130 | Build managers’ confidence and skills with ‘the coaching two-step’, with Jude Sclater

As anyone who's ever learnt a new dance, and by that I mean everything from, you know, learning the Makarana all the way up to maybe a ballroom dance or, or twerking or anything like that. When you first start doing it, it's a bit awkward. It doesn't quite feel natural and it's a, and it's a difficult, but as you start getting used to it, as you practicing with it and you become more confident with it, you then start being able to add your own style and flair to it.

And that's one of the messages that I'm trying to get across in the book is that, you know, just give coaching a go. You can't really get it wrong.

Welcome back to HR Coffee Time. It's great to have you listening today. I'm your host, Fay Wallis, a career and executive coach with a background in HR. And I've created HR Coffee Time, especially for you to help you have a successful and fulfilling HR or people career without working yourself into the ground.

In this episode, we're focusing on management skills again. We all know how important good managers are and what a difference they make to an organisation's success. As an HR or people professional you'll probably be more aware of this than anyone. If you're looking for ideas on how to upskill the managers in your organization, or you'd like to build your own management skills, this episode explains how you can build managers confidence and skills by using a model that Jude Sclater has developed called the Coaching Two Step.

Jude is an experienced coach and the author of the absolutely brilliant book, Think Like a Coach - Empower your team through everyday conversations. Her book does an amazing job of making coaching skills accessible to everyone, so that managers can start to confidently use them to empower and develop the people who work with them.

I read the whole book in one day and couldn't put it down, so it's incredibly exciting to have her on the show as a guest. I was also lucky to have Jude do a live coaching demo with me in this episode to help bring the coaching skills she talks about to life for you. It feels a bit vulnerable, sharing the demonstration, but I know what a difference it can make to listen to something in action rather than just hear it talked about, so I really hope it's useful.

And I've clearly had management skills on my mind a lot recently, as this is the third episode of the show that covers this topic. If management skills are something you're particularly interested in at the moment too, you might find the other two episodes helpful to listen to once you've finished listening to this one.

They are episodes one hundred and twenty nine, Five essential techniques to become a great manager, with guest James Rose. And there's also a solo episode from me, which was episode one hundred and twenty seven, What to do if your boss is a micromanager. But now let's go ahead and meet Jude. I hope you're going to enjoy learning from her as much as I did.

Welcome to the show, Jude. It is so wonderful to have you here.

Oh, thank you, Fay. Thank you so much for asking me to be here.

And for anyone who's listening, who hasn't read your book, which is called Think Like a Coach, can you just give everyone a really quick overview of what it's all about and what it covers?

Oh, absolutely. I like to think of Think Like a Coach as a practical go to guide for new people managers, and it's written in two parts.

So the first part demystifies what coaching is, and it gives readers a really easy to use framework, which I call the coaching two step, helping them use skills that they've already got, so that they can bring coaching into their everyday conversations with their team. And then part two is around how you use coaching with some of the typical scenarios that you might face as a manager.

So for example, goal setting, problem solving, maybe delegating or giving feedback to your team.

And obviously it's all about coaching and you're a coach, I'm a coach, so you can see why we both like the book as we are interested in coaching. For anyone listening who may not have had coaching or come across coaching before or necessarily recognize that it can be helpful, why do you think it's such an important skill for managers? Why do we need to think about managers thinking like a coach?

So I think anybody who's had a bad manager will know just how much of an impact it has, not only on, what's happening at work and in your career, but your entire life really, you know, you bring that stress and that anxiety home.

There was a study that was done last year by the Chartered Management Institute with YouGov and they found that 82 percent of people promoted into people manager positions had no training. And. I mean, it's just mind blowing. I mean, for us, especially being in learning and development, because that transition into being a manager, that's not just a promotion, that's an entire career change.

And I remember a person I was coaching had this realisation, which kind of sums it up really well, I think. He, he was talking about how, he was really going for this promotion to manager and his whole career was about having the answers. So he just made sure he knew absolutely everything. And then he gets into this role and he's so excited.

And sort of the big insight for him was actually my role is not to be the one with the answers anymore. It's about making sure my team have the answers. And this is the bit about coaching that I think is so important. It's such a great skill for managers to have. Because what you're trying to do through coaching is to empower your team to think for themselves.

Then that means they don't need to rely on you as much. It's really developmental, it's motivating for your team, and it's great for you too, because you get to learn so much more about what's going on with the, with the team. They become more self sufficient, so then your time is freed up to be doing all the other stuff that really lights you up more.

So I just feel like coaching is one of those win win skills that benefits so many people.

I totally agree. And we have covered coaching on the podcast before. I'll make sure for anyone listening that I put a link to that episode. I've now totally forgotten what the episode is called. That's not good. Is it Jude?

I keep meaning to have a list of all of the episodes in front of me. I think it was something like why coaching skills can help you in your HR career, because I totally agree with you. I think that coaching skills are incredibly helpful for managers. I also think that incredibly helpful for HR professionals.

So for anyone listening, whether you're listening, thinking, Oh, is this something we should be thinking about introducing for our managers in our organisation? Or if you're listening, thinking, Oh, actually, maybe this could help me as an HR professional as a people professional in my role. I would agree with you, no matter how it is that you're thinking about that. And the main reason that I loved your book, Jude, is because it's very, very different to so many other books that I've read about coaching. I've read quite a few books about coaching over time. You've got to read some when you're doing your coach training.

And obviously I'm always trying to improve and learn. But what I found with so many other books about coaching is that they can be really heavy going and quite theory heavy, and that makes them a bit daunting to try out and actually put into practice. So that's what stood out for me about your book. It doesn't feel heavy going.

It feels like quite a quick, easy read, but also really practical.

I am so happy to hear you say that, um, and that's some of the feedback that I'm getting from others as well. It was a major goal of mine for me to create a book that was going to be really practical and relevant for managers. So when I was researching, the book, there was over, I think I went onto Amazon.

I went through 75 pages of books about coaching and I would say the majority of them were aimed at professional coaches like us. They would always say that they were for managers and leaders as well, but I just found, you know, those books are really interesting to me as a professional coach in the role that I have.

But as a manager, I just felt like, you know, there's a lot in there. And, when I was in my last corporate job before I left to set up on my own, I was guilty of rolling out this coaching training program to all of our performance appraisers because we were looking at shifting them to having more career coaching kinds of conversations.

And it was a half day training. We gave them the GROW model and just in case your listeners are unaware, the GROW model is a coaching model that was developed by Sir John Whitmore and his colleagues. It's, you know, he was one of the sort of forefront of bringing coaching into the UK and it's a great model.

I love it. Most coaches probably use some kind of that, either that model or a variant of it. But what I was finding after the training is that people were coming to me and they were kind of a bit nervous about using it. And so then I was like, Oh, this is great. I can coach you how to coach your teams.

And I was loving it. And it wasn't until I left that I realized how stupid that was. That we were taking managers and trying to train them to be, I suppose, almost a bit like professional coaches by giving them this cut down version of training. And, you know, I had done 60 hours of training before I ever coached someone who wasn't on my training course.

And even then, you know, I was so nervous. I was, luckily, it was on the phone, so I was in one of our phone booths in the office. I had notes absolutely everywhere. So, you know, how can you expect a manager to do a half day or a day training on, you know, the GROW model in itself is, is quite, it's quite simple and it, and it's quite beautiful for that reason, but it is complex.

There is a lot going on in that model. And if you're thinking about then taking that out and using that with. You know, as a manager using that with your teams, there's so much information in there and you've got enough on as a manager, as it is, without trying to remember where you are in this complicated model.

So I really wanted to strip everything back to what are just the core components of coaching and how could you bring that into just a conversation that you're having with your team member so that it's not an add on, it's, it's not something you've Got to try and shoehorn into your day. It just becomes part of your natural management style.

And that's really sort of where the drive and the passion behind the book came from. Cause I wanted something really practical and useful.

You are going to very kindly, although this feels a bit nerve wracking for me, you're going to give us a live demo of your model, which is called the coaching two step.

So first of all, do you want to explain what the coaching two step is? And then if we could dive into a practice session of you using it with me, that would be great.

Oh, amazing. So, the coaching two step, as I said before, it's using skills that you already have. And I use this kind of metaphor of a dance because as anyone who's ever learnt a new dance, and by that I mean everything from, you know, learning the Makarana all the way up to maybe a ballroom dance or, or twerking or anything like that.

When you first start doing it, it's a bit awkward. It doesn't quite feel natural when it's, and it's a bit difficult, as you start getting used to it, as you practicing with it and you become more confident with it, you then start being able to add your own style and flair to it. And that's one of the messages that I'm trying to get across in the book is that, you know, just give coaching a go.

You can't really get it wrong. Take from the book, the things that are working for you and just discard anything that doesn't work. So the way the coaching two step works is that it all starts with attention. And I purposely use attention rather than listening. Because I think sometimes, I mean, we've all done it, right?

You've got your phone and someone's talking to you and you're scrolling and you're like, no, no, I'm listening, I'm listening, keep talking. And I read some work from a social researcher, um, Dr. Amishi Jha, and she talks about attention being like having a torch. So that, um, You know, your attention really is, you've got this one beam of light and whatever that light is on, that's going to be the absolute brightest and everything else will be dimmer and in the periphery.

Even just this one thing, that when someone comes to talk to you, you just stop and give them your attention, that's already going to dramatically transform some of your conversations. There's an exercise I do. in the workshop I run, where I get people into pairs and I get them talking with each other.

And in the first condition, they're giving each other full attention. In the second condition, they're distracted, they're looking away, they're doing other things. And even though they know this is going to happen, still they have the effects of this, their thinking is disrupted, their speech is disrupted, they kind of, sort of lose track of where things are going.

So attention and the quality of that is so, so important. And if any of your listeners are familiar with Nancy Klein, that's, that's really the other place that I took the importance of that idea of attention from. From there, you've got these two steps, two things you can do that bring you into a coaching conversation.

The first is to ask, tell me more? Now I know some of you might recognize that that's not really a question. But the reason that I've said ask there is because that's the intention I want you to take away. That it's about asking questions and being curious. And what you're trying to do with that is that you're trying to keep someone talking.

And I liken this to those situations where you're stuck on a problem and you go to talk to a friend or a colleague and as you're explaining it out loud, the answer suddenly comes to you. And you know, there's some reasons behind that. One is your colleague probably stopped what they were doing and turned and gave you their attention.

And then the other thing is that by saying the problem out loud, you are processing that information in a different way. So initially you would've been processing it with the thoughts in your head, and now you are saying it out loud. So that's allowing you to, to process that information by hearing it.

There are lots of different ways other than just tell me more to elicit that response. But I give that one as a really easy phrase, easy to remember. It's something that we're quite familiar with. In fact, I think I was on the Adobe website today looking at something and it had tell me more in there as an option to look for more information.

The second option that you have is to summarise. So just repeat back the essence of what it is that you're hearing. This is a third way of helping someone process because they get to hear you say it, but it also does some other things. It helps build, the psychological safety and trust between you because it shows that you really have been giving your attention and that you've been listening.

And the other thing, uh, that it does, is it gives the other person an opportunity to sort of see was there anything kind of missing? Is there, you know, something else that they wanted to say? Or, or has that kind of encapsulated it? So it actually ends up being another way of saying tell me more. Uh, it's, it's not very often that I summarise back to someone and then they don't say anything back.

But if they don't, you can simply go back to tell me more. And so the dance then continues. You start with attention. You might ask someone to tell you more. And so you come back to attention. Then you might summarise what they say. And you come to attention while you're listening. And you dance through these options a few times.

And then after that, my suggestion is to use your intuition and your curiosity to guide you into what to do next.

And you've also got within the book, when it gets to that next stage, a whole host of suggestions and ideas for other questions that might be useful depending on what the situation is that you're in with that person and depending on what it is that they've come to you for help with.

Yeah, and I thought that was really important, you know, remembering back to my days in the phone booth with all my questions. Uh, around me and, you know, coming, I suppose I, I wrote this during the pandemic as well. So I was thinking a lot of communication being online, uh, you know, you can have questions and things up around just to help you as prompts and nobody will ever see them.

And I'm a big believer that, you know, sometimes just having a few little scripts to help you out can be really helpful. And that's something that I wanted to include in the book.

I really agree and you're bringing back lots of memories of when I first did my coach training, Jude. And I remember I used to read through, I had a bank of questions and I used to read through them again and again and again before I'd have a coaching session with someone as if like hoping that they were going to be absorbed into me.

So I'd be able to pull them out when I needed to. Well, now we've told everybody all about your coaching two step we're moving into the slightly daunting part for me of um, Being coached by you.

And it's not daunting because, um, you're a scary, awful coach. That's definitely not it. I know you have done this for me before. So I know you're a wonderful, kind and supportive coach. It's just the fact that I will be publicly sharing on air something that I'm struggling with at the moment. So I should really be thanking you for the opportunity to do this with me.

Thank you, Jude. And I'll try not to be nervous.

You're very welcome. So first up, I just wanted to check that you're in a, you're as comfortable as you can be.

I am. Thank you very much.

You're very welcome. And just, you know, for your listeners, where I think this becomes really such a great tool to use is somebody's come to you with a problem, um, instead of jumping in to give them a solution and fixing it for them, this is about just taking a bit of time to allow them to explore that problem for themselves and see whether they can come up with their own resolution.

I think, Fay, we're only going to talk for five minutes, so we'll just see where we come up to, um, where we come to in that time. So, Fay, what's on your mind? So

On my mind at the moment is my group program, Inspiring HR, which I've been running for quite a long time now. It's been a couple of years. We've had seven cohorts.

I really enjoy having it. I've had lots of feedback on it that people view it as a leadership program for HR professionals. And I've decided that I would like to take it a step further. So I'm getting it accredited by the Institute of Leadership. And I also want to expand it slightly. I know that it is accreditable as it is, but I would like to add in some extra modules, but by doing that, I'm conscious that it means I have to lengthen it at the moment.

It's a six week intensive program, and I feel like turning it into an eight week intensive or however many more weeks it just. It might be a bit too much, a bit too intense. And I have had feedback from a few people who have been through the program that actually they would like the sessions ideally to be spaced out a little bit more.

So they've got more time for trying out the suggestions and the ideas and the things that they would like to test out in between the sessions. So I've been thinking about it for quite a long time. I've spoken to the Institute of Leadership. I've made what feels like a billion notes, but I just haven't quite got to the point where I can decide what is the finished product? What is it actually going to be? How many sessions will it be? How long will it run for? What am I definitely going to be adding in?

Yeah. So I mean, firstly, it sounds very exciting, um, to be going through that process and I'm hearing sort of two things coming up. There's something about the intensity.

Um, of the program and there's something about spaciousness.

Yes, I would agree. It does feel, I think it's intense and that's a good thing in lots of ways because it means everyone gets to know each other quite quickly. And it's really important for me that people feel that they bonded and connected and that they'll be there for each other after the program's finished.

But, um, at the same time, it does also feel like, oh my gosh, those six weeks just went so quickly and I pack a lot into the sessions. And actually, would it be better just for people to have a bit more time in between? And also, as well as benefiting everyone who's in the program, I think it would probably benefit me as well, because it's pretty exhausting running it because I put my all into it.

Um, so I suppose that's what springs to mind when you say about the intensity and the spaciousness.

Tell me more.

Tell you more about the intensity and the spaciousness. Well, I also, I mean, this is going to sound terrible. When I decided to make it six weeks, that was partly because I was scared when I very first designed it, because it was brand new and I didn't know If it was going to work or not, and if people would enjoy it.

And I thought, and someone said to me, this sounds like something you could space out over a few months. And I thought, what if I'm no good at it? What if people don't like it? If I just put it all together, so everyone has to do it in a few weeks, then that way, if it's a complete disaster, you know, it's over and done with quickly.

Isn't that terrible? I can't believe that was my thinking at the time. It gave me the opportunity to create it, to test it, to see how it went. And of course, thankfully that's not been the case. Everyone has enjoyed it. Um, I'm really proud of the program. It's gone well. Running it over six weeks has also been beneficial because I'm a parent.

A lot of the people who come onto the course, but the program's not a course yet program at the moment. They may have children as well. I mean, not everybody, but as part of that, you've got school holidays to contend with. So I knew that by running it in six weeks blocks, if I do that to fit with the school holidays, then it means that most of the time, everyone can make all of the sessions, whereas one time when I've run it, where it did go over a school holiday, actually, I did find that a few people couldn't attend the week that was a school holiday. So I know that although I made it a six week program, partly out of fear, it has actually worked quite well.

And there was a practicality to that. And I was very clear on what I wanted to cover in those six sessions as well. So now my nervousness is, Oh gosh, if I'm not doing it in these six week blocks, what is the right cadence? I might go, is monthly going to be a bit too much for people? Is every other week?

Is that going to mess up with this school holidays principle and I'll have some people not being able to come? Yeah. So I think. That's part of my thinking behind it or worrying about changing it.

Tell me more about the worry.

Oh, well, there's a whole lot of worry behind this because I have had so much wonderful feedback.

I can see that people get a lot out of the program. I feel so proud of it. I am scared about changing it because At the moment, whenever I say, Oh, inspiring HR is coming up again, I normally do have quite a lot of interest. The, all the places on the program tend to go fairly quickly. When I tell people that I'm going to be running it, you know, what happens if I change it?

Because I would also change the messaging around it slightly. So I'm thinking of changing it to be called Inspiring HR leadership. So it's actually a leadership course, whereas at the moment I haven't really been using the term leadership. Specifically, because what happened was I was coaching a lot of people on a one to one basis and I could see the challenges they were having as they approached a senior level or moved into a senior role and I decided to create Inspiring HR to help.

When people said to me, Oh, you've made a leadership program. I would say, Oh no, I haven't. I've just seen all of these things that everyone's struggling with and created this to help them. When, Of course, I now realise I, I have made a leadership program, but it was almost, um, by mistake. You know, I didn't sit down and think, Oh, if I was going to create a leadership program, what would it look like?

Instead I went from these are the problems I can see. So how can I try and help people to overcome them? So my messaging, when I talked to people about it, didn't use to be very much around, Oh, this is a leadership course or a leadership program. It was very much this is here to help you with building your confidence, with building your influencing skills, with building your impact and credibility and your strategic skills at work.

So I'm a little nervous when I start saying, Oh, it's a leadership course now that people will think, Oh, well, that's not what I need. That's not what I've been looking for. I'm not looking for a leadership course. I'm looking, I'm looking for something a bit else. So yes, that's where the worry comes from, I think.

So, we've just come up to five minutes, but I just wanted to summarise that the last thing I heard. So. When you started the program, you created something based on your experience and what would work for you, and now you're considering making some changes because you would like it to be accredited, and the worry is people might not respond to it in the same way.

Yes, I suppose so. I think it's acting on feedback that I've had that I have created a leadership course without having realized that's what I was doing really. And I think because. That's not how I've been talking about it up until fairly recently. I'm just worried it's not going to have the same appeal.

You know, it it's been working well as it has been. Am I definitely doing the right thing in changing it and trying to make it even better? And to have even more of an impact for people. I mean, as I'm saying it out loud to you, Jude, I think it probably, I think I am making the right decision and worst case scenario, I say, here we are everyone.

An accredited leadership program for HR professionals. And if no one signs up to it, then that's a clear message that I can revert back to how it was before. I think it should be fine, but I'm just not going to know until I actually do it, and I just need to somehow decide exactly what is this new program, how is it going to be?

It's not going to be wildly different to how it was before. I'm just building on the foundations of what I've already got, but exactly what do I want that new building to look like?

What's the next step for you from here?

If everyone hears a pause, it's because I'm thinking, which is always a good sign in coaching conversations if the other person stops to think.

I know what the next steps are, really. I have been thinking about them quite a lot. I think I just now need to start taking action on them instead of keep thinking about them. I think I need to ask people. So especially when it comes to the timing, I just seem to have this huge blocker over if it's not six weeks anymore, what does it look like?

So I can ask people, I think I can ask people on social media. I could ask people who are signed up to receive my free weekly HR coffee time email and say, if you were interested in attending an HR leadership program, what kind of timings would work best for you? Would it be better to have it monthly? I could even ask actually, Jude, this is a good point.

I could ask what day of the week would be most helpful for you as well. Cause that's something I moved around quite a bit when trying to land on what day of the week would work at the moment, it runs on Wednesdays. I started off on Fridays, but some people said Fridays weren't great. So I've moved it to Wednesdays, but you know, maybe there is a different day that would be good.

And I could also ask them about the content. Same. There is so much that I could include in the program that I think would be helpful, but realistically people probably aren't going to want to be in a course with me for like three years while I get through absolutely everything there is to do about leadership.

So I have got a lot of ideas about some of the things I could add in. I could, again, ask those questions back to people and say, here are my ideas, which ones would be most helpful for you? And then I think that's the only way I'm going to feel more confident about it. It can't just be me thinking, I think this would be helpful.

I think I need to actually ask people. So I know that I'm making an informed decision with however it is that I change it.

And could I make a suggestion?

Please feel free.

I'm wondering about going back to some of your cohorts that have been through already and asking them because they know the content they've covered and what parts of that were useful and less useful now they're back in the real world.

So they might have a view on what more they would want added.

That is a brilliant idea. So I could definitely go out to everybody who has already gone through Inspiring HR. Thank you, Jude. I'm going to be writing that down right now to take action on afterwards. Well, hopefully for everyone listening that has really helped to bring the coaching two step to life and helped you see how as a manager or as an HR professional, if you use the coaching two step, you can help other people think through, uh, challenge that they're experiencing.

I thought it was really interesting, Jude, when you asked me about the worry, you know, and what is it that's worrying me? Because so often it's an emotional thing that's holding us back or a feeling, even though logically you sort of know what you want to do. And I think by asking the other person questions that can help unlock that worry and that emotion. So this is my commitment to you, Jude that after we finished recording the episode, I, I will start drafting an email to start sending out to people to ask for their opinion. So I really appreciate that. That was incredibly helpful. And it also goes to show how a coaching conversation can be so useful.

And in just a few minutes, like we really didn't spend long on that at all, but having said we didn't spend long on it, unfortunately we are now coming to the end of our time together, which means it is the moment when I ask you the question I try to ask every guest who comes on this show, which is, would you like to either share a non fiction book recommendation with us or have you got a confidence building tip for us all today?

So, uh, I'm going to share a non fiction book. It's The Chimp Paradox by Professor Steve Peters. Um, the chimp model that he puts forward in that was an absolute game changer for me in understanding emotional self control and it's something that my clients really love. Uh, as well in a book I go back to often, so I highly recommend that.

Fantastic. And I'll make sure that that is in the show notes. And also there is a blog on my website, Bright Sky Career Coaching, which has got a list of every single book that has ever been recommended on HR Coffee Time. So I will definitely be popping it in there. Thank you so much for sharing it, Jude.

And finally, for anyone who is listening, who thinks, Oh, I would love to learn more about Jude and her work. I know that you do run workshops on the concept of your book, Think like a coach, to help train managers and bring the coaching two step and everything else within your book to life within organisations.

What is the best way of people learning more about your work and getting in touch with you?

So the first way would be to go to my website, thinkwithjude. com, there's a specific page on there for the book and there's a, a diagram of the coaching to stick with a brief description as well as a, a demonstration, uh, that I do with a friend so you can get to see it.

Again, there's contact pages in my website to get in contact with me, or alternatively, you can contact me through LinkedIn, I'm there under Jude Sclater, and I'm really happy for anyone to connect with me as well, just pop in and mention that you heard me on the podcast.

Oh, fantastic. Thank you so much, Jude.

It's just been absolutely amazing having you on the show today, and I hope I get to see you again soon.

I hope so too. Thanks, Fay.

That brings us to the end of this episode. I really hope you found it helpful. And if you do decide to read Jude's book, Think Like a Coach, let me know what you think of it. I would love to hear from you.

If management or coaching skills are topics that you're keen to learn more about, the other HR Coffee Time episodes that you might find useful to listen to next are Episode 53, Why coaching skills can help your HR career and how to develop them, with Charlie Warshawski. Episode 127, What to do if your boss is a micromanager.

And episode 129, Five Essential Techniques to Become a Great Manager, with James Rose.

Finally, before I say goodbye for now, can I ask you for a small favour? If there's anyone you know who you think would find this episode helpful, please do share it with them and encourage them to listen to it. Because I would love to help as many HR and people professionals as I can with this free podcast.

Thank you so much, take care, and I'm looking forward to being back again soon with the next episode for you.