Episode 6 - Rupert Newman - It's the 'ER' that's important !

In this episode of The Coaching Lens, we sit down with Rupert Newman — a seasoned business leader now channelling his decades of experience into the world of executive coaching through his work at Stronger Humans.

We dive into the heart of Rupert’s approach: building meaningful relationships and focusing on the person, not the position. From boardrooms to coaching conversations, Rupert shares how human connection underpins everything he does.

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation about what it really means to coach the whole person.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

So we're back again, Coaching Loop. This will be episode six. Who'd have thought it, Nick, at this point, that we'd have done five and a bit and going into our number six?

SPEAKER_01: 0:18

I had confidence, Alan. I trusted you completely.

SPEAKER_02: 0:22

We've had some fabulous feedback and some really good critiquing as well, and we're trying to improve as we go along. Yeah, hopefully we will get better as the podcast gets better as well. And talking of better, Mr Rupert Newman, welcome aboard. Good evening, gents. How are you? Decent. Decent, I would say, yeah. Really well. Really well. Middling it up, I would say. You know Nick, and I don't know you as well as Nick does. And this part in the podcast, I'm going to leave you to introduce yourself in a couple of sentences. But also, before we get to the teacher's recap, to maybe have a think about one or two areas that you're going to go speak about today, if that's okay. So I'm going to hand over to Nick. who's going to do his traditional teacher's recap and then we'll go on from there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14

Thanks, Alan. Thanks, Alan. Rupert, great to see you and great to see you again, given that we saw you at a recent community of practice event. So I know from your contributions there that you're going to be a really great interviewee today. So thanks for coming along and spending some time with us. What we tend to do with our interviewees is ask them to introduce themselves using a standard model, which is, why did you get into coaching? Did anybody inspire you? Are there any models that you use? And we love our metaphors, Alan and I. So if there's a metaphor that's you, then that's all the better. And if you don't answer all those questions, that's fine

SPEAKER_00: 1:51

as well. Okay, so first of all, thanks for inviting me on. My name is, as I said, Rupert Newman. I run an organisation called Stronger Humans, which is a kind of coaching and consulting business. And I started that about two years ago and about the same time started my ILM qualification, which I know you both know and love, having qualified in a similar way yourselves I got into it because after a 28 year corporate career I decided I wanted to do something different and I probably had three things that I wanted to do first was just to work less which I'm not quite achieving but we're on the journey there second one was to work with you know spend more time working with good people good cool people and that wasn't I didn't in my corporate life but just that was just something I wanted to do and then the third one was really about do things that kind of almost made my heart sing so things that were more of the stuff that I really enjoyed about the job that I was doing before I came into coaching. That's kind of how I got into it. In terms of what inspired me, I was fortunate actually over the course of my career to have five different exec coaches. And that's not because I kind of, you know, they ran off from me or binned me off or couldn't do. I

SPEAKER_02: 3:00

was just saying, were you the problem or were they the problem? Or was it just the length of

SPEAKER_00: 3:05

time you

SPEAKER_02: 3:05

spent?

SPEAKER_00: 3:06

Do you know what? As I'm the one talking here, I wasn't the problem but they may well just they may well put something in underneath that said he was the problem so i would tend i worked for organizations that got coaching and therefore as part of my development or as part of you know helping me land in a particular space or role um it was something i valued i asked for and they uh you know supported me with and when i say inspired i had someone who worked with elite athletes i had somebody who came from an educational background i had somebody who was very much from a And so I had the kind of full range of people helping me out. And what I observed, one was they were brilliant at it. Secondly, they helped me through some real interesting times in my career, you know, tough times, good times, bad times. It helped inspire me to do the things I wanted to do. And the second thing is I've never forgot them. And therefore, there was a little bit that came out of that that said, actually, isn't it great when you can have that kind of impact or benefit positive impact on someone's career? So that was kind of the background and what inspired me i suppose

SPEAKER_01: 4:11

can i jump in there because i love that that phrase making your heart sink what gets you out of bed what is it about being involved in executive coaching the kind of work you do with stronger humans that gets you out of bed that you know where it's not a drudge it's not hard work well it may be hard work but it's not the kind of hard work you used to do

SPEAKER_00: 4:29

yeah so i think for me look having sat kind of on the other side of the fence for you know many many years and found life you know enjoyable but really challenging. And the more senior roles I got within organizations, the more, you know, I was expected to know or do, you know, to deliver stuff of a higher quality and quicker with probably less resources each year went by. And so I kind of have an appreciation of how that feels. And, you know, I like to think that I bring my coaching from a position of wisdom rather than wound. So, you know, I come to it from the point of view of I don't try and I feel like project that onto my clients, but I do have that kind of understanding of what life feels like. And so what gets me up a bit in the morning is I think there are some amazing people running UK PLC, working in charities, the sector, education, healthcare and the like. And I think more people who get to access coaching, the more people who become, I suppose, better, better able to do their job, better able to cope, better husbands, wives, partners, better mums and dads, you know, as a result of that relationship, because they're You might be coaching in a work executive context, but the whole human being sits in front of you and, you know, inevitably that's what shows up within the coaching session. So that's what does it for me.

SPEAKER_01: 5:50

Thank you. That's lovely. And I think Alan and I feel very similar that it might be a bit cheesy, but working with amazing people and being part of their journey is a real privilege, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 6:01

Yeah, look, and I fundamentally have always held the view, you know, I try and, you know, my glasses are full and nobody gets up in the morning to do a bad job sometimes choices and circumstances conspire against people but inherently people are good and therefore sometimes they get lost sometimes they need a bit of a guide or a bit of support sometimes you know they need more but um fundamentally that as a coach you can kind of help that process in some way that's got to be a worthwhile reason of for getting up of a morning

SPEAKER_02: 6:32

so having five coaches or having had five coaches and done two years three years of coaching and beyond your qualification. What are your sort of go-to thought processes? What's your, do you have a favorite model or is it dependent on the client? Or do you have, I've got my kit bag and learning from Vicky last time, I've got my first aid bag that I can get out whatever I need in that certain situation.

SPEAKER_00: 7:01

So I would love to say to you, I have this huge kit bag, expansive range of things that I have tons of experience in, but I'm still relatively new to this kind of coaching business. So I have models that I have used through my kind of coaching journey, you know, whether that's Grow or Clear or, you know, ABCD or whatever it might be. But I'm mostly studying at Henley at the moment for MSC and coaching for behavioral change. And so what that is brilliant at is throwing new insights, new information, new models at you and you get to experiment. So I think I'd probably say, I'm kind of, and this sounds like a cop-out volunteer thing, but kind of one of these kind of hybrid coaches where I kind of borrow from what's required in the session, you know, and, you know, I might have a standard way of starting, but based on what I hear, then we'll determine where I go. But actually at the moment, the thing that I'm quite into and I've just completed an assignment on is motivational interviewing, which, you know, yeah, which I love because brilliant in terms of enabling change, but also something that has its foundations more in a sort of healthcare addiction background, but has loads and loads of read across into the wider world of exec coaching.

SPEAKER_01: 8:22

It sounds to me like you picked up what I picked up from Vicky in that previous session, where we can be inconsistent. We don't have to have that one model. We can actually go rogue. We can rewrite the rules. We don't have to follow. We can go off piste. All those are ideas and I really like that and I picked that up from Vicky Murphy's interview and that's a real permission isn't it to have a varied approach.

SPEAKER_00: 8:48

Yeah and look when I started coaching I was taught in a very kind of purist kind of way and in order to get the basics right I was quite rigid in what I applied and how I do it and quite formulaic as I get more confident as I experience more people coaching me more learners experiences around coaching I've realized that actually I do my best coaching work when I'm and this is going to sound wrong but right you know when I'm allowed to run crazily through the meadow working out as I go what's best for the situation and for the coachee or the clients in front of me

SPEAKER_01: 9:26

now I'd like to move to a topic that I've been really looking forward to picking your brains about because we were put together by a mutual friend well he's a mutual friend now isn't he Andy and he's one of the most beautiful human beings And he talks really highly of you. So I know that when I invite you to talk about what stronger humans look like, how you define them, I know you're not going to give me tough, zip their suit up, soldier on. I know we're going to get something really interesting from you. So can you unpick a little bit how you define yourself, what a stronger human looks like? Because I'm sure if we ask 100 people, we get 100 different answers. What does it look like for

SPEAKER_00: 10:06

you? Well, it doesn't look like big muscles. and a weightlifter, right? It just doesn't look like that. And actually the clue is in the ER at the end of strong, it's stronger. And I suppose for me, I kind of, when I was thinking about what to call the business, what I was wanting to do, what I wanted to stand for, I kind of had this view that we all have the potential to change things for ourselves, for our teams, for our customers, for families, whatever the environment, the community in which we kind of inhabit. And for me, the stronger means It may be strength of character. It may be strength to collaborate. It may be strength of being able to deliver or be part of a change process. And so that's kind of fundamentally what underpins stronger humans. And I suppose for me, there's a kind of quote I have on the website, which is strength does not come from a physical domain. It comes from an indomitable will. And for me, that is, you know, the indomitable will is around something that's impossible to subdue or defeat. And, you know, wherever we are in life and whatever we're going through, we all have highs and lows. I think at every point in time, we would all say that we have that kind of strength within us that means that we can get better in whatever it is that we were trying to achieve that day, that week, that month or that year.

SPEAKER_01: 11:29

And I love that optimism. Would you say that all coaches are likely to be optimistic? Because you talk about that innate goodness that we see in people. as part of our DNA as coaches. So would you say that that optimism that you're talking about, that potential ER, that change, do you think that's typical of all coaches?

SPEAKER_00: 11:48

Do you know what? I have the great fortune to be learning with and be sit with parts of starting a business as you two will both know. You try and put good stuff out into the world and hope that one day that will kind of come back to you. And therefore, I sit in a lot of forums, talk to a lot of coaches. And fundamentally, one of the reasons I love coaching is because it doesn't tend to attacked the kind of the psychopathic narcissist it tends to attract people who genuinely want to make a difference and so they will have their own reasons for being there they'll have their own backgrounds their own approaches and they'll have their own life experiences that shapes how they approach what they do but fundamentally at the heart of coaching you wouldn't get into it and if you didn't enjoy seeing helping people grow so i you know There's a broad spectrum of what people deliver, but fundamentally at the heart of it, it's got to be people look for the good in others. I

SPEAKER_02: 12:46

think that's a fantastic way of looking at people and life and what people are and who they can be. So how does that emanate itself in a coaching without giving away any? How does that look? How do we know that someone starts and ends stronger? How do we know that that someone becomes and they put in place certain things that either you've discussed with them or they've worked out for themselves.

SPEAKER_00: 13:18

How does that look? So look, whilst I wouldn't use the expression, you know, we're going to make you stronger today and what does stronger look like as part of the contracting process, effectively as part of contracting, that's what we're doing. We're kind of talking about what's on their mind, what would be the best use of their time, you know, what do they want, what does success look like in the session? And that really helps me me define they're stronger and then you know we go wherever we go and we check back along route to see whether we're in the right place or whether something else has kind of arrived and then at the end of the session um you know there's this wonderful uh question that i use quite a lot actually and it's it's one of i think it's michael bungay stanley has seven questions which is you know what's been most useful here today for you and his view of that asking that question is not to be clever it's because actually neuro new neuro pathways sort of form once people get the opportunity to reflect on what's been said. And so that's a great way for me of checking back in that we've either delivered against what someone wanted or actually not delivered, but something else might have happened. And so that's my definition within coaching of how I understand, you know, stronger.

SPEAKER_02: 14:29

Therefore, do you have long coaching relationships for these people? Because obviously it's not going to be a one hit or two or three sessions. Is it an elongated process? And do you find that the frequency of that helps or not? Do you get to a point where you think, actually, they're strong enough?

SPEAKER_00: 14:48

Yeah, look, at the end of the day, I am led by the coachee, the client, in terms of what they want. And actually, most of the time, I tend to work with individuals in organizations where they sign up for, or their organization on their behalf signs up for a package of maybe six sessions over a kind of six-month period. Now, what then drives that, they might have three of those in one month because they've got particular something that they want to focus on or an issue or something that they really want to get some support through. Some people might not then speak for two months, but they're fine with that because, you know, they know that they've got some work to do in the intervening period and they need the space and time to kind of go and do that. So it tends to be over a six month period. What I am seeing more and more is single intervention kind of conversation. conversations and it's interesting actually with motivational interviewing that's a that's a kind of big part of that quite often it's just a single intervention in the first instance with you know the option of more but nothing that the coachee is beholden to and quite often people come to me for a conversation on a particular topic or a particular thing and the offer is there but they walk away and choose not to take that up and just sometimes the hindering coach within my head think oh crikey was i not good enough yeah of course You know, I'm human. But actually, in most cases, it's because we sorted what they needed to sort and they're off doing what it is that they wanted to do differently. And that goes back

SPEAKER_02: 16:16

to the half glass full.

SPEAKER_01: 16:18

And it is lovely, isn't it? When every now and then, 35-minute conversation, people just see a penny drop. And you kind of think, you could have done that without me, maybe. You could have done it with an AI dummy. Maybe I shouldn't be promoting that kind of idea for our industry. But it is lovely.

SPEAKER_02: 16:33

I'll cut that out in the edit, Nick. I'll cut that out in the

SPEAKER_01: 16:36

edit. It is lovely. It's going to happen. You could already get counseled on Instagram, apparently. We do see that sometimes, don't we, that there's an instant clarity that people get from a new perspective and you don't really actually have to say very much. And it is a wonderful thing where you see people's potential to improve. I've got a specific question for you now before I start rambling. We've talked in previous sessions with people about boundaries and about boundaries of time, particularly, and people's energy levels where the metaphor that been used quite a lot is this treadmill that's going so fast that we may be speeding up, but systemically it's being speeded up around us. What can a stronger human do to avoid that? What could that look like to try to get that boundary better? I really put you on the spot now.

SPEAKER_00: 17:28

Yeah, no, look, I think for me, and I can only really speak from what's come from the coaching I've done and some of the things that coaches have chosen to do differently as a result of maybe walking in the room with with exactly that issue, which is not uncommon at the moment, as I'm sure we'll all testify to. I think there's a couple of things. One is creating space and time to think. There's this kind of thing that I've learned about recently. It's called your salience network. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's a guy called Menon, I think, did the kind of work within that space. And effectively, it's, you know, look, as you can both say, I'm not a neuroscientist, so forgive me for my rather rudimentary explanation of this. Yes, hello.

SPEAKER_01: 18:08

expert

SPEAKER_00: 18:09

yeah yeah no the salience network is the kind of switching process within the brain and and one side of it is is kind of largely uh you know operational and the other side is where the more creative side of things tends to inhabit and you can't use both at the same time and so it's probably the reason why you have your best ideas when you're in the shower walking the dog on holiday or whatever having a swim or whatever it might be if you are fundamentally focused on operational thinking you're doing delivering which a lot of the people I team to coach are, even if their natural bent is to be more creative, they're having to force themselves into that operational space. They're not necessarily creating the time to think, the space to have the kind of more strategic thoughts, the space to do the kind of, excuse the expression, but out of the box thinking. And so one of the things that I encourage people to do is create some space for them where they can not be bombarded and answering emails and on calls and doing X, Y, and Z, and just be with their team or by themselves, and whether that's outdoors, whether that's in a different context or otherwise. Because for me, that salience network is, you know, I recognize it in myself, but I see it that people are in the operational domain 90% of the time. And actually, that's not where you make, you know, the problems that we've got in the world today are not going to be solved there, actually, sadly. They're going to be solved in the other domain.

SPEAKER_02: 19:35

In the shower.

UNKNOWN: 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:37

Wherever.

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

I'd like to go back to something you mentioned, because we've got somebody coming on to the podcast soon called Danny, who's very keen to talk about single session sprint coaching, which is a really interesting thing. I've seen, I've read a lot about it in therapy as well. And it's kind of counterintuitive to say we build rapport, we develop a relationship, we spend time deeply, profoundly helping the person get an awareness of who they are, what their context is. And then we start thinking about changes. And then we suddenly say, oh, we can have these quick interventions. So I'm going to go away and Google single intervention conversations. Can you give us a bit more information about that?

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

Yeah, look, I've heard it said that it can take two to three sessions when you meet someone cold to develop the level of trust and rapport. Some people are better at it. Some people are more open to it. So you could say, well, it's counterintuitive then that you could do it in one session. I think there might be, and certainly motivation will interviewing kind of proves this, that when it's clear why someone's showing up and there's almost a pre-contracting kind of moment and someone walks in with a specific need, then I think you can set about that and together can find a way through. And also sometimes by saying that this is a one off session, it can focus the mind that says we're not going to finish this in session two, three, four or five. It can really focus the mind of both the coach and the coachee. So I think there's got to be a set of things in place for that to happen I think there's some kind of pre-contracting I think maybe on specific topics maybe if the coach is an expert in a particular domain or area maybe that's it but I absolutely can see it now from a business model perspective for a coach you're kind of sitting there going well hang on how does that work because I'd rather sign people into packages actually do you know what it's about what the individual wants and needs and therefore it's you know it's about doing the right thing by them

SPEAKER_01: 21:38

yeah I think I think what you're saying resonates with me because there will be clients who will be phenomenally articulate, really self-aware, and have a really good grasp of what their context is, done a lot of pre-thinking, and then they can come to coaching for that sharper kind of chiseling rather than heavy lifting.

SPEAKER_02: 22:00

So on the back of that, and maybe a little bit tangentially, Rupert, how do you become a stronger human? How does your will evolve? How does the way you do things... How does that evolve to make you a stronger human so you can then be a bigger or better foil or faster foil for the people that you coach?

SPEAKER_00: 22:24

So look, it's a great question because it's no point them turning up wanting something and I'm complete and utter wreck in terms of trying to deliver that or the other side of things. So I think there's a couple of things. Behind the scenes, there's a bit about looking after my physical and mental health and whether that is through sport, through the friends I do through the motorbike tours I go on through the kind of the different things I choose to do outside of work to get myself kind of away that that's one one element the second piece for me is the discipline of reflective practice actually I kind of when I started coaching I didn't really fully understand the value I now do and I can now use that to spot themes see things that I could have done differently or better and also take things into supervision and talk with other coaches that can help support me if I feel like I'm not quite doing it right or something's not working for me at the moment. So I think there's probably an element of the physical and the mental. There's an element of the self-reflection. And then the third element is this idea that you never stop learning. Look, I will never complete coaching. You know, there are so many cul-de-sacs, avenues, courses, things to go on, different types of coaching, different styles. And for me, I've made the call that says I will just continue but beyond, you know, more than just CPD, I will continue to keep learning in this space. And as a result of that, hopefully, all those three things, hopefully I'll show up and do a good job for my clients.

SPEAKER_02: 23:54

I think that's a fantastic answer. I really, really do. And it's really interesting that they seem to be current themes that keep repeating themselves. And I know we had the community of practice last week and that ended up discussing wellbeing. And I know on the first few pod of this that one of the key things Nick and I talked about was that reflection that the bulk standard dead simple tool of plan do review when they get busy the first thing they stop is reviewing and reflect it I think it's really really interesting you mentioned supervision then and and and that within that lifelong learning and again it's something that that we are passionate about as individuals and it's a fantastic foil to have it's the old classic coach coaches the coachee then who can is the coach and and how how does that go about and that's one of the reasons we set the community of practice up was to explore that we work in singularity relatively speaking we do a lot of work and I've seen your schedule over the past couple of weeks and months which seems full-on to say the least you know and you need that release and I don't mean you generally I mean coaches need that release need that downtime but also need that time to reflect and it's kind of where you started on this in that people need time. People need to come in having put one bit down of their work, but come in with an open mind and a freshness. And we need that as coaches. And I think that's a beautiful thing to say and almost confirm that what we're thinking and what we're trying to do isn't far off the mark either.

SPEAKER_00: 25:33

And by the way, as with a lot of things in life, I'm good at saying it. I'm less well at executing it consistently every day, right? So it's a work in progress for me. from that point of view. But I think if you've got those three kind of pillars sitting behind you, at least if you're clear about that, you can notice and spot when things are either going awry or when you need to just take a stop and take a break yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 25:54

Well, what did I get out of that? I love this selfish bit at the end to try and recap what I've got. Well, I've got three really nice CPD ideas for me to Google. Other search engines are available. And I love that because those are things that I haven't read about. And if I have, I may just skimmed it so i'm really interested if it works for you it might work for me i love rupert hearing from a lovely guy like you about these amazing people it's a good reminder that these people are amazing they are innately good and they do have that potential to improve and it reminds me of a maybe a bit of a strange connecting anecdote that when my my gran passed away at ripod age of 85 on the front of her booklet of the service it had a date of but it had a date of where she was born and then a dash and the date when she died. And the beautiful way it was described, it may be very cliche, but it was the first time I'd heard it. And what there was in the middle was this little dash and it's a tiny little dash, but it meant so much. It meant three children, 10 grandchildren, 25 grandchildren, Wimbledon tennis, a husband, two wars, three houses, millions of rose bushes. It was the most beautiful way to take a very small thing and make it mean something. And that ER, when I, Whenever I see your website again, I will see ER. I won't see the cool graphic. I'll just see that word. That's a really great reminder that we are changing people. So thanks, Rupert. Brilliant. Really, really appreciate

SPEAKER_00: 27:24

it. Thank you. Thank you both. Great to meet you. And also a quick shout out. Thank you to Andy who pointed me in your direction. Good guy.

SPEAKER_02: 27:32

Put your arm behind your back and go do it. Go do it.

SPEAKER_01: 27:36

No, good guy. He gets a name call. He's going to

SPEAKER_02: 27:38

love it. Thank you so much. That was a fabulous way to spend time. Thank you.