Coaching Conversations
Sync Coaching is the coaching we do as part of our Sync Leadership programmes. Over the last 2 years or so we have coached 60 disabled and deaf clients in 1:1 sessions.
Anouk Perinpanayagam is a Sync member who joined Sync 20. Anouk has spent a lot of her career in dance and theatre. She is now a qualified coach .
In this article, she tells us what she has found in coaching and how it has helped her move her career forward even with a disability that changes from day to day.
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 meant I could be coached myself and find out more about what it could do for me and others like 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. Instead I chose a Cheetah.
During coaching sessions Anouk was asked why she chose a cheetah. AShe explained that a Cheetah is unique and beautiful. It runs faster than any other animal, but even though it is fast, the way its body is made means it often loses the very thing it has been hunting.
Its light and stiff limbs and fixed running claws are good for speed but make injuries more likely. This wonderful creature, for all its capability, still loses more than 50% of what it catches and yet carries on. I am that like a Cheetah
Doing things differently
Coaching has allowed me to fly in and out as leader. I don't have to be a slick engine on full power 24 hours a day. (Anouk Perinpanayagam)
How has coaching helped her to keep on top of everything, when people see her getting slower or finding things more difficult?
Coaching has allowed me to see that I have to manage myself and my energy and now as a coach myself, I can control when and where I work whilst still sharing all that I know about the arts and people.
I am learning how to use Skype for coaching which means I can coach from home and how to make sure I don't do too much in one day.
Part of a pack and still serving
Through coaching Anouk has also learnt that she can't do things on her own and that's ok.
Without a pack around her, particularly her husband Peter and amazing support from the NHS, she says it would have been impossible for her to carry on.
The tendency for many disabled and Deaf people is to apologise for the extra time it may take them or the things they need to lead.
Coaching has allowed me to move away from apology and into equal relationship with my non-disabled colleagues. It has also allowed me understand that my natural leadership style is one of servant leadership, because people are my passion. Coaching allows me to continue to serve differently
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).
And what of her Coaching style?
Andris Nelsons, the young Latvian conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra ( CBSO) who Anouk knows well, is someone who serves but does it in a way that attracts people to his vision.
We speak more about the effect this man has on all around him ; the generosity he shows to his 80 musicians, the Symphony and the audience who he calls the “CBSO family”.
Sync and swim
We all want more balance, we are worn down, worn out, crazed from the spinning madness that has become normality (Fiona Parashar)
What was really important in the Sync coaching was the fantastic experience with my Sync coach
Sync Coaching looks at the experience of disability but not as something that takes away but adds something to our lives. Thinking differently about this means coachees can carry on flying through our careers without falling in the water. And if we do fall from time to time, we can Sync and swim!
Being a disabled coach, I feel I have something very powerful to offer not only disabled clients but anyone who has to face difficult things and that, in this difficult time, is almost everybody.
