The Coaching Lens
The Coaching Lens
Hosted by Alan Rapley and Nick Pullan
A behind-the-scenes look at executive coaching with hosts Alan Rapley and Nick Pullan. Join us as we talk to top coaches about how they coach, what drives them, and the philosophies behind their impact. Real conversations, real insights, from real coaches at the top of their game.
The Coaching Lens
Episode 7 - Cheesy Behavioural Breadcrumbs
The Coaching Lens welcomes Danny Leeds, to the weirdly titled 'cheesy Behavioural Breadcrumbs'. We explore how behavioural insight and coaching intuition land in real time. We explore the new world of short-burst, 20-minute coaching sprints and what they do to focus both the coachee and the coach and how a series of sessions works for both parties. A couple of the takeaways - cut out the drama and put it into action; keep solutions future-focused; decrease the noise for everyone and make the next step unmistakably clear.
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SPEAKER_02:Hey, Nick, how are
SPEAKER_00:you?
SPEAKER_01:So we have literally gone full circle in seven episodes. So we're thrilled to have you on board. Would you like to introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Danny Leeds. I'm kind of, my background's really broad and that kind of really shapes how I now work. So my career actually started in education. I was a PE teacher working with young people who were often overlooked or maybe underestimated. And that really set my experience rolling around how when someone really sees you and how behavior change can start with that often having someone who believes in you and having that bit of clarity and not just giving instruction constantly so that's kind of where i probably really started my coaching experience was in that really early start of my career from there moved around a fair bit moved across to the harlequins foundation the charitable arm attached to harlequins rugby club heading up their hits program working with young adults re-engaging them in in education through rugby life skills and mentoring which was really really tough work but it was enjoyable work at the same time and again started to develop and build that coaching philosophy that I kind of kept through my career and then over the last few years since kind of COVID really it's been a lot of coaching moved into business transformation and change management I'm leading a leading strategic initiatives for a UK world child care provider which really started to shift my thinking more towards systems thinking and how we can design some leadership behaviours that scale across kind of a variety of areas across the UK and then in the last few years been delivering leadership and management apprenticeships launched my own strategic advisory group called strategic advisory group where i work with organizations on strategy capability and kind of systems level performance and then the kind of day job really where i spend all of my time and get my big buzz from is my role with 10x managers as head of learning experience and delivery designing kind of high impact learning journeys for brand new managers middle managers senior leaders across a range of sectors so that's kind of the the work we're really. And then for my sins away from, away from the day job, I'm director of rugby at Hazemere Rugby Club as well. So a lot of long-term strategy, coach development, culture building, that kind of thing as well. I clearly have too much time on my hands, chaps.
SPEAKER_01:You've obviously packed in a life's worth of work into a very, very short time. So kudos to you. Kudos to you.
SPEAKER_02:And you look about 27 for the listeners. So
SPEAKER_01:close, Nick.
SPEAKER_02:You're in a very good paper route compared to me and Alan.
SPEAKER_01:You might be our first, when we, when we go to live videos, you might be our first one.
SPEAKER_02:A couple of things that I get from your experience, and I didn't know that, Danny, it's really, really varied, really interesting. I think that's going to give you an interesting perspective. And the other thing I get from it is that I was also a PE teacher. So kudos to you because sometimes we PE teachers who put cones down on the grass and blow a whistle, we can actually turn our hand to other things. So all credit to you.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks very much.
SPEAKER_02:Danny, what we normally do and this is the teacher's recap is we want you to tell us a bit more about yourself and try and use these three lenses anyone who particularly inspired you I'm guessing some of those kids early on did because that was where you first had that spark where you could see that there was something in those children that needed to be done differently to get the best out of them but was anyone who inspired you and do you have any models that you go for or you don't go for and is there a metaphor for your coaching style
SPEAKER_00:yeah absolutely so kind of the end who kind of inspired me probably to step into this coaching sphere was was a was a teacher of mine actually was a PE teacher of mine Dave Spicer still semi in contact with him as well from from all those years before and yet he was an individual who threw me into into sports coaching basically and made me made me learn on my learn on my feet but also helped and guided me and mentored me to be able to ask some really challenging questions when I was kind of 14 15 and supporting others so definitely Dave comes to mind when I was thinking about this particular question and I said yes still in contact with him and he definitely started that journey for me into into coaching as you mentioned Nick that the young people that I worked with early on in my career most certainly guided my my approach now as I said and then finally there's a really good friend of mine a bloke called John who I've known for the best part of a decade now he has very much provided me as as being a sounding board a mentor a guide almost coached me through certain situations as well without him even realizing he's doing it so yeah they're probably the three core inspirators for me really would be my PE teacher John and some of the young people that I've worked with across my early career who have really set that path going for me.
SPEAKER_02:Do you have a model or because various people say different things some say I don't like a model I like to be inconsistent and just play by you know by the skin of my teeth some people will have a definite model they will go to what they will work from how about you do you have anything that you have?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah so when it comes to my approach to coaching and just my life in general. I don't like being rigid and being stuck to one thing or one model. I think as even my career path tells you that, I don't like being stuck in one area. Your CV
SPEAKER_01:must be really long with a lot of bullet points, 18 months, two years, 18 months,
SPEAKER_00:two years. Absolutely. And that's because the experience side of things builds on that. And that's how I approach my coaching style as well. So I'm not someone who sticks rigidly to one model. So the way that I'd probably describe it and look at it is the way that I coach is really really layered so blending kind of a bit of structure intuition some stuff around behavioral insights but there are a few core foundations or key foundations to my approach so i tend to use the grow approach as my backbone so rather than treating it as a checklist like some coaches might do just because it feels safe right to stay in that kind of structure i like to use it as a backbone and it gives us a bit of a clear shape to the conversation you know working through those areas but for me it's about going deeper on the the reality and options phases and really kind of unpicking behaviors understanding stories looking at some blockers so not just setting goals but almost shifting an individual's operating system away from here's how I currently work okay let's what are we what behaviors are we looking to change sort of thing so that's probably where I start with that kind of first foundation I then move into kind of blending it with solutions focused thinking and this is a big part of how I coach it's ultimately it's there to stop people obsessing over what's broken right and just start building from what's already worked working by looking ahead so looking for those strengths the kind of small existing wins that are already there and more importantly in this section for me it's about what are the moments of clarity that we can really scale that we can really hone in on and we can look to push on and move forward with almost keeping people out of the drama and into the driver's seat to get them to where they need to go and then kind of the final part of my methodology if you will or my approach is kind of some behavioral pattern recognition so this is where it's not just listening to what people are saying right we can all kind of going to sit down we can listen but it's tracking how they say it so what's the tone what's the pace what are they repeating what's being avoided understanding the body language so almost the the bottom line of my approach is without sounding too cheesy almost connecting those small behavioral breadcrumbs to the bigger picture so where are they getting in the way what story are they running how is it playing out in their their day-to-day performance and for me by combining all of these three areas it's shifting from unaware behavior to intentional behavior almost going from from autopilot to taking control. And so that's kind of my almost three-step methodology when it comes to a coaching conversation that I'll have with someone.
SPEAKER_02:I love the articulation. Really interesting articulation of that. But you said it was cheesy and you mentioned breadcrumbs so you'd make me hungry for lunchtime. You said small behavioral breadcrumbs. Is that a phrase that you're used to using or is that something that's just come in your head just now?
SPEAKER_00:It's something that I've been thinking about actually over the last few days. I've been kind of playing with some of my coaching bits and pieces this week actually I've had some time to dive into it and just kind of thinking about how I coach and I don't know where it came from it was just something that popped into my mind and that I think I was kind of eating lunch at the same time actually so it might have kind of connected there subconsciously so yeah it's kind of just come into my kind of approach this week really so I'm
SPEAKER_02:going to feed you a metaphor it's a Hansel and Gretel metaphor isn't it because that idea of a story and the part of the story and being finally attuned to it is something that clearly says a lot about you. As you've been talking, you've reminded me about a book, and I'm holding it up for the viewers. It's called More Than Miracles. It's something that I got to through my counselling training. It's called More Than Miracles, The State of the Art of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. Danny, is that something you've read? I
SPEAKER_00:haven't, no. I've just made a note of it, though, so I'll definitely be checking that out.
SPEAKER_02:Everything you're saying seems to to be the executive summary of that book. So that's really resonated with what I learned when I read that book about how we can do things at pace in the right way. So it'd be great to be able to unpick that with you now. So as coaches, we try to avoid bias, don't we? We try to avoid too much going with our gut when actually that's our story and it's not their story. And one of the things I will often do is when I meet someone for the first time, I will write down what I instinctively think their issue is in reddit the bottom of the first page and sometimes steer away from it because often we can strategize conversations can't we but you talk about behavioral insight and about intuition and could you see that that that skill that behavior of the coach is more important in this brief solution focused high impact coaching style
SPEAKER_00:yeah absolutely I think it's pivotal right if we're looking to coach in in those short bursts, kind of the sprint coaching that I've been talking about via my LinkedIn and to you guys as well. I think you have to be really tuned into, okay, what is the key issue here? How are we going to get to that really quickly? And for me, it's about almost creating a sense of urgency and a sense of pressure for the coachee to get right to the bottom of that really quickly, to cut through the complexity, cut through the noise, and really get to the crux of, okay, what are we actually trying to work on here? because those longer style coaching sessions, we can sometimes get stuck in the problem, right? As you mentioned there, Nick. And it's for me, how can we cut through that noise? How can we get clarity? How can we shift the behavior or the mindset blocker that needs shifting? And then finally, what's that impact, the high impact one action you're going to take away and do next?
SPEAKER_01:So how have you learned to do that, Danny? What key skills and behaviors have you evolved in order to pick that up? And then in reality what does that look like what's the length of time and I was just saying to Nick I did a coaching yesterday it lasted for over two hours and I came off it absolutely shattered but it was a brilliant two and a bit hours so what sort of time lengths you use and what sort of frequencies that is at in a you know fitting three or four into a really tight tight time scale because that puts a lot of onus on on the coachee to be available to to digest to reflect to then go again and go again and go again
SPEAKER_00:absolutely so i'll tackle that first question for for you there chaps in terms of how how did i kind of pick up on that kind of process and that method and how did i learn some of those skills and And if I'm honest, trial and error, you know, giving it a go, getting it wrong, reflecting, getting feedback, that classic kind of feedback loop piece really. And then just kind of honing those skills over time, dropping them into kind of the various facets of my life from the rugby club to the day job to the freelance stuff I do, at points even at home as well, to which point my wife tells me to shut up and stop talking about coaching whilst we're eating dinner. So yeah, it was a lot of trial and error to understand, okay, what's going to work? And that's constantly developing right I don't think it's at a point where it's I'm completely happy with my approach and the method and I think over the time it's going to get stronger and better and things are going to change right so it will be a lot more trial and error as well as I move forward in terms of that length piece though so the way that I kind of mapped it out in my head when I started playing with this kind of strategic sprint method is kind of focusing on 20 minute blocks kind of bringing cognitive load theory into it you know after about 20 minutes we tend to switch off so how can we really scale it down and make it focused, direct and behaviour-led. And what I have kind of said to people who have joined this journey with me is it's 20 minutes a week for roughly 10 weeks. So 10 sessions in full. Obviously, that's going to be completely individual dependent. There's some people who are going to want shorter, some people are going to want longer. But ultimately, for me, it was about creating a rhythm of pressure release over the course of five to 10 weeks, having it as a performance check-in, recalibrating some behaviours. The reason why I think it works and I've seen it work is when we're building that pressure we haven't got time to overthink things so we have to move towards action we're also looking to build that momentum and change in real time not just kind of yeah I'm going to do this in four weeks time okay what are you doing in the next week between this sprint and the next sprint really putting that pressure on and it's also that 20 minutes you're there to you've got to respect the energy and the attention in the room for those 20 minutes so there's no chance of filter or waffle it's just it's just focus and that's where we can remain a bit agile through each sprint, right? We have to adapt to what's happening that week. It could have been, you know, a leader having a really difficult conversation with a member of the team that they're struggling to piece together. Okay, let's focus on that. What happened? What do you want to get better at? How can we shift? And for me, it's a method and an approach that is matching the speed of the world that we currently operate in. Everything moves so quickly as we know. So how can we really come back to what actually matters? And that's improving performance through coaching.
SPEAKER_02:Can I ask a question? Has language... always been important to you in terms of your ability to attend to people's language you talk about body language but their words the things they say has that been something that in your career has been something that's been really really important to you
SPEAKER_00:probably more so in the last few years than it was at the start it's something that i've become more attuned to and you know when you build up a coaching relationship with someone you kind of pick up on things that they're saying quite easily or that's what i found anyway but yeah more more so in the last few years that the language piece and not just not just list to hear but listening to really understand okay there's a a bit of a stutter when they're saying this particular phrase or they've repeated phrase x y and z several times through this conversation okay what's really happening here and I suppose that's that's only come into my practice more so as I've really started to formalize my coaching over the last four five years I've gone through the level five coaching professional apprenticeship and and almost broken down everything I thought I knew about coaching and built it back up again so yeah definitely now I'm more conscious of shifts in language as we're having conversations and trying to pick up on maybe that change of tone or the change of pace or even the wording that's being used by the coachee.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. The reason I ask is that the book that I refer to more than miracles, and I'm going to sound really clever here, really academic. It talks about Wittgenstein. There's me dropping a philosopher, psychologist into the conversation. And I have not read any books by that person because I can't speak German. But I know that language features hugely importantly in that kind of psychology and philosophy and in that book More Than Miracles one of the things it talks about is solution focused coaches which it sounds like you are Danny use more regularly the language of the client rather than taking their bias and reforming it into their own phrase and we know that we can paraphrase as coaches and as counsellors and as talking professionals but sometimes we have to use their words because they have real importance and and eminence so it's interesting to hear that you've developed a fine tuning attention to language through your work and I think that's something that resonates with me as well that sometimes I'll say to a client you use this word dedication for example now is that just a word you've used or is that really really the right word or celebration or recognition or reward or notice and that fine tuning of language that's something that I try to attend to sometimes of course it's a dead end and they just use a word without that much conscious thought.
SPEAKER_00:I suppose that's then on us, isn't it? When we go down that dead end, it's about making sure that we then check ourselves and go, okay, we need to pull back here rather than trying to almost flog a dead horse and keep going. Are you really sure? I want to get under this layer a bit more. There's actually nothing there. It's important for us as coaches to check ourselves in those situations and just pull back.
SPEAKER_01:As you're probably aware, Nick and I are cricket fans and play cricket and watch cricket your 20 minutes is kind of paralleling me the development of test match to one day internationals to T20 can you see an evolution in your 20 minutes do we go to an 18 or a 15 do we do super speed do we do you know Usain Bolt level speed or do you think it will go the other way do you think it will go to 25 or 30
SPEAKER_02:well maybe I can just pre what you're going to say Danny because one thing I learned as a teacher I don't know whether you've learned the same thing is the concept of the platinum minute you know you've got a minute sometimes when they first come through the door they traipse in from the corridor having had three other lessons already and you've got a minute to get their attention on what's in it for them what you're going to learn what's going to be interesting how are they going to feel at the end of that lesson you've only got a platinum minute so if we're not careful we're going to be having 21 minute coaching sessions it's going to be a nightmare to all No,
SPEAKER_00:absolutely. I really like the thought process of that kind of evolution of it as well. For me, I can't see myself going any lower than 20 minutes purely because I think you then start to lose some of the impact because then you're having to go so quickly. You're having to dig really deep, really quickly. And I think for me, that 20 minutes is a nice balance between striking enough pressure for performance, but also getting to the crux of an issue. I think if we go any shorter than that, if we went 15 minutes, for example, we're almost in half-time team talk territory, aren't we? And it becomes more of a monologue than a conversation. So for me, I can't see my practice evolving less than 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:It might be the squeezing of the frequency that is the secondary pressure point. So rather than a week in between or 10 days, then it goes to three days or four days and go, right, you've got two days in the what you said you'll go do and we'll come back so it's almost like a pressurized feedback go do and then we'll review
SPEAKER_02:something that really resonates from what you said and again goes back to that more than miracles book is you talked about people not being broken I think you used that phrase and they don't need to be fixed and to take them from you said to take them out of drama into what
SPEAKER_00:was it out of drama into into action something around yeah into action I think
SPEAKER_02:well I really like that because the idea behind person-centered counseling just much like coaching is to say the people in front of me are innately good the people in front of me want to self-actualize they want to get better and the people in front of me perhaps have the right answer and the book talks about times of exception and the exception is in the past when things might have gone wrong they didn't so the conditions were for failure but they you didn't fail so what was it about that past but solution focus is very much about looking forwards yeah and when i when i first went to counseling training i i thought that coaching were pretty much future focused and counseling was quite often past focused and there's there's bits of both those and the belief in counseling is that you heal in the past to move forwards but sometimes in coaching we know we do that and sometimes in therapy we very much look for forward to building coping strategies that work for the future. So I've got a question for you. If people have strengths, if they have this capacity and potential to move forward quickly, is there a risk that the sense of urgency you talk about, which we get in change management, we know there's that in Cotter's seven stages, we know the sense of agency is right up front to get things moving. Is there a chance that it can be overwhelming, biggish problem that's got to be solved quickly, completely could feel quite overwhelming for them even though they have strengths
SPEAKER_00:yeah absolutely and i suppose for me it's it's about being attuned to that and understanding okay what is the size of the problem um and having that really honest conversation with with a coachee going how how big is the problem is it is it something that we can build into this this sprint style of coaching or do we need to adapt the way that we're we're working together and i know throughout this conversation i've spoken about this kind of fast sprint kind of 20 minute block coaching that doesn't mean i'm completely moving away Yeah, absolutely. Not saying that at all. So for me, it's about when we're looking at that piece, if it's overwhelming, okay, let's recenter. Do we have to recontract here what we're actually doing? Do we have to move from this sprint into more of a longer term coaching, traditional coaching relationship? Yeah, it's about being attuned to coaching, what their needs are, and do we need to kind of take a step back?
SPEAKER_02:So with that same method, I suppose, What I'm asking myself now is, are there occasions where I'm used to a 55, 50-minute, one-hour conversation on a regular basis? There's going to be times where I could say, right, 20 minutes, we've done it. Crack it.
SPEAKER_01:And it's maybe within that as well. I know, let's say, in the contracting phase, you'll go away at the end of a session with a list of action plans to go do over the next three, four weeks. And I think sometimes that multiple layer of stuff can confuse the coaching. You forget some of the granular stuff you talked about in the middle all or where the natural conversation went to. And going short kind of keeps you focused, keeps you in the moment, and also gives you less chance of forgetting stuff, if that makes well. And as you say, going away and embedding three, four, five action plans before the next coaching or thinking about it rather than just one or maybe half. And I really liked your phrase about keeping people out of the drama, but also decreasing the noise. think if we go from 10 on the dial to zero that's a really big change that's really whoa hang on i've gone from having this noise to nothing so i think like gently dialing that down point by point or nine to seven or seven to six and a half is is a really nice way of looking at stuff
SPEAKER_00:absolutely and i think that that piece there around cutting through the noise it's also it's it's not switching the noise off completely it's it's understanding okay what noise do we need to be listening to
SPEAKER_01:what needs to be dampened
SPEAKER_00:and what needs to be absolutely yeah so i really like that piece around dialing it down ever so slightly but then tuning into okay do i need to go left or do i need to go right here with um with one for a better phrase so yeah dampening some of those busier noises that aren't going to add as much value and understanding those noises that are adding value and what what needs to be done for me
SPEAKER_01:yeah and it seems to me there are some common themes coming now through through all these episodes of that i think as you said you know we're busy people and you trying to, not you are trying to, but looking at matching the pace of life. And I think that noise goes on a lot longer and a lot louder than it used to, says the old man sat in his chair. But it is that. It's almost filtering out and listening to those noises that you need to listen to and understand the noises that you need to listen to rather than have everything going on and have everything impacting you, making you hyper aware of everything and hyper responsive to everything. I kind of feel that in that hyper response, you actually respond to nothing, but that's just me.
SPEAKER_02:I feel the sense to start to draw us together by sharing what my takeaways are, and I do this every session. I'm greedy and I'm selfish and I want to learn something from you guys that I can take forward. Apart from having the chance to show off and say Wittgenstein, which I'm saying again, which I've been waiting to do for
SPEAKER_01:weeks. writing that all week.
SPEAKER_02:I probably pronounced it wrong, but other German philosophers are also available. I would say that I've taken four things out of this conversation. One is I'm an optimistic person and you're reinforcing that because you see the potential in people and they're not broken to be fixed. And if they can do stuff in 20 minutes working within that kind of cognitive load theory, then that's really optimistic and I like that. So it's reassuring to hear that message you talk about signal and cutting through the noise and that's something that people talk about before and if you are urgently looking for something that really matters there's a great chance that we're going to rather than have a search light looking at information we're going to have a laser there's a metaphor for you Alan I know you love your metaphors
SPEAKER_01:just trip off your tongue don't they I know there's a
SPEAKER_02:consistency bit which is great because what you're talking about really kind of pragmatically is we can be inconsistent with the amount of time that we put into things. Really simple. I love that. I think that's really something I will be taking forward and moving from the traditional one hour when it suits. And I think that the bit about that is quite useful because we've talked about stopping the treadmill for people that are really, really busy. If people who are really, really busy, and I've had a coach, I've had a coach here today who has said, look, you do know that this time we're spending together is time that I've now got to add on to the end of my day, which I kind of get. Then the busy, if busy people can do stuff in a short amount of time more efficiently, then I think that kind of impact could really help motivate them to engage in a great way. So, Danny, can I thank you that you've given me four really nice things there that I'm weaving together from other stuff I've learned and reinforcing what I believe. So, can I really thank you? That was really interesting. I've got loads of things to go and research now.
SPEAKER_00:My pleasure, and I think for me, as coaches, it's in important that we stay curious right and pick up kind of some thoughts from others challenge our own thinking and and kind of have conversations like this so no thank you very much appreciate it
SPEAKER_01:I'll just echo Nick's comment I'm just so thankful you've given up your time with your busy schedule Danny and um and taking the time to come on to here so thank you very very much and thanks to 10 times for releasing you as well for for this time
SPEAKER_00:no it's been an absolute absolute pleasure chaps and uh I've if I've I've got a metaphor to finish with. Oh, go, go. For the way that I see my coaching style. This
SPEAKER_01:will make next week.
SPEAKER_00:So I think for me, and we've spoken a lot around kind of cutting through the noise and the pressure that we face in busy, high performing, high stress environments. And for me, I think my approach is that of a pressure valve, kind of helping people release what's been building up, cutting through that noise, the tension and the pressure to perform. And these 20 minute sprints can just be there to help them re focus and move that energy to what is actually matters so more clarity more confidence and ultimately more control so yeah there you go chaps there's my my method so much
SPEAKER_01:brilliant thanks very much and we'll see you all very very soon
