Terry Hildebrandt Coaching Supervision

Thank you so much for joining us. This is Terry Hildebrandt. Terry is a Master Corporate Executive Coach through the MECO Institute. He's also a PhD in MCC. Terry is a member of the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches as a Master Coach, and he is our go-to person on all things certified. So we're very excited to have him here on MECO TV as an expert in coaching supervision. And this is a term that has been bantered around the executive coaching space and certainly has not received a lot of good press amongst the master corporate executive coaches. And a lot of it has to do with not understanding what it is. So Terry is here to sort of set the record straight and fill us in on the hows, whys, whatnots, whens of supervision coaching. So Terry, welcome.

Thank you, CB.

Let's just start with the basic definition. What is coaching supervision?

Absolutely. So One of the commonly used definitions of coaching supervision is the interaction that occurs when a coach brings their coaching work experiences to a supervisor in order to be supported and to engage in reflective dialogue and collaborative learning. And it's for the development and benefit of not only the coach, but also their clients and their organizations. So I'm going to You know, break that down just a little bit. So the keywords here are a coach, right? So it's about a coach bringing their particular case studies, their client work, what's going on for them in their coaching practice to someone who's been trained as a supervisor. And then what happens in there is reflective dialogue and collaborative learning. So both of those are pretty important. It's a partnership. Right, really of equals, although the supervisor has some specialty training that enables them to be effective as a supervisor, which we'll talk more about that later. But nonetheless, they are in a peer relationship. So for example, CB, let's say you were dealing with a tough client case and it's pulling your hair out and you're like, well, I don't know what to do here, or this, you know, client's driving me crazy. You could come to me as a supervisor and we could talk about it. We We can have a really honest, safe space to be completely transparent about what's going on for you, what's going on for the client, what's happening in the larger system, maybe even what's going on in the, you know, with other people that are stakeholders. Any element of the system we can talk about. And then we might discuss new strategies, new insights on why this might be tough for you. So it might be insights about yourself. It also might be insights about what's going on with the client and perhaps even new interventions. Hey, maybe you could try this. Let's go out and see if this different approach might be better. And, and then you feel supported, right? So primarily it's about getting support for coaches. You know, coaches frequently work independently. So it's really tough sometimes to have a trusted colleague, you know, another that you can go to. that you really believe is a, you know, a master coach, you know, someone that you know is going to really hold space for you to have that dialogue, to reflect on not only your work but the larger system. And the ultimate benefit is for not only you but also for the client.

You know, I think that part of the issue is the perception of the word supervisor. In the United States, particularly. You know, correct me if I'm wrong, but up until now, a supervisor is considered somebody that's above you in a blue-collar job.

Right.

That tells you, do this, do that, you can't do this, and you can't do that. Almost as though you, you, you can't think for yourself. Everybody has to follow a specific set of rules and criteria. So how do you get beyond that belief system with regard to the word supervisor?

So I think you nailed the— you really hit the nail on the head here, CB, and it's one of the challenges I think with the word supervision, and it's a little unfortunate that the word supervision is being used in this case. So there's 2 types or models of supervision that currently exist. The first model is what we would call the expert or apprentice model and is what you just described. You know, like you're on an assembly line and you have somebody who's overseeing your work and essentially telling you how to do your job, right? In an apprentice-type model. And that's a traditional supervisor, right? And the basic assumption of that is that the supervisor is the expert and the supervisee is the apprentice. So that's kind of the way it's been for, you know, probably thousands of years. That's not what we're talking about here. We actually have a second model, which is called the process model. And the process model has been around for about 20 years. So it's not new, but it started in the world of really the helping professions like sociology and psychology, as well as, you know, some other fields. And the intention with a process model Is that the supervisee can actually reflect on their work and that they can generate their own solutions. And of course, the supervisor in this case is holding a reflective space for them. So it allows them a safe place to talk about these issues, not necessarily to get expert advice, although they might ask for that on occasion. But this is more like trying to figure it out, like what the heck's going on. going on here, and I need someone to talk this through. So it, you know, if you think about 21st century leadership, we're beginning to see even traditional managers taking more of a process model to leading other people. So, you know, it's not that brand-new of an idea. And I think you hear a lot about empowerment. You hear a lot about coaching and being a coach-like leader. Or a facilitative leader. You've probably heard those terms bantered around in the last 20 years. That's part of what we're talking about here, but in the world of coaching. And obviously coaches generally don't have bosses unless you're an internal coach, right? And, you know, most of us in the ACEC are independent coaches, and we don't really have a boss, right? We don't have anybody to banter ideas around with. So when we're talking about having a quote-unquote coaching supervisor, what we're really saying is we want to go to a peer that is going to be able to give us a space to talk about what's going on in our practice and what's happening for us personally in light of our clients. So I would say this is a big challenge, right, because we're reeducating the world on what the word coaching supervision means, and it's not anything to do with— the old hierarchical model of apprenticeship. This is a completely new thing where it's more of a process model.

So why even— I mean, this may be off subject, but why even select the word since the word is problematic? It's almost like, you know, you've got to start from ground zero and even beyond that, erase the old imagery around it and then recreate something new. Why not just come up with A Häagen-Dazs kind of word.

You know, and some people have proposed that. I've even proposed that myself. And so far, all of the ideas that we've bantered around, and you and I have even bantered around ideas for this, right? Like, you know, maybe a confidant or maybe someone who might be a, you know, a peer advisor or something along those lines and So far, there's 2 reasons why coaching supervision has stuck. One is it already has been well established in Europe, and there's bodies that have the name in it. And in the world that it originated from, in the world of psychology, it was also very established as a process and a role, and they knew it wasn't about the expert Apprentice model. It was really about the process model. So they they already are you know way down the road, right? You know they're they're already so far down the road that those folks don't want to like introduce a new term. So it's partly the problem is is that you know we're you know the U.S. is a little late to the game, and Europe has already established some standards that we're building on. And not saying that we can't. Use other terms. And I've, you know, advocated for that, but it feels like the people that are really driving the movement are comfortable with coaching supervision, and they often will compare it to where coaching was 20 years ago. You know, when the word coach first came out, everyone said, what, do you do sports coaching? Do you know what I mean? So there was an immediate association with You know, kind of your high school coach or a professional sports coach. And we had to say, no, it's not sports coaching, right? I don't, I don't coach football. I don't coach baseball. I'm an executive coach where I coach leaders. And we had to explain to people what that meant. So we're kind of in the same space here. And, you know, when we hear coaching supervision, we have to reeducate people to say, no, it's not the old supervisor you had when you were a kid working, you know, At, you know, a fast food joint. That's not what we're talking about, right? We're talking about something more like what they do in psychology where you have a, you know, a more senior coach that is there to support you as a peer.

Gosh, you know, my background is marketing and branding, and I would say mistake because we're still Dealing with people who think we're sports coaches, and here it is 40 years later.

But yeah, I agree. I agree with you.

How is that B can be as stubborn as they are creative? Let's say that.

Yeah, yeah, actually. So yeah, I was on a talk once with one of the founders of coaching supervision, and that wasn't long ago last year, and he said, well, I'll offer a case of champagne to anyone who can come up with a better name.

Confidant, where's my champagne?

Yeah, but so far, so far, all the ideas that people have proposed haven't caught on yet. So I think that it's not maybe too late, but in some ways that train has left the station.

And so I always remember situations in marketing and case studies where marketeers go back and realize that the biggest mistakes that they made were digging in their heels. And trying to explain things. Yes, certainly today we've become a lot more flexible in brand names because of technology and all the new terms that are coming up. And, you know, whoever— Yahoo? I mean, what did that mean?

Right.

So we've gotten a lot more creative, a lot more flexible. It is definitely a challenge, one probably which we can't solve today.

Right.

I would like to put in my 2 cents. No.

Yeah, I, I appreciate your perspective, and I've shared it, uh, for a long time and kind of lost that battle so far.

Yeah, well, okay. Well, Terry and I, you and I will come up with something, and it'll, it'll hit, and it'll go viral, as the kids say.

Maybe, right? Let's put that energy out there.

That's exactly, exactly. Maybe we should even have a competition, right, amongst our TV watchers here.

Not a bad idea.

Uh, yeah, speaking of which, YouTube, whoever heard of that, right? Google, I mean, really? This is the age of made-up names that catch on and go viral. So Terry, you mentioned, um, the opportunity in coaching supervision to be able to banter ideas around with a colleague. What's the difference between that and having a mentor or just a peer or just picking up the phone and saying to somebody, as you might or I might, somebody at your level in the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, and saying, you know, I have an interesting case I would like to Which I hate this expression, pick your brain. But how would you go about resolving it? What tools would you use? What methodology would you use? What am I missing here?

Yeah, absolutely. So I actually have a good little graphic that I'd like to show briefly that I think demonstrates some of these key differences. So this Venn diagram shows some of the distinctions. between coaching and mentor coaching and coaching supervision. And this is really the purpose. So when we think of coaching, and certainly a lot of people as coaches have their own coaches, right, the coach's coach.

Mm-hmm.

And the main primary focus of the coach's coach is to help the coachee achieve goals, create results, facilitate mindset changes. And mentor coaching is more about Developing the core competencies, the skills you need as a coach, where coaching supervision is a little bit broader than that and offers an opportunity for what we would say continual professional development and really capacity building. So when we think about competency as the ability to effectively use a skill, where capacity is a little bit more about who you are, right, your maturity as a coach or as a leader. So, you know, we're really thinking of coaching supervision being something a little bit deeper, and the process also is different. So when we do typical coaching, we're setting goals, you know, we're designing actions to meet those goals, we're managing progress and accountability. So all those things you probably recognize as a typical coaching session. Mentor coaching is more often— and there's some disagreement on this, but— The more standard approach is reviewing a recorded coaching session, you know, and that would be what the mentor would do is listening to those recorded sessions from the mentee or the coach that has had those sessions and then providing some skills feedback to the coach. And that can be verbal or even in written form sometimes. Where coaching supervision is more reflection. So you're not really necessarily coming with a a goal. You're not really coming in with, hey, help me with my skills. You're really reflecting on a client case study. So that is what makes coaching supervision unique. You know, I'm not— let's say if you were supervising me, CB, I might say, hey, this is something that happened with this client and I want to figure this out. You know, you probably wouldn't do that with a coach, right? A coach would be like, well, what are your goals? What are you trying to achieve? You know what I mean? It would be a different process, where with a supervisor, we're like, well, how did you feel about that? What was going on in your mind when that occurred? And what do you think is going on with the client in that situation and the client's larger system? So one other quick thing. Obviously, there's an overlap here. You can see that it is a Venn diagram. And I just want to share that the things that are in common with all 3 of these models are that it is client-centered and it's confidential. There's lots of listening and questions and learning that occurs in all of these, but the focus is very different when you're doing coaching supervision.

You know, I guess I'm a little concerned, or I guess it could be from lack of knowledge. What I thought I heard you say in the coaching supervision— well, there's a lot of things that are floating in my mind.

Okay.

Is it starts to sound like, um, if a coach is coming to another coach for coaching supervision, it starts to sound like to me that there is a fault in the coach. Because if you're saying, what's going on for you? Does it not imply that there's a fault in the coach or in the coaching process that they're using?

Well, so the intention is not to necessarily find fault, but to explore the different processes that are being used, to explore kind of your own state of mind. And on occasion, we'll look for psychodynamic principles. Let's say, for example, One of your clients reminds you of your father.

Yeah, I have no comment on that one.

And by the way, this has happened to me personally. I had a client that I didn't quite realize it at first, but after I went and brought this particular situation to my— I have a supervisor as well, actually have 2 of them for different, you know, purposes. But I brought it to my supervisor and we were talking about this one client that was driving me a little crazy and very assertive and demanding and wasn't listening to— I did a 360 for him and he didn't want to receive any of the feedback, very defensive. And I quickly was frustrated by this, this person. And, you know, I wasn't sure what to do. So I took the situation to my own supervisor. And, you know, one of the questions she asked me, she says, does this person remind you of anyone in your life? And I said, yeah, my father. So as you can imagine, we explored that a little bit. And, you know, I began to then say, well, what have I done with my father that has enabled that relationship to work? You know, and it was around setting some boundaries and, and not necessarily fighting with him anymore, but more, you know, aligning with our shared interests. You know, so I began to do that more with the client, and it completely turned the relationship around.

Interesting.

But it was some very deep old patterns, right, that were even unconscious to me. I didn't even know that I was doing this, right, because it's You know, in childhood we kind of get ingrained in these old patterns and we don't even know they're happening sometimes. So that's one of the things, not the only thing by any means, but one thing that can come up in a coaching supervision session is what is going on here that you may not be aware of, right? It's like helping you see blind spots.

Well, then that leads me to another question. Is that not a dangerous road for somebody who doesn't have any psychology training, any psychotherapy? Can that lead to a dangerous road?

So one of the main differences between therapy and supervision is that therapists would go maybe more deeply into that relationship with your dad, right, and explore that. That's not what we did in this case. It was more like recognizing the pattern and then moving it quickly to the current situation.

I see.

So how does that show up right now with you and this client? And what do you want to do differently now, as opposed to like unpacking all of that family drama, which would really be more therapy, right? But coaches all the time look for patterns that are in our lives and Coaching supervisors who are certified, you know, I went through a 10-month program with Damian Goldvarg's, you know, company, and they did talk about some of the psychodynamic principles. So a good coaching supervisor does have some training in this area, and that's part of supervision training is to understand some of those systems and principles. So that you can at least recognize when that may be happening. So that is helpful, I think, to get that training. So that's one of the— going back to your earlier question, what's the difference between just going to another coach? Well, a coaching supervisor is going to be more attuned to those kinds of things than maybe just a regular coach would, because they haven't necessarily been trained in those things. Unless you have maybe previously as psychology background, but anyone who goes through a solid coaching supervision program is going to get a flavor of that.

Mm-hmm. Can we go back to the previous slide? I want to just talk a little bit more about the mentor coaching, right? So again, terminology seeming a little bit problematic. You know, we focus in the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches on All of our members have business exposure in their backgrounds, in addition to coaching, and many have counseling or consulting. We don't dictate what's in the portfolio, the business portfolio of our members, because we feel that they know their clients better than we do and they know what they need.

Right, absolutely.

But because we have an emphasis on being an enterprise-wide business partner, I might see some challenges in terminology as we did with coaching supervision with the word mentor coaching.

Right.

Because here we're saying you're reviewing a recording of coaching sessions and providing skills feedback to the coach. Mentoring in the business world is a whole different thing.

Absolutely.

So how do you get beyond the differences there if you're working in a business environment, or doesn't it matter?

Well, so in my opinion, this mentor coaching circle probably is not as relevant for ACEC, right? I wouldn't expect us to create a mentor coaching program because we're not focused on basic coaching skills. There are other schools, there are other organizations that really focus in that area. And when we— by the time you are a Master Coach, those things have been already developed, right?

Yes.

So when we're looking at ACEC and MECO specifically, we're focusing on building on this foundation. Now, I would say if someone doesn't have any coaching skills, they've never coached in their life, and they really feel like they would need to brush up on that area, I might suggest they have a mentor coach, but it's probably not going to be that relevant for MCECs.

So what would be the stages? Would you go through coaching and then mentor coaching, or mentor coaching then coaching, and then coaching supervision? If you want If you were going to lay this out in terms of steps.

So if you were, if you're brand new to coaching, like not a master coach, right, but someone that is not really even close to being ready, right? So let's say, say someone very younger individual that may be coming right out of, out of, you know, their undergraduate program, let's say, or a very new leader that is maybe a supervisor, for example.

Not meaning coaching supervisor.

No, no, like someone who's maybe a first-time manager. Good catch there. So I would say they should first go get coaching themselves. Let's experience coaching. Let's understand what that's like for you to see if you like it. Right. And then if you decide at that point, as that leader, or, you know, that person who's interested in this space, you might then, you know, explore a deeper level of development, which might include not only getting business skills like going through an MBA or some kind of program like ACEC's programs or going to the MECO conference, you know, where you're beginning to learn some new skills, and in parallel, these— I see these in parallel, you might Hire a mentor coach to help you learn the ins and outs or the basics of coaching.

Ah, good, yes.

It's less likely that an MCEC would want that though, right?

Right.

An MCEC would be more likely to be ready for supervision, right? Because this is someone who's at a higher level, someone who already is working with clients, right? Because you have to have client cases to bring to a supervisor. So there's an assumption there that you're already coaching. So, so you need to, you know, have some experience under your belt. And this is really a deeper exploration, a more advanced form of continuing professional development. So you're essentially doing a better job for your clients and hopefully having— feeling better about your own performance as a coach. This is a totally different thing. That's why on occasion you'll see a little overlap here. The overlap Is maybe on occasion, and I had this happen with an experienced coach, she came to me and said, you know what, I'm doing a training program and I want you to listen to my webinar. And she gave a sample coaching session in the webinar and she said, give me some feedback on that sample coaching session. What was it like for you? So that was a little mix of mentor coaching and supervision because—

Ah!

Because she did want me to tell her how she did, right? Was I asking good questions? Was I listening appropriately? Was I engaging and holding space for that client? Those are coaching skills, right? Which we all do. Everyone does that, you know, whether, you know, in any space. And she also wanted a little supervision to say, how do you think that came off to the audience? How do you think that, that sat with the clients I was going after in giving that webinar? So that's the larger system, right, which is what supervision tends to explore. And how she was feeling about it as well, you know, her own performance in that moment, you know, creating a safe space for her to explore her own feelings around that webinar. So it was a mix, right, of supervision and a little bit of mentor coaching because I was listening to the recording. Now she was a very experienced coach. She wasn't looking to be, you know, looking to develop her skills as a coach, but she was looking for feedback on that specific situation.

Sure.

So that's a good example, right, of how these sometimes interact a little bit, but most of the time they're pretty distinct and have different purposes and different processes.

So in the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, AKA ACEC, we have had mentor coaching programs whereby, um, master-level coaches come and bring case studies to discuss in confidence amongst a smaller group of master-level coaches.

Right.

Uh, to get feedback and to, to hear about different tools that may have been used How would that be different from coaching supervision?

Yeah, so in this nomenclature, right, that would be called group supervision, right? And maybe one small difference would be, I think that was a peer-led process.

Yes.

So it was a form of group supervision without a certified supervisor leading it. So, so it would be, I would say, it would, I would put that in the category of group supervision. But to make it even better, if you had a facilitator who was trained in some of those deeper processes that I was mentioning before, it probably would have taken it to the next level. So I'm sure it was great because anytime you get peers together and you can reflect on your work, that's supervision, right? But you can take it to the next level if you have someone who's specifically trained as a group coaching supervisor.

Yes, it was very powerful. As a matter of fact, we're putting that back into the benefits of being a member because members said, as you mentioned earlier, it's difficult being in our field because we work under the cloak of confidentiality and we work independently. And so therefore, who can you go to to discuss a particular case?

Right.

And how can you in fact look— I'll just say it— how can you learn more opportunities to support your client if you are working in silo and don't have a chance to discuss it with people who will appreciate confidentiality?

And what you described is really the benefits of group supervision, you know, and those are the 2 main modes of supervision is either a group where you have a, you know, a number of coaches, they're doing exactly what you were describing, bringing their cases to the group. Or you can then also have one-on-one, right? And the one-on-one would obviously, you would be the primary focus and then the trained supervisor is holding space for you. And it's not a reciprocal program. It's kind of a one-way program, just like a coach and a client. It would be similar to that. So you'd have a supervisor and a supervisee.

Mm-hmm.

But both methods are powerful, and I've used both. I do like group supervision. I've led group supervision sessions, and people find it extremely empowering and very supportive, you know, and people, you know, have that sense of being able to run and really run ideas by their peers and get some input. I think it's a great experience for everyone involved.

Terry, do you have to have permission from your client to bring up a case in this model, in the coaching supervision model?

So what in my contract— so this is part of contracting, which is also part of supervision, is, you know, really helping coaches have, you know, solid contracts, which I know is an important part of MCEC. It's an important part of ACEC to do that. So in all of my contracts that people sign, it'll say, I reserve the right to talk about cases anonymously. So I don't use their names, right? Anonymously with other colleagues for professional development. So I make that part of the contract that my clients sign. Now, of course, I don't reveal anything that is, you know, unique enough to, you know, help them— for them to see who that particular person is. Or I also, most of the time, try and hide who the company they work for or the organization they work for as well. Right, so we maintain their anonymity, and then of course anybody who would be in that peer supervision program would all agree to confidentiality. You know, Vegas rules— what stays here, you know, what's said here stays here, right?

Yes.

So I think the same goes for a supervisor. You know, they are also under confidentiality agreements. So it's the same principle that exists in psychology. As you know, there's a strong confidentiality approach in psychology, and supervisors are under the same restrictions there. So they've adopted a lot of the best practices from that field into coaching supervision as well.

You know, it's interesting that you mentioned— and I know this is a sidebar— in terms of contracting psychology and coaching. It's scary that very few people realize that the coaching field is not covered under the same legal protection as the field of psychology, as the medical field, as the legal field. We have no protection whatsoever.

Yeah, if you get subpoenaed and have to Be in front of a court, you will have to testify. And now I do in my contracts let people know that. I say, you know, I will maintain confidence except in cases where, you know, there are legal or safety or ethical issues. And most of my corporate clients, their, their HR departments require me to put that in there.

Now that's interesting because it's sad how many contracts and how many situations I've heard where that's not in there.

Yeah, and that, you know, that's part of the role of a coaching supervisor actually is to really deal with these ethical issues. And you would be surprised in supervision how many ethical dilemmas surface. That's often one of the topics. I've got this situation where HR wants me to do this and the client wants me to do this and their boss wants me to do something else. And I feel like I'm torn between all these complex stakeholders, right? And supervisors are trained to help maneuver those situations and be able to write contracts that really manage all of that. But I think it's a really big issue. And a lot of even pretty masterful coaches haven't yet got their contracts in order, right? They're running a little loose. Yeah.

Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I just wrote a chapter in a— in an upcoming book on the whole situation, and it was a case study whereby the coach had a natural desire to protect the coachee and was not the client, was not the direct client. And it was a situation where the coach knew that the coachee was up for termination and could not reveal. And the things that the coachee was doing were really making the situation worse.

Right.

And so the coach wanted to reach out and help the coachee, but in doing so, they would have broken the confidentiality of the client. So it was a very complicated case study and I enjoyed working on it.

Yeah, that's a— that's not that uncommon. I've heard similar stories before. And so, you know, having somebody to sort all that through, you know, when we're, when we're in the middle of it as a coach, sometimes we can get very emotionally stressed out about it, right? So that's where also having either peer or group supervision Or a professional supervisor to support you can be wonderful, right? Help you sort through all that. You know, the supervisor isn't going to tell you what to do, just like a coach doesn't dictate, you know, what you should do, but it will give you options, right? And you can explore various, you know, options that you haven't really thought of before. So it's another, you know, you know, someone else that you can lean on and brainstorm with in those situations.

And well, I think one of the things that struck us, what you said before, because it really went back to what was going on for the coach.

That's right.

That they were not able to separate out the contract, the client, and the coachee.

Right. Yeah. And I think this is also a great example of looking at the whole system. You know, one of the core tools of coaching supervision is, it's what's called the 7-Eyed Model. I'm just kind of curious, is that something you've heard of before?

Say it again.

It's called the 7-Eyed Model, and I was going to show it here on the screen just for a second. And it comes from a guy named Peter Hawkins originally. And the idea behind it is that when we're looking at these various eyes, We're looking at this supervision system, which is what's going on between the supervisor and the coach. We're looking at the coaching system, which is the client or coachee and the coach. And then we're looking at the overall context, which might include HR, might include their boss, might include procurement, right? There's a lot of other groups that might be involved in, and each of these become areas for exploration. In this 7-eyed model where you look at the client, you look at, you know, what's going on in terms of interventions with the coach. You're looking at the relationship between the coach and the client. You're looking at the relationship, what's happening in the mind of the supervisee, or the coach is the same name. Or are you looking at what's happening in real time in that meeting between the supervisor and supervisee? And this is kind of interesting because sometimes you will, in a supervision session, the same dynamics that you see between the client and the supervisee show up between the supervisor and the supervisee, and we end up calling that a parallel process. So that's an interesting dynamic that uniquely happens in supervision, which is pretty exciting and, you know, interesting.

How is that different From transference.

So transference is part of that parallel process. And that's one of the things that comes up a lot in supervision is transference. But transference can happen in many different ways. It might be the supervisee or the coaches, you know, transferring their own stuff to the client. The client might be transferring their stuff to the, to the coach. And you can see the supervisee might be transferring their stuff to the supervisor. Or the supervisor might be transferring their stuff to the supervisee, right? So all these dynamics are happening at the same time. And one of the things that supervisors are trained on is to really look for those dynamics, right?

Sure.

This goes back to the psychodynamic principles that often show up in the training that supervisors get. So all of these are really interesting, right? Lastly, you can look at the context. That might be going on in the larger system. So all of these are powerful avenues of exploration and, and really reflection that can happen in a supervision session.

So Terry, how do you get master-level coaches that have been coaching in the C-suite for Fortune 500 companies to listen to the benefits of coaching supervision. I mean, these are people who have been doing this not for 5 years, not for 10, but we're looking at 20 years of walking into the leaders of Fortune 500 companies, those coaches who are coaching those leaders, and saying to them, you need to be supervised.

Yeah, so the name is probably the biggest hurdle, right? So what I would probably say, hey, have you ever run into a difficult client, maybe one of your C-suite clients that are driving you crazy, and you wish you had someone you could talk to about it? Well, that's what this is about, right? We create a safe space for you to do that. I don't have yet to encounter any, any coach, no matter how experienced they are, that doesn't say yes to that question. Yes, I would love to have an experienced coach at my level that I trust, that I can go talk to. Right. And, you know, even better, a supervisor is trained specifically in a deeper way to look at beyond just what another coach might. Right, we're, we're finely tuned to listen for those psychodynamic issues that we talked about, the transference, the countertransference, the what might be going on in terms of parallel process or, you know, sticky contract situations or ethical dilemmas, or maybe stuff that is showing up that you aren't aware of, you know, unconscious biases. All of those are things that supervisors are very attuned to. Which another coach would likely be not at that level, but more at the intervention level. Do you know what I mean? To say, well, this is what I would do if I was you. A supervisor typically wouldn't say that. A supervisor would be more about, well, what's going on for you? What do you think's happening with the client there? So it's a much deeper inquiry as opposed to just kind of bantering around ideas. Now I'm not saying there aren't some great coaches out there that are probably supervising. They probably are and probably should go get trained as a supervisor and be supervising coaches. So that's probably true, right? And I encourage really senior coaches to consider becoming a supervisor because there needs to be more people that can play this role for really experienced coaches, probably for them more than others, right? Because where else can they go get support? You know, they're not gonna go to a basic training in most of the conferences— not, not MECO, by the way, but most other conferences— tend to be focused on the basics, right? They're not really looking at these highly advanced situations where a supervisor can really fine-tune and go right to the heart of the matter for that specific MCEC coach. And so, you know, when I went through my own supervision training, I was blown away with how much better my coaching became, even though I've been coaching now for 21 years, right? I'm an MCSC coach myself and have seen the value of it because we all have clients that drive us crazy or situations that, you know, seem to stump us no matter how long we've been coaching.

But Terry, it sounds like now your training as a supervisor was, you said, 10 weeks?

10 months.

10 months. Okay, so 10 months and how many hours per day?

So I think the total was 150 continuing coach credit hours, and we— it was a multi-phase program where there was classroom, there was a total of 50 hours of face-to-face classroom training, and then there was video webinars that went on for Multiple months after that. And then we also had triads, and a triad was, you know, where we would supervise each other and we would have an observer that would give us feedback. There were also, I believe, 5 books that we had to read. So it was almost like going and getting a whole nother credential, you know, you know, learning like a mini MBA, if you will, or what you might consider the depth that you would have to go to get a serious coach training program from one of the coaching schools. So it's, you know, pretty intense.

But it sounds to me like it's even more than the 10 months, because from the depth that you're talking about, somebody who's just out of coaching school and walking into coaching supervision, it doesn't sound like it's going to be a beneficial opportunity for the coach that's being supervised, the supervising person who's going under this training. It sounds like you've got to have some skin in the game before you even think about going through a program like this.

Yeah, to be a supervisor, they recommend at least 500 hours of professional coaching. Like, you've been coaching probably for several years. You wouldn't want to go straight out of coach school and becoming supervisors. You just wouldn't be qualified. Absolutely.

That's, you know, and I want to be very clear to people who are watching this channel that it takes more than just 10 months of training.

No, you're exactly right. You have to have years of experience yourself as a coach. Well, like I say, at least 500 client hours, so 500 sessions probably with a— and that would be minimum. You know, I already had probably 4,000 hours of coaching sessions minimum. Yeah, when I went into this program, I was already a master coach when I went and became a certified coaching supervisor.

And it sounds to me like that should be the bare minimum, is that you should already be at the mastery level.

Well, at least I would say at the professional level, like, you know, I think Domi-Ann's program, which I went through, required 500 hours of professional coaching.

Well, in order to get the Master Corporate Executive Coach, the MC EC, we don't look at coach hours. We look at results from your clients. So, right, you know, I would say that, um, you would have had to had some very specific business results for a specific period of time.

Yeah, ideally.

Not coach hours, but I'm talking about years in order to be beneficial to somebody who's going to come to you as, as their supervisor, especially if that somebody is already at the mastery level.

Yeah, I would agree. So if I was, if I was looking for a supervisor, which obviously I did, I hired a supervisor that was not only trained as a supervisor, but also a really great coach. So I agree with what you're saying. If you're a master-level coach, you probably want to hire someone who's also a master-level coach and a trained supervisor at the same time. I would agree with that.

Terry, it has been wonderful interviewing you about this whole notion of coach supervision. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your wisdom with us.

Thank you, CB. It's been a pleasure.