Haesun Moon: Executive Director at the Canadian Center of Brief Coaching

In the podcast, Haesun Moon, a communication scientist and educator, discusses the nuances of language and communication in coaching

Moon, author of "Coaching A to Z," argues that true coaching skills are honed through practical client interactions rather than solely through formal training. She highlights the critical role language plays in coaching, emphasizing how specific word choices can significantly influence coaching outcomes.

Throughout the conversation, Moon explores her unique approach to coaching and stresses the importance of crafting conversations and utilizing client feedback to refine coaching techniques. This approach underscores the dynamic nature of coaching, where adaptability and responsiveness to client needs are key.

Moon further discusses the pivotal role of listening in effective coaching and believes that understanding clients' perspectives is essential for fostering their growth and transformation. She proposes that this client-focused approach ensures that the coaching process is tailored to individual needs, facilitating more meaningful and impactful outcomes.

The later podcast touches on broader topics related to coaching and communication. Moon shares insights on the evolving landscape of coaching, the integration of communication science into coaching practices, and the challenges and opportunities presented by this intersection. Her expertise offers a unique perspective on how communication strategies can be effectively employed to enhance coaching effectiveness.

Listeners interested in the interplay between language, communication, and coaching will find Moon’s insights particularly valuable. Her experience and knowledge provide a deep understanding of how nuanced communication can drive successful coaching engagements.

Transcript

Coaches on Zoom Drinking Coffee
Haesun Moon

(interview blurb)

Haesun: What happens is you don’t learn coaching from a school, you learn coaching from your clients. Your clients will teach you how to do that better each and every single time.

(intro)

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex Pascal, CEO of Coaching.com, and this is Coaches on Zoom Drinking Coffee. My guest today is a communication scientist and educator. She’s the author of Coaching A to Z: The Extraordinary Use of Ordinary Words. She also is the executive director at the Canadian Center for Brief Coaching and a principal at the Human Learning Institute. Please welcome Haesun Moon.

(Interview)

Alex: Hi, Haesun. 

Haesun: Hey. Good to be here, Alex.

Alex: It’s so good to have you. You’re an expert in conversations so I can’t think of something more fun to do than to have a conversation with an expert in conversation. 

Haesun: Expert in conversation, that’s an interesting thing because I think we all are and we get better at certain kinds of conversations that we usually do, kind of like a habit. So everyone is an expert in conversation, the difference might be what kind of conversation.

Alex: We’re going to be talking about a lot of that. So let’s start where we always start at Coaches on Zoom Drinking Coffee. It’s not always coffee but, today, what are we drinking today? 

Haesun: I don’t know. I brought this, by the way, this cup is the cup that I actually picked up at a local hospital when I was visiting my friend and they had a blue one and green one and I got the green one and she got the blue one and I’m drinking this coffee and I grind my own coffee, I roast my coffee and grind coffee and I make it. 

Alex: Wow. And did you roast your own beans as well? 

Haesun: I do. I roast my own beans. Saturdays, that’s what I do. 

Alex: That sounds like a fun Saturday. And I just have to ask, well, or maybe just say I hope your friend’s okay.

Haesun: Oh, yeah, she’s okay. She’s fine. She’s got the blue cup, I got the green cup. 

Alex: That’s wonderful. And then you can roast some coffee for her. I’ve never tried to roast coffee. Sometimes my own milk and grind my espresso beans when I have espresso but I’ve never gotten all the way to roasting so that sounds interesting. 

Haesun: You know, it’s not as hard as it sounds, actually, because you just get the green bean and then you have to think about what kind of beans, what kind of acidity and things that you might like, so you might have to try a few things, but then you start roasting your own coffee, it will be hard for you to go back to not roasting. So, yes. 

Alex: Yeah, well, I thought the same about like almond milk and things like that but then there’s the whole cleanup process which sometimes stops me from actually engaging. So I have a feeling that roasting would probably be the same thing, to be honest with you. 

Haesun: You actually make milk like that?

Alex: I do, yeah. Takes no time, it’s just the cleanup. 

Haesun: Oh, wow.

Alex: Yeah, I know, but sometimes I get inspired and I make it a couple of times. Today, it’s actually homemade, store bought, so I’m actually matching you with coffee but it’s kind of hot here in LA today and I thought I’d do a little bit of cold brew that I buy. Actually that company, they hired the same company that designed our logo, designed their bottles. It’s like Chameleon coffee. It’s super — it’s delicious, I love it, so I just put a little bit of cold brew because I don’t do well with too much cold brew. So store bought, homemade almond milk with some Chameleon coffee. So it’s delicious. 

Haesun: That’s pretty fancy. Wow. 

Alex: Yeah, you know, sometimes you got to get a little fancy with your drinks, I think. 

Haesun: That’s so interesting. I can’t do iced coffee for some reason. It just has to be hot. 

Alex: No, I get it. I changed things up, but, this morning, I had so matcha, it was fantastic. Iced matcha. Well, I know that our listeners are already super excited to get started with this episode. Go past the coffee, we get it. We hear it every time we listen to this podcast. So now we’re more than 60 episodes that we’ve released so far so now it starts to feel like there’s something here, there’s like the legacy of the first 60 or so episodes so there’s things that are starting to emerge and then I go to conferences and people tell me it’s funny to see you in person because you’re the thing I listen to on my hike so it’s kind of like I never thought about how people really interact with the podcast too much when we started kind of doing it so it’s kind of fun to see. So, I know that everyone’s eager to hear about you and your story. So I know you have a very interesting story. You’re a musician, you’re a scientist, you have a PhD. I mean, you’ve done it all. So, take me through your journey. How is it that we’re sitting here today drinking some coffee together and talking about all things coaching? How did that journey unfold? 

Haesun: Wow, that journey I don’t know when it began but I have some memories as probably many people who are listening in they actually have those specific conversations that they had with some people that really left some impressions. So, I guess one of the things that I learned really, really early on, and I remember just walking with my mom in this cold weather, Korea gets pretty cold in the wintertime, so we were walking outside and I just kept saying, “Mom, it’s so cold, it’s so cold,” and I remember holding my mom and I was so small and she just looked at me and she said, “You know, if you keep on saying it’s cold, it’s gonna get colder.” What? How does that work? She said, “If you think about, oh, it’s actually really fresh,” so she said, “Come up with some other words. It’s cold, okay, but what are some other words?” So I remember walking down the street and she was telling me other ways of saying things and, really, it didn’t feel as cold in like a few seconds of saying, “Oh, it’s fresh. Or what about this one?” and we were saying different ways of expressing our experiences. I was really young and that experience really stayed with me. So I remember moving to Canada when I was about 17 and I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t speak English. I spoke a little bit of French, I didn’t speak English and at the age of 16, 17, having to now somehow adjust to this new culture, new language, new school, and I got really aware of how I could not communicate. But not being able to communicate doesn’t mean that I’m not communicating. I am communicating but not in the way that they understand. And I think about that a lot when I studied science, like natural science and neuroscience, and I studied those things in my university so I consider myself sort of like, “I’m a scientist, I love science,” and then what was interesting is, in my high school years, the reason why I chose that as a field of study, Alex, is so funny. I don’t know if you grew up with this thing called guidance counselor. Did you have like guidance counselor in high school or something? 

Alex: I grew up in Mexico City and I think at the time where I grew up, there was no such thing as guidance counselors. 

Haesun: Okay, you had neighbors. 

Alex: Yes, but I think now probably they do have them. 

Haesun: Right. And that’s something that I didn’t have back in Korea but, here, they had this thing called guidance counselor. And I didn’t know how much of a power that they could have on your career. And I remember going there when I was about 17 and I had to choose what kind of studies that I had to choose in university. And this one guidance counselor, I remember her, she said, “Why didn’t you choose science? Because you don’t have to communicate much, because you will never be able to speak English.” And I said, “But I want to be a teacher.” She’s like, “Well, you have to use like language.” 

Alex: But that’s so wrong in so many levels. A great scientist, or even like a good scientist — whatever kind of scientists you are, it’s all about communicating your findings. Well, that counselor was — maybe we need to find that counselor and provide some additional training. 

Haesun: And I was 17, what do I know? So then I was like, oh, maybe then her idea of scientist is like somebody in a lab in a lab coat working with something else, then people. So I studied science and then I was like, oh, this is kind of boring. I couldn’t actually do dissection of dogs, I passed out. So, anyway, I somehow managed to graduate. 

Alex: I don’t blame you.

Haesun: Right, life science and psychology. And it was really fun because then the job that I actually got right after that was working with people with developmental disability. And there are two things that I learned from that, about nearly 10 years I worked as a manager there, two things that I learned from working there was actually about communication. One was we often say that, “Oh, they have developmental disability,” but then I realized that they’re not disabled. We live in a society that is labeling people with differences. So that was a huge lesson I learned there. And the second lesson was they’re always communicating. We are the one who are not getting it. So we cannot just then turn and say, “Oh, you don’t know how to communicate.” Usually, people say, “Oh, they’re nonverbal,” and those things started to now bother me. What do you mean? People always communicate. You didn’t get it, so now you label them as this. We do that now too. So sometimes when I meet people, right off the bat, they say, they apologized, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English well.” How I am going to look at them, it’s like I don’t speak your language well, I’m in your country, why are you apologizing for? So I think those are some very interesting experiences about communication and I think, fast forward, I was studying, I enrolled myself in graduate school, master’s program in adult education, because I wanted to learn how to actually better educate or train my staff because I worked with a lot of teams and I was working as consultant and team coach and all those things beforehand. I wanted to know — and what I didn’t know is that this school specialized in slightly left wing but it’s okay, it’s current perspective on how we see things. I didn’t know that. They accepted me and I remember talking to this one professor about the scientific way of managing and all those things and she just looked at me, really, she looked at me, and first thing that she said was, “Who let you in this school?” That was the — and I was like so dumbfounded. What do you mean?

Alex: You should have told her about the counselor you had in high school.

Haesun: I should have. Are you that counselor? And she said who let you in here and I was so confused because I didn’t understand this social science part of it. So then it was very difficult for me. It was probably one of the hardest moments of growing up in that environment now, and looking at human relations as not something to manage but something to relate, something to connect, and it was completely different way of looking at humans or human connections. And I remember I was walking into this one class, I thought we’re going to be doing something completely different but it ended up being a wrong class that I walked into and in that class, this professor was talking about solution-focused coaching and I really didn’t think that was completely wrong class. And then I was sitting there for about the first hour, didn’t know that it was the wrong class, and everything that he said completely connected with me. I was like, “What is this?” And I think that’s how I actually got into actual coaching. The first time I met coaching was probably 2001. 

Alex: That’s amazing. Let’s just stop there for one second because you stumbled onto the wrong class and after stumbling into the wrong educational path and, apparently, the wrong school from the perspective of the other teacher, suddenly, you were sitting in the right class and it changes your life.

Haesun: Yeah, Alex, that’s the thing. If you take enough wrong turns, you just get there.

Alex: Well, this is a very helpful way of looking at things, yeah. You found the right turn at some point and, yeah, no, I like it. 

Haesun: If you want to go there, if you can do it in three right turns or three left turns or three wrong turns. 

Alex: I mean, at the end of the day, is that journey, and we’re so obsessed with the destination sometimes in our lives that we freak out that the destination will be informed by the journey. We, for some reason, separate those, but maybe perhaps more on that later. So let’s go back to that classroom. So you realize, like, wow, this resonates with me. 

Haesun: Yeah, and it’s actually, it was very similar to what I loved in that entire undergrad. 2001 is when I was about to graduate from undergrad and I took this one class, one semester class called sports coaching, and I completely resonated back then too, I was like, “Oh, this makes sense,” and then, after that, I don’t know if I remembered, but then this class, walking into this class maybe six, seven years later, this really made sense in terms of how we relate to people. And not in a clinical setting or anything but then really relating to people in a regular everyday sort of situations where people just simply connect. So I think ever since I haven’t looked back, and that was one of the best things that probably happened, walking into that wrong class, in the wrong school.

Alex: Love that. What next? When you started to focus on coaching, how did the beginning of that path of your career unfold? And take me kind of like all the way to kind of where we are now. I know you’ve written Coaching A to Z: The Extraordinary Use of Ordinary Words, which is such a fantastic title. So, how do you get to the point where you write a book like that? 

Haesun: What’s interesting is this. When I think about it, many people who are actually listening in might be at that place of choice making. When we talk about, oh, wrong classes and all jobs too but we’re always in front of these choices. But it’s actually you who make it. Sometimes, it’s made for you and turns out to be the best thing, but then, sometimes, when you’re there, it’s like, “Okay, what do I do now? This feels so unfamiliar, what do I do? I don’t know this path,” or versus, “Oh, I know exactly where it’s gonna lead.” So, for me, I was working as a manager up until that time when I walked into that class and then, slowly, I thought this is what I think what I’m called to do, this is what I’m called to do, I’m going to have to leave my job. And this is a huge choice, because now I’m responsible for my family and leaving a job, are you kidding? But then that nagging voice is there. So I actually quit my job, but my job was so gracious. My manager, my director at the time was so gracious enough to say, “You know what, don’t leave yet because you don’t know what’s gonna happen so you can be on leave of absence and I will support you but you decide, you have some time to decide.” They were amazing about it. I actually just had lunch with her this last Friday. And I was able to play with it. I would go to nonprofit and say, “Hey, I wanna do a workshop on coaching,” and they’re like, “Who are you?” I’m a graduate student and I’m learning this, I want to actually do this. Nonprofit organizations loved it because that’s what they want, and many of them couldn’t actually afford to have consultants come and do it. And I was able to also experience and also expand. I meet them and I get to know them and I learned so much from working like that with them. And many of them actually said you don’t work for free and then they paid me. So it was really interesting to see because it was my first time actually going out alone. So after doing that for about a year, year and a half, I met with my director because I had to make a decision of do I go back or not. I wasn’t still sure. And then I decided at the moment, I said, you know what, I think I’m going to actually quit and begin something new. So I told her over dinner, I said, “Listen, Irene, I think it’s better for me to quit.” So I handed her my resignation letter, she took it from my hand, and she said, “Good. Now I can hire you as my consultant.”

Alex: That’s awesome. 

Haesun: It’s amazing. When you think about it, there are people in your life who have supported you through some of those moments, right? I mean, Alex, you have some people like that in your life who — those moments, you’re like, “Aahh!” and then there’s someone who shows up like that. Yeah. So that’s kind of like the beginning of how all this started to happen. And, yeah.

Alex: I love the origin story of realization of the power of communication and the power of language and the power of interpretation as well that comes along with communication, where, suddenly, it wasn’t as cold once you started thinking about the meaning of things and I can see how that’s deeply ingrained in your approach to your work. So let’s talk about that book, Coaching A to Z: The Extraordinary Use of Ordinary Words. So within the scope of your coaching practice and as a coaching thought leader, let’s kind of break down like what’s coaching A to Z and let’s talk about communication in coaching, which is a foundational aspect of it. 

Haesun: There are a few things leading up to that book. Obviously, the whole life experience of conversing with people but then realizing some conversations works better than other conversations. What happened? And then also studying it is one thing. But I would say, when I ask people where did you learn to coach and people start off with, “Oh, I went to the school, I went to that school,” I mean, that’s not what I asked. And, actually, what happens is you don’t learn coaching from a school, you learn coaching from your clients. Your clients will teach you how to do that better each and every single time. 

Alex: That is so interesting. I kind of want to anchor on that because that is so true. It is a coaching practice, right? 

Haesun: Yeah.

Alex: You can learn the fundamentals, you can think about what you would do when you’re in the moment, but then you actually have to be in the moment with a client. 

Haesun: Oops, yes. Oh, that’s how it works. Yes, that’s how it works. And I think when we asked where did you learn this and often when people say, “Oh, I learned it from,” and they list of big names and big schools, it’s like it’s kind of like irrelevant, actually, because you should learn to coach from your clients. Even now, after each coaching conversation, I ask myself and I encourage people to ask themselves what did this client teach you about how to coach? And that’s the question that we don’t often ask. So, for me, that’s how I collected over the years. This book project started about in probably 2014 when I first discovered couple of different words that people were using. So, for example, I was sitting in a coaching conversation and I learned couple phrases from solution-focused coaching and it was supposed to be used when somebody’s complaining. Somebody’s like — we call a problem talk, somebody comes in, they problem talk, “This is not working, not working,” because, back then, many schools were teaching coaching as questions, a set of questions, question-based practice, because we didn’t have enough evidence. So back then, we’re still teaching it as it’s all about questions. So then I memorized this one question and posed it to my client. I said, “So what do you want instead of all this problem talk?” and then I seriously watched my client going like, “That’s a great question. What do I want instead?” And, all of a sudden, they started to talk about what they want, like magic. It’s just one word. I just simply added this “instead” and then they shifted. So I was like, “This is so interesting.” And then around the same time, I discovered another word from solution-focused coaching and it’s about, especially when somebody’s feeling like, “Oh, you know, I have such dread of future. I don’t see a way out.” Then they said, “Well, if this client is like that, then do this,” and they said, “Ask them ‘suppose.’” Suppose when things are blah, blah, blah, blah, what will be different? So then I was like suppose and then what will be different. I used it. Again, I saw this client, it’s like, “Well, if that happened,” and then all of a sudden, they were starting to make progress. I was like this is so interesting. So, 2014, I collected those three words, “instead,” “suppose,” and “different.” Those are the I, S, and D in the book, by the way. So I started to collect those very ordinary words that we use in everyday conversation, because it has to be ordinary, otherwise, we’re not going to use it with our friends and family. So I don’t know how many hours of videos that I watched, 8,000 hours of videos as of actually 2018 so it must be more now. So, watching videotapes, watching live sessions and analyzing them and so on, I noticed that there are some words like that. So Coaching A to Z is a collection of those words over the years based on actual sessions that I’ve watched and analyzed and studied, which actually became one part of my doctoral dissertation, but then this book is a collection of those words that anybody can pick up and use in pretty much in your most immediate conversations, I guess. So it’s A to Z because it’s actual lexical graphic, A to Z. It’s A means this, B means this, and it’s about how you use the words. So that’s how it actually came about. It took quite a while to collect all the words.

Alex: I’m sure. 

Haesun: And, I mean, obviously, there are some letters that had more than one candidate for the word. And, for example, X, because you only get like xylophone. 

Alex: Yeah, there’s not that many you can choose from.

Haesun: Right. I mean, some only have like one or two but then some other, like something that starts with a D, gosh, or B, there are so many of them, right? That’s how the book is written in accessible way but it’s already translated to, I think, five different languages. That’s another thing. When you translate a book like this to another language, how does it play out? 

Alex: Translations are, coming from the software side of things, they’re notoriously difficult because there’s so much context embedded in them. So, if you want to do it right, you have to end up with like French-Canadian, French from France, or you’re doing Spanish and there’s Mexican Spanish or Spanish from Spain. There’s so much context embedded in language. Going back to what you were saying a little bit earlier, you’re saying that you learn so much from your clients, can you think of a recent coaching session where something impactful happened and once you were reflecting post session, you had an insight? Can you maybe share kind of what that insight was from one of your latest learnings? 

Haesun: Oh, I had it in mind, because I actually journal it. Yes, I remember that one. I was coaching, this happened about maybe three weeks ago and it was with a younger person, actually, so younger person, career transition, and so on and I was coaching him. He actually couldn’t come up with suppose blah, blah, blah, blah, and then he’s like, “I can’t really answer that. I don’t see it. I don’t see it.” So he kept on saying, “I don’t see it.” Because in coaching, another assumption that we freely make without testing is coaching is about future, yeah? So we’re coaching is all about future and building the future. 

Alex: I mean, a lot of people define coaching and differentiate it to other approaches like therapy with that kind of future focus so, yeah, totally hear you. 

Haesun: Yes, right, and that’s something that we need to start to ask, is it? How do we know that? So when we approach something with an assumption without testing it and when you look at actual data and we are less likely to find the data that actually informs something different. So when you look at data without those assumptions and just go in and find something, you might be pleasantly surprised. So one of the things that I decided to do with this client was instead of asking about their future, I wanted to just ask them about their past. So I said, “Well, it’s been about two weeks since we chat, so what are some things that you really like that you would love to sort of see continue or even grow?” and all of a sudden, he was talking about, “I would love to see this grow,” or, “When this happened, that was awesome,” and he was able to curate his past two weeks with this filter of what I would like to see grow. And then that was a seamless transition to when would that happen, what difference would that make if that continues to grow? What difference would you notice that work? So it was transitioned very seamlessly. But then when you think about it, when you ask your clients about their preferred future, then they speak about examples that already happened in their life, whether directly or vicariously. So, they’re not pulling something out of nowhere when they’re talking about their future. They’re always curating stories, their preferred stories that happened in the past. So when you ask is coaching always about future, it seems that conversation evidence says not really. It’s not only about future, it’s more about the preferred past that we’re getting our clients to curate with that filter. And that’s another thing that you will see in the book that I briefly talked about this useful framework of organizing conversations and this came from that studying of like nearly 10,000 hours of watching these videos at the time of writing the thesis and it was really about what do people do together in conversations? So many of the cutting studies, you realize that either when you look at what coaches do, they will say what questions do they ask and then we do isolated studies of, “So, how did you feel after the coaching?” so we may ask client, maybe ask coaches, and then we look at it from isolated individual narrative and then we don’t have enough evidence to say, “Oh, this is how we know that this coaching was effective,” so we draw a lot of conclusions from incomplete data or very biased samples that we collect. So, in the way that I started coaching, I look at what did you do, what did they do, what did you do with what they did and what did that do to what they do next? 

Alex: There’s a lot of layers to it. 

Haesun: It’s kind of like, (a), what did the client say? (B), what did you do with what the client said? And then, (c), what did the client respond to what you did? And then, (d), what did you do then? So we can really trace conversations this way. In a way, you can make how sense of hope, sense of progress is co-constructed, you can make it visible, by following their conversations. And often when I say conversations, people think, “Oh, there’s so many other things happening other than conversations,” so when I say conversations, I speak about both visible and audible. So it’s not only spoken but also visible language that we use. And out of doing that, there’s a very simple framework of organizing conversations. One is, if your client is moving from here, there’s a quadrant probably people heard enough about that that we have a quadrant of past to future, which is a horizontal axis so people talk about something that happened in the past, like I talked about my mom, walking with my mom, and then future something that might happen. My mom and I were going to actually travel together. And then people also tell you something that they would like to see more and something that they would not like to see more, which is the vertical axis. So, it’s a timeline and preference line. And when we listen to people, usually, you can organize, I would say three-quarters of the conversation on to that map. So first quadrant is when people talk about what they will like in the future, which is called preferred future. Number two is when people talk about something that they really liked in the past, which is resourceful past. Number three is when people talk about something that happened in their past that they really didn’t like. It could include trauma and other different things, guilt and shame and all that stuff. And then, for research purposes, it’s called troubled past. And then the last quadrant is when people talk about something that may happen in the future that they are dreading. It’s called dreaded future. And, often, people say, “Oh, coaching is all about preferred future and resourceful past.” And, again, when you look at research, conversation research, if you ignore when people share their troubled past and dreaded future, it’s not going to move too far. We don’t want to be exploring that but all the quadrants are so valuable. So how do we use that? What kind of conversations can we curate together? Sorry, that’s a long sort of answer to that piece but it’s so interesting that communication is science because you see the effect.

Alex: Absolutely. I’m glad you talked about what you call the DOQ —

Haesun: Dialogic orientation quadrant, yes. 

Alex: I mean, I think breaking down conversations is very important for coaching because it is part of the art and science of coaching. Really, it’s all about like the delivery model for coaching. Our conversations, obviously, we can talk about AI and all these things that are happening, which may, I think, add and, in some cases, maybe change kind of like the delivery model. It’s probably a conversation for another day. But the coaching we know and love is conversationally oriented. So, being able to break that down and understand the components that make coaching more effective from the perspective of understanding in breaking down communication patterns and things like that is very powerful. So, I know that — actually, speaking of, coaching efficacy is one of your passions. 

Haesun: Yes. 

Alex: How did that come about? And what is some of the work that you’re currently doing around coaching efficacy?

Haesun: Oh, my goodness, Alex, I’m sure a lot of people can resonate with this.

Alex: I mean, you sound so convincing. I’m just going to say, I’m just going to take a little risk here and say, yes, I think so. Even before I know what it is. I’m already convinced. 

Haesun: When you think about your passion, Alex, you got some areas you’re genuinely passionate about. Think about an area that you’re genuinely passionate about. 

Alex: Coaching.

Haesun: Get out. No clue.

Alex: Yes, so I’m thinking of something I’m passionate.

Haesun: And then sometimes what happens is that the area where you actually find a lot of areas, you’re like, “Oh, I just can’t stand that.” There’s some areas like that, because you’re passionate about it so you just can’t stand something.

Alex: You have an opinion.

Haesun: Yeah, you do have a strong opinion. And when you hear somebody, it’s like, “What are you talking about?” Now, for me, efficacy is very closely linked to ethics and it’s my moral responsibility to be able to actually say, “Look, this is how I know my work is effective.” Think about it, and if you actually go to see a doctor and then they’re prescribing something to you and you’re like, “So how does this work? Is it gonna work?” and they say, “Yeah, it does. It does.” How do you know that? “Well, a lot of people send it did.” Did anybody die from it? “It’s always possible, I don’t know.” And then you ask them how does it work and the doctor says, “It works in mysterious ways.” Would you take that pill?

Alex: I mean, not to be super controversial but I think that’s where medicine is today. I mean, I don’t — I think efficacy in medicine is — that’s where I think we’re the AI revolution really going to help. I think we’re about to enter in the next couple of decades, starting with our current decade, the new frontier of understanding the body, medicine, treatments. I actually feel like medicine is exactly what you were describing right now. So, I don’t know. I’m sure some people will really agree with me and some maybe not but I think doctors tell you things and studies that you don’t understand, they’re opaque, and sometimes they’re opaque to the doctors and you have the pharmaceutical companies also bringing a lot of money in. Why do we have advertisements for certain medicines? Like I don’t think the patient should, “Hey, I want Arava, that medicine for allergies.” It’s like how are we driving that to the consumer? So I actually, as you can tell, I feel passionate about health and I think the whole medical establishment can probably improve. So I think maybe this is coming from left field with your questions so, no, it wasn’t — I actually think it’s very opaque so that’s interesting. I’m passionate about that.

Haesun: Alex, thank you. And that was my experience as well. I’m sure there are a lot of amazing doctors and I —

Alex: Of course.

Haesun: — I work with a lot of them actually.

Alex: Same. 

Haesun: Right? And my personal experience of healthcare, especially when my father was going through cancer treatment. I don’t know medicine as well as medical doctors.

Alex: You and I are both doctors but in a plane when someone asks you, “Where’s the doctor?” the only thing I could ask would be like, “How’s your relationship with your boss?” I don’t think that’s going to be much help.

Haesun: Yeah, I know. I could have conversation with them. Do you want that? So I remember going to see this oncologist with my dad and I’m sitting there and I think doctors saying some things, half the things I don’t even understand, and she said at the end of it, she said, “Well, it’s your choice ultimately.” I’m like what do you mean it’s my choice? And that aggravated me and that anguished me so much.

Alex: I’m anguished now just listening to that. 

Haesun: Right? And this is life or death for my dad and you’re telling me this? And when I ask questions, just simply asking about the efficacy, this doctor actually said to me in person, “That’s a stupid question.” Not only that, she put it in the clinical note, and I’ve talked about this very openly because I just really want something to change. So she put in the clinical note and I can see the notes because I could just log in and see the notes, it said, “Oh the doctor asked blah, blah, blah —”

Alex: By the way, there’s a Seinfeld episode about that where they get blacklisted because they’re asking questions and then they have to be changing doctors and Elaine tries to steal those, it’s really funny.

Haesun: You know, I’m not surprised. And I think that’s exactly how it felt for me. And, at one point, I actually stopped the doctor and there’s a clear power dynamic here because you’re handling my dad’s life or death and I had to stop and say, “Look, he may be one of so many statistics that you read about but this is the one and only that I got. I just couldn’t do that.” So when it comes to efficacy, I say doctors, yeah, I agree with you, Alex, that’s where majority of our medical system is at and there are so many pulling, like biases pulling in different ways, whether it’s pharmaceutical, whether it’s insurance, who knows, they’re pulling us in different directions. And I think when I actually look at coaching, it’s not any different, if not worse. So I remember the first time I asked this person who was really very well known in the field and I said, “So how do you know that? How does it work anyway?” He said, “It works in mysterious ways.” That offended me so deeply. My response to that was, “Oh, yeah? Really? And you think you’re — so you just hope that it will work? What are you doing to your clients?”

Alex: And the way you’re saying it is interesting because it’s like people usually say, “God acts in mysterious ways.” I mean, a lot of the scientific paradigm is around eliminating answers so that we know a lot more of the cause and effect relationships and you may still always leave some room for faith and things that are less quantifiable but something like coaching that should be very kind of science driven as a foundational framework, to use that kind of language to describe its impact, I can see why you’re describing it as like offensive.

Haesun: Works in mysterious ways. And I’m sorry and you teach people to do what? If it works in mysterious ways, then what do you teach your students to do?

Alex: Yeah, this should be a very practical, like tried and true. Look, measuring actual coaching impact and what works in coaching, what doesn’t work in coaching, we’ve made — I think the field has made tremendous strides over the last 20 years, just the amount of volume of coaching research has exploded with the explosion of the use of coaching as well. But, yeah, there’s still a lot of things that we really don’t know, that we’re still prescribing as part of coaching.

Haesun: Right. And I think, Alex, that’s the thing, we’ve done so much research about the outcome. Does it work? Does it work? And it’s like, “Yes, it works great. We got the answers —”

Alex: People are super happy when they got their coaching. Okay, well, we’re measuring — sounds to me like we’re measuring satisfaction. And, yes, most people love working with a coach.

Haesun: And, actually, most coaching is effective based on that kind of measurement. But when you ask people, “So how do you know or how does it work?” Now, we’re not talking about outcome efficacy, we’re talking about process efficacy. How does it work? Now, if you have ten people about how does it work and you’ll get 12 answers. “Well, this is how it works, this is how it works,” and depending on their perspective, they’ll say, “Oh, this is how and why it works.” Now then, with that kind of answers, this field cannot be defined as a profession.

Alex: So tell me a little bit more about what you mean with how it works, not necessarily looking on the outcome but like, it sounds like you’re tapping into there should be kind of like a tried and true approach for going through the coaching process. So tell me a little bit more about that. 

Haesun: Alex, so how do we come up with so-called competencies? So when you think about different ways that people say, “Oh, this is what good coaches do, these are the competencies,” even the competency framework is — we should actually question the framework, what’s — especially in adult education, where does it begin? When we first start talking about competency-based education, where does it begin? You will see a lot of majority of those competence-based anything coming from the war times. Can you change the tire of a tank in five minutes? You’re in? Let’s go. Can you run this? So a lot of that is in that kind of setting.

Alex: And a lot of them are not validated either.

Haesun: And then those are some of those competencies and there are a lot of loopholes and that’s why competencies change over time. All of a sudden, they have another one. “Oh, new competencies,” okay, so what were you thinking before? “Oh, here’s another one.” So, that is another area that aggravates me. It’s like you keep selling this as something and then now you turn around and say, “Oh, forget that one, we’re gonna do this one.” So then it’s like stop it. Stop. If you don’t know what you’re doing, stop. But then that’s from my research side, like I cannot stop the market from running but it’s like stop the ethics. So I think the way we look at it is, for example, how does it work? So when I say scientist, I’m not talking about just quantitating things. I’m not talking about just test the hypothesis. That’s not what I’m talking about. Science is based on observation. Because science is based on — 

Alex: And repetition.

Haesun: Yes. And can you actually — is it repeatable? Do we have a pattern here? So, first of all, is it observable? Can you observe it? If I see it from place A, Alex, you go to place B, can you still see the same thing? If you and I actually look at the same coaching tape and you and I both separately do analysis of some sort, we come back together, what’s the interrater reliability? Do we have that? Now, when we actually look at a lot of coaching tapes, we don’t have that kind of — we didn’t have that kind of process. So, what ends up happening is this very prevalent medical model type of studying things such as you make interpretations and you also consider coaching, how was it useful for you, even when we measure outcomes, a lot of them are based on individual factors. We asked client about, “So how was it for you on a scale of one to ten?” and all those individual factors instead of actually looking at interactive factors. We ask the individual about their internal process or cognitive process. Did your thinking change? How are you feeling? Are you feeling better? Those are internal changes rather than interactional changes. Interactional changes you can observe. Internal changes you interpret. So, when we look at, is it observable —

Alex: One’s behavior and one is more —

Haesun: That’s right. 

Alex: — cognitive process —

Haesun: Specific behaviors. Exactly. So, people’s thoughts change all the time. If I ask my students who come to class, at the end of a class, if I say, “One area of improvement, what can I actually improve on?” All of a sudden, they’re going to all remember my classes, yeah, they need to improve on that. Same class, I can ask them, “So what did you really love the most about this experience?” They’re going to love the class even more. So, when our thinking and perception changes all the time, how do we have the consistent interactive, observable behaviors? And that’s what I’m talking about. We are not measuring with that kind of stuff. We have not been measuring it like that. We always relied on self-report or after-the-fact reflection or imagine you are having this perfect conversation, what do you see yourself doing? Then we come up with competencies. So when we look at coaching as science, that’s what I’m referring to, observable, directly observable behaviors, whether it’s visible or audible. And you and I, can we both see it? So instead of saying, “How was your coaching? Oh, your client was resistant,” that’s interpretation. You can say, “What did you see or hear them do and say for you to conclude that they’re resisting?” and, Alex, you know what, oftentimes, my students come to me and they say that, I’m like, “Okay, show me the tape.” We watch the tape and I say, “Show me where you say the client was resistant,” and he’s like, “Over here, over here, I made a note of that, so 11 minutes and 42 seconds right here.” We look at it and, sure enough, when they said client was resisting, when we look at actual conversation, those are the moments when coach was not listening to the client, client’s saying this and that and then coach all of a sudden say, “Okay, so what about this?” or, “You’re saying this,” they completely change what the client says.

Alex: So you’re saying the coach was resisting the client.

Haesun: Absolutely. Who’s resistant here?  So when we look at coaching as a process like that, it becomes much cleaner and clearer about how it works.

Alex: Really cool. 

Haesun: It is so cool. 

Alex: I could talk to you all day. I love this kind of stuff. So, as we get to like the latter part of our episode today, by the way, it’s going way, way too fast, what are some of the things that you’re excited about, upcoming? Could be something for you personally, that you’re working on or something related to the field of coaching that you’re excited about. What are you excited about the future in terms of coaching?

Haesun: I am excited about many things but, actually, Alex, I don’t know how this will sound but I’m excited about this coaching as entire field almost made redundant because people are having these conversations naturally. That’s my long-term goal, to see people —

Alex: So leader as coach or taking it beyond that and just human as coach. 

Haesun: Human, like just —

Alex: Everyone is a coach.

Haesun: My nephew can coach me. Parents as coach. You going to school as grade 11 and I want my nephew to be able to coach other kids, other friends.

Alex: And when you say that, how do you break it down? What does that mean? Does that mean that people get really good at asking questions? Do we get better at listening? Those two yes, what else?

Haesun: Alex, you are so perceptive, I love this. 

Alex: Well, I think we share the passion so this is one of the things that we love.

Haesun: Oh, my God. all of it. And I think, for me, I’ve done that with my nephew so he does this a lot. I told him to listen to what people seem to care about and see if you can make that grow in a conversation. That’s it. That’s all I told him. And when he came back from school one day, he told me that his teacher was so mad at so and so and blah, blah, blah and then he just said, simply, he said this, “So you seem to really care about this.” Teacher calmed right down and he’s like, “Exactly. Finally, somebody gets me.” My nephew was grade 9.

Alex: Yeah, how old was he when he —

Haesun: Grade 9, and he was able to do that just based on that one little —

Alex: How old are people in grade 9? I forgot.

Haesun: Grade 9, I think 14, 13, 14.

Alex: Pretty advanced for — a lot of people at 14, you’re a little bit more self-centered, you’re not — maybe you like to be like, “Okay, so tell me what does that mean for you?” I mean, I’m sure the teacher was very surprised as you were describing. That’s awesome.

Haesun: Actually, Jeremy is a pretty mature kid. He was always a mature kid. But he actually simply said it, “So, Mister so and so, you really care about this?” That was the sentence. That’s it. And he just, “Yes, finally somebody gets me.”

Alex: So he made the teacher felt seen and —

Haesun: Isn’t that amazing? 

Alex: Yeah, it is a very powerful moment. 

Haesun: And it deescalated the situation. And that’s what he does with me, actually, when I get upset and he will say —

Alex: You get upset? You seem like — I would think you’re like this nice all the time.

Haesun: Alex, you have no idea. Are you kidding me? If you ask my nephew, they used to call me, “You’re a dragon. You breathe fire.” Okay, thanks.

Alex: I mean, you’re smiling ear to ear. I think you like to be called a dragon.

Haesun: Well, the thing is, one of the things that people think is that I am really pleasant and nice all the time. I am far from it. I get pissed off at things and I swear at things and all those things, but then, what’s important is I know how to debrief those moments, especially with my nephews. So we do debrief really well. 

Alex: That’s awesome.

Haesun: So I think — parents who are listening in, they always put this guilt on themselves. “Oh, I should be a better parent.” Then have better debriefs. Because it’s not about, “Sure. Oh, this occurred? I couldn’t take it anymore.” Okay, then what did you do after? The restoration is so much more important than prevention. So, actually, based on that, my nephews and I, we have this thing that I actually told them if I’m getting literally too angry, could you please use this key word? And they do that and that’s —

Alex: What is the key word that you use? 

Haesun: “You’re being a little bit too harsh.” That’s what they say. “You’re being a little bit too harsh.” And I promised them in the middle of like I could be so upset but if you say that, I’m going to say, “Okay, I’m gonna go up to my room, take some time to process.” That’s my promise to them. I’ve kept my promise several times.

Alex: I think you need to change that to like a code word, like tomato or something like that, so that you’re at a restaurant or you’re wherever you are and then people say, “Tomato, tomato.”

Haesun: That’s such a good one. That’s awesome. And we actually have a code word for text, actually, text message if they need something then they just text me the code and I will call them.

Alex: We won’t have you reveal the code. It sounds like a secret, family secret, but, Haesun, it was so fun to talk to you, like you’re doing such amazing work and you’re so passionate about coaching and communication and language and really decoding kind of what makes coaching effective. Definitely shared a lot of passions and I think a lot of people like you that are doing these kinds of work are really helping kind of elevate the impact of coaching and making it more — translating what we know works in approaches like executive coaching and really thinking about how can that impact society more broadly, not just from the impact that coaching these individual interventions have but also, when people go through coaching and they learn this methodology or get exposed to the methodology and start using it in other areas of their life, the systemic impact of these methodologies can be exponentially powerful for humanity so I really appreciate the work that you do and your passion. So, thank you so much.

Haesun: And, Alex, when you say like that, when we talk about executive coaching, team coaching, blah, blah coaching, and those are market-driven niche that we are dividing, but when it comes to what do we do in coaching, that is really removed from all those market-driven pressures, I think it really comes down to something that we already do so well, which is listening to what the other people care about. And how do we increase that sense for the other person. And we already know how to do that. We already know how to do that for people who we care about. We listen to what they care about and we really do something to grow that. And it comes down to that and we complicate things. I mean, right now, I’m doing research that is really interesting but then, when it comes down to that bare foundation of coaching, that’s what we do. We do many things so that we can do that well. How do we listen to what they care about and grow them?

Alex: Absolutely. I couldn’t think of a better way to wrap up our episode today. Thank you so much for joining me and looking forward to continuing our conversation.

Haesun: Thank you so much, Alex. It was such a pleasure.