%20(8).png)
choice Magazine
choice Magazine
Episode #24 ~ Coaching Design 3.0 with guest, Pam Boney
In this interview, we talk with Pam Boney about her article Coaching Design 3.0 ~ Six ways to redesign your coaching for a new era.
Pam Boney is a senior executive coach, a tech startup founder, and an innovator in personality development. She brings decades of professional experience in leading, advising, and coaching individuals and teams to achieve exceptional performance. As designer and author of the Tilt 365 model, a scientifically validated, strength-based character development framework and technology, Pam is an innovative thought leader in the domain of character science and intelligence.
It is time for us to rethink the coaching design because we are needed more than ever in an era of the highest levels of stress, anxiety and worry that any of us have ever experienced.
Imagine a coaching program that shrinks the discovery phase from 15 hours to one. And coaching sessions from 20 hour-long sessions down to 12 that are 20-40 minutes - all with even better results. With the right approach, design, assessments, and measures of success, this faster, deeper approach is not only possible; innovators in our domain have well-established proof of concept.
Join us as we discuss how Pam went about making changes to the original coaching design and how you can implement these changes in your coaching.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/BtP_Boney
To learn more about Pam please visit her website https://www.tilt365.com
For a FREE gift from Pam and Tilt365, please click here.
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Pam about her article published in our June 2022 issue.
Hello everyone. I'm Garry Schleifer and this is another episode of Beyond the Page. Sometimes it sounds like the Twilight zone, but it's not. It's alive. It's energized and we're here brought to you by choice the premier magazine and ultimate resource for professional coaches. choice is, more than just a magazine. It's a community to people who use and share coaching tools, tips, and techniques to add value to their businesses and impact their clients. It's an institution of learning built over the course of believe it or not 20 years, dedicated to improving lives of coaches and their clients. Now, speaking of tips tools, the big tool-meister we have today is Pam Boney. She's a senior executive coach, a tech startup founder, and innovator in personal development. She's the author of this particular feature in the magazine, the June issue of choice entitled Coaching Design, 3.0~ 6 ways to redesign your coaching for a new era. Pam brings decades of professional experience in leading, advising and coaching individuals and teams to achieve exceptional performance. As designer and author of the tilt 365 model, a scientifically validated strength based character development framework and technology, Pam is an innovative thought leader in the domain of character, science and intelligence. She founded tilt365.com, a startup that builds leadership and team diagnostics to assess leadership for innovative climate and culture. The tilt suite of agility assessments combined with team focused workshops, workshop curriculums is designed to help key influencer team shape a culture where creativity and innovation flourish in an age of technology and, don't we know it, disruption. Pam. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Delighted to be here with you, Garry.
Speaker 1:Yes. I was re re re re-reading, cuz I read the article so many times, you know, there's submission, there's proofreading and then there's just the joy of reading it. Oh yeah. And I caught a couple of things in there that I just wanted a little more a little more of your wisdom about. Number one is, and I come up with this a lot in coaching. What do you mean by evidence based feedback?
:Evidence based feedback is a collection of data that is kind of scrubbed or put through the machine of an assessment that is psychometrically valid and has been psychometrically tested as an accurate way of describing what we do. So, you know, my view is that we often you know, we care about how we impact other people most of the time, or most of us do, most of the time, but sometimes we don't, but when we are looking at how we're impacting other people a lot of the time we're projecting what we think people should be onto others. So collecting feedback, you got, you have to scrub it of that kind of projected bias your opinion. Yeah,
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes so much sense. Well, and I thank you for clarifying that because I think we have an understanding about it, but I always want to know what, how you see it and to help our readers no matter what and listeners, no matter what level of coaching they're at. So I think it's kind of obvious why you wrote this, cuz the issue was about instruments and transformation and coaching, but why did you decide to write for this issue? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually it was, it was an experience I had recently. I was helping a large corporate client who had decided they wanted to hire a coaching company, you know, to manage their coaching. We had been managing it for, I don't know, 15 years. And we have, we are focusing on just assessments and some solutions now that are, you know, much more technology focused and you know, also laser coaching, which is a lot faster. So we're not doing contracting executive coaching anymore. Our specifically, and so I was helping them choose a firm. And so I had recommended a number of firms, some of which I have done business with in the past and have given me business as a coach. And we went through, you know, all these interviews together and I'm kind of helping them behind the scenes, make a decision like who, who it should be. And I was really caught off guard and surprised when several of the firms that I recommended that were really good firms. Like, you know, they are people I still recommend of course, but what I was experiencing and they were too, is how much we had innovated over that 15 year period and how people were still doing it, the way that, that I started doing it 20 years ago and had changed from and convinced them along the way, you know, to innovate. And so after those calls I think we debriefed it and I thought, wow, I think I'm surprised, like, you know, how nothing has changed a lot in the executive coaching design space. So we had discussions afterward and, you know, they were surprised too. So yeah, that's what made me write it because I felt like our profession, you know, needs to be thinking, especially now after what we've been through the last two years. Yeah. That we've got to approach the design of coaching in a much different way now.
Speaker 1:So yeah. Well, and to paraphrase in the article, I thought, I like, you know, I mean, it's, when you say it it's obvious, but when you're living it, it's just like, oh yeah, this is the way I've always done stuff. Why wouldn't I keep doing it? Well, right. Clients have evolved. Clients have their, have had coaching and they've had coaching for a long time and they see things differently. And you point this out here, but it's, it's it's oh, I still remember talking to people and they insist on having one hour, like coaching can't happen in less than an hour. Right. I'm like, I haven't done one hour coaching in. I don't know how many years it could be a decade or more. Right. And it's just like, so who said it has to be an hour? Oh, well, you know, so maybe you need to retrain yourself as a coach
Speaker 2:But I, but t o b e t he, the part that I really really loved was it's crucial to start coaching immediately, rather than focus on external discovery that whole lead u p to that section of 0.2 of the article. I tell people I'm coaching in t he sales conversation. Right. Like, y es, it starts right from there. I t's developing a relationship through asking powerful questions. And even in that interview, right, they're gonna decide if they wanna work with you or not. And if, if you really you know, i f, if you say I'm gonna go interview everybody you work with about you and see what they think you should improve. Like, to me in that first interview, you're kind of, you know, U gh, creating some, you know, fear and you know, like, oh gosh, the first thing you're gonna do is go see what everybody thinks about me. Like who wasn't afraid of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let's, let's have everybody tell us what, what they think of you before we ask you what you think of you. It's just, and, and there are still organizations that do that, like you said, you know, you experienced it firsthand. Yeah. And so you went about making innovations to the traditional coaching design and tell us, what are the top three innovations you've implemented?
Speaker 2:Well, that's the first one I did. And it was really, I've been coaching 22 years. I did it in year two. So that first innovation was to stop focusing on the interview, you know, going and interviewing everybody about someone. That was before I had developed the assessment. And instead, what I did is kind of think about like, you know, what would I love? You know, like why don't I create a beginning of coaching? That would be something that would just light up my fire, you know? So I decided to change that first investment of four hours of time, instead of 12 hours interviewing 12 times 30 minutes, you know interviewing, I decided let's use that time differently. And I designed it into what I call the discovery day. And I actually wrote about this in choice magazine for a creativity thing that you did, but what are some creative ways that you can do discovery that don't include doing it that way and asking what other people think? So the two, two things in that discovery day one is asking them to tell me the, the most important milestones in their career history or their life history and put it on a life story trajectory where they actually, you know, plotted, you know, I was the happiest or the unhappiness and over the course of their whole life. So to hear the synopsis of their life story in two year in two hours what a blessing, you know, to be able to tell that to someone and have a witness to your life and, and, and that, you know, build that first bond and that first early trust with the coach, so that as you tell them the problems that you're encountering, or the things, the challenges that you're facing, or what you wanna do and how you wanna evolve yourself they'll understand it more because they have the backdrop of the context of, you know, you grew up poor, so you focus on money, you know, or you grew up, you know without a one of your parents, you know, or you grew up in a very diverse family, you know, or you, you know, whatever it is, that's, that's their, their specific story really is the backdrop for why they become who they are. Yeah. And also their purpose. So, so the life story is part of it. The other part of it is the there's an exercise, kind of a brainstorming exercise of all the different sub personas that we have inside, not just one personality, but, you know, we have the inner critic and we have the, you know, like the free spirit or the good student, or the good mom or the, you know, all these names that we give ourselves and that, so it helps to understand kind of the, the multiplicity of what's in there. Right. And all the different parts inside of us that are driving what we do. And when you start with the discovery of that, you kind of fall in love with your client, and it may, you know, now you're like in their, totally in their corner. And yeah. You know, it just creates this bond that, that really helps open, open them up and truly tell you what they want to be focused on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, when you, yeah. It, and I love when you say you fall in love with your clients, it's like, it doesn't take long. It's one, it's almost one of the casualties of having a client leave is, oh, no, you know, you're, yeah. You're, you know, I don't say best buddy, but you know, this person who you've, you've witnessed you, you know, not just from their history, like you're talking about, but also from their experience while, while you were coaching them. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I dunno if you experienced this Garry, but I didn't like going and asking everybody else, what do you think this person should do better? And, you know, blah, blah, blah, because then it kind of gives you this whole mindset of negativity about your
Speaker 1:Client, right? Yeah. It's bias. It's a bias, your
Speaker 2:Bias, you know? Yeah. Oh my gosh, this person's, you know, got some work to do.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's bad enough. We come with our biases. You said, you know, the person's poor. So then we assume it's about money. They were a diverse family. They, we assume, they're great with diversity, equity and inclusion, you know, like we make our own biases, so we have to keep even that in check. Right. So what does that mean? And yeah, and I, Ugh, I'm struggling with recreating mine right now. So I was really thankful to get this article because to me, the reading, this article gave me the support that I'm, I'm on the right track that, oh yeah. What I, what I, what I'm hearing, cuz I, I I'm hearing that. I need to change it, but the way they're asking me to change it in this one particular group I'm in just, it it's like what you said, what, how do I wanna be treated? Yeah. What experience do would I wanna have, and it's not an experience of four hours. And I definitely don't, I've had the experience of having everybody tell me what they think of me, but it was, it was their only opportunity to sort of do it anonymously at a time when the company was building. So it was a 360 and it wasn't, it wasn't the opening volley. It was a part of the process. So I mean, I think that's different.
Speaker 2:It is different. And I, I like to introduce a 360, not a 360 where, where you're interviewing everybody, but, you know, a evidential based, right. Evidence based you know 360 that gives you input about the actual behaviors that they do too often without realizing it or the actual behaviors that they underplay, you know, without realizing it so that you're bringing kind of granular behavioral things up to the conscious level. But I don't introduce that until close to the midpoint where they, where they're really fully established about this is what I see happening for myself that I'd like to change. And we're coaches for a lot of years, we can figure it out fairly quickly, like that if this is happening, this is probably the mindset that, where it's coming from, or this might be the fear that they're having, or this might be the defense mechanism, or if we're educated, you know, we, we can figure it out in the most important place, which is in the coaching call, you know, or the coaching session. We're gonna see what happens in interactions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Firsthand. Yep. We're there, we're the witness. I love it. Yeah. I love it.
Speaker 2:And when it happens like that, it's so honest. It's not us being the messenger. No. Of other people who are don't wanna really tell you this, but this is how you know, that's, it's. I didn't like being that messenger. Yeah. You know, like, but if they, in the moment, you know, are excessively worrying again, you know, then I can say, oh, I'm interested that you're worrying again.
Speaker 1:What's. Yeah. Because you've been coaching them for a while. So now it's based on, it's almost, you know evidence based in itself of the previous conversation, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's another way of saying it, right. Yeah. Evidence's based is, we're, you know, experiencing what's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's cleaner when it comes from us in the moment and we just saw it happen.
Speaker 1:Well, and the other thing is, is that they now have come to a point where they trust us because we've created a safe, confidential space for them. And so they're willing, I've had, I don't know how many clients have like happy and sad breakdowns right in front of me. And they say, you know what? I really feel that this is the only place I can do this right. Yes. So yeah, something
Speaker 2:I never get therapy. They never, you know, they never have friends. They can talk to like that. So it is, it might be the only place where they taste discovery.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. So was that your favorite innovation or what's is there another one
Speaker 2:That was the
Speaker 1:First one? It was a first, but what's your, was it your favorite or which one's your favorite?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that is that it, but it's, it's evolved of course. Like that was back when we coached live, you know, face to face. And I could do a, you know, four hours with them and do all that. Now I parse it out over the, over the first three or four, you know, coaching sessions and we, right. You know, I have it all kind of articulated in a document that they can, you know, here's how you do that life story thing, or here's how you do the sub persona, you know, brainstorming. And then we debrief it over time in the first discovery phase, which is the first 30 days. Yeah. So my favorite innovation, of course, is the instruments that I built. Went back to graduate school and, and built these instruments, the positive influence predictor, and the true tilt personality profile because that gives them the benefit of all the things that I've learned over the years of coaching and studying human behavior. And so, so writing all that was really hard work. Many years of work.
:Oh I bet.
Speaker 2:And also, you know, doing the science and I've got a team of 10 people that's poured all of it. You know, so running a business is you know, like,
Speaker 1:Oh yeah,
Speaker 2:Lot of work. And but we have this fantastic team. I love my team. And, but building the assessments is, you know, really was, I did it for my clients, you know, like really to start with, I didn't ever think I was gonna sell it to other coaches or much less the companies. I really didn't. I built it because of my own work at Hilton when I was a senior vice president there
Speaker 1:And oh, wow.
Speaker 2:I was there. I had 60,000 employees and I had been using my breaks for years and, but I could never get anybody else to memorize it. So too many letters too confusing, you know? And so I thought I need to build a typo, some sort of typology that doesn't put people in a box that invites them to wholeness. And that helps business people narrow it down to four patterns because if it's 16 patterns, 18 patterns, 32 strengths, it's too much for a business person To comprehend much less apply.
Speaker 1:Right. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it also needed to be a framework, a visual framework, cuz most people are, are sort of visual in the way that they remember things. So they need to be able to see it and link it to what they do at work. You know, so it's not personality and that's who you are. It's here are your personality preferences and here's where they're very useful at work. Or here's where they get you into trouble at work. So the frame, the visual framework and the assessments was sort of a labor of love for my clients that began when I was a leader. So I had built the framework back when I was a leader oh. Years ago. And just did the studies on, is this valid you know, when I went back to graduate school in IO psychology and then using it helps because it I'm a I'm meant to speed.
Speaker 1:Things go fast. You could tell that in the article, let's get, let's get to the point.
Speaker 2:Yes. So that's, I'm glad you picked that up, but anyway, I I like to get to be efficient with figuring out what it is. That's actually, if we get to that thing, you know, that root cause if we get to that, then they're gonna have transformational change themselves, you know, and they can find it themselves in the reading of it and in the interaction of it with the assessments. And I'm just a geek about assessments. I think they're all cool.
:I think, well you better be because you own some.
Speaker 2:Yes. And, and people ask me like, well, how's yours better than this. I hate answering that question because I think they're all cool.
Speaker 1:Right. You know? And they, they can give value in different ways, right? Yes. I still remember. I, one of my clients, we went in as a coaching team and they were at beginning a leadership ship series, I guess, a leadership training over a course of months. And we were their coaches. And I still remember seeing the, the line per person of assessments on the floor. Like it went across the whole room for each person and there was anything from this big to like literally. And they had to had to over time, go through all of them and they had to take them all home with them cuz they'd flown in for this leadership training. And then yes. You know, I went
Speaker 2:Through one of those in my early thirties,
Speaker 1:I bet.
Speaker 2:And they put us through a very extensive battery. So I get it. I know what you're saying. Yeah. And it was a bit overwhelming
Speaker 1:To a bit
Speaker 2:Comprehend all of that. Yeah. I did comprehend that I had some issues
Speaker 1:I needed to
Speaker 2:Work on. And but, but I think the innovation that I'm the most proud of, I would say, and that I've spent 30 years researching is how can you quickly help people access the best part of themselves? You know, the character, the inner character strength, how can we strengthen them on the inside so that they trust their gut better so that they don't seek, you know, too much approval from others that they, they approve of themselves. Right. That they, their status that they don't compare themselves. And you know, today with social media, like everything is comparison. So it's hard to feel good about yourself when you're comparing yourself to everybody. Else's wonderful life on media, you know? So I think, I think it's I think it's really important to, to bring people back to themselves and strengthen that inner, you know, this is me, this is who I am. I'm comfortable with me. You know, so any, anything that really helps you understand who you are and why you do what you do and then love it is going to make you better. Right. And it's going to have a better influence on others who hang out with you too.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and you know, just the fact that they are in coaching makes them aware they have an opportunity to be aware and to they're in, in, right. They're I like to say they're coachable. Yes. And and away we go. I was wondering, so you've done a lot. You've written this you've written for us many times. Thank you. Yes. The dog agrees. Yes. Just wondering what's next for you in this world of coaching.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You may know that we last year just finally got approved as a laser coaching school.
Speaker 1:Wow. Did you know that? I did not know that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. So a couple of years ago I went, I decided lasering was you know, how to you know, that laser skill was something that I needed and having been coaching for 20 years, I was like, boy, I need tune up probably, you know, like if I probably have a lot of bad habits and, you know, so I decided let's just go through an entire program. So I actually went through Marion Franklin's program. Oh yeah. For laser coaching. And I loved her at the conference. She was a speaker at the same conference where I was in DC at ICF converge and loved her session. So I took her course now it is for life coaching. And I found the course itself, like you know fascinating as I went through it. She just published her book and she's, you know, selling a lot of copies of that book. But, I thought I would like to apply this in the business coaching sector. So after I finished the course somebody else was in the course with me Carol Keith who's an MCC and now works with us, and Erica Bilpeter, who's now our CLO, we took that, Carol and I took that course and we asked Marion, can we build a coaching school and teach the skill of the laser coaching using the tilt framework and using your book. And so borrowing some of those skills and, and putting it together with the four patterns of tilt and why you do what you do. Well, she loved the idea, so we did it. And so she
Speaker 1:Comes and
Speaker 2:We've, we've now delivered four cohorts. So we got approved by ICF after the very first cohort. And it's the first time I've ever built training where at the end of it, everybody said, don't change anything. It's great.
Speaker 1:Wow. That's a, yeah. Cause
Speaker 2:Usually it's, oh, you gotta change this and that, and this needs to be better. And that anyway, so we, I think it's because that's our, what we do well,
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I mean, well, yeah, yeah, you got your baby and then you got something that you were really thrilled with. Yes. And which had been tested. So, you know, part of it shouldn't be a surprise. You are a professional young lady.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I did learn a lot. I have to
Speaker 1:Say, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:I had some bad habits for sure. And, you know, made some of the classic mistakes that coaches make. And I, I would have to say it's kind of harder to unlearn the habits that you have that are being automatic and you know, and then reshape them. But it's changed my coaching in a huge way over the last two, three years and then now we're teaching it. And so we're practicing, practicing, practicing all the time, laser coaching. But now, you know, when clients call just like you said, sometimes it's 10 minutes. Yeah. You know, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, if they have something longer and they actually wanna tell a story. Sure. You know, it could go hour. But my clients all know now, you know what to ask for? Do you wanna, you know, they'll come in and say, I want a laser session. Cause I, I need to get to the root cause here quickly. Yeah. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool. Love it. I I'm currently in an MCC program, like just get ready to sit for the MCC exam. And when you said unlearning, I'm like, yep. That's what they're trying to do with this. With this old guy, try to unlearn his bad habits. So there
Speaker 2:Are a lot of us out there
Speaker 1:I'm sure. Even MCCs lapses into ways of being like you were saying about the, just the whole premise of the article is that we need to change our approach to entering into working with our clients.
Speaker 2:Yes. We worked with, we mind all of the stuff on laser coaching and, and found all the guiding principles. Yeah. And some of them, we were, I just, my favorite one was don't ask the client what they already know. And I was like, realizing, I asked them, well, tell me more, you know, or tell me the gist of the story.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, that's they
Speaker 2:Already know
Speaker 1:That. Yeah. That's for, that's about you. That's what I was. One of the things I was taught is so what are you paying attention to? And usually I'm paying attention to me and my need for more information. Exactly. Not the client's need for anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I kind of felt like, oh, I'm just being lazy. Like trying to give myself a little time.
Speaker 1:You know? Yeah. To pick up the next great question. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Gimme a little more
Speaker 1:Information. Yeah, I know. Yeah. And, but
Speaker 2:It, but it does is sets you up to have an answer for them. Yeah. Which we don't, you know?
Speaker 1:No. Oh my gosh, Pam, this has been absolutely awesome. A final question. Yeah. what would you like our audience to do as a result of this article in this conversation?
Speaker 2:Well, okay. So I guess I would say I would love for them to come visit our website and learn about it until 360 five.com. And see if it interests them. If they're a coach, we would love to talk to them and have them you know, experience a free, true tilt profile. Consider using our assessments in their coaching. Come learn with us, you know, come get certified and the suite of tools or come to the laser coaching masterclass. So absolutely, you know, very committed to helping all of our profession, you know, find in their own innovations. Right. Yeah. And grow and, and just, you know, keep it fresh and it is happening everywhere, you know, better up and all kinds of things like that are showing up everywhere. So I would say you know, touch base with us interact you know, come to tilt 360 five.com show up just some free stuff. And, you know tell us what you would like for us to know about you. We're building a worldwide coaching network of people that, you know are affiliates of, of using our things. And so that, but I would say probably if it's speaking to the coaching profession or someone who's interested in coaching it's that the inside work is what really matters.
Speaker 1:Oh, of course. Well said what a way to close out. I love it. Yeah. I want to thank you again for being here. This has been amazing. I've learned a few things too. Some to support what I thought I knew, but some that are like, oh, okay. So that's how I'll take that one. Thank you so much for this. Thanks for joining us for this beyond the page episode. I, this is the for, sorry, for more episodes, please subscribe via your favorite podcast app. We're out there on apple and Spotify and things like that. And also on our website. And don't forget to sign up for your free digital issue of choice magazine by going to choice-online.com and clicking the signup now button I'm Gary Schleifer, enjoy your journey to mastery.