August 27, 2025 • 32 mins
Join Claire Pedrick in today’s episode of The Coaching Inn as we sit down with Tatjana Harttung, founder of The Human Greenhouse. Tatjana shares her story that began with a career in global HR and now creates a space where leadership and personal growth flourish.
Tatjana talks about the principles of regenerative leadership, and the importance of creating the right conditions for growth, both personally and professionally. She also discusses the delicate balance between coaching and therapy, offering insights into how they can intersect to support holistic development.
Contact:
- Contact Tatjana through Linked In
- Contact Claire by emailing info@3dcoaching.com or check out our Substack where you can talk with other listeners.
Further Information:
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- Find out more about 3D Coaching and get new ideas and offers in our weekly email.
Coming Up:
- Open Table - Mum Coaches
Keywords:
Leadership, Growth, Coaching, Regenerative Leadership, Human Greenhouse, Personal Development, Professional Development, Entrepreneurship, Nurturing Environment, Holistic Growth, Tatjana Harttung, Podcast, Therapy, Coaching Techniques, Team Development, Personal Growth, Business Coaching, Leadership Skills, Flourishing, Sustainable Leadership
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.
(00:13):
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn.
I'm your host, Claire Pedrick, and today I'm in conversation with Tatjana Harttung, who Imet on a call with Ruth Davey from Look Again.
And Tatjana runs a uh company called The Human Greenhouse.
So she had to come, right?
(00:35):
So welcome Tatjana.
Thank you, thank you, I'm delighted to be here.
And I'm glad that technology works, right?
There's always a bit of a mystery when we get onto these things.
Indeed.
So tell us about your journey to starting the human greenhouse.
Sister, oh my god, yeah, how long have you got?
(00:55):
I have three minutes left.
Exactly, yes, that one.
Well, essentially, when I think about my life, when I think about my path and my ownjourney, it's always been about other people, right?
It's been the red thread throughout my working life, my interests has been a curiosityaround how are people made up?
(01:18):
You know, what makes a person
What's the dynamic between people?
How do things work in systems with people?
So it's very much been a people angle.
And I have worked in a number of different things related to people, account management,uh operational management, uh consulting management, HR, all sorts of things.
(01:42):
And during Corona, which is the sort of most recent shift, I guess, I was sitting at homeand thinking,
Okay, I can sit here and I can continue working, you know, uh 10 plus hours a day,actually in a job that I enjoyed, but also in a role that was maybe a bit more narrow in
terms of scope or what I was getting into.
(02:04):
And I had a real desire to m try out and for myself, you know, try to see whether thatsort of entrepreneurial spirit that I have in my body could actually come out and do
something.
um
So I decided during Corona, during lockdown, if not now, when, um and then I sort ofmulled over what to call the business and started just word mapping and going into dream
(02:34):
time and all sorts of things to try and figure out what should it be.
And...
I have, I'm green fingered.
I love the colour green.
I love gardens, greenhouses, all sorts of things.
And then I thought, okay, what is it that we do in a greenhouse?
We actually, you know, to use the metaphor of nature, we are nurturing soil and tendingplants.
(02:55):
And I thought, well, hang on a minute.
It's like that with human beings that our foundations need to be strong.
We need the right conditions, know, light, air, love, other people in order to flourish.
uh
So yeah, that's why it's called the human greenhouse.
And yeah, I do a number of different things on my own and with other people.
(03:16):
So coaching and uh therapeutic dialogue is at the center of that.
So both from an individual and a team perspective, um I do leadership development as wellin all sorts of different guises and facilitation.
uh
And then I try to also sort of mix it up a bit and not be too prescriptive, which I knowsometimes for people is maybe a bit confusing.
(03:41):
But for me, it's really important to understand what's at the core of a request frompeople that I work with, what's it really about?
um So to try and bring that curiosity in.
So yeah, and it's a big week.
I just moved into a co-working space with three other female entrepreneurs, which isamazing.
So I got out of my little guest bedroom.
um
and into the middle of town where I live and that's just lovely.
(04:04):
So I'm unpacking, hence the joy at the technology working today because this is the firsttime I'm actually logging on to Riverside from my new digs.
Well, welcome to your real life greenhouse.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
There's lots of plants here, by the way.
Yeah.
(04:24):
No, they're not.
They are super fake.
But they have traveled with me in every office I've had in the last, I don't know, 10 plusyears.
So they come along for the ride, as does Edna in the back here.
um
from the Incredibles.
She is from The Incredibles.
The story with Edna is that I have a very dear colleague, uh or former colleague in the UScalled Nancy.
(04:48):
And Nancy and I were working through a very big project when we worked together um in aformer industry and decided that Edna would be a role model because she is feisty, she's a
bit of a trickster, she's honest, um and she's very brave and very loving.
And yeah, so Edna.
(05:09):
So we have one each.
And when we get on the phone together, Edna's in the background.
So Edna had to come along for the ride.
And that's also me, right?
I do a lot of uh executive work with different teams and groups.
And I am also multi-passionate and super nerdy and a Star Wars fan and all sorts of stuff.
(05:32):
Yeah.
I want to talk about your bookshelf in a minute but just tell us a little bit about yourjourney into coaching and therapy.
Yeah.
So the journey into coaching really happened when I worked in global HR and I had, wasbeginning to coach.
didn't have any formal training and ah I thought it's too big of responsibility to justwing it and have conversations.
(05:58):
And I wanted it, it's very important for me to have my craft in order, right?
That I know what I'm doing and I have done the due diligence and also worked with myselffor that matter.
um So a friend of mine recommended the OCM in the UK.
um So that's where I went for my advanced diploma in coach mentoring.
(06:21):
And that has really been a gift.
think it was maybe, at least that was my impression.
I was here in Denmark, so I traveled to the UK to do it.
But I loved that it was so holistic.
uh And actually one of my uh former
teachers at the school, Catherine Long is someone that I am very much connected withtoday.
(06:42):
But that was a real, real foundation.
And, and from that grew, obviously, a coaching, a coaching approach to life to people tothe work, uh a career in coaching.
And then from a therapeutic perspective, I worked for a consultancy in in Copenhagen doingpsychometric assessments uh before I went independent.
(07:04):
And
I would find myself asking questions of people and seeing them really uh surface trauma.
And we worked very psychodynamically in that business.
And I went to my boss at the time who was a clinical psychologist and said, I need somelevel of training.
My coaching training isn't deep enough in the mechanics and the dynamics of psychology.
(07:26):
uh And going back to do a full, you know, psychologist degree was just not an option atthe time.
And there are some really well renowned schools in Denmark that do psychotherapy where youcan still maintain your job uh and then have clients and do your own therapy on the side.
um So I went to um something called ID Academy and that's an integral psychotherapyapproach.
(07:54):
So it's very, again, it's very holistic.
uh And a lot of it is sort of spiral dynamics, systems thinking, Gestalt.
It's a mix of things.
a lot of Ken Wilber, know, so it's quite broad in its approach, um but very deep and didthat and graduated with that.
And that has obviously also taken the conversations in a slightly different directionbecause I sit in that space where, and I'm sure you experienced this as well, that, you
(08:24):
know, I am aware of the differences, if you like, between coaching and therapy, but veryoften, um
that some of the coaching has therapeutic themes.
So it's nice to have that additional angle or that additional toolbox to be able tocontract with people and say, hey, this might warrant looking at a little bit closer.
(08:47):
You know, are you okay if we, you know, pull some things out of the tool bag that mightsupport that conversation so that we can also move forward in what we're here to do, what
we've contracted to do, vis-a-vis the business coaching or whatever it might have been.
Mm.
theme wise.
So yeah, and that's our never ending journey of learning and understanding how much youdon't know, once you get into it.
(09:12):
But it has been quite profound.
And it's also been profound.
And I think anyone that does even coaching uh qualifications, we go deep for ourselves aswell, right, we get to look at our own shadows and our own assumptions, our own biases.
And that's been really valuable.
I was going to ask you how you navigate the difference and you described that so verybeautifully, clearly.
(09:36):
This merit might merit something deeper.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's always by invitation.
For me, it's always by invitation.
Anything that I do is by invitation, of course.
ah It's incredibly important to me that I try and hold space that that doesn't do harmunintentionally.
And yes, we can never guarantee that fully.
(09:57):
But that is one of the things that I talk to people uh very honestly about upfront is Ialso need to know if we're going down a path.
that somehow is traumatizing or difficult for you.
And then I have, you know, the odd business coaching arrangement where it's coachingbecause that's on the bill to the organization and really it's therapy, but people are
(10:19):
maybe not ready to call it that and to be open about that, which is a shame because I'vebeen in therapy right throughout my uh course.
And it is one of the best things that you can do for yourself.
It's incredibly...
illuminating and loving and sometimes difficult as well.
a gift, a real gift.
(10:43):
So I have to say it because on your bookshelf is a book that I'm reading right at themoment.
So you can say you haven't read it, that's okay.
Belonging not othering, but belonging without othering.
I have just started it.
It was recommended to me by a friend.
I have literally just started it.
(11:04):
I'm going on leave for a few days next week.
I am bringing it with me.
Yeah.
And that one came to me.
was looking for, I'm part of sort of regenerative leadership circles and I was looking formore uh narrative around what
what is the piece around belonging that we have not addressed yet in terms of the biggerpicture.
(11:28):
And I'm very interested in attachment theory myself.
ah And I think I come up very often against not against but I encounter very oftendifferent degrees of othering.
ah
And I have a master's in ethics and values and organizations as well.
(11:50):
And one of things that I find is that there is this landscape of moral high ground, andyet we are still othering other people.
We are categorizing them.
are defining what they can be and should be and where they belong or don't belong.
uh
(12:11):
And there's so much interesting literature around that, but I was looking for it more inthe context of the dialogue space, the coaching space.
There's lots of literature.
Sigmund Bauman has written a book, Others at Our Door, which is very much in thephilosophy vein.
ah And because I actually believe in pretty radical inclusion in all forms in life, and Ifind it really difficult at this point in time where we are in the world.
(12:40):
So look at the level of othering that's going on.
Yeah, yeah, I find that quite heartbreaking actually.
um So yeah, that is why I'm reading that book right now.
um
just starting part two.
So the first half is the first half is all about othering and then the second half isabout belonging.
(13:00):
But it was interesting because somebody posted a LinkedIn post about um a guy who wants1000 men, I think it was 1000 men to empower 1000 young men in work.
And I thought it's interesting, isn't it?
Because they're a privileged man.
But actually there's a whole sector of young men who have been othered.
(13:25):
And it just, I don't know, there's something about the language that...
Well, I'd love to have another conversation when you've finished it, see what you think.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
No, I think it's very true.
I think we very often we end up othering without realizing we're doing it.
ah I was talking to a very dear friend of mine yesterday who's neurodiverse and we weretalking about when we talk about inclusivity and diversity, we are very often forgetting
(13:54):
the neurodiverse community.
ah We are are othering the elderly.
We are othering, you know, young people or people that are a different color to us.
And I'm very conscious myself that I am a privileged European middle class white woman.
So I come with a whole bag of privileges as it is.
(14:16):
um But how can I maybe with that space bring some of these topics up?
Yeah, I'm reading it for the neuro.
Yeah, they far they haven't talked about neurodiversity at all.
But that is actually why I'm reading it because I'm writing about it.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's incredibly important.
And I think it's important that ah that we also talk about what are the gifts with that?
(14:41):
What is what are the strengths with that?
ah You know, and how do how do those of us that either, you know, don't know that we areor are not neurodiverse?
ah How do we how do we also uh engage with and support those of our fellow uh
(15:01):
friends and family and colleagues who are neurodiverse.
I mean, I have neurodiverse friends that are the most enriching, creative, amazing.
So there's a real gift there, but I also realize that there are things that are maybedifficult.
Transitions is typically one, right?
ah Yeah, yeah, exactly.
(15:22):
uh
yeah, the benefit is great and the cost is high.
uh So yeah, interesting.
I've lost my question.
I want to talk to you about regenerative leadership.
ah But there was something else that just came out there around othering, which I'vecompletely lost.
(15:45):
That's all right, we'll find it.
It'll weedle its way back.
So you met Ruth Davey, who's been a guest at the Coaching Inn around Look Again.
And I've just remembered the thing.
Now it's gone again.
uh So uh we had an open table at the Coaching Inn about three weeks ago where um we had uhfour of us were talking about safety and courage in coaching.
(16:14):
And one of them said, you can't declare a space safe.
Mm-mm.
You also can't declare a space inclusive, of course, can you?
Because actually that is in itself othering because it's saying, I'm saying this is safe.
I'm saying this is inclusive and it isn't.
So I just wanted to kind of drop that in.
Yeah, no, I think that's very true.
think it's incredibly important that, you know, when I talk about I'd like to have a spacethat feels safe for others to be in, it is very much them that decide whether that is
(16:43):
space, spaceful, safe, inclusive, whether they can be vulnerable.
I don't get to dictate that at all.
And uh as a practitioner, you know, we can also be in spaces that all of a sudden start tofeel unsafe.
So I think it's a moving thing.
I think it is something that we are continuously having to be honest and have couragearound with our clients to talk about, know, how is this?
(17:09):
Is this, know, good enough for now, safe enough to try?
Is this where we can be together right now?
Because it is dynamic and it's no, we can't declare a space safe ever.
No.
Absolutely.
And I just want to say to our listeners, building on what you've just said, is thatsometimes you'll feel that you'll experience your training or development space as a coach
(17:33):
is unsafe, and you're not making that up.
Yes, no, absolutely.
No, if it feels unsafe or not right, it is.
Yeah, the body keeps the score.
Absolutely.
And I, it's funny you say that because I remember sitting in a session um with a coachingsupervisor.
This was years ago, years and years ago.
(17:54):
Today, let me just say that I have the most amazing supervisor that I love.
um But I remember sitting in supervision feeling.
extraordinarily unsafe all of a sudden.
There was an underlying, what my body perceived to be an underlying malice that wasdisguised as concern.
ah And everything in my system was just tingling.
(18:17):
um And so I ended the session and said, I'm not feeling well, I need to go.
And then I canceled the agreement.
So yeah, it feels unsafe, it is unsafe.
Absolutely.
As all things in life, right?
Not just in the coaching space, it's everywhere.
(18:37):
Yeah, and when you know something, then you know it.
Yeah, and there's something about owning that, isn't it?
And not going, oh, I must be being weird today.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'll be perfectly honest, I have had years in corporate life where at timesI, I, you know, I swallowed my own sense of unsafety, or lack of safety, or my own
(19:01):
concerns.
And I don't do that anymore.
That's been part of my healing is to say, No, this is not good for me.
But I didn't always do that.
And I see a lot of people that don't.
do it in my practice.
And of course, we get the clients we need, right?
It's always like that.
um But I do talk about it because I see that it has an impact, not just emotionally andmentally, but also physically, people get ill from it.
(19:28):
um
So back to my question from ages ago.
Yeah, tell us about regenerative leadership, Tatjana.
So it's a word that has a certain buzz right now.
And that's that's good in the sense that it's sort of spreading spreading the word ofsomething that's always been there.
(19:53):
But at the same time, I think it has the risk of just just becoming another thing, right?
Being commoditized, being overused, you know, all that sort of stuff.
But my
When I was in corporate, my sense was that there's something that is fundamentally brokenhere that are making talented, wonderful, lovely people not work very well together or get
(20:16):
ill or, know, stuckness in the system, lots of different things.
And then I read Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm's book, Regenerative Leadership, which is ahuge recommendation um to read it.
And every page I was turning, I had that sense of, ah, OK.
That's what I'm sensing.
Ah, okay.
Okay.
So that's why, you know, so there was this whole sort of, it was just the most enormouslight bulb that went off in my head.
(20:43):
Um, and I wanted to join the course in 22 and wasn't able to at the time also because Iwas in the middle of a degree and Corona and I was like, that's too much.
And then I joined the cohort in 23 and there was a year sort of online, uh, teachings andwebinars and meetings, very beautiful community.
(21:03):
And we, about 40 of us from the two cohorts that had gone through, decided to meet in theUK and Ruth was part of that.
ah Ruth and I found ourselves in a group with a couple of other lovely, lovely people uhtrying to sort of gently plan one of the sessions uh in the five days that we were
(21:24):
together in Devon.
And yeah, I mean, how can you not love Ruth?
That was instant.
I was like,
There's a woman after my heart.
uh So we are friends.
We talk about kind of collaboration stuff.
I have her certification as well, which I love and I use with clients really effectively.
(21:47):
So I guess what both of us are trying to do is to regeneratively in the sense of using theprinciples of nature.
What is the logic of life?
What are the things that inherently create flow and thrive ability?
(22:07):
Where do we not need to grind and push and do all those sort of things?
And also to think about how can we be good ancestors?
What is it that we're leaving behind for next generations?
So it's a way of thinking about things, a way of trying to create some cracks and shedsome light on things that need to be done better.
(22:31):
and not in a very sort of capitalistic extractive form.
And I know that the minute we say, you know, the ills of capitalism, people go, yeah, butyou have a business and you make money.
Yes, that's true, but we've always traded, we've always had, you know, exchange of goodsand services.
It's the extractiveness and the willful blindness to the harm that we're doing in sort of,you know, mega structures.
(22:57):
ah
around the world.
mean, look at where we are today.
A lot of that is, you know, ah is because of that, that we are extractive, that we thinkthat nature is infinite.
We can just plug all the resources, that we treat human beings as commodities.
And I mean, that started with slavery, ah you know, that we are othering in every sense ofthe word, you're either on the inside or you're on the outside.
(23:24):
And that's very much also a feature of corporate life.
You know, if you haven't drunk the Kool-Aid, then you don't belong.
uh So it is to try and see where is an organizational system or a group of peopleresourceful in themselves.
Where can we help people find agency?
What are some of the uh methodologies or modalities that we can employ that have a root innature?
(23:50):
What does nature do, right?
She converses and convenes.
m She doesn't have any waste.
She's using resources well.
She's thinking about, you know, cradle to cradle.
There is no rushing in nature.
Everything arrives at the right time.
I very often use the metaphor of soil.
(24:10):
You know, unless your soil, metaphorically, and in life, by the way, unless your soil ishealthy, there are a lot of things that are not going to go well.
So how do we talk about that?
How do we get you away from thinking that you have to work em a 12-hour day and then gohome and get back on the computer?
That is not regenerative.
(24:33):
From a biological perspective, the stress you are inducing in your body will shorten yourtelomeres and you will get ill.
That's in your genes, that's the DNA.
Your relationships would suffer because you have no time.
Your adrenaline will be high, your cortisol, everything in your body will be on alert.
ah
So how do we work with some of the principles of not just because sustainability is kindof leaving it where it is.
(24:59):
Regenerative is leaving it better.
uh And there are so many beautiful people working in small islands of coherence uh thatare trying to invite a conversation around, you know, what does that mean?
And I'm by no means an expert.
um
I was talking on one of my podcast episodes with Charlie, who's also in this space andknows Ruth as well.
(25:25):
And, you know, we are still learners.
We are Padawans.
um This is an expert hood.
uh Yeah, Giles and Laura are, but they've also been in at this for, you know, 20 plusyears.
um I just spent the weekend in a Chai Chi retreat with John Milton, who's one of the sortof
(25:47):
founding ecologists in the US.
And he's still learning and he's 86, I think.
But I think it is about sensing and longing for a different way of us being in the world.
And when I turn on the news, I see that very much being needed.
And not to sort of, you know, sound depressed about that.
(26:09):
But I think, you know, now's the time.
And we have the technology, have the wisdom, we have everything.
We just need to get it sometimes, you know, disrupt some of that.
So what does that look like in your work, Tatjana?
It looks like it depends what it looks like in with individual clients.
(26:32):
It is that piece of asking a lot of questions to try and surface both courage and agencyin the people that I'm working with, but without holding them as a project.
Because I think that's another form of othering, right?
That's me thinking that I somehow have to fix or save you and that's not the case you are.
fully capable, fully able, fully everything.
(26:54):
um What I'm trying to do is help you have enough breath and space in your body and in yoursoul that you can see your path and we can begin to travel that together and you can
discover what's available to you.
um With teams, it's very often, um it's a combination of the same kind of asking a lot ofquestions.
(27:19):
and sometimes pointing a finger at stuff that we don't talk about.
Everyone knows it's in the room, but we never talk about it.
It's de-weaponizing the language that very often happens in teams.
That's a big part of that.
And sometimes it's also just allowing them to be with the space in themselves.
When we give it back to teams, they find a way.
(27:41):
um It's also holding space for emotions.
for the anger, the frustration, the joy, the crying, whatever it is, it's all welcome.
And then it's the podcast.
It is trying to put, like you, right, some voices out there to talk about how do we findsome voice in some agency.
(28:01):
So there is a side of me that also I can sense my own activists sort of, you know,starring.
Yeah, so what's your podcast called?
called the human greenhouse, like the business.
Yeah.
And that was an experiment, or is an experiment, from the perspective of wanting to givesome voice um to some people that have some really beautiful thoughts and big hearts and
(28:29):
that are trying to find their own way.
And it's fairly eclectic and that suits me fine.
um
But that's also evolving, right?
It's always changing, always evolving as these things are.
Yes.
Yes, they do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you get lovely notes saying, oh, you know, what if you talked about this and I have aquestion about that, which is fantastic.
(28:54):
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How long has your podcast been going?
But a year now.
So still early days, but but that's good.
It's fun.
It's really fun.
So we're having a little summer break, and then we get going again in September.
So I'm in the in that lovely process of trying to birth a new season and, you know,thinking about what what else is there and what are some of the conversations, you know,
(29:22):
surfacing in terms of what needs to come on next?
Yeah.
Half our listens are of old episodes.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah, lovely.
which fascinates me.
Because there's something about, oh, is this live?
(29:42):
No, it isn't actually.
People listen to past episodes.
Yeah, yeah, no, I get that as well.
I get people sort of, you know, sending me messages saying, I listened to that episode,you know, three times, and I'm finding something new every time.
And, you know, that one made a difference.
And that is always incredibly wonderful to hear from from people.
um And also to hear if you know, had had this was a colleague of mine in the industry, whosent me a message saying, I love that episode.
(30:11):
But I think you could get a bit more tough with your guests.
I was like, yeah, I hear you.
OK.
Yeah.
But there was one of those days where that wasn't in my space.
Yeah nice.
So The Human Greenhouse is your podcast and if people want to talk to you how do they getin touch?
So the website, thehumangreenhouse.com is where they can find me.
(30:35):
Also, I'm on LinkedIn and I am trying to build my Instagram profile, but that is somethingthat I just need a little space with.
And then I have an emergent sub stack um as well.
Yeah, me too.
yeah.
It's one of those things of staying focused and not sort of losing yourself across 1010platforms.
(30:58):
And then I find it really, I find it really interesting when other people are postingthings as well.
So yeah.
to post half written thoughts and then get comments on them.
So it's just so rather than having a document with a half written thought or an unfinishedthought, I just pop them in in Substack.
I was talking to a friend of mine about this yesterday.
(31:20):
um You know, I think it's so important at the moment that we, I will say I am a recoveringperfectionist by heart, um but that we just try and do things imperfectly.
There's too much out there that somebody has put through an AI engine and it feels, it'slike ghost language.
It feels dead.
It feels otherworldly.
(31:41):
And I love it when someone's just going,
Oops, you know, I was posting something or you know, they get online somewhere and it'snot quite perfect and then you know the dog barked or whatever It just then it feels human
again As opposed to the sort of robotic nature of well polished AI Yeah
(32:02):
Greenhouse podcast and all of those links will be in the show notes.
Thank you Tatjana for coming to the Coaching In.
Thank you for having me, it lovely.
Thank you so much.
And everyone, thank you for listening and we'll be back next week with another episode.
Bye bye.
Bye.
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn.
I'm your host, Claire Pedrick, and today I'm in conversation with Tatjana Harttung, who Imet on a call with Ruth Davey from Look Again.
And Tatjana runs a uh company called The Human Greenhouse.
So she had to come, right?
(00:35):
So welcome Tatjana.
Thank you, thank you, I'm delighted to be here.
And I'm glad that technology works, right?
There's always a bit of a mystery when we get onto these things.
Indeed.
So tell us about your journey to starting the human greenhouse.
Sister, oh my god, yeah, how long have you got?
(00:55):
I have three minutes left.
Exactly, yes, that one.
Well, essentially, when I think about my life, when I think about my path and my ownjourney, it's always been about other people, right?
It's been the red thread throughout my working life, my interests has been a curiosityaround how are people made up?
(01:18):
You know, what makes a person
What's the dynamic between people?
How do things work in systems with people?
So it's very much been a people angle.
And I have worked in a number of different things related to people, account management,uh operational management, uh consulting management, HR, all sorts of things.
(01:42):
And during Corona, which is the sort of most recent shift, I guess, I was sitting at homeand thinking,
Okay, I can sit here and I can continue working, you know, uh 10 plus hours a day,actually in a job that I enjoyed, but also in a role that was maybe a bit more narrow in
terms of scope or what I was getting into.
(02:04):
And I had a real desire to m try out and for myself, you know, try to see whether thatsort of entrepreneurial spirit that I have in my body could actually come out and do
something.
um
So I decided during Corona, during lockdown, if not now, when, um and then I sort ofmulled over what to call the business and started just word mapping and going into dream
(02:34):
time and all sorts of things to try and figure out what should it be.
And...
I have, I'm green fingered.
I love the colour green.
I love gardens, greenhouses, all sorts of things.
And then I thought, okay, what is it that we do in a greenhouse?
We actually, you know, to use the metaphor of nature, we are nurturing soil and tendingplants.
(02:55):
And I thought, well, hang on a minute.
It's like that with human beings that our foundations need to be strong.
We need the right conditions, know, light, air, love, other people in order to flourish.
uh
So yeah, that's why it's called the human greenhouse.
And yeah, I do a number of different things on my own and with other people.
(03:16):
So coaching and uh therapeutic dialogue is at the center of that.
So both from an individual and a team perspective, um I do leadership development as wellin all sorts of different guises and facilitation.
uh
And then I try to also sort of mix it up a bit and not be too prescriptive, which I knowsometimes for people is maybe a bit confusing.
(03:41):
But for me, it's really important to understand what's at the core of a request frompeople that I work with, what's it really about?
um So to try and bring that curiosity in.
So yeah, and it's a big week.
I just moved into a co-working space with three other female entrepreneurs, which isamazing.
So I got out of my little guest bedroom.
um
and into the middle of town where I live and that's just lovely.
(04:04):
So I'm unpacking, hence the joy at the technology working today because this is the firsttime I'm actually logging on to Riverside from my new digs.
Well, welcome to your real life greenhouse.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
There's lots of plants here, by the way.
Yeah.
(04:24):
No, they're not.
They are super fake.
But they have traveled with me in every office I've had in the last, I don't know, 10 plusyears.
So they come along for the ride, as does Edna in the back here.
um
from the Incredibles.
She is from The Incredibles.
The story with Edna is that I have a very dear colleague, uh or former colleague in the UScalled Nancy.
(04:48):
And Nancy and I were working through a very big project when we worked together um in aformer industry and decided that Edna would be a role model because she is feisty, she's a
bit of a trickster, she's honest, um and she's very brave and very loving.
And yeah, so Edna.
(05:09):
So we have one each.
And when we get on the phone together, Edna's in the background.
So Edna had to come along for the ride.
And that's also me, right?
I do a lot of uh executive work with different teams and groups.
And I am also multi-passionate and super nerdy and a Star Wars fan and all sorts of stuff.
(05:32):
Yeah.
I want to talk about your bookshelf in a minute but just tell us a little bit about yourjourney into coaching and therapy.
Yeah.
So the journey into coaching really happened when I worked in global HR and I had, wasbeginning to coach.
didn't have any formal training and ah I thought it's too big of responsibility to justwing it and have conversations.
(05:58):
And I wanted it, it's very important for me to have my craft in order, right?
That I know what I'm doing and I have done the due diligence and also worked with myselffor that matter.
um So a friend of mine recommended the OCM in the UK.
um So that's where I went for my advanced diploma in coach mentoring.
(06:21):
And that has really been a gift.
think it was maybe, at least that was my impression.
I was here in Denmark, so I traveled to the UK to do it.
But I loved that it was so holistic.
uh And actually one of my uh former
teachers at the school, Catherine Long is someone that I am very much connected withtoday.
(06:42):
But that was a real, real foundation.
And, and from that grew, obviously, a coaching, a coaching approach to life to people tothe work, uh a career in coaching.
And then from a therapeutic perspective, I worked for a consultancy in in Copenhagen doingpsychometric assessments uh before I went independent.
(07:04):
And
I would find myself asking questions of people and seeing them really uh surface trauma.
And we worked very psychodynamically in that business.
And I went to my boss at the time who was a clinical psychologist and said, I need somelevel of training.
My coaching training isn't deep enough in the mechanics and the dynamics of psychology.
(07:26):
uh And going back to do a full, you know, psychologist degree was just not an option atthe time.
And there are some really well renowned schools in Denmark that do psychotherapy where youcan still maintain your job uh and then have clients and do your own therapy on the side.
um So I went to um something called ID Academy and that's an integral psychotherapyapproach.
(07:54):
So it's very, again, it's very holistic.
uh And a lot of it is sort of spiral dynamics, systems thinking, Gestalt.
It's a mix of things.
a lot of Ken Wilber, know, so it's quite broad in its approach, um but very deep and didthat and graduated with that.
And that has obviously also taken the conversations in a slightly different directionbecause I sit in that space where, and I'm sure you experienced this as well, that, you
(08:24):
know, I am aware of the differences, if you like, between coaching and therapy, but veryoften, um
that some of the coaching has therapeutic themes.
So it's nice to have that additional angle or that additional toolbox to be able tocontract with people and say, hey, this might warrant looking at a little bit closer.
(08:47):
You know, are you okay if we, you know, pull some things out of the tool bag that mightsupport that conversation so that we can also move forward in what we're here to do, what
we've contracted to do, vis-a-vis the business coaching or whatever it might have been.
Mm.
theme wise.
So yeah, and that's our never ending journey of learning and understanding how much youdon't know, once you get into it.
(09:12):
But it has been quite profound.
And it's also been profound.
And I think anyone that does even coaching uh qualifications, we go deep for ourselves aswell, right, we get to look at our own shadows and our own assumptions, our own biases.
And that's been really valuable.
I was going to ask you how you navigate the difference and you described that so verybeautifully, clearly.
(09:36):
This merit might merit something deeper.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's always by invitation.
For me, it's always by invitation.
Anything that I do is by invitation, of course.
ah It's incredibly important to me that I try and hold space that that doesn't do harmunintentionally.
And yes, we can never guarantee that fully.
(09:57):
But that is one of the things that I talk to people uh very honestly about upfront is Ialso need to know if we're going down a path.
that somehow is traumatizing or difficult for you.
And then I have, you know, the odd business coaching arrangement where it's coachingbecause that's on the bill to the organization and really it's therapy, but people are
(10:19):
maybe not ready to call it that and to be open about that, which is a shame because I'vebeen in therapy right throughout my uh course.
And it is one of the best things that you can do for yourself.
It's incredibly...
illuminating and loving and sometimes difficult as well.
a gift, a real gift.
(10:43):
So I have to say it because on your bookshelf is a book that I'm reading right at themoment.
So you can say you haven't read it, that's okay.
Belonging not othering, but belonging without othering.
I have just started it.
It was recommended to me by a friend.
I have literally just started it.
(11:04):
I'm going on leave for a few days next week.
I am bringing it with me.
Yeah.
And that one came to me.
was looking for, I'm part of sort of regenerative leadership circles and I was looking formore uh narrative around what
what is the piece around belonging that we have not addressed yet in terms of the biggerpicture.
(11:28):
And I'm very interested in attachment theory myself.
ah And I think I come up very often against not against but I encounter very oftendifferent degrees of othering.
ah
And I have a master's in ethics and values and organizations as well.
(11:50):
And one of things that I find is that there is this landscape of moral high ground, andyet we are still othering other people.
We are categorizing them.
are defining what they can be and should be and where they belong or don't belong.
uh
(12:11):
And there's so much interesting literature around that, but I was looking for it more inthe context of the dialogue space, the coaching space.
There's lots of literature.
Sigmund Bauman has written a book, Others at Our Door, which is very much in thephilosophy vein.
ah And because I actually believe in pretty radical inclusion in all forms in life, and Ifind it really difficult at this point in time where we are in the world.
(12:40):
So look at the level of othering that's going on.
Yeah, yeah, I find that quite heartbreaking actually.
um So yeah, that is why I'm reading that book right now.
um
just starting part two.
So the first half is the first half is all about othering and then the second half isabout belonging.
(13:00):
But it was interesting because somebody posted a LinkedIn post about um a guy who wants1000 men, I think it was 1000 men to empower 1000 young men in work.
And I thought it's interesting, isn't it?
Because they're a privileged man.
But actually there's a whole sector of young men who have been othered.
(13:25):
And it just, I don't know, there's something about the language that...
Well, I'd love to have another conversation when you've finished it, see what you think.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
No, I think it's very true.
I think we very often we end up othering without realizing we're doing it.
ah I was talking to a very dear friend of mine yesterday who's neurodiverse and we weretalking about when we talk about inclusivity and diversity, we are very often forgetting
(13:54):
the neurodiverse community.
ah We are are othering the elderly.
We are othering, you know, young people or people that are a different color to us.
And I'm very conscious myself that I am a privileged European middle class white woman.
So I come with a whole bag of privileges as it is.
(14:16):
um But how can I maybe with that space bring some of these topics up?
Yeah, I'm reading it for the neuro.
Yeah, they far they haven't talked about neurodiversity at all.
But that is actually why I'm reading it because I'm writing about it.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's incredibly important.
And I think it's important that ah that we also talk about what are the gifts with that?
(14:41):
What is what are the strengths with that?
ah You know, and how do how do those of us that either, you know, don't know that we areor are not neurodiverse?
ah How do we how do we also uh engage with and support those of our fellow uh
(15:01):
friends and family and colleagues who are neurodiverse.
I mean, I have neurodiverse friends that are the most enriching, creative, amazing.
So there's a real gift there, but I also realize that there are things that are maybedifficult.
Transitions is typically one, right?
ah Yeah, yeah, exactly.
(15:22):
uh
yeah, the benefit is great and the cost is high.
uh So yeah, interesting.
I've lost my question.
I want to talk to you about regenerative leadership.
ah But there was something else that just came out there around othering, which I'vecompletely lost.
(15:45):
That's all right, we'll find it.
It'll weedle its way back.
So you met Ruth Davey, who's been a guest at the Coaching Inn around Look Again.
And I've just remembered the thing.
Now it's gone again.
uh So uh we had an open table at the Coaching Inn about three weeks ago where um we had uhfour of us were talking about safety and courage in coaching.
(16:14):
And one of them said, you can't declare a space safe.
Mm-mm.
You also can't declare a space inclusive, of course, can you?
Because actually that is in itself othering because it's saying, I'm saying this is safe.
I'm saying this is inclusive and it isn't.
So I just wanted to kind of drop that in.
Yeah, no, I think that's very true.
think it's incredibly important that, you know, when I talk about I'd like to have a spacethat feels safe for others to be in, it is very much them that decide whether that is
(16:43):
space, spaceful, safe, inclusive, whether they can be vulnerable.
I don't get to dictate that at all.
And uh as a practitioner, you know, we can also be in spaces that all of a sudden start tofeel unsafe.
So I think it's a moving thing.
I think it is something that we are continuously having to be honest and have couragearound with our clients to talk about, know, how is this?
(17:09):
Is this, know, good enough for now, safe enough to try?
Is this where we can be together right now?
Because it is dynamic and it's no, we can't declare a space safe ever.
No.
Absolutely.
And I just want to say to our listeners, building on what you've just said, is thatsometimes you'll feel that you'll experience your training or development space as a coach
(17:33):
is unsafe, and you're not making that up.
Yes, no, absolutely.
No, if it feels unsafe or not right, it is.
Yeah, the body keeps the score.
Absolutely.
And I, it's funny you say that because I remember sitting in a session um with a coachingsupervisor.
This was years ago, years and years ago.
(17:54):
Today, let me just say that I have the most amazing supervisor that I love.
um But I remember sitting in supervision feeling.
extraordinarily unsafe all of a sudden.
There was an underlying, what my body perceived to be an underlying malice that wasdisguised as concern.
ah And everything in my system was just tingling.
(18:17):
um And so I ended the session and said, I'm not feeling well, I need to go.
And then I canceled the agreement.
So yeah, it feels unsafe, it is unsafe.
Absolutely.
As all things in life, right?
Not just in the coaching space, it's everywhere.
(18:37):
Yeah, and when you know something, then you know it.
Yeah, and there's something about owning that, isn't it?
And not going, oh, I must be being weird today.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'll be perfectly honest, I have had years in corporate life where at timesI, I, you know, I swallowed my own sense of unsafety, or lack of safety, or my own
(19:01):
concerns.
And I don't do that anymore.
That's been part of my healing is to say, No, this is not good for me.
But I didn't always do that.
And I see a lot of people that don't.
do it in my practice.
And of course, we get the clients we need, right?
It's always like that.
um But I do talk about it because I see that it has an impact, not just emotionally andmentally, but also physically, people get ill from it.
(19:28):
um
So back to my question from ages ago.
Yeah, tell us about regenerative leadership, Tatjana.
So it's a word that has a certain buzz right now.
And that's that's good in the sense that it's sort of spreading spreading the word ofsomething that's always been there.
(19:53):
But at the same time, I think it has the risk of just just becoming another thing, right?
Being commoditized, being overused, you know, all that sort of stuff.
But my
When I was in corporate, my sense was that there's something that is fundamentally brokenhere that are making talented, wonderful, lovely people not work very well together or get
(20:16):
ill or, know, stuckness in the system, lots of different things.
And then I read Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm's book, Regenerative Leadership, which is ahuge recommendation um to read it.
And every page I was turning, I had that sense of, ah, OK.
That's what I'm sensing.
Ah, okay.
Okay.
So that's why, you know, so there was this whole sort of, it was just the most enormouslight bulb that went off in my head.
(20:43):
Um, and I wanted to join the course in 22 and wasn't able to at the time also because Iwas in the middle of a degree and Corona and I was like, that's too much.
And then I joined the cohort in 23 and there was a year sort of online, uh, teachings andwebinars and meetings, very beautiful community.
(21:03):
And we, about 40 of us from the two cohorts that had gone through, decided to meet in theUK and Ruth was part of that.
ah Ruth and I found ourselves in a group with a couple of other lovely, lovely people uhtrying to sort of gently plan one of the sessions uh in the five days that we were
(21:24):
together in Devon.
And yeah, I mean, how can you not love Ruth?
That was instant.
I was like,
There's a woman after my heart.
uh So we are friends.
We talk about kind of collaboration stuff.
I have her certification as well, which I love and I use with clients really effectively.
(21:47):
So I guess what both of us are trying to do is to regeneratively in the sense of using theprinciples of nature.
What is the logic of life?
What are the things that inherently create flow and thrive ability?
(22:07):
Where do we not need to grind and push and do all those sort of things?
And also to think about how can we be good ancestors?
What is it that we're leaving behind for next generations?
So it's a way of thinking about things, a way of trying to create some cracks and shedsome light on things that need to be done better.
(22:31):
and not in a very sort of capitalistic extractive form.
And I know that the minute we say, you know, the ills of capitalism, people go, yeah, butyou have a business and you make money.
Yes, that's true, but we've always traded, we've always had, you know, exchange of goodsand services.
It's the extractiveness and the willful blindness to the harm that we're doing in sort of,you know, mega structures.
(22:57):
ah
around the world.
mean, look at where we are today.
A lot of that is, you know, ah is because of that, that we are extractive, that we thinkthat nature is infinite.
We can just plug all the resources, that we treat human beings as commodities.
And I mean, that started with slavery, ah you know, that we are othering in every sense ofthe word, you're either on the inside or you're on the outside.
(23:24):
And that's very much also a feature of corporate life.
You know, if you haven't drunk the Kool-Aid, then you don't belong.
uh So it is to try and see where is an organizational system or a group of peopleresourceful in themselves.
Where can we help people find agency?
What are some of the uh methodologies or modalities that we can employ that have a root innature?
(23:50):
What does nature do, right?
She converses and convenes.
m She doesn't have any waste.
She's using resources well.
She's thinking about, you know, cradle to cradle.
There is no rushing in nature.
Everything arrives at the right time.
I very often use the metaphor of soil.
(24:10):
You know, unless your soil, metaphorically, and in life, by the way, unless your soil ishealthy, there are a lot of things that are not going to go well.
So how do we talk about that?
How do we get you away from thinking that you have to work em a 12-hour day and then gohome and get back on the computer?
That is not regenerative.
(24:33):
From a biological perspective, the stress you are inducing in your body will shorten yourtelomeres and you will get ill.
That's in your genes, that's the DNA.
Your relationships would suffer because you have no time.
Your adrenaline will be high, your cortisol, everything in your body will be on alert.
ah
So how do we work with some of the principles of not just because sustainability is kindof leaving it where it is.
(24:59):
Regenerative is leaving it better.
uh And there are so many beautiful people working in small islands of coherence uh thatare trying to invite a conversation around, you know, what does that mean?
And I'm by no means an expert.
um
I was talking on one of my podcast episodes with Charlie, who's also in this space andknows Ruth as well.
(25:25):
And, you know, we are still learners.
We are Padawans.
um This is an expert hood.
uh Yeah, Giles and Laura are, but they've also been in at this for, you know, 20 plusyears.
um I just spent the weekend in a Chai Chi retreat with John Milton, who's one of the sortof
(25:47):
founding ecologists in the US.
And he's still learning and he's 86, I think.
But I think it is about sensing and longing for a different way of us being in the world.
And when I turn on the news, I see that very much being needed.
And not to sort of, you know, sound depressed about that.
(26:09):
But I think, you know, now's the time.
And we have the technology, have the wisdom, we have everything.
We just need to get it sometimes, you know, disrupt some of that.
So what does that look like in your work, Tatjana?
It looks like it depends what it looks like in with individual clients.
(26:32):
It is that piece of asking a lot of questions to try and surface both courage and agencyin the people that I'm working with, but without holding them as a project.
Because I think that's another form of othering, right?
That's me thinking that I somehow have to fix or save you and that's not the case you are.
fully capable, fully able, fully everything.
(26:54):
um What I'm trying to do is help you have enough breath and space in your body and in yoursoul that you can see your path and we can begin to travel that together and you can
discover what's available to you.
um With teams, it's very often, um it's a combination of the same kind of asking a lot ofquestions.
(27:19):
and sometimes pointing a finger at stuff that we don't talk about.
Everyone knows it's in the room, but we never talk about it.
It's de-weaponizing the language that very often happens in teams.
That's a big part of that.
And sometimes it's also just allowing them to be with the space in themselves.
When we give it back to teams, they find a way.
(27:41):
um It's also holding space for emotions.
for the anger, the frustration, the joy, the crying, whatever it is, it's all welcome.
And then it's the podcast.
It is trying to put, like you, right, some voices out there to talk about how do we findsome voice in some agency.
(28:01):
So there is a side of me that also I can sense my own activists sort of, you know,starring.
Yeah, so what's your podcast called?
called the human greenhouse, like the business.
Yeah.
And that was an experiment, or is an experiment, from the perspective of wanting to givesome voice um to some people that have some really beautiful thoughts and big hearts and
(28:29):
that are trying to find their own way.
And it's fairly eclectic and that suits me fine.
um
But that's also evolving, right?
It's always changing, always evolving as these things are.
Yes.
Yes, they do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you get lovely notes saying, oh, you know, what if you talked about this and I have aquestion about that, which is fantastic.
(28:54):
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How long has your podcast been going?
But a year now.
So still early days, but but that's good.
It's fun.
It's really fun.
So we're having a little summer break, and then we get going again in September.
So I'm in the in that lovely process of trying to birth a new season and, you know,thinking about what what else is there and what are some of the conversations, you know,
(29:22):
surfacing in terms of what needs to come on next?
Yeah.
Half our listens are of old episodes.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah, lovely.
which fascinates me.
Because there's something about, oh, is this live?
(29:42):
No, it isn't actually.
People listen to past episodes.
Yeah, yeah, no, I get that as well.
I get people sort of, you know, sending me messages saying, I listened to that episode,you know, three times, and I'm finding something new every time.
And, you know, that one made a difference.
And that is always incredibly wonderful to hear from from people.
um And also to hear if you know, had had this was a colleague of mine in the industry, whosent me a message saying, I love that episode.
(30:11):
But I think you could get a bit more tough with your guests.
I was like, yeah, I hear you.
OK.
Yeah.
But there was one of those days where that wasn't in my space.
Yeah nice.
So The Human Greenhouse is your podcast and if people want to talk to you how do they getin touch?
So the website, thehumangreenhouse.com is where they can find me.
(30:35):
Also, I'm on LinkedIn and I am trying to build my Instagram profile, but that is somethingthat I just need a little space with.
And then I have an emergent sub stack um as well.
Yeah, me too.
yeah.
It's one of those things of staying focused and not sort of losing yourself across 1010platforms.
(30:58):
And then I find it really, I find it really interesting when other people are postingthings as well.
So yeah.
to post half written thoughts and then get comments on them.
So it's just so rather than having a document with a half written thought or an unfinishedthought, I just pop them in in Substack.
I was talking to a friend of mine about this yesterday.
(31:20):
um You know, I think it's so important at the moment that we, I will say I am a recoveringperfectionist by heart, um but that we just try and do things imperfectly.
There's too much out there that somebody has put through an AI engine and it feels, it'slike ghost language.
It feels dead.
It feels otherworldly.
(31:41):
And I love it when someone's just going,
Oops, you know, I was posting something or you know, they get online somewhere and it'snot quite perfect and then you know the dog barked or whatever It just then it feels human
again As opposed to the sort of robotic nature of well polished AI Yeah
(32:02):
Greenhouse podcast and all of those links will be in the show notes.
Thank you Tatjana for coming to the Coaching In.
Thank you for having me, it lovely.
Thank you so much.
And everyone, thank you for listening and we'll be back next week with another episode.
Bye bye.
Bye.
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