Coaching conversations
Being a coach requires an ever expanding portfolio of BDQs (bloody difficult questions!) David Clutterbuck
Coaching conversations have always been at the heart of Sync Leadership. Developed from the IHD model of the Inspired Coach programme, Sync Coaching has been developed alongside the 60 disabled and deaf clients in 1:1 sessions over the last 2 years and have involved their fair share of bloody difficult questions: not only those posed, but those explored by our membership.
Anouk Perinpanayagam is one of the original Sync 20 members and a strong advocate for Sync Leadership. With a career in arts, predominantly theatre and dance; and as a cultural broker, Anouk has answered some difficult questions through coaching and becoming a coach. Newly qualified, she's currently designing her next steps despite, and because of, her ever changing condition.
In this article, she shares the impact that coaching has had on her and how it has informed the interface between leadership and disability; underpinning the development of her fledgling organisation, Arts Intuition.
Coaching was something that was very much on my mind when I was accepted onto the Sync 20 programme, so when I met Sarah, it couldn’t have been more timely in allowing me to experience coaching first hand. One of the most striking things that Sarah shared in our first session was how energy-giving she found the coaching process to be. As someone constantly wrestling with my energy, both then and now, this was intriguing for me to hear. At the time I felt absolutely at the mercy of my condition's peaks and troughs, constantly apologising to those around me….
Cheeting
I chose not to put a picture of myself on the Sync website purely because I just didn’t know what I felt about being disabled at this stage in the proceedings. Instead I chose a Cheetah.
At the start of Sync, I was still teetering on the edge of owning and acknowledging my impairments. My choice was very much to hide rather than putting myself on the line as proud and disabled.
So what is it about a Cheetah that has continued to work for her as a metaphor in Coaching?
A Cheetah is unique and beautiful. It runs faster than any other animal, but having done so its physiological state is so compromised, that it often loses the very thing it has been hunting. Its light but stiff limbs, enlarged nasal passage, fixed running claws are invaluable for speed but make it prone to injury and susceptible to its competitors. This wonderful creature, for all its capability, still loses more than 50% of what it catches and yet carries on. I am that cat and this is my experience too. As that cat, I am also able to explore so much more of what happens for me.
Coaching across the interface
Coaching has allowed me to fly in and out as leader, defying the idea that I should be ‘firing on all cylinders.' (Anouk Perinpanayagam)
Anouk is keen to share how profoundly the experience of MS impacts on her life and work.
The people around me, new and old acquaintances, perceive things differently, depending on how I am managing on the day. I struggle to explain, they struggle to comprehend. This means that I lose control, and in a leadership framework, I find it hard to keep buoyant, sinking under the water and feeling undermined at every turn.
How has coaching helped her surface?
Coaching has allowed me to develop new ways of feeling, behaving and doing. I now fly in and out as leader, defying the idea that I should be ‘firing on all cylinders'. It has allowed me to take more control over how I am perceived despite the prejudice and assumptions made about the capacity of someone with a degenerative condition. As a result, I now control the timings and manage my energy explicitly rather than leaving it to chance. I own my access requirements as they emerge.
Furthermore, as a coach herself, she can work within her own parameters whilst still bringing all her extensive achievements and wisdom into play.
Enacting leadership
So how do disabled and Deaf people consistently defy the stereotypic enactment of leadership as being about ‘peak performance’?
Sync has meant that there is a 200 strong membership who are exploring this very question. Allowing disabled people to lead is not an act of charity, nor is it necessarily a right of passage, but it is, to a greater extent, about creating the right set of circumstances for trying out, enacting on our own terms.
Through coaching I realised that I didn’t have to do this on my own but that it was essential to find willing collaborators and support who could see past the ongoing difficulties and be my advocate. Coaching can undoubtedly allow people to play with the possibility of leading differently.
Without a pack around her, particularly her partner Peter and amazing NHS support, she says it would have been impossible for her to pinpoint the real and significant contribution that she can make as someone, yes, who is disabled, but who has considerable experience to share.
Servant leadership
Servant leaders are felt to be effective because the needs of followers are so looked after that they reach their full potential, hence perform at their best. (Mitch McCrimmon)
There is a tendency for many disabled and Deaf people to apologise for what it takes for them to take the stand.
Understanding the particularly nifty way we all sabotage ourselves was a key part of Sync 20 and the network that resulted. Meeting Jenny Sealey MBE, Artistic Director of Graeae, also a Sync 20 member at the same time as I, was groundbreaking in this respect. The playful time we shared around self sabotage and submission, and owning up to the impact we can and do make, has allowed us to develop a working relationship since. She is part of my flock and I am a part of hers.
So is she still apologising?
Coaching has allowed me to move away from apology and into equal relationship with my non-disabled counterparts. It has also allowed me to understand that my natural leadership style is one of servant leadership where I focus absolutely on the needs of those I propose to lead. I’ve always served the arts sector, in one way or another, because it is my passion. However I am not servile, far from it, and now coaching allows me to continue to serve differently. The ‘pathetically grateful ‘stance that disabled and Deaf people take is becoming less and less the norm as more of us step into leadership roles and get far more plucky in getting what we want alongside disabled people
Soft coaxing
Andris Nelsons, Conductor of the CBSO, is a brilliant communicator with a servant mind-set who coaxes those within his chosen spectrum to effortlessly attract passionate followers.
(Anouk Perinpanayagam)
I ask her if this new, tenacious, plucky approach, alongside others, has meant that she needs to be that bit harder.
We talk about how a skillful leader more often than not, understands that attractiveness stems from credibility and legitimacy. As Joseph S. Nye Jr says 'Power has never flowed solely from the barrel of a gun; even the most brutal dictators have relied on attraction as well as fear.'
And what of her coaching style?
The term “coach” does not have the same meaning for everyone, and if English is another one of the many languages you have under your tongue, it may be an alien reference. However, “coax” seems a more fitting descriptor for Andris Nelsons, the young Latvian conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) who Anouk knows well, as someone who has a “servant” mind-set that leaves no doubt that he is in charge as a leading conductor of note being a persuasive individual that carries credible power to “attract.
We speak more about the effect this man has on all around him; the generosity to the 80 players of his "team" alongside Symphony Hall staff of every tier, aligned with the audience that make up what he calls the “CBSO family”.
Coaching, disability and conscious embodiment
The experience of Sync Coaching made it clear that there was something in coaching for Anouk. As an extension of her portfolio, she trained as a coach with Relational Dynamics 1st led by Deborah Barnard and guest trainer Rivca Rubin
Developing your own coaching style is important and conscious embodiment has played a real part in my practice because it explores the heightened awareness in how my mind and body habitually react to pressure. As a disabled person, this sits at the heart of how I live and work and, as a tool, it’s familiar and has impact as part of my practice working with a wide range of clients across a range of sectors.
Sync, syncopation, and the sector
We all want more balance, we are worn down, worn out, crazed from the spinning madness that has come normality.
The Balancing Act, Work Life Solutions for Busy People (Fiona Parashar)
So what of Sync Coaching?
What was really important in the Sync coaching was the fantastic experience with my Sync coach. It was built on rapport and irreverence, and was open, honest, and direct, peppered with dynamic flashes of intuition and was unlike any other coaching I’ve experienced since.
In Sync Coaching, disability is always there, but used as source material rather than something loaded and cumbersome.
I would like my coaching to have just as much impact and I'm getting there with some really postive endorsements for my work. I am developing my practice to not only best suit my clients, but to take advantage of coaching platforms using Skype which will allow me to continue to practice coaching within the parameters of my unpredictable condition.
As a disabled coach, Anouk feels she has something very powerful to offer not only disabled clients but anyone who has to wrestle imbalance and uncertainty, and let’s face it, isn’t that everyone at the moment?
