Susan Ralphs: MY COACHING STORY

Oasis Co-Director Glyn Fussell spoke to Oasis Associate Susan Ralphs about her coaching story and he began by asking her What’s your background and what drew you into coaching?

I spent my early career in the not-for-profit sector and more recently ran a social enterprise.  I’ve enjoyed my career, particularly working in values-based organisations, but in my mid 50s I wanted to do something different and less structured. I have been connected to Oasis for a long time and was toying with the idea of being a coach as part of a portfolio career. An opportunity to participate in an Oasis coaching programme felt like a no-brainer.

I had been coached myself and really felt the value of a non-managerial relationship and a safe space to explore complex issues. Coaching had supported me during some of the most challenging parts of my career. I believed that working as a coach would really play to my strengths, as well as allowing me to have the space and time to go deeper with people – which you rarely have capacity to do as a manager.

What do you love about coaching?

I love the time and space coaching gives you to see the transformation and change that people are able to make for themselves. Most people already have their own solutions, and coaching is partly a dialogue to discover those hidden answers to complex problems. It’s a joy to see how people can choose their own path and see the positive impact on their lives, sometimes through a route which is quite different to what they were expecting. It’s very rewarding to be able to facilitate that.

I have also been doing a lot of walking and talking as a way of coaching. It’s incredible to witness the impact of the movement of walking on the process of thinking. Intractable problems can feel less blocked.   

When you are running a company you very rarely get to see the practical fruit of your labours, whereas in coaching it’s possible to see a much more direct impact. As a manager, your relationship with your staff can be hierarchical and task based, often out of necessity. One thing that appealed to me about the coaching relationship is that it is so different to that, and I found this really refreshing. It gives you the opportunity to focus on the person with more time and greater depth. 

What have you learned about yourself? 

A lot! When I was on the Oasis coaching programme, we were coached to be coaches – that was a great way to learn. We frequently worked in threes in a triangular relationship, with a coach, coachee and observer. So you got immediate feedback on your style from your peers, which was incredibly useful.  I learned how to listen better, more deeply, and to interrupt less. I’ve learned to relax, not try too hard, and enjoy the process  

I’ve learned that I have a tendency to go into mentoring and advisor mode rather than hold back and to help people find their own solutions. This is a challenge for me as people will often choose to work with me because of my past leadership roles, so holding back on that experience can be hard. 

What is more of a challenge? 

I strongly detect in my clients, particularly now during the pandemic, a desire to talk about their business and their organisation rather than themselves. They often have some very practical issues that they want to work on. The balance for me is the extent to which I encourage them to focus on themselves in this context.  I always go back to the contract with clients when they drift and ensure that our focus is on things that are within their sphere of influence and will make a real difference to them.  

I am always curious about why people bring different issues to me and I’m awake to the focus slipping. When people bring practical issues, I’m always conscious of what these imply in terms of the individual and their own sense of their agency.

It can be a challenge to find clients. It can be tough to make a living just out of being a coach. I always recommend people have a range of roles in addition to coaching.

At the moment, I see almost all my clients virtually – whilst this works, it can be slightly more two dimensional. Allowing silence on Zoom, for example, can be more challenging and have a very different impact to how it would be face to face. It’s easier to gauge how people are in person.

I have had to work hard to build my confidence at pushing into some of the more challenging conversations. I have to take a deep breath and believe that I can hold whatever comes out. This is an ongoing area for me to develop. I am working with a brilliant supervisor who has helped me differentiate between what is my own responsibility and the level of responsibility that lies with the client themselves. But I think one of the joys of this work, is that whilst you are working on developing others, you are developing yourself at the same time.

What sort of clients do you enjoy working with?

I really enjoy working with those people that have a reasonable degree of emotional intelligence, who are curious about themselves; are willing to give the time and the space to the process. It’s great to work with people where there are genuine light bulb moments, where it is possible to see the impact and where the coaching is rich and dynamic.

Most of the clients I’ve worked with are senior managers or CEOs who are relatively in control of their own destinies. I understand that context well and that helps. I enjoy working with some degree of diversity.  I find it more difficult when my clients are hampered by their environments, and where the issues they face are systemic and seem intractable. Enabling progress and change in these environments is much harder

What advice do you have for someone thinking of becoming a coach?

Make sure you have some experience of being coached yourself. Enrol on a really good programme, – where there will be a cohort of people who will stretch you and with whom you can connect, and which covers the areas you are most interested in.  Connect with others who are coaches. Get some other work alongside your coaching that is allied. I am an NED Board member and coaching skills are invaluable in this environment. Deep listening and insightful questions are critical skills to have.

Enjoy it! There is genuine joy in learning about coaching, it has a massive impact on your whole life and it’s a great pleasure to keep learning. I am enjoying the next stage in my working life as much as any other parts of my career, but I think that’s partly because coaching builds on those other work experiences.

Get good supervision and develop your own ability to be reflective about your practice and how it’s going. Keep developing professionally and do things that constantly enrich you. There is a basket of strategies, techniques, and theories that you can draw on. For me, it’s important that the basket remains full and that I develop the confidence to know what to use when. 

For information on Oasis coaching programmes click HERE