):
But 20 % is transformation.
You just don't know which bit it's going to be.
Yes.
Yes.
I think someone said the same thing about advertising.
said like, I think it was even more.
was like 90 % of money spent on advertising is wasted.
The problem is we just don't know which 90%.
(36:41):
So yeah, it's the same thing about that.
We can't, it's not a linear thing.
Discovery is not a linear thing.
breakthroughs in coaching are not linear, they don't go one, two, three, four.
(37:02):
paradigm shifts that happen when the circumstances are right and
We don't know when it's going to be, but a lightness and an openness and a trust.
helps that happen.
we need to be looking.
(37:23):
So can't wait to be running another course with you, Andy, because so.
uh So if you're listening and this is season five, uh it's the next online course isTuesday morning, starting on the 11th of November 2025.
Every other course, we do Asia Pacific one cohort, and then the next cohort is America's.
(37:50):
So this one will work for you if you're Asia-Pacific, the next one will work for you ifyou're in the Americas.
If you're in Europe, they should all work for you.
We've also got an online one, on-site one with Stuart coming up in the autumn.
And if you use Coaching In at the checkout, we'll put the link in the show notes.
If you use Coaching In at the checkout, you'll get a discount if you book now.
(38:15):
What's not to like?
What's not to
So if people want to find out a bit more about the improv that you do generally, Andy, howdo they find that out?
Best place is on my website, is playconnect.co.uk playconnect.co.uk
And if that's not about coaching, what is?
(38:43):
Yes, thank you so much for the chat, Chloe.
It's been great.
Thank you for listening, everyone, and we'll be back next week with another episode.
And we'll be together.
and I, in the autumn, do come and join us.
It's such fun.
And if you want to know more about it and you're in contact with my colleague Zoe, ask herabout olives.
(39:04):
which came up when Zoe and I did the course together and she'll tell you about olives.
Take care everyone.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
Cheers, bye.
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