the Coaching Studio – Season 1 | episode 2 – Guest Marcia Reynolds, Psy.D., MCC

Well, you know, I mean there’s the personal, of course, that brought me even to the place of the professional, but I’ll talk about the professional, but it’s interesting. My first Master’s degree was actually broadcasting. And so I ended up pushing around televisions in a psychiatric hospital, but it was for a training department and my boss decided to get her doctorate and she had fired the only trainer. So she said, well you’ve got it. And she dumped the entire department in my lap. Yeah, right. And my first assignment was management training to all these, you know, therapists, that’s nothing new, everything about behavior. And uh so I learned right away. I don’t have to be the expert that I’m just going to facilitate the conversation. Um you know, I had a training program to use, um but I still knew that I liked it and I needed to know what I was doing. So that’s why I have two masters. My second master’s is in adult learning instructional design and how do we really change people’s behavior? So that’s what got me interested in what really creates behavioral change.

And uh so I’m telling you a story that happened started in 1981. So it was a long time ago and I went on this quest and I go to workshops and I apply what I learned and I always was looking for what makes it stick. Um but I was looking from a training perspective, I now know training is just an event um that hopefully will inspire people to try. They don’t really learn until they try. You know, we’re coaching is a process, but I kept trying and people love my classes, they give me the happy faces on the evaluation forms and say I changed their life and then, you know, within a month they go back to the old behavior, right?

So yeah, and so when I was leaving my last job to start my own business, which I thought was just going to be a training business, Um somebody sent me this article on this new thing called coaching. That was 1995, and I’m the type of person that says, okay, it came to me, it must be important, I’ll sign up and I’ve been doing that all my life. And so I signed up for a coaching school, which so happened, you know, his coach, you and Thomas Leonard, you started the ICF. It’s why I got involved from the beginning.

Um But again, because of my curiosity, I’m a researcher, I’m a behavioral researcher. Um, what makes coaching work? So I started doing research on that. It was just at the time emotional intelligence and the Neurosciences were coming out. I got really interested, was doing reading and said and then I said I need original research. So that’s why I went to get my doctrine. So it’s all about my curiosity and my uh that scientific yearning to know and then I translate what I learned into my books, you know, it’s what I learned and I want to share. Um, So it was all about that I want to know more about what really makes a difference and what I learned about how coaching impacts the brain differently than teaching and telling and mentoring and giving advice that it actually the insight process, the aha moment. What we call breakthroughs actually rewire the brain. And who I think I am and how I see the world changes and so then does their behavior and the behavior changes permanent, you know, they don’t go backward. So I found it, I found what I’ve been looking for and that’s why I’m so passionate about coaching.

It’s a weaving. And um you know, I’m creating this new program right now uh for WBECs and it’s called from Proficiency to Profound. Um because we do start with being proficient with the skill. Um, you have to do that, otherwise, you’ll go back to old behavior or you’ll just have this really delightful conversation. But there’s no beginning in the ending, there’s no uh set direction and there’s no commitment to change. So the structure is there when you said the container, but the container is very specific.

You know, it’s like really determining what is it you really want, what’s the outcome and that could take up the whole session, you know, and then what are you going to do next? I mean there are very specific things that must be said, but then the spontaneous flow that comes out of our presence together, what emerges in the energy between us is what we talk about. But it’s so interesting because I see so many coaches either get lost in the proficiency of the skill or they get lost in the spontaneous flow and they forget to close the session.

Well, you know, there are still people that don’t know the difference between coaching and mentoring and ah sports coaching. And um yeah, more than we’d like to say. You know that’s still when we create an agreement with someone uh to coach them, that we have to get really clear with them, this is how I coach, this is what I do, so we don’t come to the session and they have an expectation that I’m going to give them a list of books to read and resources and tell them what they need to do next.

So um that definition and distinction of coaching is still not widespread. um and then I was in my book, The Discomfort Zone, I had like the five myths of coaching that leaders like to use. And they’re not really myths, their excuses, you know. With the number one being, I don’t have time. Yeah, it’s like, okay, yeah, this there was another guy this morning in the class and he was like, I’m so amazed that when I actually do coaching it takes so much less time. And uh it’s, and I always say, okay, so what you’re telling me is that um you don’t have time to have a conversation, you just want to tell them what to do. And so when they come back to you during the day, a number of times and during the week you have time to stop every time and tell them what to do. Or could it be that if you coach them and they could go figure it out themselves, they quit coming to you, which saves you more time? You know? So it’s just it’s a, can I say it’s a myth of convenience. Um Oh, I have to learn this coaching thing.

Mhm. Well, yeah, two things, one that tends to push people away um to, you know, the essence of coaching has to be that I believe you are fully functional human. You know, there’s a part of our coaching definition that we are in a partnership conversation, creative uh with someone who’s creative, resourceful, and whole. Um, they’re fully functional and capable and we have to show that, you know, I’m working in this new program I’m developing, I actually have hired, I call him my guru because he’s not really a mentor. We get together and we have a dialogue for an hour and a half. He wrote a book on collective wisdom and I’m like, I want to create collective wisdom for coaches. And you know, that’s the new program, the essence of it. And so we go deep into this um conversation and ah you know, the whole, the energy between us that’s so powerful part of that is they know when we believe in them. And they know when we don’t.

But he also said, you know, he gave me an analogy, he said, when you teach a child to ride a bike, you know, they can ride it, you see it, you know, they can ride this bike. Now, they don’t know it to start off with, and at the beginning, they may not even be able to do it for a few days a week, they may get scared and quit and come back to it. Um and then they keep trying, they fall down, they get back up. But eventually, they ride the bike, but all along you have the vision, you knew, you knew they could ride that bike. And we bring that energy to coaching. We know they can ride that bike and we hold that in the space between us uh in in in the whole conversation because they sense that they sense that, so even if they don’t we believe in them, even when they don’t believe in themselves,

Um, yes, that was interesting because I was talking to my guru mentor yesterday. Um, One of the things I recognized is we’re so deep into this uh the development of this program which is I see it as advanced coaching. You know because I do a lot of mastery coaching and but I also worked for coaching schools where we have a lot of entry-level and I teach coaching skills for companies. Um whether it’s a full certification program or a two-day workshop for the leaders. I’m working with them to change their cultures. I love that.

But I said to him I have to really really be careful and you know like we coach by coaching where the person is right now. Um and then move forward. That it’s the same thing in training coaching, that I have to remember where they are right now, and if I try to take him out into outer space too soon, it’s like why are we doing this? We don’t get it? Um So you know, I have to really look at now and culturally, culturally, so when I start talking about collective space and all of that here in the U. S. Is kind of like weird. We’re in China, they’re like, oh YAY! They love it because there they are, you know, a collective society. And so um it’s every class I have to look at who is it, who is it that I’m working with? And adapt it. And I love that. So I really feel like I love code training coaches and that I uh my training is I think very special. You know, it’s not just “rote” do this. Um, A lot of truly understanding who we are in this moment, even when it’s focused on skills. So I’m always, I’m still a trainer, instructional designer by heart. I love that. Um So yes, I have clients. Um uh but only I like, you know, the new executives, the young executives, you know, they’re eager, they want to do this, but they’re stuck in being the expert and the one who knows and um so it’s really kind of fun to coach them. So I have a specific client that I work with. If I’m not training I have and please don’t ask me what my next book is. I hate that…

Well all the coaches that work for me work with me, they know, I always say they want you to be present more than they need you to be perfect. Mhm. Uh that whole intention of I can’t do anything wrong, I have to be a perfect coach takes away from the presence, and um I am so grateful.

My very first coaching class was taught by Thomas Leonard who started you know, Coach U, and the ICF. And um There was I don’t know, maybe 12 of us in the class and he said you have to go out and coach, that’s the only way you can learn coaching is to do it. We’re like this is our first class, how do we coach? We have no idea what we’re doing and he said just go love them. And I’ll never forget that because I still at that point it was still like I’m brand new, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but as I got into, you know the first couple of years I look at my testimonials and like I wasn’t coaching that well. But they were so happy because I gave them such a safe space to talk through their problems. And did they come out in a different place? They absolutely did.

Because I understood the power of caring, caring, being curious, giving them a safe space to talk. And with many of our clients, it may be the only time in their day where they feel like, I can be myself and it’s okay no matter what I bring, it’s okay. And that is so vital um, in our coaching that that comes first, they want you to be present more than they need you to be perfect.