Episode Transcript
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(00:14):
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn.
I'm your host, Claire Pedrick, and I absolutely love getting emails from people going, weshould do a podcast on this.
uh So this week is an Open Table with Sarah Terry and Kate Harrison responding to an emailfrom Sarah that said we should do this just before we introduce the topic and meet Kate
(00:41):
and Sarah.
uh
If you would like to subscribe or follow you'll get every podcast as it drops and if you'dlike to share it we would really appreciate that and I think you're going to have so much
good stuff in this that you're going to want to share it.
So Sarah, Sarah Terry, welcome to The Coaching Inn.
(01:04):
Good morning.
Thank you for having me.
ah So why don't you start by telling us your coaching journey?
Okay, so my background's in technology and leadership.
So I started coaching to develop myself as a leader.
(01:25):
And I signed up to a course at Henley Business School in about 2018 and just absolutelyfell in love with coaching and the power of coaching.
So the following year I left
my job to set up my own coaching business.
(01:47):
Yep.
Yeah.
And then hit January 2020 and kind of sat at home twiddling my thumbs through COVID.
course, yeah, which was yesterday and a thousand years ago.
Yeah.
(02:08):
So Kate Harris and welcome to The Coaching Inn.
Thanks so much, Claire.
It's really exciting to be here.
So I've been, I trained in 2021.
So I did all my coach training online, which was amazing and actually surprisinglypowerful.
My background is in working for nonprofits or charities.
(02:30):
So I, I've worked as a grant maker, a funder for about 10 years and before that charity.
So most of my coaching is actually in the nonprofit sector, mainly with funders.
Nice, nice, which is my heart.
Because that's where I started to, the not-for-profit.
So Sarah, you sent me an email.
(02:55):
I did.
I sent you an email of the back of a really rich supervision session, which Kate is partof, where we were discussing the difficulty that we as coaches were having in terms of
growing our business and connecting into corporations.
(03:21):
So Kate and I have been running a program in the background to take to scale up companiesand larger corporates.
And it sort of triggered this conversation around how do we measure and articulate thevalue of coaching when it's quite a deep
(03:45):
and sort of non transactional process often that we undertake with our coaches.
And the incongruence really of articulating that sort of that almost intangible magicalaha moment versus the solid required KPIs from a corporate sector.
(04:09):
And yeah, we had a really rich discussion and hopefully we can share more as.
this progressive.
Because it's not 1 plus 1 equals 2, is it?
One plus one equals we don't have an answer oftentimes.
(04:30):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
So Kate, what are some of the things you were thinking about talking about exploring?
Well, I'd also add that the challenge isn't actually only for selling coaching tocorporates.
Non-profits uh increasingly have their eye on the return on investment as well.
(04:52):
And also uh often have tighter budgets to be able to justify spending on a resource likecoaching.
One of the things I did was to think to myself,
Well, I need a nice comfy bed of evidence to rest myself on.
So where is that evidence?
(05:12):
And I did find it, the ICF, I think it's an ongoing study, but the ICF has done a studywhich shows return on investment of seven times the value of investment in coaching, which
is great.
It doesn't marry up with that, magical aha.
I mean, there's a lot of...
(05:33):
It's difficult to unpack where that seven times ROI comes from.
It comes from a lot of places, but it was something that Sarah and I continued talkingabout because it was like, well, that's sounds good on paper, but is that really going to
convince an HR department to invest in coaching?
(05:53):
And interestingly on that statistic as well, it was something like 17 to 19 % of that uhdata just was hard data.
The rest of it was more qualitative feeling as opposed to tighter and the thing tangible.
(06:16):
And when you break down where that ROI might be coming from, I have a feeling that it maycome from very mixed roots, but some of it is retention because it costs so much to
recruit people.
So it's both recruiting the right people and coaching can help with that, but alsoretaining the right people or not retaining the wrong people or enabling the right people
(06:39):
to go for the right job.
So there's a lot there that you can unpack in retention.
And then there's this kind of slightly more woolly side of good decisions, good strategy,good avoiding mistakes.
And I think some of those things can contribute, but how you can really, I think what itis, is it's a million stars in the sky.
(07:02):
I think that the ICF has a great range of sources and huge data bodies to draw from.
um And I would also say that there's been a meta analysis as well, which is a kind ofstudy of studies.
So this is bundling together large amounts of data.
(07:23):
I think when you break it down to an individual, I don't know that you could promiseanybody that you're going to get seven times the ROI on an individual person.
Yeah.
And a lot of what you talked about there was about not money that you don't spend ratherthan, than increased money.
Cause you're not spending it on a new recruitment.
(07:45):
You're not spending it on mitigate dealing with mistakes.
You're not spending it on whatever.
Interesting.
Yeah.
But then there's another side to Sarah's question that we also explored in supervisionwith Julia Carden, which we really enjoy.
And that's the, how do I deal with the discomfort I feel?
(08:08):
that side of me as a coach feeling discomfort.
uh And that's a really interesting thing to think about.
We talked, Sarah and I talked about this a bit more as well, about what is it in the coachthat might be feeling the discomfort?
(08:30):
What in the coach might they need to kind of get over to feel comfortable with that,articulating the value?
It's that, and also, by the way, and I was looking recently at the ethics, ICF's ethics,and one of the ICF ethics is to be truthful.
about what I offer and the potential value of coaching.
(08:54):
And I realized that we're in a world in coaching where quite a lot of people, dare I say,may be skirting the edge of that ethical place.
And when Sarah and I are both quite committed to ethical kind of working, it's one of ourvalues, then we're in an uncomfortable place when we're trying to truthfully articulate
(09:15):
the value.
Yeah, because the value doesn't come from me or you Kate or you Sarah or you lovelylistening coach.
It comes from us.
Us, me and the other person where we have a lot less control.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(09:35):
Yes.
oh
true.
I mean, I do reciprocal coaching, so I still receive coaching.
And I had a moment when I was in a crisis with some of the voluntary work I do, and Iturned up to my reciprocal coach at a second meeting, didn't have a lot of faith in her at
that moment, I will admit.
And it was magic.
It was just the process of her holding the space enabled me to see clearly what I neededto do.
(10:03):
because you were willing to step in.
Because if you hadn't been willing to step in, the magic wouldn't have happened.
Yeah, interesting.
Sarah.
of, you know, sort of the ambiguity and the uncertainty and trying to articulate that thatI often struggle with.
(10:33):
You know, there's that, and there's also this, you know, what even is a coach, you know,to some companies, I mean, you think of coaching on the spectrum of coaching, you know, my
starting point is often
Do you know what coaching is?
And how does it differ from mentoring or therapy?
(10:56):
Because you're asking people to step in, aren't you?
And bring their whole selves and bring their families and their colleagues.
We create that safe space in order for to be courageous and really step into that, becausethat really takes something.
Yeah, even defining that sometimes is quite difficult.
(11:20):
Yeah, it's interesting because as you're talking, I'm reminded of the podcast that we didwith Oscar Trimboli, where he said, there's three elements in the conversation, the
speaker, the hearer and the dialogue.
And so now we've got three things that need to come together in harmony.
And of course, sometimes, so I think about I think about the dialogue is that middle kindof arena, the circle that we step into.
(11:46):
But they don't sometimes
So if somebody's paying for coaching for themselves, they've had it before, they're comingbecause they're willing to step in, they know how to step in and they're ready to step in.
But when you're talking about ROI in a organization, whatever kind of organization it is,the people who are coming to the arena probably aren't yet known.
(12:12):
And they...
it's an organization stepping in, not just an individual as well.
Yeah, but just because the organisation steps in doesn't mean the individual will does it?
So the commissioner of the coaching can be really bought in and go, yeah, I completely gethow this is going to transform this and this and this and I'm totally on board.
(12:33):
But each individual person in each conversation needs to step into that conversation, intothe arena of the dialogue, think, don't they?
It's interesting.
It's such an interesting point.
m I was coaching a managing director recently of a big consultancy company and I asked himfor feedback and he said, what do want me to say?
(13:04):
And I said, I'd just like to understand, you know, the difference between when we started,you know, this
process, this partnership, and what was different when we agreed that you got to where youwanted to be.
And he said, know, he goes, was a real game changer for me.
(13:29):
And I thought, well, that's great, but in what way?
And then it became this really unnatural, uncomfortable conversation.
And I thought, well, who am I to ask?
for feedback.
He's telling me, you know, it was a game changer for him.
It's made such a difference to him and he's going off back into his environment, you know,with a different mindset, you know, more confidence, for example.
(13:58):
yeah, you know, because Kate talked about that comfortable bed of evidence.
That's out there, but you know, I'm not sure.
I think coaches rely on that.
And it left me with this feeling, how do I actually take that as an example on art,articulate the success of that?
(14:21):
I mean, it felt brilliant.
I felt great.
You know, he felt great.
And yeah, so that's, there's more questions than answers.
The interesting thing that I was thinking about as well when I was discussing the questionwith Sarah was do commissioners or even clients make their decisions based on a view of
(14:46):
what the ROI is going to be?
Or do they actually make their decisions based on other factors such as colleagues havingexperienced coaching, maybe they've experienced coaching, maybe somebody says to them,
have you thought of coaching?
And then it comes from lived experience and peer experience, rather than them sitting downwith a calculator and saying, I need to generate X ROI from every hour of the day that I
(15:16):
spend.
I think it is even in corporates, is like a very bottom line driven industry, I stillthink that many decisions are made which are not evidence based and which are intuitive
(15:36):
sometimes about what is needed.
And often the result is intuitive, isn't it?
Your man, it's been a game changer.
That sounds like a felt sense, which is probably going to change a lot of intangiblethings that is going to make a difference.
You know, so that when you look at someone and you think, well, there's somethingdifferent about you, you've got something about you, you know, but it's, really almost
(16:03):
invisible to the human eye.
It's that, it's that piece.
I went to the osteopath this week because I've got something wrong with my foot and oh hedid all his measurements and his looking and everything and he goes, this hip is one
centimetre higher than the other hip.
Then he does magical things and then he goes, look, your legs are the same length.
(16:28):
you're pulling a face cake, they're sort of, oh!
And I think that's interesting because when I encounter my osteopath, I don't expect atangible, physical, visible, I expect to feel better, I expect to be able to move better,
but I don't expect him to go, look, your legs are wonky now, look Claire, they'retogether, they're the same length.
(16:53):
So actually in lots of things, we're not expecting.
tangible, measurable outcomes.
you
you still go to the osteopath without the expectation that something as dramatic as thechange in your leg length is going to happen.
You still go.
want to feel uh different.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
(17:15):
I work, part of my work is strategy work with charities and funders.
And um one time I worked with a very small charity and suggested that I bundled incoaching for the CEO at the same time.
So we did that as part of the work together and he'd never had coaching before and heexperienced it as enormously calming.
(17:41):
enabled him to be centered, enabled him to be strategic.
And so much so that he's then would finish the strategy, but he's continuing to commissioncoaching from me and continues every time we meet to find it valuable in the situations
that he's facing.
Though, as you say, Sarah, if I was to really pin him down to precisely define that value,there would still be metaphors of,
(18:10):
Yeah.
So I spoke to head of L &D a couple of weeks ago.
We were talking a bit about this, was talking about the podcast and that he said, which Ithought was really interesting.
He said, I really believe in coaching, but he struggles to take that up to board level toget the approval.
(18:33):
So it's almost like what we are struggling with.
uh It was interesting that he used the word believe, you know.
And that demonstrates that he believes in people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a-
There's an issue for me about how we get the data because the relationship isn't about us.
(18:57):
The relationship is about the relationship and it's about them and it's about the work andit's about them.
And it's really difficult, isn't it?
At the end of the engagement, you don't want to give them the Spanish Inquisition.
So if you go to a restaurant, they go, did you enjoy your meal?
And you say, yeah, it was lovely.
Thanks.
And then you go on to the rest of your evening or whatever, don't you?
(19:19):
You don't go, yes.
uh The mushrooms were particularly tasty for the following reason and the cheese couldhave been slightly more salty.
You just don't.
You just go, yeah, that was a fabulous meal.
So when we get the data, if there's going to be any data is an interesting questionbecause it's kind of outside the relationship.
(19:45):
My first coach actually hires someone else.
Yes.
conversations with the people she's coached.
if I'm coaching you, Kate, I say to you at the end, we do a what are you taking away kindof ending and what are we learning?
But then I say to you, it'd be really helpful for me or for us as a business to get uh abit more detail about what's been useful about the process.
(20:13):
Would you be willing to have a conversation with my whoever?
That is such an interesting point because one of the things we spoke about in supervisionthat I've been reflecting on a lot and we talked about Kate is this coach as a coach
because you know, if that holding that space and that awareness and that exploration, butcoach then same coach as a seller, as a marketeer, as a
(20:44):
and how incongruent they are and how uncomfortable that is.
Go on.
Well, we're not all in the position of being able to pay somebody to do that, are we?
However, Kate, if you did it for Sarah and Sarah, you did it for Kate.
(21:05):
What are you thinking that?
Bum!
Light bulb.
you you got that ahead me but yeah of course
Yep.
Yep.
realised that before, but isn't that a little bit genius?
Because you're going to get the data, but you're not going to have to invest any money ingetting it.
And also, because you two know each other, you know the kinds of questions to ask to getthe information that you need.
(21:29):
Yeah.
You could also think through, I'm sure that your coach did this as well, think throughsome of the categories.
I was thinking what you were saying about when you go to a restaurant, you don't get askedfor detailed feedback.
I have been to a new restaurant where they did ask for detailed feedback, but they hadcategories.
How was the waiting staff?
How was the ambience?
(21:50):
How was the starter made?
Blah, blah, blah.
How was the music?
How was the, you know, everything.
And you could have more than just.
please articulate what you gained.
It could be like, how was the kind of onboarding, the contracting, how was the ending, howwas the management of the meeting times?
(22:13):
You know, could separate it out a little bit as well as trying to dig into the sort ofless tangible, more mystical side of what happens in the coaching relationship.
Great idea.
back in a year when you've done it, see how you're getting on.
Yeah, We should definitely.
That's one to think of.
(22:36):
And I guess as well, this is, you know, we've talked a lot about the individual and the,you know, that's sort of what I would define as deep coaching, you know, because
oftentimes we go very deep in order to move forward.
But
but also at an organizational level.
(22:57):
Again, that rolls up to sort of a sort of subtleties in the cultural shift, doesn't it?
I mean, I think that's, you know, talked about ambiguity earlier, but I've seen the impactof coaching across organizations, but just not tied it to any significant metrics.
(23:20):
You you mentioned retention, Kate, and
and things like engagement.
You know, there are huge topics within organizations.
But again, it's, you know, it's that cultural shift and it's almost like the leaders needto be open to that and the learning and development teams need to be open to that and
(23:46):
trust in it.
Yeah, and that's, you're making me think of some team coaching I did with quite alarge-ish funder a year or so ago where they invested quite a lot of their personal
development budget in a couple of days with me.
(24:07):
And um you know, it's really interesting because all the staff, more or less to a person,were like, too busy for this.
But by the end, they were...
saying we really needed this.
And I was doing follow up with the person that commissioned me and she was saying, yes,this has made a difference in the way they pick up the phone to each other, the way they
(24:31):
relate to each other, the way conflicts are resolved, the way decisions are made andstress levels are, I do think it needs topping up, but I think that there are certain
quite easily described, if not,
financially tangible, easily described values for coaching in a group setting as well,team setting.
(24:56):
Mm.
you touch there on the potential for measurables like days of sick.
Yeah.
presentation, yeah.
And engagement, staff engagement is something which is a uh measurable, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's a good precursor, isn't it, oftentimes to what potentially could go wrong.
(25:24):
Yeah, that's true.
I think, you know, my background in technology, you know, lot of American softwarecompanies, I'll, you know, I'll try not to make any judgments, but, you know, difficult
cultural environments, shall we say, often, you know, male dominated hierarchical commandand control kind of.
(25:51):
organizations and I think because that's my experience, it's you know that feels like mymission to go back in and change that but oftentimes they're the exact type of
organization that just won't have it or don't feel the need which is really quiteinteresting and you know I've just
(26:14):
gone back into the corporate environment a couple of months ago, when I'm working withthis company, four days a week.
And I look at how much I've been coached over the last five years, and I am like adifferent person.
It is uh unbelievable.
(26:37):
And I've been really trying hard to reflect on what that is and why.
that is, but I will sit in a room with, you know, CIO, CEO, CRO, you know, I could go onand I will sit there and I will think I am.
(27:01):
you know, as important as you in terms of what I, the value that I can bring to the table.
And I value myself and I see things differently.
And that has come about, uh you know, not from therapy, not from, maybe from age, we'llmention the metals, but a lot of that has been from driving, you know, real reflection.
(27:30):
and exploration through my coaching.
It's like night and day.
it's, so I've been asking myself, why can't I just articulate what that is?
And it comes back to this, you know, this thing of, you know, that I just feeldifferently, that I'm still the same person.
(27:57):
No one would notice it if they looked at me, but it's deep.
And it obviously connects very much into this deep transformation, this deeptransformative process that we go through in our coaching and the difficulty that we have
in, I say difficulty we have in articulating something corporate wants to hear.
(28:22):
Do we even need to do that?
Yeah.
You know what, I was thinking as you were saying that, and I was coming in my mind to theimportance of working with coaches that are credentials and that have regular supervision
and all these kind of points about what you'd look for in a coach.
And I would say that any corporate commissioner or nonprofit commissioner of coachingshould be very careful about recruiting a coach that promises things that seem impossible.
(28:54):
that actually I would be, it's counterintuitive, but I'd be more willing to trust a coachthat actually struggles to articulate the value of it rather than someone who says, you
will get as a result of this X, Y, Z things.
Because any coach that says that is not an ethical coach in my opinion.
(29:15):
I'm hiring somebody after this podcast, I'm going on a call where I'm going to hiresomeone to support us in a particular part of our business.
And the final thing that made me commit was that they told me it didn't work for everyone.
mmm yeah i get that it's on
(29:36):
gave me an example of where it had gone horribly wrong.
And I thought, I like that because there's honesty there.
Can I come back to what you said, Sarah?
Because I think what's really interesting as you were describing, here I am five years onin the room.
Because there's something about you having grown your capacity to think and feel.
(30:00):
and explore.
Which of course is a huge value to an organisation when somebody has got the capacity tothink and feel and want to explore.
But not everybody wants to do that or is able to do it.
And I'm guessing in some organisational cultures that's going to be more true than others.
(30:20):
We work in the health service and one of the things that I notice when we're trainingpeople to use a coaching style at work
in the health service is that when you ask them to bring something to think about, theyfind that really difficult.
And that's not resistance.
(30:41):
m
That's not, I'm not bringing something to think about.
It's, well, what would I think about?
Mm.
So it's kind of stretchability.
It's very interesting.
Mmm.
So you're.
amazing subject to open up.
Yeah, it is.
It's fascinating.
And I think your point is coming back to that willingness to step in and not justwillingness to step in, but that ability to step in, which might be your NHS example where
(31:11):
there's willingness, but actually they may be so overloaded by their situation that it'sactually hard for them to take the view of what do I need to focus on?
Because there must be so many things for them.
I'm thinking, you
What are we valuing that we can't even see?
(31:37):
You know?
Great question.
And I think, by the way, because we use the word corporate and, you know, this question isabout how to articulate the value to corporate.
And I did point out it's going to be the same.
But I think maybe it's important to relax a bit and remember that every organization ismade up of human beings and every human being needs the ability to think and feel and be
(32:00):
willing to explore, as you put it, Claire.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for coming to The Coaching Inn, Kate Harrison and Sarah Terry.
What an absolute delight.
I'm expecting lots of messages in response to this episode.
So email info at 3dcoaching.com.
uh I will put Kate and Sarah's LinkedIn contact details in the show notes if you want tocarry on a pick up a conversation with them.
(32:30):
So
What do you want to say to finish, Kate?
Relax on that bed of fantastic information that supports coaching and go with the mysteryand encourage others to step into that relationship and trust it will work.
(32:51):
Sarah.
I think for me that it's, you know, coaching with individuals and companies as apartnership.
It's like any relationship.
There's no quick fix to difficulties to what you bring.
You know, it's the long game and, you know, just step into that.
(33:13):
Thank you.
Thank you everyone for listening.
Thank you, Kate.
Thank you, Sarah, for coming and we'll be back next week with another episode.
Bye bye.
Thanks Claire.
Bye.