In this episode, Clare and Steve explore power and the hidden dynamics of power in the coach/client and the supervisee/supervisor relationship. We can unconsciously give away our power or seek to take it. In organisations as well as in relationships, power dynamics are not always where they seem to be. Do you have power over, power with, or are you accessing power within, in your relationships? With several examples, Clare and Steve indicate how power can show up in our work and invite you to consider the power balance in your formative relationships (parents, siblings, teachers etc…) which might unconsciously influence how you show up in your coaching and supervision relationships.

In this episode, Clare and Steve muse about hiding in supervision. Steve confesses to hiding himself when tiredness got in the way and he chose to coast and take a ride on the back of the tandem instead of driving his own bike! Hiding by not bringing issues creates inequality in groups, where vulnerability is so key. Hiding behind the story, rather than focusing on themselves, prevents us from identifying the part we play in coaching relationships. Hiding behind repeating topics every time could mask something more significant. Accessing the unknown, hidden stuff is really important and can be found through reflective and reflexive practice. Shining a light on our own shadow, where it has an impact on coaching, is vital to create transformation for ourselves and those we work with.

Clare and Steve chat with Steve Chapman in a rich, content-packed journey of exploration into the world of not knowing. Tethering fear and permission, our podcasters explore answers that offer only more questions, the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, leaping then looking, presentations to dandelions, the erratic behaviour that comes with stuckness and much more. This episode is so packed with curiosities, you might need to listen several times. Our podcasters and their guest conclude that if coach and client, or supervisor and supervisee, can meet each other in a genuinely playful, experimental place, then a strange sense of safety and of shared vulnerability emerges and exclamation marks come back to life as question marks.

References:
Paul Watzlawick - Change; principles of problem formation and problem resolution
“A fallacy of misplaced concreteness” - Alfred North Whitehead
Claire Genkai Breeze - Relume
Steve Chapman - www.canscorpionssmoke.com

Clare and Steve discuss the challenge of feedback and knowing how we are doing as a coach, when all our work is confidential and only witnessed by ourselves and our clients. They explore internal and external referencing and ask two of the biggest questions - who am I as a coach and why am I here? They suggest that understanding ‘self as instrument’ provides the framework against which we can measure our own success and that developing our reflexive skills and practice can all provide self feedback. We can then augment that through supervision, mentor coaching and well contracted co-coaching to give us that external feedback.

Clare and Steve discuss ways we might work with our clients - face to face, telephone, virtually and some other slightly more experimental ones! What assumptions and biases are in place when we have a favourite or familiar method? What has the pandemic changed? What happens if we blend methods? Could we be more experimental, more curious? What role might supervision play in testing the boundaries we create for ourselves and enhancing our sensory acuity by trying something different?

Clare and Steve discuss working with story and how story shows up in coaching and supervision. Story is old thinking, often the story the client has told, and continues to tell, themselves. What we are seeking to do is create new thinking and mostly the story doesn't serve this well. Our podcasters explore how storytelling is fundamentally human, but how as supervisees we might become entangled in our client’s story, or entangle our own story with that of our client. They discuss how we can use the idea of story without seeking to widen our own understanding or be nosey about the client’s situation. For example, using story, books, writing, reading, listeners, characters as metaphor. Marrying story with time to create future stories; the Hero’s Journey.

Clare and Steve start with a discussion about what internal coaches might need from supervision, as coach and employee. Then they talk about how to meet the need with quality and cost in mind. Confidentiality and contracting for the boundaries of supervision are important internally. There are different complexities for internal coaches that make it harder to coach there, so it is even more important to have good quality supervision – and training that is tied to the unique needs of internal coaches in the first place. They move on to discuss the business case – coaches understand the need, but budget holders need some persuading! Having a single pot for all coaching needs including supervision makes that easier. We talk ROI and ROH – Return on Humanity, for both coaching and supervision, and measurements around safety of coach and thinker rather than monetary. Then there’s harvesting the learning for the organisation, themes that emerge that need to be addressed at the organisational level. Last, but not least, we talk about the argument for supervision being made by finding a language that fits your business.

Clare and Steve meet with Peter Hawkins for a wide ranging and provocative discussion about where supervision has come from and where it needs to go in order to keep the coaching profession fit for purpose in an ever changing world. They discuss ‘decolonialisation’, and moving away from individualised development towards the wider system, through team coaching and the inclusion of ecology in the room. Co-creation of thinking between coach, thinker and other stakeholders past, present and future who are not even in the room; chemistry and coaching sessions that consider the whole system, embodied knowing... and much more!

Peter is a prolific author and we drew on topics from Supervision in the Helping Professions 5e, Peter Hawkins and Aisling McMahon
Coaching, Mentoring and Organisational Consultancy, Supervision Skills and Development, Peter Hawkins and Nick Smith
Creating a Coaching Culture, Peter Hawkins

With thanks to our sponsor Open University McGraw Hill for facilitating this discussion with Peter.

Clare and Steve discuss a scenario about the future of coaching using AI, where AI augments what the human can offer rather than replacing them. They look at how AI can spot patterns and join dots that coaches might miss and that the learning can be live in the moment rather than sometime later, so useful for the Thinker in the session. They also ponder on how the coach would stay present with the Thinker if data was being presented by the AI through a format that might be distracting. They question how biased or not an AI might be, given its programming would come from a human in the first place; and they talk about the possibility of chatbots asking process questions only. They note how this isn’t so far into the future, given how many of the constituent parts are already developed for other purposes. And yet, AI doesn’t (yet) have the use of intuition (or does it?). And finally we talk about how training for coaches will change over time as AI gets more integral to the way we work and how mentor coaching might use AI to spot where a coach could improve without the need for a mentor coach.

With thanks to Professor David Clutterbuck and Henley Business School Centre for Coaching for the AI 'case study' from their webinar - Supervision series - I don't need a Supervisor: I've got Google.

Clare and Steve talk about energy, how we have more energy (sometimes) for things that are new (like the first lawn mowing of the season) and how energy can get trapped in our body and need an outlet (like dancing). We talk ebb and flow, push and pull, bulldog clips, drains and radiators, kites and anchors, whirlwinds, owls and larks, phases of the moon, jetlag when the clocks change, going, going, going, flop, dialling up, energy viruses, contagion, ripple effects, belonging, rubber sheaths (!!), bubbles, sheets of glass, painting. Can you tell it was a fun one to record?