the Coaching Studio – Season 2 | episode 39 Philippe Rosinski, MCC

Lyssa deHart

Hello, and welcome to The Coaching Studio. I’m Lyssa deHart, your host. And it is my honor to introduce the coach in the studio today, professor Philippe Rosinski. He’s an MCC with the International Coaching Federation, as well as and I don’t know for sure, um, Philippe, but, um, I’m sure you’re also involved with the EMCC in Europe as well. Welcome to the show, I’m really delighted to have this opportunity to have a conversation with you today.

Philippe Rosinski

Thank you, Lyssa, for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here with you.

Lyssa deHart

It’s, uh, very much a pleasure to have you here. I know that there are some people born as coaches, but many of us have a very interesting story that led us to the place that we find ourselves. I would love to hear a little about your journey into coaching.

Philippe Rosinski

Well, I started, um, as an engineer. My background is in engineering. Studied that in Belgium, then went to Stanford University to get a Masters in Electrical engineering. But I took all my electives already in the humanities. So I’ve always been interested in human development as well. My first job was in the Silicon Valley as an engineer. Then I came back to Belgium, work as an engineer and as a manager. But what struck me is that oftentimes the human potential is underutilized. And, uh, I was wondering what could be done to change that, because it is very unfortunate for people, for organizations and for society when this potential is not very well utilized. And, uh, that was the beginning of a journey with a lot of, uh, self learning, I have to say. I attended a number of seminars, I read a number of books, and eventually, um, became a coach. Uh, I became a coach without knowing, in fact, that what I was doing was coaching. That was in the early 90s.

Lyssa deHart

That’s fascinating. And I love this curiosity, uh, about human potential and the impact that it has on people as well as organizations. Can you speak a little bit about what, ah, you see as you’re working within organizations and how coaching impacts m organizations and people?

Philippe Rosinski

Well, yes, um, I think it is very unfortunate, first of all, that people typically, we learn a lot of stuff at school, but I don’t know how it is in the US. But in Belgium still, and in many places where I go, people don’t learn so much about raising self awareness, about interpersonal communication, about finding meaning and purpose in your life, um, building constructive relationships. All that is not being taught typically in high school, certainly not yet.

Lyssa deHart

Well, I agree with you. I don’t think that we prime our young people to be self reflective or really look at, and in some ways like this idea of meaning and purpose. I think we have lots of books on meaning and purpose, but I don’t know that people really have a sense of what that even means for them. Because maybe, and it certainly isn’t happening in high school it may be happening more as they hit their thirty s and they start to go, oh wait, I’m not a teenager anymore. I’m not a kid. I wonder what my meaning and my purpose is.

Philippe Rosinski

Yes. And so we have people then, later in life who, um, have not learned about that. And uh, that is, uh and that is really a difficulty because then they may reach a certain age and they realize that, uh, what am I doing here? Uh, what is the purpose in my life? And they may have a lot of different things, but not so much about building constructive relationship with others, finding meaning and purpose in their own lives. And so that is a difficulty.

Lyssa deHart

Well, and I mean, one of the things that I read about you was that you’re really a pioneer in intercultural and global coaching. And so that gives me a sense and please correct me if I’m wrong, but it gives me a sense of you have a broad experience with a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures. What have you seen? Uh, maybe it calls people towards having more depth of curiosity about themselves and the way that they navigate the world around them.

Philippe Rosinski

That’s a good question. I’m not sure what I do find, uh, because I’m currently delivering this program, leading and coaching across cultures, that it tends to attract people who are already very open and curious. Um, what allowed them to be open and curious in the first place? I’m not sure, to be honest with you. Um, and uh, sometimes it could be that they have had the ah, opportunity to meet uh, with different people from different cultures. But even then we see people who are experts in different countries and don’t necessarily make the effort to reach out and meet people from different cultures and learn from different cultures. So that is not a guarantee being even confronted with cultural differences. It’s not a guarantee that you will be eager to learn from those differences. So the short answer is, uh I’m not sure. Yes, it could be. Sometimes people go through some hardship. I think that can happen sometimes that uh, people realize that they are on a certain path and uh, they didn’t ask themselves so many questions. They just followed a certain path in their life and at some point they hit a block. Um, that path is no longer fulfilling for them and uh, they realize that something is missing and then begins an interrogation, uh, some questioning and that may lead to some transformation sometimes. Uh, uh, but that is not always the case. There are also people who have been open and curious from the beginning, maybe the way they were raised, being very open and curious from the beginning.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah. And I think that’s probably a very I mean, I think it’s a very broad question I asked you because I agree with you. I think that there’s probably a myriad of reasons why a human being becomes a curious person versus a very focused, maybe very literal person, um, who not that literal means you can’t be curious because I don’t want to make that kind of global, um, statement, but less curious versus more curious. I think there’s an openness, um, of willingness to be in wonder, I think, and not know. And I think that’s a piece of it, too, I’m sure.

Philippe Rosinski

I think the educational system has a role to play as well. Sometimes that curiosity is encouraged, but sometimes it is not. Um, so sometimes what you see in certain educational systems is people becoming experts in one area. That’s all they know. They become very good at that. Um, but they have not developed a curiosity to learn from other fields, from other disciplines, from other sort of people, different types of people, different cultures. So that sometimes happens.

Lyssa deHart

Um, how does that in your work? How have you seen these two different kinds of ways of being that clients that your clients come to you with, that are within an organization? How do you see that playing out in how people work together across culture? Because many organizations these days are multicultural, for sure. And I’m curious what you notice as you’re doing your work.

Philippe Rosinski

There is a difference between uniformity and unity. Um, if I can put it this way. Uniformity is you could have a situation where you have organizations, uh, with branches, uh, around the world, but they are just promoting one way of working, one way of being that’s uniformity, uh, in the sense that there is, um, an impoverishment differences, uh, are minimized or, uh, uh, trivialized. So we are all the same. Um, it’s the motto, but it’s not meant in the sense that we are all unique individuals, um, and who can contribute our own perspective. No, it’s a bland version of unity. Unity is instead, when you have the idea of leveraging differences, when you have a synthesis of differences, when people can bring different perspectives, different viewpoints, and that is combined somehow and creates something greater than if you just had the individual part, uh, taken separately. So that’s the difference. Um, and I think it is still, unfortunately, the exception more than the norm of having an organization that is, um, really committed to unity. In the way I’ve described it, what you often see is uniformity. And that is unfortunate. So I remember just a, uh, story working with an organization at the time, saying, yes, we are very much in two diversity. We are in different countries, and so on. But when I was trying to find out what they meant by diversity, they meant, yes, we are in different parts of the world, but we are, in fact, imposing all way of being onto others. So that’s not really, uh, unity. That’s more the uniformity that is promoted.

Lyssa deHart

I love the distinction between uniformity and unity and the creative difference in unity where you really, I don’t know, embrace, explore, um, the differences because of the different viewpoints, bringing forward different ways of thinking about problems, different ways of being creative that is lost in the uniformity right. That is not available. How do you work with an organization who is coming to a coach? Uh, and this is for coaches. So, I mean, uh, just a little bit of curiosity on my part from you about how do you work with an organization where there is unity and that is their sense of, like, we’re diverse because we’re in a lot of different countries. But there’s still this sense that we’re going to stamp our values, our ideas, our way of doing things our methodology onto. You person working for us. And how do you support them in becoming a bit more open and curious themselves as an organization?

Philippe Rosinski

Yes. So in that case of uniformity, I don’t come across as judging them. Hussein, that’s bad. What you are doing. It’s more about raising their awareness. But if that’s your current way, just be aware that you can address cultural differences in other ways. So this is your current way. But there are other ways where you can accept differences. You can adapt, you can integrate differences, you could even leverage differences. Um, I explained this to them and try to raise their awareness about the impact this attitude can have. So if you have this attitude of wanting to impose your view, well, what usually will happen is you just generate alienation instead of engagement. Is that what you want? Um, the organization wants that. Well that’s fine then if you are happy to alienate people, um, if that’s what you want to do, um, I cannot change anything. But if you realize that, well, in fact, that’s not what we really want. We want to have people, uh, fully engaged. Maybe not for humanistic reason, it’s not that we really care about people, but simply from a business standpoint. And we realize if we have disengaged people, we’re not going to be so successful from a business standpoint. So there is a business case for uh, wanting to engage people, for being able to attract people, to retain talented people. Certainly at the time of the great, attrition the great resignation, uh, it is becoming more and more critical. So raising their awareness about the impact their current attitude has with a visibersity and just showing them how different it could be and beneficial could be for the organization as well as for all the people in the organization. Then after that it’s a matter of, um way educating them. Maybe that’s not the appropriate word, but raising their knowledge about what are the cultural differences that you can come across. Um, having a vocabulary to describe those differences, raising awareness about their own cultural orientations and developing an appreciation for alternatives alternative ways of thinking, alternative ways of communicating, of managing time, um, of organizing yourself. So you’re not just stuck, ah, with one way of looking at the world, but you can embrace different ways. Um, and you will realize that, uh, you can have a more creative approach, an approach that is going to be very suited to address different sorts of situations. So you’re not just stuck with your worldview, but you have more options, more behavioral options available. So there are many benefits in a way, uh, and I think that would be the approach. It’s just to show them there’s so much more that you could do if you are aware of your attitude and other possible attitudes and if you were more knowledgeable about what culture is about and what may be your blind spots, as well as the opportunities for development.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah, it’s so fascinating because I think, um, I don’t know what it is about the human brain that has us wired so specifically to want to be right, that seems to be a part of the human experience. And so I wonder how much of letting go of rightness is a piece of that human development, um, so that we can see that there are many different ways to manage time, many different ways to solve problems, many different ways to be diverse. And that even the diversity isn’t even just cultural diversity, although that’s obviously a huge element of it, but that each of us are our own culture to some degree. Also, I may look like you, but we may come from very different experiences.

Philippe Rosinski

That’s for me, culture too, by the way. The way I look at culture is not just national differences, it’s all kind of differences. What we have learned along the way as opposed to what we are born with. So it covers a great deal, really. Um, I’m not sure that we are hard worried to just, um, be stuck in a certain worldview. I think it’s more a question of culture. And it seems that according to some research in neurosciences, our brain m are ah, much more plastic than much, um, more flexible than we once thought. So, uh, I think what we have learned, we can easily, maybe not easily, but we can unlearn and relearn if we just open ourselves to that possibility. It’s not, uh, as difficult as we might think if we see the benefit of, ah, doing that. If we see the benefit, right.

Lyssa deHart

And I think that’s a key element right. That we have to see that the benefits outweigh the cost of, um, thinking outside of the way that we typically habitually do. Right. Um, go ahead.

Philippe Rosinski

Something I want to say also, Lyssa, is that the good news is sometimes there isn’t really a cost because, uh, it doesn’t have to be one way or the other way. Uh, what I’m trying to promote is a, uh, form of thinking that is in terms of and versus R. Uh, so it’s not that I need to give up my cultural preference to embrace yours, it’s how can we co create something new where we retain the best in our respective culture? A very simple example. You may prefer, let’s say direct communication. I’m just making this up. Let’s say I prefer indirect communication. Um, how can we have it both? Well, if we find a way of communicating that is both clear and sensitive, we have the best of both world. We have retained the quality of direct communication, which is um the quality, which is really about clarity as well as the value um, or the merit of indirect communication which is sensitivity. So it’s about finding ways of having the best of both worlds. It’s about if I give another example, control versus humidity, taking charge, making things happen, believing that hey, you can achieve whatever you want if you work hard. Persevere that the control. Believe, um, humility would be about letting go. Uh, inshallah. It’s a question of luck and fate. I believe. Um, it’s not in my hands to succeed, it’s a question of faith and luck. How could we have the two together? Well, we could act with determination as if we had all the power, while at the same time recognizing that ultimately it’s not in our hands alone. So we can learn to act with determination and at the same time learn when it’s best to let go. And paradoxically, when we accept our limitations, when we learn to let go, we may have greater success, uh, because it’s not success against all odds is a more sustainable form of success. A success that takes all limitations into account. I could go on and on and on, but the idea is to think more in terms of hands. So that’s how you build unity. Um, so we don’t need to give up anything, we just need to create something new. Um, it may not always be possible, but oftentimes it is.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah. And I think even just having that context framed in that way of um it’s an and it’s very improvisational right. In that particular regard also, where it’s the yes and there’s a sense of seeing new possibilities. It isn’t me giving up me and you giving up you in order to create this third thing, but rather just an openness that both can exist and both do. It sort of reminds me I was in a, um, team training and we were in our little team that we were training and we had a project we were supposed to do and it wasn’t going very well. Mostly because we all had such very different styles of how we showed up in the team. And I had read an article at that time and one of the things that they did was because some of the people in the team were very extroverted and some of the people in the team were very introverted as a style. There was oversharing on one side and under sharing on the other. And in the article, they talked about everybody taking the taking whatever the goal was, and then coming up with a plan all by themselves and then bringing that to the team so the team could hear all perspectives. And then that way, everybody, even the quieter people, could be heard, and not only the people who were comfortable talking in front of a group, whether they were introverted or extroverted. And so this sort of reminds me a little bit of that idea of the unity of bringing forward everybody’s brilliance versus just a couple of people who are loud or confident, maybe.

Philippe Rosinski

Yes, indeed.

Lyssa deHart

A lot of the people who listen to this, uh, podcast are coming here because I talked to MCC coaches, because I think there’s a journey that an MCC coach has probably gone through. And I know you were the first MCC in Europe. And so I’m really curious about your journey towards mastery and coaching. How do you see that continuing? How do you see that movement in your own experience of how you work with people and in your own life? That may be a very big question. So take the parts that resonate.

Philippe Rosinski

Well, for me, I’ve developed, um, something called global coaching. Global not in the sense of international, but more in the sense of integrated and integrated form of coaching. So it’s really about, uh, learning from multiple perspectives, from multiple disciplines. So coaching can be informed by nutrition, by physical exercise, as well as by philosophy, spirituality, uh, politics. There are many perspectives that can inform coaching. And so this gives me, uh, an opportunity to continue to learn from many different disciplines. So that’s what also excites me. It’s not just to be an expert in one area, but to continue to learn in different ways. So, for example, not, um, long ago, I took a course in philosophical ethics because I was asked to write a book chapter on ethics across cultures or something like that. And I realized that, um, I didn’t know enough about ethics, uh, to be able to write that. Uh, and so I took a curve from philosophical ethics, uh, and realized that there is a lot of interesting, um, thoughts there that most coaches would not be even aware of, because we may just know about the code of ethics from our different coaching associations. And, um, there is a lot more, um, that could be learned in this area. Uh, uh, I mean, I can talk.

Lyssa deHart

About this if you want, but actually, it’s so funny because I was watching a show last night and I went to bed thinking about just how different people are ethically aligned, but their ethics are incredibly different. So, actually, I would love to hear more about what you’ve discovered for me.

Philippe Rosinski

Yes, I can say a few things about that, but this is just one of the topics uh, before that I took, um, a course in artificial intelligence, uh, and another one in neuroscience. I’m certainly not an expert, uh, in these areas, but I wanted to know something about it. So to take courses, at least have some basic knowledge, um, uh, I can have a comment about that as well. But uh, other areas may be just, um, physical exercise. There is a lot of, uh, science of exercise as well that we can learn from. But going back to ethics, one thing that strikes me is that there is very much an emphasis on deontology. If you look at coaching, we focus on, for example, respecting confidentiality. We want to make sure that, uh, we don’t have any conflicts of interest, for example. So, uh, that could be considered part of the ontology. But we don’t think so much about the impact of what we are doing. So let me give an example. If I’m going to work for a company that is selling junk foods, uh, but they played by the book, they respect the different rules. Um, and when I would work with them, I would respect confidentiality and I would respect the different, uh, elements in the cause of ethics. Is that ethical? Not so much. In my view. If I’m helping a company, uh, just sell some junk foods or uh, a uh, company that doesn’t care about polluting the environment, doesn’t make even an effort to change that, because they just want to make more profit and they don’t care about societal or environmental impact. I would argue that this is not ethical from a utilitarian standpoint, where the ah, idea is the greatest good for the greatest number. Um, if you look at that as a criterion, I mean, this approach would not be ethic. I mean, this is just a simple example. So I think, uh, considering the impact of what we are doing, um, either directly or the impact we are helping to promote through our coaching, um, is something very important for coaches. Uh, and for example, you look at UN sustainability goals, um, I don’t see that part of uh, coaching codes of ethics. I think it should be, um, in my view. So it’s just an example.

Lyssa deHart

Well, and that really takes into consideration one self awareness. Because if I know that I have strong values around X, Y and Z and I go into work in an organization, that the values of the organization are out of alignment with the things that I feel are important. I talk to coaches and they’re like, I don’t like the clients that I’m working with. I think this might be a really important reason, right, where we have a disconnect and then out of alignment with our own values and the values of the organization or the person.

Philippe Rosinski

Yes. And uh, let me say something, but when I say I think it’s fair enough to say that, ah, it’s important to have at least some degree of alignment between our values and the values of the organization we are working with. Um, but if you look at this from a cultural standpoint, uh, this idea is very much, uh, part of an M individualistic culture. It’s about me, my values. And how does that compare to the values of the organization? I think we can look at it from a more collectivistic standpoint, where my values don’t matter that much in a way. I mean, uh, from a collectivistic standpoint, what matters is the collectivity. And, uh, so, uh, um, are there any values that we should pay attention to for the benefit of the collectivity? I think that is the question. So it’s not just solely a question of, uh, are, uh, my values aligned with the value of the organization? Although that’s clearly I’m thinking in that way, too. And that’s clearly important. But I think we need to go beyond our own values and consider to, like the collective for the world at large and for society.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah, I think that’s definitely a much bigger way of considering our ethical decision making in the way that we look at the world around us. And we think this is what is the greater good for the greater number to go back to that.

Philippe Rosinski

And it’s much more complex than that. And there are different others. I don’t consider myself an expert in this topic, uh, but at least I’ve read several books and, uh, became interested in that. And that’s just one example. We can get deeper in our reflection in this area, but that’s true in other areas as well. Uh, take the example of culture. It’s still today an area that is, um, not so well known by coaches. Uh, and it is now part of many coaching programs. Um, that wasn’t the case, uh, several years ago. So coaching across culture was not part of coaching education? No. I’ve seen many excellent programs that there is a place for that, but still in many coaching programs, that is not even addressed at all, which I think is, uh, strange, as you say, in the intercultural global world in which we live, that should be part of what every coach, um, should learn, in my view. But still an area that requires some homework, um, some learning. It’s more demanding than just learning the grow model. Um.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah, no, that’s true. It’s far more complex than that. And if we didn’t learn it in high school, I think we need to learn it in coaching school. I think it’s the appropriate place. Something that came up as you were talking, and I know ethics kind of was a focus, because I was really curious about that. But also the other elements where we’re looking at the things that we use to inform our curiosity in the places where we continue to learn and grow, like exercise, or whether it’s philosophy or science or it just doesn’t matter, whatever the subjects are right. There’s a multitude of places to continue to learn and grow as a human being. It really strikes me with the new competency of coaching mindset is really, ah, how are you continuing personally to grow as I don’t think just as a coach, but as a human being, and that’s a bit of what I’m hearing. And what you’re talking about is that you don’t just stop like, okay, I’m an MCC coach, I’m a doctor, I’m a professor, I’m whatever I am, um, done. I’m now fully baked. Um, so how it should continue to do that process of growth, um, and continue to learn and develop as a.

Philippe Rosinski

Person, I think that was recognized early on by the ICF, uh, for example, where every three years you need to reapply. And I think that is sending a message that you’re never there. Um, I mean, completely, you need to continue to learn and grow. Uh, I don’t see that as an obligation. I think that is absolutely, uh, exciting and importance to be on that journey. Uh, it’s the same for an athlete. If you as an athlete, you stop training or you stop finding ways to be better. I’m uh, just thinking of Federer was a fantastic, uh, tennis player. He was still looking for ways to improve and uh, Rafael Nadal as well. I think he was playing better when he was older than when he was younger, but the other players were playing better as well. So he was continuously looking for ways to improve his game. Um, and so for me, it’s a bit different. It’s not that I want to just improve doing that one thing. I want to continue to learn from multiple uh, perspectives and that informs um, my coaching approach. That allows me to have different sorts of exchanges with my coaches. Sometimes it could be helping them to build constructive relationship with others. Build increase their emotional intelligence, for example, could be one aspect deal with some very specific situations, interpersonal communication situations, but it could also be, um, at other times, um, they may be facing existential dilemmas. Uh, how do you deal with that? That’s a different level of conversation. Sometimes we could talk about fitness. I’m not a fitness expert, but just as I could refer to a psychotherapist, I could refer to a nutritionist to, um, uh, MD, uh, uh, sports coach. But at least I can have a conversation already on those topics with my coaches because that’s going to be essential to their well being, their stamina. I’m not imposing that conversation, but at least I think I’m able to have that conversation with them and to go there as well, if necessary.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah. The thing that um, shows up, as you say, that is if I have a sense of, I don’t know, I don’t need to be a jack of all trades, but having that knowledge, like a wide breadth of knowledge about a lot of things, leads to. Having a capacity to be curious about things that if you’ve never even thought of whatever it is, um, whatever that topic is, you may not have the capacity to be particularly curious. Which means that as coaches, we might step over something really crucially important to the client, even if it’s a referral to a physiologist or something like that. Because we weren’t curious, because it’s not in our wheelhouse, so to speak.

Philippe Rosinski

M exactly. I’m just thinking of a situation. I had a medical condition, uh, 15, uh, years ago or so. And um, it was a curious thing. And nobody I saw for a year, I saw different doctors and they couldn’t find out what the problem was. It is a sports doctor who was able to find out, but he knew more about neurology, that neurologists I had seen because he was uh, that curious person going beyond his own discipline. And he was also working with a team, an interdisciplinary, lots of different sometimes, um, you can have experts who uh, at some point, even in their own areas, they stop learning and they may know less than somebody who um, has been curious about a number of disciplines. Um, of course, we cannot know it all, um, that is for sure. But uh, that doesn’t mean we cannot continue to learn.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah, let that be a cautionary tale. Expertise at the cost of all other things is maybe not as useful as a well rounded education, uh, of oneself. Absolutely. If you are thinking about like, I don’t know, you do a lot of supervision, as I recall from another conversation I had with you. How do you see supervision impacting this capacity for self awareness and growth in a coach?

Philippe Rosinski

I think supervision can be something great to have people step back and reflect um, about their practice. Uh, so that’s very important to have a place also where they can discuss, uh, challenging situations, uh, to have also the support that is required. However, one of the concern I have with traditional supervision is that it is informed by, I think you are a therapist. Um, initially, Lyssa, I think it’s wonderful to have a knowledge of psychotherapy, but that can not be the only source of knowledge, uh, um, that um, supervision supervisors call upon. So yes, having that knowledge is essential and it’s a plus. But sometimes I see too many co supervisors who rely solely on that. For example, they won’t know much about culture. So what can happen is that they may, for example, inadvertently say tokoshi, uh, that what they have done there is not appropriate. That’s not right. But it’s not right in their view of the world. Um, it could be that in another culture, that same behavior could be appropriate. Um, let me give you an example. Are we supposed to be friends with our, uh, coaches? Uh, maybe a supervisor may say, oh, we need to have a boundary.

Lyssa deHart

Okay, boundary.

Philippe Rosinski

But in some cultures, if you don’t want to be a friend, uh, if you don’t want to be close to the person to have that personal connection, the coaching will simply not work because there is an expectation to build that close relationship. It may not be friendship in the way we think about it, but it’s friendship nonetheless in the sense of building a close connection. Uh, a friendship is about really caring for the other person. And that’s what a coach does. So if uh, you say, I don’t want to be your friend, I’m m not your friend, I’m a coach. Um, yeah, that may be appropriate in one context, but not necessarily in another. We just need to be mindful of that. And so I would argue that uh, good coach supervisor should be familiar with uh, ah, coaching across cultures, with global coaching should know these things and not be um, just an expert in um, psychotherapy applying that knowledge to any coach.

Lyssa deHart

Well, and it’s sort of interesting that you bring that up because as ah, my uh, past life as a therapist, I have been in supervision in some form or another since 90, 92. And so I’ve had a lot of supervision. And maybe I didn’t get great supervision when I was a therapist because I a lot of the supervision, not all of it, I mean, I did get some very good supervision, but a lot of the supervision that I got was also very client focused. Like, what does the client need? What do I need to be doing for the client? And so it was very much looking at the kind of client focus, what’s the relationship that I can support the client and I don’t know, getting their needs met, whatever out there or within the team, uh, supervision around who’s doing what when, where for this particular client. And what I discovered in coaching supervision that was really different was much more about just the exploration of my relationship to whatever I was struggling with. And the client was only a representation of something, right? And so it got to be much more of an exploration of like, why do I care about this client so much? And I’m not necessarily asking them the hard questions because I think friendship is on the spectrum and care is on a spectrum also. And sometimes maybe there’s some sort of transference where they remind me of somebody I love dearly. And so therefore I’m a little less challenging with that client or this one frustrates me because they aren’t ready to get off the hamster wheel and solve whatever the problem is. And what’s that about? Not about the client, but for me.

Philippe Rosinski

Yes. And I think that uh, is something that uh, coaching supervisors do well. I find, uh, uh, not just focus on the coach, but on the coach. We are the vehicle. So we need to work on ourselves as coaches. Uh, so I think that I’ve not met a coaching supervisor who doesn’t do that, because that seems like almost absolutely critical to do that. Um, the question is, um, when you are again hoping that coach, uh, as a coach supervisor is, uh, where are you humping that coach from? How much do you know about? But, uh, if you know about this psychological phenomena, that’s going to be an asset, of course. And that’s very important. So you help your coach become more aware, um, your supervisor coach be more aware. But if you don’t know about culture, um, or not much about culture, you’re not going to be able to help the coach supervisor. That’s all I meant.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah. No, and I absolutely am in alignment with what you’re sharing, because I think, uh, from my perspective, that is that capacity to be curious then with somebody, but also I don’t have to know. Right. I can be open to the fact that there are many different ways to engage in a relationship. And I want to go back to something you said a second ago, which is this idea of friendship. And I think that one of the things that I love about coaching is that if we learn about our own needs and boundaries and know how to hold the space in a particular way for a particular amount of time, and we can also hold the space in a different way at a different time. It’s not that different in some ways than, like, marriage. I mean, my husband and my relationship isn’t a one tune thing, regardless of the situation. I mean, it shifts. And we’re, uh, we talk to people on other sides of the room sometimes, and then we also talk to them together. Right. Human beings are quite capable of many m ways of showing up with each other. And I think that’s true as coaching relationships. Also, it makes me kind of wonder because I’ve had coaching supervision with people who I also got mentoring from, or who I also have been a client of in some other capacity and gotten coaching from or gone to lunch with. Right. Those different roles. There’s a capacity to show up in those different roles. And I think this kind of goes back to ethics also. What are our agreements on how we’ll be with each other within these different roles that we have with each other?

Philippe Rosinski

Yes. And that has to be clarified, certainly.

Lyssa deHart

Yes, but that’s okay, because that’s just a conversation then, so that both people are on the same page and it gives us an opportunity. And I understand why in therapy it would be different. Um, because there was such a hierarchy, uh, in therapy, of expert to patient. Honestly, in coaching, this is much more of a leveraging somebody else’s insights and wisdom. Um, and so it’s a very different.

Philippe Rosinski

Relationship, as you know better than I do, even in therapy, are different forms of therapy. Some look a little bit more like coaching. Some are very remote from coaching.

Lyssa deHart

Um, yeah and I think it really also depends on what the client’s needs are. I think some people come to us with more wounds that need less coaching and more containment and structure and tool building. And then other people come to us, to our earlier point. Very self aware, very curious about themselves and how they’re m moving through the world and how to tweak things so that they can maybe have a little bit to move a little faster, or whatever it is that their goals are to have more peace, more confidence in themselves. And those are just very different means that the client brings to us. So I think these points are just so important though because I think it’s important for coaches to be thinking about these things because it’s not just what’s going on for the coach, it’s also what’s going on for the clients and the intersection of those human beings within that space of coaching.

Philippe Rosinski

Absolutely.

Lyssa deHart

What is something that you would share with the coaches? Like maybe a piece of wisdom that you think is important as a place for coach to be curious with themselves?

Philippe Rosinski

Piece of wisdom? We are not so much uh, there to give advice to people or to empath or wisdom and to others. Um, it’s to at the risk of repeating myself, um, I think that what I would say is an invitation to um, take the time um, to learn from different people and from different disciplines and from different cultures. Uh, and not expect uh, to know it all immediately, but to be on that journey. Uh, that’s what really matters. Sometimes I see people who want maybe very early to be the master coaches and don’t necessarily make the effort to uh, learn and then I see other people who um continue to make an effort to learn all their lives. And probably the second approach is more conducive to mastery.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah, I think that is a valuable reflection just in my own experience of moving towards an MCC mastery level coach, whatever that means. Um, that it was that capacity to be willing to continue to grow and learn and not think I knew it all, I was the expert in everything. Which was really hard because apparently while not all human beings are wired that way, I was apparently wired.

Philippe Rosinski

We don’t know if it’s wired or if it’s educated or what.

Lyssa deHart

I think it was pretty uh culturally conditioned. I’ll go with uh yes. What are you involved with today that is exciting you one thing that is.

Philippe Rosinski

Exciting and um, I’ve been doing it for several years already but uh, I’m doing this program uh, it’s called Leading and Coaching across Cultures. I’ve done it many times face to face with people so three day program, um, and since COVID I’m doing this uh, also online and it’s happening now in this case instead of three consecutive days, it’s uh, six half days and I’m in the middle of it right now. And I found that always uh, very exciting because we have a group of people, in this case, we have here some Americans, we have some Chinese in the same group, we have several people from Europe um, all coming together with different backgrounds and it’s such a rich and diverse environment. Um, and uh, I’m always amazed by then. It’s also a certification program for the cultural orientation framework. It’s too late developed to just have um, a vocabulary to describe the cultural landscape and uh, there is an assessment that goes with that. But anyway, um, they have in the course of the program to work as teams and to create something. Um, and they experience firsthand, first of all, the difficulties of being part of this diverse team. But what strikes me is that every time they are able to go past that and create something great, really, so they get to experience unity in diversity. It’s not theory anymore, it’s just they live there. And just yesterday, in fact, today, um, the two groups did really a wonderful presentation, um, team effort. And I find that very exciting to see that. It gives me also a lot of hope when I see um, uh, people like that who um, can be people will then also promote community and diversity wherever they are in the world. Still too few people. We need that much more in the world today. If you look at what is happening in the world, we need um, people like that, people of goodwill, um, wanting to ask Bridges, wanting to um, promote, I guess unleash what is best in humans and make the most of differences. And so that excites me when I guess I’m able to play a little part in promoting that, in training people who themselves then go on to make a difference at their levels. Uh, I just hope that there is even more awareness about this and more people can take that on because there is still so much to be done in the world and you can get what is happening today.

Lyssa deHart

Yeah, the ripple effect though, is the ripple effect. It’s brilliant. I will definitely have links, um, below for people to find you and to find the work that you’re doing. M, one of the things that I’ll have lots of links available to listeners to find you in all your different places, LinkedIn, your website, uh, and that sort of thing. Your books, I know you’ve written several and co authored many more and I’ll have links to those things as well. So one of my questions that I’ve been following or uh, finishing the conversation with lately has been if you were to be writing your autobiography today, what would you title it at this point?

Philippe Rosinski

Well, let me give you an answer. Maybe you won’t like my auto. That’s okay, I’m not ready to write an autobiography.

Lyssa deHart

Question not yet ready.

Philippe Rosinski

I’m not even interested in that, um, because I, uh, guess I’m more busy living my life at the moment. Uh, I understand that I have still, uh, a lot more to do, um, yes. That I want to do. Um, uh, and so that’s where my energy is. And I would find it’s also even a bit pretentious to run for me in autobiography. I mean, it’s not that I want a Nobel Prize or, uh, that, um, I’m a famous rock star, um, or, uh, that I was a president of the US. For example. So I’m trying to make a difference where I am. But I don’t think I’m, uh, not interested in writing another biography. So I cannot, because of that title, not even think of a title.

Lyssa deHart

I’ve heard so many busy living my life. It’s just wonderful. I think that’s just brilliant. Oh, Philippe, thank you so much for being on the coaching studio today. I have very much enjoyed the conversation.

Philippe Rosinski

Likewise. A pleasure to speak with you, Lyssa. Thank you for inviting me.

Lyssa deHart

Thank you for accepting the invitation. Sorry. Now I’ve got to try and find the.