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You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations

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with people who engage in the world of coaching.

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Welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching In.

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I'm Clare Pedrick and today it's my pleasure to have Michael Bungaistania with

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me. Welcome, Michael.

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thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

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Well, our listeners are super excited to have you here, as am I, because I only

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recommend four books ever and one of them is yours.

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that's so good. What are the other three? So we recommend Your Advice Trap.

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Fantastic. We recommend Listen.

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by Catherine Monix. Nice.

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Catherine Monix is brilliant.

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I have I've interviewed her in my pocket. I've had a glass of wine with Catherine Manic.

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She was the first person who introduced the CBT cognitive behavioral therapy into

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palliative care. And her book, The End in Mind is brilliant.

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So I love that you're recommending her stuff.

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Well, I would love to live down the road from Catherine Monix.

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My dad died and Catherine's Ted Talk was the best thing that supported him and me

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through that last thing. So she's amazing.

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So yes. Yeah. So this is by Catherine Manix.

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Improv Your Life by Pippa Evans.

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Okay. I don't know that one, but I like, I've done, I've done improv trainings.

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I probably know some of the basics.

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So Pippa Evans is, isn't a coach.

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Neither is Catherine, although I kind of suggest that she is.

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And then I recommend mine.

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Of course, that's great. That's a good list.

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Well, I'm flattered to be on it. Thank you. However, this morning I've just received five copies of How to Listen by Oscar

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Trimboli. I love Oscar down in Melbourne in Australia and I blurbed his book, I think,

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somewhere. Yeah, you did. You blurbed the top of his book.

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So I'm looking forward to reading that. That might make it to number five.

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He's very wise about the art of deep listening.

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That's where he's hung his hat and he's very good at it.

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Yeah. So one of our listeners in Japan said, you must interview Oscar Trimboli.

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So I just contacted him and he went, yes, which is what you said.

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So thank you very much for being here.

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It's a pleasure. So tell us a bit about the story that got you to recognizing how important

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conversations would be. Well, I am I live in Canada, Toronto, but I grew up in Australia and I grew up in a

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very lovely household. Good parents and two brothers I mostly liked.

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But we wouldn't I wouldn't call us a particularly chatty family.

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Like there's an inner joke about how Stenia men tend to be a bit as a turn, a

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bit quiet. And on the hand, I've always loved to be I've always been a bit of a show off.

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You know, apparently as a three year old, I

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come up to strangers in a supermarket and go, Hi, I'm Michael.

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I can hop. Would you like to see me hop? So I kind of like the spotlight.

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And I remember being in the university class.

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So I was 18 or so 19.

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And it was me and my friend back, Michael Bachelard and and eight other women.

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It was an English literature class. And I noticed in a moment.

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that he and I were doing a lot of the talking and I'm not sure we were

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mansplaining exactly that term didn't even exist back then, but we were certainly

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consuming more than our share of the oxygen in part because we're like excited

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and we like reading and we like literature and we kind of liked ideas.

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And it triggered something in me that the next step for me was actually going and

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training on a youth suicide hotline, something called Youthline.

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in Australia. And that was the first training for me to understand the power asking a question,

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the power of understanding that their first answer might not be their only

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answer, their first answer might be at one level and there might be other stuff kind

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of going on underneath. It's kind of training based on Carl Rogers' work, so Rogerian counseling.

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And that was it for me. I did that for a number of years in Australia.

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And then, you know, By the time I finally left, I went to England to study.

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By the time I finally left university, coaching was just becoming to become a

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thing. And I noticed that I was in England.

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So it was a weird Californian thing.

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So I don't know, Californians don't do anything.

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But that first seed had really been planted with that youth crisis counseling

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telephone training. That's so interesting, isn't it?

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Because I think we might be a reasonable similar ages.

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And of course, my first job was coaching, but I didn't know it was coaching because

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nobody called it coaching. Right. Right.

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And then and then the Americans started talking about coaching.

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I suspect where of that generation, where we're like, we remember a time when nobody

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was a coach other than the person blown away on the sports field.

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And now, of course, almost everybody is the coach.

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Although I did a podcast with Terry Belf, who in America, and she said that coaching started in

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Europe. Well, that's interesting.

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I mean, I know Terry. Well, I know.

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I don't know particularly well, but I know her from the very early days of coaching.

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So, yeah, there we go. That's possible.

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Yes. So when did you first realize you were a coach?

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Well, I don't even call myself a coach now.

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I've. I've always been I would have said that for a long time, I would call myself a

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facilitator or a teacher, you know, which are adjacent labels, I think, to coaching.

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If you had to pin me down now, I would call myself a teacher.

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And then as a kind of core belief in terms of what I bring to the world.

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And then there's different ways in which I do that.

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I, you know, I speak, I facilitate.

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I. You know, I don't have a coaching practice because I've discovered that my best work

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is done creating content and writing books and stuff rather than the one to one

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stuff. I do a certain amount of kind of informal ad hoc coaching, I guess, because I'm just

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naturally a curious person. And, you know, I do ask a lot of questions.

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So but certainly there was a moment when I just, you know, coaching became a thing

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and I did my first coach training. you know, early 2001 with CTI.

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And, and being a coach felt like a helpful phase to go through a useful confirmation

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that the way I showed up in the world was a useful way to show up.

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Yeah. Yeah. And the thing I really like about your books, Michael, is that they are really

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simple and straightforward. Thanks.

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And that is very opposite to the industry of coaching.

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Yeah, well, it actually.

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Part of the reason for writing the book was an irritation that there was a certain

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amount of kind of woo abstraction, kind of jazz hands, kind of black box around

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coaching. And so certainly for the coaching habit and the advice trap.

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A key part of this was trying to unweird coaching for normal people so that it felt

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like it was a tool that anybody could use.

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You didn't have to be qualified as a coach to be more coach like.

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So, you know, I know these books have been helpful and successful in the world of

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coaching, but I really write them for people who weren't coaches, but for who

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wanted to bring some of the power of coaching into their everyday life, whether

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that's as a manager and a leader or as a parent or some other.

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other role. Because it's just a conversation, isn't it?

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Well, it's, it's a it's, it's just a conversation is a pretty loaded term,

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because it's like, it's a conversation where it takes a certain amount of self

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management and skill to make it work.

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But indeed, in the end, it's at its best, it's a great conversation.

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Yeah. One of the things that I noticed that people really like about your books,

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is that it helps them to see underneath and it helps them to see the least that

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they need to do to be able to have these great conversations.

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Yeah, you know, my design philosophy, not just in my books, but in the programs I

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design and all the stuff I do is what's the least I can teach that would be the

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most useful. So one of the.

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ways we seek to reassure ourselves that we're adding value is by pumping more

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stuff in. So this is true, whether you're coaching or teaching or writing, I'll just add this

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extra bit. And, you know, at the heart of facilitation and coaching is creating

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space for the other person to be able to engage in what's there.

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And that often means you needing to step out of the spotlight, remove some of the

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content. make it about them rather than about you.

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And so often, the reason content is there is a look at me and I'm adding value.

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Look at me and I've got a safety net. Look at me and this silence isn't awkward.

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So I it's taken a while to figure this out.

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But I do do a lot of work trying to strip content away.

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So there's space for people to really get it.

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And also, it makes me go, what is the most essential thing for me to talk about or to

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teach? I absolutely agree with you because that's also my philosophy, which was why it was

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such a delight to suddenly come across your work and think, I'm not completely

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bonkers after all. Well, you might be completely bonkers, but maybe we both are.

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At least we agree on this design principle.

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Yeah. Yeah, because complexity.

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In fact, I was talking to a coach of the States this morning and she was saying

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that she'd found out about me and she also read your stuff she was telling me.

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because she was looking around the world and going, surely it can't be this hard.

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Yeah, some of my favorite moments are when people go through a one day program I've

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created, which we typically sell into big companies.

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And they're like, I think I just spent nine months in a coach training school to

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learn what you've just taught in a day.

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And I'm like, coaching is simple, but difficult.

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Yeah. You know, it's like just a conversation that's simple but difficult to have just a

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conversation. It's difficult to.

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manage your own anxiety about the ambiguity and the silences and the

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uncertainty of what's going on. It's difficult to stay fully present to the other person.

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It's difficult to really see them in their full catastrophe, the excellence and the

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messiness of who they are. It's difficult to not finish conversations with a neat bow and a ta -da.

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It's difficult to not...

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avoid some of that, the more challenging things you might say to somebody, all of

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these things are simple enough in terms of technique, but they're difficult to do for

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all sorts of other reasons. Yeah, you can see what you need to do.

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But doing it is the harder step, isn't it?

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Yeah. So you were on Gary Krotos's podcast the other day.

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True. Yeah. And he said to me, talk to Michael about Keystone Conversations.

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So I have a new book out or a relatively new book called How to Work with Almost

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Anyone, which I think is probably the best book title I've ever come up with.

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It's like it's just a good book title.

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I love it. And, you know, it's a you call it a sister book, I think, or a cousin book to the

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advice trap and the coaching habit.

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Because the primary people I wrote those two books for were busy managers and

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leaders. You know, that was my imagined.

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avatar, if you like, as I wrote that.

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And, you know, in the context of work, although I think it goes broader than

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that, you know, your your happiness and your success so often depend on the

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quality of your working relationships.

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And this is true whether you're in a big company or whether you run your own

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coaching practice or whatever it might be.

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And most of the time, we don't do much about that.

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We just hope for the best. And the key insight around this book is

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you can actively shape the working relationships you have to be the best

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possible versions of those relationships.

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BPRs, the best possible relationship.

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So it doesn't mean every relationship turns into this wonderful, you know,

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perfect thing. It means that when you're A, if you're A and you're working with B, there's

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potential between you. How do you fulfill as much of that potential as possible?

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How do you bring out the best?

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of each other as much as you can. How do you avoid the worst of each other as much as you can?

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And the keystone conversation, and it's hard as simply, let's have a conversation

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about how we work together before we plunge into the work.

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And again, simple and difficult, because most of us plunge into the work.

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You know, you sign up a new coaching client and you're like, right, I'm here to

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add value. So what are you up against? What's on your mind?

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What's the challenge? What's hard for you? How can I be?

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So how will we measure success and all of that's into the work.

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And you don't have a conversation around when you've had a coach or you've thought

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about a coach and it's been a good break in relationship, what do they do?

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And when you've had a mediocre coaching relationship, like in my time, I've had

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lots of coaches and a lot of them were like pretty underwhelming.

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And I can be really articulate about what I need in a coach if I'm hiring a coach

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and if they asked me. So it's this exchange of information about.

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How do we bring out each other's best?

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How do we work together? How do we fix it when things go wrong?

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How do we get back on track? All of these kind of meta conversations that enable you to better do the work.

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I call that right sizing.

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Yeah. Don't start doing the work until you know what you're doing.

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Yeah. So part of it's right sizing, which is, you know, what's the actual work?

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You know, and that's why in the coaching habit, the question, what's the real

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challenge here for you is so effective because we all think the first thing that

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shows up is the real challenge and it really is.

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It's just their first stab at it.

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So, you know, you provide so much help if you can be the person to help figure out

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what the real problem is. You don't even need to come up with the answers.

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It's like just figuring out what the real problem is.

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Most of the magic. And then you kind of bring that to the right sizing of the relationship as well,

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which is like, so what does, what does the shape look like with you and me at our

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best? And getting that out there is so important, but you trained with CTI just

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after I trained with Coach U. Right.

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And they talked about establishing the Coding Agreement.

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Yeah. Which seems to have got lost in...

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How much, how many, how often?

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And not what do we need to do to do the best that we can in this space right now?

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Yeah. Well, how much, how many, how often is a useful and essential part of the

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conversation, but it's just not the whole part of the conversation.

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So, you know, the origin of this work for me comes from a guy called Peter Block.

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He called this stuff social contracting.

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And I... Social contracting is a bit of a bit abstract.

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It's a bit high level. It's used in other contexts in different ways.

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So it's a bit confusing. But essentially it's the same, which is like, how do we work together?

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And and what I like about a contract is the thing I like about that phrase is a

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contract in legal terms is a exchange of value, an equal exchange of value.

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You do this thing for me. I give you money to an equal exchange of value.

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And this idea that.

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We're not just finding out the logistics, but we're actually exchanging the value of

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who we are and how we want to show up is what gives the relationship the

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opportunity to flourish. Because like if you're a coach and I know most people listening to this will be

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coaches or thinking about being coaches.

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You know, learning how to coach is tricky and your training and your mastering that

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they have to run a practice. You have to.

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find clients, you have to keep clients.

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That's the whole other level of skill.

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And there are many coaches who like I love the marketing.

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I love trying to find new clients.

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Some people, some people love that, but not that many.

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And one of the ways you can help yourself is by keeping your good clients longer.

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And the one one of the ways you can keep your good clients longer is you have

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relation a conversation about how will we keep this going as long as possible.

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So it's as good for for both of us for as long as possible.

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If you can pull that off, then you actually start building these long term

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client relationships, which is good for the client and also good for your

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business. Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with you on that one.

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But hey. okay. So what what what what do you want to take issue with?

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So I, I, it depends what the coaching is for, doesn't it?

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So if the coaching is an external thinking partner relationship over time, where

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somebody wants somebody to just travel with them, then that's a great thing.

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But I think often coaches are hired for a thing.

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And then and then that needs to be a shorter relationship.

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Otherwise, we just extend it for no reason.

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Well, I agree with that. I mean, I think too often coaches business models are kind of growing.

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I'm trying to build codependence with this plan.

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Absolutely. So it drags on forever and ever and ever.

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And there are too many coaching relationships where people on both sides

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are kind of slightly going through the motions of what that works.

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But. you know, the in the how to work with almost anyone booked there are kind of

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three phases to kind of building this best possible relationship.

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The first is you taking time to answer the five core questions of the Keystone

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relationship yourself. So you know, you know your answers, because it's so much a bit of a self help

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book hidden inside of business book, right?

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The second phase is you have the keystone conversation, you actually have a

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conversation around how you want to work together.

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But the third phase is the maintenance phase, which is like, you need to check in

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often on how you check in all the time on how you're doing, you need to repair

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often, and you need to reset as required.

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And what you and I are talking about is the reset process, which is like, all

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right, so are we done? Are we not done?

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If we're not done? what needs to be done to reset.

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So we get back to this idea of a relationship.

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And these are the three columns of the three principles of a BPA, our best

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possible relationship, a relationship that is safe and vital and repairable.

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So safe meaning it's it's you removed fear vital meaning that there's still life and

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challenge and provocation in there.

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And repair, meaning you get to fix it when things go wrong because it always goes

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wrong. And I think I think what you and I are agreeing on is that too often coaching

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relationships become safe, but they lose some of their vitality because the kind of

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purpose of the relationship has kind of leaked out.

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Yeah, and I love hearing you talk in a language that's different from mine,

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because it's enabling me to make a whole load of meaning of some of the things that

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I think. And I love that.

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Because that relationship thing, that partnering thing, we're only in

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relationship and in partnership, aren't we, if we check in to make sure we still

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are? Because otherwise, I think we are and you think we're not.

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Yeah, and quite frankly, the reason I stopped coaching is I just found myself

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too often in relationships that would be boring.

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I was like, I like you.

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I don't mind this coaching, but I want to say I'm a bit it doesn't have a whole lot

21:45

of vitality here for me.

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And I just I know I also figured out that I have more impact by doing different

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things. But I do think that we often default to safety and we forget about vitality.

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Yeah. And the vitality brings the transformation, doesn't it?

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The energy and the bounce and the not doing the same thing all over again.

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Yeah. I think you need both. I mean, you can, if you had vitality and kind of provocation, if you like, without

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safety, then it's really good until it isn't.

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And then it shatters. So you're trying to find that dance between safe and vital.

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And it's different with every client you have.

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And then for all of them, there comes a time where something gets misunderstood,

22:36

something goes off the rails, something leaks, something breaks, something rips,

22:40

and that's the repairability. Because if you can repair it, you have a chance of extending it for the full length

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and the full potential of the relationship.

22:51

That's so insightful because there's a sort of hidden implicit assumption that

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things won't break, isn't there? Yeah, they will.

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We all start going, it's amazing. I've hired a coach.

23:04

it's amazing. I've got a new client. we love each other.

23:07

But, you know, to be blunt, shit always hits some fans somewhere down the line.

23:11

There's no such thing as a relationship without kind of hiccups in it.

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And often, it's just sweeping generalization.

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But, you know, because coaching is full of nice people who are people people and

23:25

trying to do their best. They're often not that good at conflict and they're good at repair.

23:30

They're like, let's just keep it nice.

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And nice can suck the life out of a good relationship.

23:38

I wish we'd had this conversation before I did a supervision session on Monday.

23:44

We, you know, this it's so jargony this thing that people say to me, how do I use

23:50

myself as instrument? And I go, let's talk about saying what you notice or sense or experience.

23:56

But this, this coach came to supervision and the, the, the question was she and

24:02

the, and the person she was coaching had had a disagreement.

24:06

And she said, how do we use the disagreement for learning?

24:09

And I said, it depends on how much you've annoyed them.

24:13

You know, is this about the disagreement is part of the learning or is it that the

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disagreement is just that something you have done has been experienced by them as

24:22

being really irritating? Right.

24:25

Is it not the same thing? No, I mean, I think I would go look, first of all, how do you use this disagreement

24:31

to repair the relationship and possibly strengthen, re -strengthen it?

24:36

And then how do you learn from that experience?

24:40

So that when it shows up again between the two of you, you're better able to navigate

24:45

it the second time. It may be showing you something about what's going on in their working life, but

24:52

it may actually be showing something about how you're getting on with each other.

24:56

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

25:00

Yeah, because we were talking about patronizing, you could be really

25:02

patronizing by accident in those contexts, can't you?

25:05

That's true. It is.

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I think it's a real danger with coaching is there's a slightly.

25:15

There's a slight odor of moral superiority sometimes with coaches, which is like, you

25:21

know, look, look how advanced I am and how self aware I am and how open hearted and

25:27

open minded and stuff I am. And.

25:30

All of that is great stuff when you're doing the work and kind of becoming that.

25:35

But I remember, I mean, this is like 15 years ago or longer, perhaps going to a

25:43

what at the time the ICF held these big international conferences and just

25:48

wondering around going everywhere.

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We all feel very smart here.

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Like they're all. very self congratulatory about how the sun shines out of various orifices.

26:01

And, you know, one of the attributes I most like is humility.

26:10

Not in a kind of false, you know, look at me, I'm so humble.

26:16

Humility for me means you have your feet on the ground.

26:20

There's actually a connection between humility and the word for ground, humus.

26:24

And it and it humility for me is knowing both your strengths and your non strengths

26:31

and and kind of holding them in balance.

26:34

Like I think I'm isn't so weird.

26:37

I'm saying this so certainly, but I think I'm quite humble.

26:39

I'm confident and humble in that I'm confident about who I am and how I show up

26:44

in the world and where I think I can best serve.

26:47

And I'm really clear about all the stuff I'm a bit shit at.

26:50

And there's plenty of it. Yeah.

26:53

And we're all a bit broken.

26:55

I share that. I often say to friends and colleagues, I can't stand being with coaches because it

27:01

all feels a bit worthy. Yeah.

27:03

And I think when it feels in a conversation that somebody who's sorted is

27:09

working with somebody who's not as sorted, the power differential there is massive,

27:14

isn't it? Yeah, yeah. That's right.

27:17

And it's it's.

27:21

You know, it's a metaphor that gets talked about a bit, but the Kintsugi metaphor,

27:26

which is like, you know, porcelain repaired with gold lacquer.

27:30

And it's like broken, but fixed and more beautiful and different, you know,

27:35

similar, but different metaphor is that scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the

27:39

human body, which actually isn't true, unfortunately, but it would be great if it

27:43

was. But, you know, it's like it's our scars and our wounds and our.

27:48

stories of failure that make us more interesting and more useful to the people

27:54

with whom we're trying to help. And yet there's a fear to disclose that we're not superhuman.

28:01

Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you listen to this, and you're worried, I'm like, if it's any use, it's a

28:08

whole lot easier to go, look, I'm probably more screwed up than you are.

28:13

And I still can ask a good question or two.

28:15

So. Yeah, it's a very freeing experience to go, yeah, I'm a bit of a mess.

28:21

Well, yeah, and I said to a group the other day when I did my last night when I

28:27

did a coaching session a few weeks ago, which was the worst I've done for a very

28:30

long time, and they all went.

28:33

And I went, well, if you're going to do your best work, you're going to do your

28:35

worst work, right? Yeah, exactly.

28:38

Yeah, yeah. That's nice.

28:41

We've there's a chapter about humility in our in the new book.

28:44

the human behind the coach and that's great because we're just trying to get

28:49

people to recognise that actually this isn't about being perfect or superhuman or

28:53

special or different. That we're one human who facilitates the thinking of another.

28:59

Yeah, it's the more you can, the more you can be nuanced in your humanity, the more

29:04

helpful and just kind of the more real you are to the world.

29:10

Which is why coming back to the advice trap when I say to people,

29:15

what you say about the advice monster, they go, thank goodness.

29:20

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's named.

29:23

It's normal. Often the feedback I've had, and I think this is true, is that some of the what's

29:29

most useful in my work is I, I think of five more abstract concepts.

29:35

So, you know, the advice monster and just kind of three of them, if you like, save

29:39

it, tell it and control it.

29:41

They're kind of like. a simpler way of understanding some of the kind of deeper ego driven reasons why we

29:48

might leap to give advice to protect ourselves and protect our status and

29:52

protect our kind of sense of who we are.

29:55

But when you call it an advice monster and you go, you probably noticed your advice

29:58

monster. Everyone's like, yeah, I have an advice monster.

30:00

I'm like, we all have an advice monster. You're in very good company.

30:03

You're a whole of humanity. Yeah, yeah.

30:07

So what's your hope for your work?

30:13

What do you want it to have done to do in the future?

30:17

Well, for years now, I've had a personal mission and my language is to infect a

30:24

billion people with the possibility virus.

30:27

wow. That was better language before Covid and we had a virus.

30:33

But if you want to kind of unpack that, you know, a billion people is an

30:40

impossibly large number. but it speaks to kind of me thinking about scale of impact.

30:47

The virus idea is that it can spread without me.

30:51

So it's about putting ideas into the world and I don't need to be known for them.

30:56

I don't need to be the hero. I don't need to be the guru.

30:59

You know, if people discover the seven questions on the coaching habit and they

31:02

don't know the mic from me, that's fine by me.

31:07

And then the possibility virus, what that means is,

31:12

to help people make braver choices.

31:15

It comes down to kind of man search for meaning, which is like, you know, in the

31:19

moment we have a choice. It's helping people see that they have choices and help them make the braver

31:25

choice so that they get to kind of unlock the best of who they are and look their

31:31

own greatness. So, you know, that's the that's the kind of the ripple effect that I'm trying to

31:39

have in the work that I do.

31:42

and I also don't think too much about it.

31:45

because, you know, my job is to take my best guess at the next project that is my

31:52

best contribution to that bigger game and then put it out in the world and, you

31:57

know, something's spread and some things don't spread as much.

32:00

And, and, you know, as an atheist, I'm pretty sure that once I'm dead, I'm dead.

32:06

So I don't get to find, I don't get my reward in heaven or anything like that.

32:10

So it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's already working better than I thought it

32:15

would with the success of some of these coaching books.

32:18

And so I keep doing that work and it's lovely to hear back from people

32:23

occasionally when it's been helpful from them.

32:26

Well, it's very helpful. Lots of our listeners have been infected.

32:31

Well, thank you. And I'm speaking about that is that, that you, and then they,

32:36

coach differently and they touch other people.

32:38

And so there's this kind of ripple effect.

32:40

And, you know, one or two or three degrees that can can make a difference.

32:45

Yeah. And I'm taking the advice monster and your name into a group of 500 on Tuesday.

32:52

So fantastic. Thank you so much.

32:55

Michael, thank you so much for coming to the coaching in.

32:57

What a pleasure it's been to be in conversation with you.

33:01

Thank you, Claire. You're wonderful. And hopefully maybe you, me and Catherine Monnets can have a glass of wine.

33:05

That would be fun, exactly.

33:08

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33:13

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