Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to PRIME SPACE, a PRIME Coaching Academy podcast with your host, Elias Scultori.
(00:14):
Hello, coaches. You may have heard that I got yet another certification. Recently I was awarded the ESIA from the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. It's a certification focused primarily on supervision. It's a supervision, individual accreditation from the EMCC, and this is a long time coming. I have been a mentor coach and a coach supervisor for many years, close to 15 years now, and ever since we have this new way of looking at supervision, this came about and observing the development of this particular practice, it has always been in my mind like, oh, maybe I should get more training on this and investigate this practice a little bit more. And finally, I had a little bit of bandwidth to invest in this process. And of course, I took the training, why not? Let's get the stamp after the training. And I went all the way to getting the certification.
(01:34):
I am a huge fan of supervision. Every time prior, even prior to my training that I had the opportunity to be supervised or to be in an environment of supervision. I laughed at experience inspired. There is so much beauty in this practice of stopping and reflecting on how am I showing up for my clients? What are the points that, the blind spots that may happen? If there is an ethical question that I have, there is a space for me to work with my supervisor, or perhaps even in group supervision, to have this conversation and share with my fellow coaches and with this coach supervisor to support me and reflecting and seeing myself a little bit more broadly and being able to then, when I go back to my client, show up more fully, more presently with a broader awareness of me as a coach and how I present myself to my clients.
(02:51):
It's a robust, refined, and tremendously valuable process. And if you have never experienced supervision, I highly encourage you to seek opportunities to be supervised and stay in this space of supervision. The name supervision is a little tricky and supervision, it feels like a little intimidating. This person is going to supervise me, but we, in coaching, we try to split that word supervision into supervision. This idea that we are taking a bird's eye view of what's happening with me in my practice so that I have a broader perspective and be able to show up more presently and more consciously, intentionally with our clients. Phenomenal, phenomenal process. Since the beginning of the coaching profession, we have noticed the crucial aspect of supporting coaches. And at the time, this is even prior to ICF, we realized that coaches need to have conversations with other coaches and build this ongoing relationship with a more experienced coach so that on a regular basis we have this space for reflection and growth.
(04:24):
At that time, prior to ICF. I emphasized that. We labeled that practice. We labeled it mental coaching. That was what the practice was. We didn't have all of this information that came from supervision later, and we called it mentor coaching. And this was this process of supporting the growth and development of this other coach, and in all aspects of their practice skills development, personal development, business development, we had those three lags that we used to call and that we used to identify. But bottom line was this holistic process of supporting the development, the ongoing development of the coach. When the ICF came and later when the ICF started setting the standards for the profession and standards for certification, the ICF set one specific requirement for the process of certification. Make sure that the, on this ongoing process that you have with your mentor coach, make sure that prior to your certification, you dedicate at minimum of 10 hours talking about skills and polishing your coaching skills, work with your mentor coach and reflect on what are the stretches and the opportunities for growth in your skills development specific so that you have a successful certification process at that time.
(06:08):
The ICF never defined that mentor coaching is skills development. It was just an ask requirement that spend at least 10 hours so that you are well prepared for the process later on. The community, primarily coming from EMCC, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, which is a community highly influenced by psychology specialists, came and said, Hey, we have this practice in psychology, the practice of supervision. That can be tremendously powerful and helpful to coaches. Why don't we bring supervision, the process of supervision to coaching? Fabulous, fantastic.
(07:07):
I've said this before, I'm a firm believer that coaching can be enriched and become an even more robust process when we incorporate knowledge and experiences from other practices. At the same time, the coaching coaching came to be as a profession. We had several other parallel modalities that came to be as well. Motivational interviewing, positive psychology. We have appreciative inquiry. We have all of these wonderful modalities happening. Why not learn from all of them? So then comes supervision. Well, why not bring supervision to coaching right now in the development of this whole process and the continued development of our profession, we have very hard lines set between coaching and mentor coaching and coaching supervision. And it's interesting to see this development. I am a firm believer that coaching is in the proposition of coaching is holistic and integrative. We work with the whole human being and we realize that all parts of that human being and the development of that human being are interconnected.
(08:32):
So it's a little interesting, even funny to see us separating. And this is one thing, this is the other thing. When in fact, when we are in front of this coach and we are supporting this coach, it's a whole person. So I don't understand how can we possibly support skills development without coaching? How can we possibly support skills development without a reflective practice, just like supervision? I don't understand how we can only do reflective practice without talking about skills development or that we will talk about skills development, but then maybe business is a part of that process. It's all intertwined. So I do believe in a much more integrative process, and I hope that this is the future that we will be able to develop supervision and mentor coaching, and this is going to come together because the bottom line is that we are there.
(09:44):
I'm there when I'm working with my coaches. I'm there to support that whole individual. And sometimes there is a little bit more need to focus on skills. Sometimes there is a little bit more need to look at a particular client case. Sometimes there is some personal development that needs to happen. Sometimes the coach is more concerned with their business and building their business practice. All of this is happening within that individual. How can I, as a professional that has invested in this process of supporting coaches, how can I support that individual holistically? And that's why I went and I learned a little bit more about the process of supervision because I do believe in the integrative process. Coaching is a holistic practice. Coaching is about integration.
(10:41):
When we set these very clear boundaries, we are kind of splitting the individual into different segments, which is actually absolutely against the whole concept of coaching. Coaching is about the whole human being. And that is my commitment. It's to bring these concepts of supervision and what I have learned from supervision, not only to when I am supporting coaches, but if supervision is so beautiful, why not bring some of these concepts of supervision to coaching? There is absolutely nothing new in the concept of supervision. There is a different way of verbalizing them. Let's pick one particular point of supervision, which is this idea of utilizing ourselves, the practitioner, as an instrument to support the coach. Well, this is, and I've said this many times here in the podcast, this is already embedded in our core competencies. So Standard seven point 11 asks us to be free to share our own observations, to share what's the insights, what is coming to surface inside of us in the coaching process.
(12:01):
It's just that sometimes we are a little shy as coaches to do that for a number of reasons that I've mentioned before, and that I can expand this a little bit more in future episodes. But it's already there. And this is part of the supervision, the wonderful contribution of supervision to coaching. So let's incorporate even in coaching. I believe that that is a beautiful practice here. So yes, I do have my experience in mentor coaching and skills development. I am a trainer, and now I invested quite some time investigating and learning more about this new way of looking at supervision. And all of this is based on my commitment to support my coach clients in their holistic development as human beings and as practitioners and as professionals. So I encourage you to consider working in that more integrative approach as well. I always say if we are a coach, we need a coach.
(13:20):
It's an ethical issue. How in the world can we go and to our prospect clients and promote coaching and say that coaching is such a valuable and powerful process if we don't believe that for ourselves, it is a matter of integrity, I believe. So we as coaches, we need to work with coaches. And I would encourage you, as you are looking to build a long-term and sustainable relationship with a coach, to look for a professional that is an exquisite coach with very solid experience as a coach, but also someone who is an expert in the standards and the skills of coaching that can support you in developing specific skills. Also, look for someone who is capable and is versed in this new language of supervision. Look for someone who has a thriving practice as well. All of these components, see if you can find someone who has all of these capabilities to support your learning and development in a holistic practice.
(14:39):
I believe that that is fundamental and super important for us as coaches to invest on for ourselves. So that's my encouragement for you. Consider this process of supervision. Consider understanding this a little bit more if you haven't heard about it or if you have minimal knowledge of it because there is a lot of richness and beauty in that process. Bottom line is that we as coaches, need to continue in our reflective practice and need to continue to pay attention to where we are so that we can better serve our clients. And those are my thoughts for today. Next week, we will bring Amy back. She's going to be here in our final episode for season two of PRIME SPACE. I can't believe that we are finishing season two. And so stay tuned for next week's episode with Amy. Also pay attention to our YouTube channel. We are just published a coaching demonstration there that I think you will enjoy watching and listening to it. Our LinkedIn page is very active. Please follow our LinkedIn page, subscribe to the podcast, and consider showing up for one of our PRIME HOURs as well. You can get all of this information at primecoachingacademy.com. Enjoy your week everyone, and I will see you next time. Take care.
