Vox

Leitura de 53 min

Leading Beyond the Framework 🧭 — with Richard Hughes-Jones

Summary

Richard Hughes-Jones, an executive coach with over 20 years of experience, joins the Refactoring Podcast to discuss coaching tech leaders through periods of rapid change and uncertainty, particularly driven by AI. He explains that while AI represents a major inflection point, the core challenges of senior leadership—ambiguity, complexity, and adaptive thinking—remain unchanged. The conversation explores why his non-technical background is actually an advantage when coaching CTOs and founders, as it prevents getting bogged down in technical details and focuses on higher-order leadership skills.

A central theme is the concept of “post-framework” leadership—the idea that as leaders advance, off-the-shelf models and playbooks become insufficient. Hughes-Jones describes how he helps clients move beyond conventional frameworks to develop their own personalized approaches to leadership. This involves inner work, perspective-taking, working with polarities (like balancing team needs with business needs), and designing “safe-to-fail” experiments to navigate complexity.

Specific coaching techniques discussed include asking powerful questions like “What kind of leader are you now, and what kind do you need to become?” and “Am I trying to be the hero in this story?” Hughes-Jones shares examples from his work with client Tiago Gizzi, illustrating how principles emerge through coaching conversations rather than being universally applied.

The final segment explores Hughes-Jones’ experiments with AI augmentation in coaching. He describes creating custom GPTs with clients that contain session transcripts and context, allowing for pattern recognition and light-touch advice between human sessions. He emphasizes that AI serves as an augmentation tool rather than a replacement for human coaches, particularly for drawing out context, building empathy, and maintaining accountability—areas where human connection remains essential.

Recommendations

Articles

  • Tiago Gizzi and Richard Hughes-Jones coaching article — A collaborative article by Richard and his client Tiago Gizzi about their coaching journey, described as one of the most honest accounts of coaching that explores learnings and principles developed through their work together.

People

  • Tiago Gizzi — Former coaching client of Richard’s who coined the term ‘post-framework’ and collaborated on an article about their coaching journey. He’s been a guest on the podcast previously.
  • Jennifer Garvey Berger — Leadership thinker referenced for her work on adult development and leadership. Richard credits her with the question ‘What kind of leader are you now and what kind do you need to become?’
  • Nick Petrie — Leadership expert who developed the concept of ‘heat moments’—uncomfortable experiences designed to disrupt existing mental models and promote leadership growth.
  • Chris Argyris — Referenced for his theory about ‘espoused theory versus theory in use’—the gap between what leaders say they’ll do and what they actually do in practice.
  • Annie Duke — Decision-making expert whose podcast was referenced regarding the importance of gathering multiple perspectives when making hard decisions.
  • Andy Grove — Former Intel CEO referenced for his insight that ‘snow melts from the edges,’ meaning change is often detected first by those on the front lines rather than leadership.
  • Brian Armstrong — Coinbase CEO mentioned as someone who has shared how he’s using AI, indicating tech leaders are actively experimenting with AI tools.

Tools

  • Custom GPTs for coaching — Richard describes creating personalized GPTs with clients that contain session transcripts and context, allowing for pattern recognition and light-touch advice between human coaching sessions.
  • Intent by Augment Code — A developer workspace for orchestrating AI agents mentioned in the advertisement, designed to solve coordination problems when multiple AI agents are running simultaneously.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to coaching through AI-driven uncertainty — Luca introduces Richard Hughes-Jones as an executive coach specializing in tech leaders. They discuss how AI is creating unprecedented change, but the fundamental challenges of senior leadership remain. Richard explains his background in strategy consulting and government work before transitioning to coaching startup founders and tech executives.
  • 00:05:20 — Advantage of non-technical background for coaching tech leaders — Richard explains why not having a technical background is actually advantageous when coaching CTOs and tech leaders. It prevents conversations from getting pulled into technical details and allows focus on higher-order leadership skills like business communication, strategic thinking, and navigating organizational dynamics. He emphasizes that technical excellence gets leaders to a certain point, but other capabilities are needed for further advancement.
  • 00:09:06 — Common leadership challenges in the AI era — Richard discusses the most common challenges tech leaders face today. While AI creates rapid change and uncertainty, he argues the underlying leadership requirements haven’t changed—ambiguity, complexity, and adaptive thinking are still paramount. The difficulty lies in leaders transitioning from being technical experts with answers to navigating situations where ‘nobody knows anything’ and developing comfort with uncertainty.
  • 00:15:47 — Moving beyond frameworks to post-framework leadership — The conversation introduces Tiago Gizzi’s concept of ‘post-framework’ leadership. Richard explains how leaders reach a point where conventional models and playbooks no longer suffice. He describes coaching as helping clients develop their own personalized frameworks through inner work, perspective-taking, and recognizing that there are no off-the-shelf solutions for advanced leadership challenges in complex environments.
  • 00:19:50 — Working with polarities and safe-to-fail experiments — Richard details specific coaching techniques including polarity work and safe-to-fail experiments. He gives examples like balancing empowerment with directness, or team needs with business needs. Safe-to-fail experiments allow leaders to test approaches in low-risk ways that provide learning opportunities without major consequences. These methods help leaders develop capacity to hold contradictory truths and navigate complexity.
  • 00:32:37 — Powerful coaching questions and principles — Richard shares effective coaching questions like ‘What kind of leader are you now and what kind do you need to become?’ and ‘Am I trying to be the hero in this story?’ He discusses how principles emerge uniquely for each client through coaching conversations rather than being universally applied. The example from Tiago Gizzi’s coaching journey illustrates how questions can uncover deeper patterns and motivations.
  • 00:40:38 — Augmenting coaching with AI technology — Richard discusses his experiments with AI in coaching, particularly creating custom GPTs with clients that contain session transcripts and context. He explains how AI can help with pattern recognition and providing light-touch advice between human sessions. He emphasizes that AI augments rather than replaces human coaching, with the human coach remaining essential for drawing out context, building empathy, and maintaining accountability.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Refactoring Podcast
  • Author: Luca Rossi
  • Category: Business Management
  • Published: 2026-03-06T08:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:51:24

References

Podcast Info

  • Name: Refactoring Podcast
  • Type: episodic
  • Site: https://refactoring.fm
  • UUID: bbde5a30-97fd-013c-9592-0e76ec147af9

Transcript

[00:00:00] And let’s, you know, let’s, let’s face it, even the last month or two have been

[00:00:05] crazy, right, in terms of what’s happening in tech and the, you know,

[00:00:09] this change has been bubbling away as it relates to AI for the last year or so.

[00:00:15] But right now things are really changing.

[00:00:18] But actually I don’t think that all the things that underpin what moving

[00:00:22] into more senior leadership roles has changed.

[00:00:24] Luca here, welcome to a new episode of the Refactoring Podcast, where every two

[00:00:31] weeks we interview a world-class tech leader.

[00:00:34] Today’s guest is Richard Hughes-Johns, a professional executive coach with

[00:00:39] more than 20 years of experience.

[00:00:42] With Richard, we talked about how to coach tech leaders through

[00:00:46] uncertainty and everything that’s going on with AI, how to navigate it,

[00:00:50] how we should think about our role and what it means to step outside

[00:00:54] of the framework.

[00:00:56] We also explored how to leverage AI for coaching, how to blend human and AI

[00:01:01] advice to get the best of both worlds.

[00:01:04] So let’s dive right into the action.

[00:01:08] Welcome Richard, and thank you so much for being on the show today.

[00:01:12] It’s a pleasure.

[00:01:13] Thank you very much for having me.

[00:01:14] Looking forward to this.

[00:01:16] Thank you.

[00:01:16] So Richard, you’re an executive coach to founders, COs and senior tech

[00:01:21] leaders in high growth companies.

[00:01:24] And you have more than 20 years of experience from being a strategy

[00:01:27] consultant to a facilitator and a coach, of course.

[00:01:30] And the occasion to have you here is that we met through our mutual friend,

[00:01:34] Tiago Gizzi, who has been on the podcast too.

[00:01:37] And he’s a former coaching client of yours.

[00:01:41] And you’ve recently written also a great article together about learnings

[00:01:45] from this coaching journey and absolutely loved it.

[00:01:49] I think it’s one of the most honest accounts of coaching I’ve read.

[00:01:52] So I wanted to have you here to explore how you think about coaching

[00:01:58] and many of the themes that you’ve been exploring with Tiago as well.

[00:02:03] Let’s do it.

[00:02:04] Yeah, no, thank you for that.

[00:02:06] The article came out the other week and we’ve had some really good

[00:02:09] response to it.

[00:02:10] I think it’s not often you get to hear a coach and their client kind

[00:02:14] of riff on the work they’ve done together.

[00:02:16] So it was really fun to do that with him.

[00:02:19] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:20] Made me think that we should see more of that if people are willing to.

[00:02:26] So I want to start from the basics that is we have talked to one another

[00:02:30] about a couple of weeks ago and I know that you come from more of a

[00:02:35] strategy consulting background, even government work and not tech

[00:02:40] engineering work.

[00:02:41] So how did you end up coaching CTOs and founders and tech people?

[00:02:47] Good question.

[00:02:48] Right, I’ll give you a very quick cancer because yes, started off

[00:02:52] in strategy consulting, spent about five years in government,

[00:02:56] interestingly, building a big government program and I was part

[00:02:59] of the team that I was the first member of.

[00:03:03] We had to pay a million people, one and a half billion pounds.

[00:03:08] It was this big government program.

[00:03:11] I was the first member of the team.

[00:03:12] By the end, there was about 25 of us on the team and one

[00:03:16] we had a big outsourced contract with Siemens.

[00:03:20] I say that because whilst it wasn’t a tech startup, it was a really

[00:03:24] interesting journey of going from being an early member of a very

[00:03:29] small team or the first member of a small team to creating something

[00:03:33] quite big. I was working at Deloitte at the time and I went back there

[00:03:37] and I knew it was time for a change and I thought, you know,

[00:03:41] how can I take some of these learnings and apply them?

[00:03:44] I started doing some work at Deloitte.

[00:03:45] They were doing some work in the startup space and I thought this

[00:03:49] just looks much more interesting and exciting, quite frankly,

[00:03:53] than corporate consulting.

[00:03:55] So I kind of jumped.

[00:03:56] I did the jump off the cliff, you know, deploy the parachute as you

[00:04:00] falling and work it all out and started working around

[00:04:05] with startup founders.

[00:04:07] I think that journey’s progressed.

[00:04:10] I started working with fairly early stage founders and now work

[00:04:14] increasingly with kind of growth stage and do some corporate work as well.

[00:04:20] But yeah, that was that was that was the background story.

[00:04:24] Hey, if you’re using AI to code, you know the pain.

[00:04:27] Too many terminal pains, multiple agents running at once,

[00:04:31] copy pasting context between them and trying to remember

[00:04:34] which branch has what.

[00:04:36] So the bottleneck is not writing code anymore.

[00:04:39] It’s coordinating the agents.

[00:04:41] And I’ve been trying a new app these days from Augment Code

[00:04:44] called Intent, purpose built to solve this problem.

[00:04:48] Intent is a developer workspace built for orchestrating agents,

[00:04:52] not just running them side by side.

[00:04:54] It starts with the living spec that updates as agents make progress.

[00:04:59] So every task stays aligned with no manual coordination.

[00:05:03] Intent works best with Augment’s OGGie and their context engine.

[00:05:07] But you can also bring Cloud Code, Codex or Open Code.

[00:05:11] Intent is what comes after your IDE.

[00:05:14] Try it for yourself at augmentcode.com slash intent.

[00:05:19] Yeah, I love this.

[00:05:20] And I think one counterintuitive thing is that you would expect

[00:05:26] a CTO coach or a coach of people in tech

[00:05:29] to have a strong technical background.

[00:05:32] And instead, when we when we met the first time,

[00:05:35] you actually told me that you think this is an advantage

[00:05:39] not having it in some cases.

[00:05:41] So walk me through that.

[00:05:44] Yeah, I know it’s not intuitive.

[00:05:46] I think it’s an advantage because it means we when I’m working

[00:05:50] with clients like that, we just we don’t get pulled into that

[00:05:53] technical detail.

[00:05:55] And I think something will come on to a lot

[00:05:58] in this conversation is as you know, as you move through the ranks,

[00:06:03] as you move into those more senior leadership position,

[00:06:07] it’s not being it’s not being the technical expert

[00:06:10] that gets you to the next level.

[00:06:12] So, you know, typically when I when a when a client comes to me,

[00:06:17] when I’m working with a client, I’m not helping them become

[00:06:20] technically better at what they do.

[00:06:22] Like they’ve they’ve reached a point in their career

[00:06:26] where they are technically very good, excellent at what they do.

[00:06:31] You know, no, no one’s questioning their ability to to to do

[00:06:35] to turn up and do their job on a daily basis.

[00:06:37] It’s it’s it’s other things that are holding them back.

[00:06:41] And so because we can’t get pulled into that technical stuff,

[00:06:45] we have this space to work on other things.

[00:06:48] And I think that’s probably one of the biggest factors.

[00:06:51] I think there’s also a relational aspect in that often when you’re moving

[00:06:55] and if you’re a technical, if a really strong technical leader,

[00:06:58] you’re moving to that next stage in your leadership career.

[00:07:02] Actually, you’re you’re interacting more with the business as a whole.

[00:07:06] And you’re so it’s actually, you know, it’s knowing how to have

[00:07:10] those conversations with other members of your senior leadership team,

[00:07:14] other people across the business.

[00:07:15] That’s that’s what that’s what you’re really working on.

[00:07:18] And I and I can kind of be that interface.

[00:07:20] I can be that person that was in those positions

[00:07:23] and understands how those people are thinking.

[00:07:26] So, yeah, yeah, it is really counterintuitive,

[00:07:30] but it seems to work really well.

[00:07:32] Yeah, yeah.

[00:07:33] And I think it all makes sense when you look at it through the lens

[00:07:36] that the technical details at that level don’t matter anymore,

[00:07:41] which is already, I think, a non-trivial realization for many people.

[00:07:46] I mean, it’s the ultimate what got you here won’t get you there

[00:07:50] since we all started our careers in tech by, you know,

[00:07:53] working with computers and writing software.

[00:07:55] So would you say that generally speaking, problems of executives

[00:07:59] and leaders in tech are similar to those in other industries?

[00:08:04] Probably everything becomes a little bit of the same.

[00:08:09] I think it really does.

[00:08:11] I think I think that’s exactly what goes on.

[00:08:14] And so actually, when you’re when you’re working with senior leaders,

[00:08:18] what their background is, is is far less important

[00:08:22] than than what they’re thinking about or how they’re making sense

[00:08:25] of what they need to do next to get to the next level.

[00:08:28] And actually, a lot of the things that they need to be doing

[00:08:31] and the way that they need to be thinking is very universal at that stage.

[00:08:36] And so we are getting into into it.

[00:08:39] And you told me that this is the moment of possibly biggest change

[00:08:45] that you’ve ever experienced in your in your career

[00:08:47] because of everything that’s going on, AI.

[00:08:50] So speaking of these challenges that we have been hinting at

[00:08:55] for senior leaders, especially in tech,

[00:08:57] what what are you finding are the most common challenges

[00:09:02] from the people you work with right now?

[00:09:06] So that’s it’s a good question.

[00:09:08] And you you’d prime me on this.

[00:09:11] And it stood out as one of those was a really good question.

[00:09:15] Because I think things will get into in this podcast about the difference

[00:09:19] between that of technical and what I think of as more adaptive,

[00:09:23] systemic leadership, it would be really easy for me.

[00:09:26] I could give you the technical answer to that,

[00:09:28] you know, in terms of the specific things that leaders are grappling

[00:09:31] with and let’s you know, let’s let’s face it.

[00:09:35] Even the last month or two have been crazy, right,

[00:09:38] in terms of what’s happening in tech and the you know,

[00:09:41] this change has been bubbling away

[00:09:44] as it relates to AI for the last year or so.

[00:09:47] But right now, things are really changing.

[00:09:50] But actually, and again, I think things will come on to.

[00:09:53] I don’t think that all the things that underpin

[00:09:56] what moving into more senior leadership roles has changed.

[00:09:59] Things are the ambiguity still there, the complexity still there,

[00:10:03] all the uncertainty still there.

[00:10:05] Is it happening a little bit quicker right now in this current moment in time?

[00:10:09] Probably yes.

[00:10:10] Like, definitely, yes.

[00:10:12] Are we at some form of an inflection point?

[00:10:14] It would appear so.

[00:10:16] But all the all the things that that leaders need to be

[00:10:20] thinking about and working with in terms of how they develop as leaders

[00:10:26] haven’t necessarily changed, I don’t believe.

[00:10:28] In fact, they’re probably just even more pertinent right now than before.

[00:10:33] Yeah, so can we say that to tie it back to what we said before,

[00:10:37] that AI is yet another of these technical details

[00:10:40] in a way that kind of don’t matter at that altitude.

[00:10:45] I mean, the problems are always the same

[00:10:47] and more about people, more about yourself.

[00:10:51] Can you abstract away from AI really?

[00:10:54] Yeah, yeah, let’s do that.

[00:10:55] So that that is the challenge, isn’t it?

[00:10:57] So the technical leader is the person that has the answers

[00:11:02] and often needs to know the answers or needs to know that they have the answers.

[00:11:07] The situation we’re at the moment is one in which

[00:11:10] nobody knows the answers, but nobody knows the answers.

[00:11:14] Just look at the look at the articles that are flying around.

[00:11:17] Yeah, at the moment, you know, I keep coming.

[00:11:21] No, I’m not the first person to say I forget who it’s by the,

[00:11:24] you know, nobody knows anything.

[00:11:25] And it’s easy, you know, that’s not to be nihilistic

[00:11:28] and say that nobody knows anything at all and we can’t make any predictions

[00:11:32] about where the world’s going or anything like that.

[00:11:35] It’s not to say that, but it is to say that no single expert

[00:11:40] knows what’s going to happen over the next couple of years.

[00:11:42] No one person knows that.

[00:11:44] And, you know, for a leader working within that context,

[00:11:48] that is that is incredibly hard.

[00:11:50] And as you know, as a coach, I’m there to try and support them

[00:11:53] through that process of just helping them try to make sense and understand it.

[00:11:59] Yeah. And I guess so.

[00:12:01] Part of the work is not getting to the answers, but maybe being

[00:12:05] comfortable with this ambiguity that is it’s a fact of life.

[00:12:10] And it’s OK that we don’t know the answers, probably.

[00:12:15] It is. And I think the challenge with this topic is it is quite abstract.

[00:12:20] You know, fundamentally, humans, we’re not wired for uncertainty.

[00:12:25] We want to know where the lions are so that when we come out of our cave,

[00:12:33] if we know where the lions are, then we can avoid them.

[00:12:36] If we don’t know where the lions are,

[00:12:38] then that makes us anxious, nervous and uncertain.

[00:12:42] The challenge is saying to someone, well, just get comfortable

[00:12:44] with uncertainty and ambiguity is that’s that’s

[00:12:49] it’s very easy to say.

[00:12:51] It’s very hard to do.

[00:12:53] It’s really hard to do.

[00:12:54] And it’s also really hard to articulate and explain to someone

[00:12:58] in a conversation like this, because it’s quite an abstract concept.

[00:13:03] What is the most effective way to to help?

[00:13:05] I mean, there is no one way, for sure.

[00:13:08] It depends on the person, the situation.

[00:13:11] But how do you think through this?

[00:13:13] Because you see, I’ve told you like a simple thing,

[00:13:17] like we need to to be more comfortable with ambiguity.

[00:13:22] And you you’re right in in kind of pushing back to this.

[00:13:26] That’s easy to say, but it doesn’t help actually people.

[00:13:29] Right. So as a coach, how do you understand

[00:13:35] what’s the best way to help people navigate in this?

[00:13:38] If there are like baby steps and practical things that they can do?

[00:13:44] Because I do think that there are many things that

[00:13:47] I understand on a rational level that I should think about something in a way.

[00:13:52] But then I don’t know how to get to get myself

[00:13:56] actually believe in that, you know, and embracing that.

[00:13:59] There is a it feels like there is a gap.

[00:14:02] And I don’t know how to bridge that.

[00:14:05] If that makes sense.

[00:14:07] It does. It does make sense.

[00:14:09] I was reflecting, you know, we kind of go on this journey, don’t we?

[00:14:12] Individual contributor, we’re learning.

[00:14:14] We we learn very set things.

[00:14:16] We learn our skills. We learn our craft.

[00:14:18] I start to learn our craft.

[00:14:19] I was a consultant, so I learned PowerPoint.

[00:14:22] I learned Excel.

[00:14:24] I learned how to stand up in front of clients,

[00:14:26] developers, engineers, obviously go on a different path.

[00:14:29] We get to manager and we start to we start learning

[00:14:35] how to give effective feedback and have one on ones and those sorts of things.

[00:14:39] And there’s generally a path towards doing that.

[00:14:42] And there’s all sorts of models and frameworks that we can use to help ourselves.

[00:14:45] By and large, if we do those things and we’re, you know,

[00:14:49] we’re not sociopathic and we’re relatable people and we’ve got the intelligence

[00:14:54] we need to do the job, we will get promoted.

[00:14:57] You know, we will keep working our way through.

[00:14:59] And we get to this point where, you know, we start getting introduced

[00:15:03] to more advanced leadership concepts.

[00:15:05] And, you know, we’re told that we need to think more strategically

[00:15:08] and have more executive presence and that sort of things.

[00:15:12] And these are all things that we do have to do.

[00:15:15] And they’re all really helpful.

[00:15:18] But they still have seen to only get us to this certain point.

[00:15:21] And that’s often when clients come to me and say, look,

[00:15:25] I’m kind of stuck, I’m stuck and I’m confused.

[00:15:28] I don’t know what’s going on.

[00:15:29] I’ve done all these things. I’ve read all the books.

[00:15:33] I’ve followed the playbooks and I’m either not getting to the next level

[00:15:40] or I’ve got to the next level and something’s not landing.

[00:15:44] Like what’s what’s kind of going on?

[00:15:47] And I think, you know, Tiago, Tiago coined this phrase post framework.

[00:15:53] Thank you, Tiago. I like it.

[00:15:54] I would add a slight post conventional framework in there.

[00:15:58] You know, this idea that we’ve we’ve we’ve kind of we’ve done all the right things.

[00:16:04] We followed these models and frameworks and things.

[00:16:07] But now we’ve got to this point where it’s just not working.

[00:16:10] And why is that?

[00:16:12] And it’s because we moved into this position of leadership that is

[00:16:17] that that’s just there is far more complex.

[00:16:19] It is uncertain.

[00:16:20] There’s a lot of ambiguity that we that we have to navigate as leaders.

[00:16:26] We have to navigate personally as leaders, but we also have to take a team

[00:16:29] on this journey through all this uncertainty as well.

[00:16:33] That’s the context.

[00:16:34] Your question was, well, how do you do that?

[00:16:35] And I think, you know, as a coach, the certain

[00:16:39] the theories and the frameworks don’t go away.

[00:16:43] I think they just become more nuanced.

[00:16:45] And there’s things that there’s things that I

[00:16:49] yeah, the conversations I have with clients around how you help them do that.

[00:16:53] So we’ll answer your question.

[00:16:56] What are those things?

[00:16:57] I think it begins with that in inner work.

[00:16:59] And, you know, inner work isn’t just being more emotionally intelligent.

[00:17:04] Inner work is taking the time to

[00:17:08] look inwards, explore deeply what’s what’s going on for you,

[00:17:12] what’s what’s driving you, what’s motivating you.

[00:17:17] You know, what are the changes that that you you think you need to make?

[00:17:21] Coaching is predominantly forward looking, but there’s also, you know,

[00:17:26] we’ve where we are now has come from somewhere.

[00:17:29] It’s been influenced by experiences we’ve had and things we do.

[00:17:34] So there is a piece in coaching around looking backwards to sort of help people

[00:17:38] understand why they think about things the way that the way they think about

[00:17:42] them and why they do certain things.

[00:17:44] So I think that that inner work, it’s certainly been the

[00:17:48] one of the biggest evolutions in my own coaching journey,

[00:17:52] is developing my own ability to to do that deeper work with

[00:17:57] with individuals to help them

[00:17:59] get a better understanding of what’s going on for them.

[00:18:02] That’s one aspect.

[00:18:04] You know, other work I tend to do with clients is around perspective taking.

[00:18:09] And I think that’s I think that’s something pertinent at the moment.

[00:18:12] Andy Grove has that great line about snow melts from the edges.

[00:18:16] You know, if you want to understand where what what change is going on,

[00:18:20] then the person you want to go and talk to is that person that’s

[00:18:23] you know, that might be your junior dev or something is right on the front

[00:18:27] line of what’s going on at the moment.

[00:18:30] And it’s probably more up to date with a lot of stuff than you might be.

[00:18:34] And so it’s working with clients to say,

[00:18:37] you know, to help them get out their own heads, I suppose.

[00:18:40] I was listening to your Annie Duke podcast the other day.

[00:18:42] You know, she said, I want to make a hard decision.

[00:18:45] You need to get out there and get everyone else’s perspective,

[00:18:48] you know, broaden your own perspective by by listening to other people.

[00:18:52] So those are often common themes in coaching conversations.

[00:18:55] I do some quite what I find really interesting work around

[00:19:00] polarities and safe to fail experiments.

[00:19:04] So when we think about we’re talking here about

[00:19:08] because we’re talking about we’re talking about working in complexity

[00:19:11] and not to not to sidetrack.

[00:19:15] But the challenge is where, you know, we’re not the human brain.

[00:19:18] It’s not evolved to work that well in complexity.

[00:19:22] It’s evolved to work quite well in complicated environments

[00:19:24] where we can kind of piece things together and get to the answers.

[00:19:28] But in complexity, we have to we have to work in different ways.

[00:19:32] So, you know, polarity work with clients is quite interesting.

[00:19:36] So give you some examples.

[00:19:38] You know, a polarity is it’s where two interdependent

[00:19:41] but seemingly contradictory states have to have to be held at the same time.

[00:19:47] Yeah, I did some work with interesting work with Tiago around this,

[00:19:50] you know, and he was he was working with this one around

[00:19:53] how do I both empower my team,

[00:19:57] but also be direct at the same time,

[00:20:00] you know, to be leaderly, we’re told that we have to have a strong opinion

[00:20:03] and be direct in terms of what we think.

[00:20:06] You know, another polarity that I had I work with a technical client on

[00:20:10] was the needs of the needs of the team and the needs of the business.

[00:20:15] And that was what was really it was that was holding their leadership back

[00:20:19] because they were they were very focused on the needs of the team.

[00:20:23] And this was causing some kind of deep internal stress.

[00:20:28] Yeah, because of the because of the way in which it linked

[00:20:31] to the values that they held and things like that.

[00:20:34] I stop you here. I stop you here for a minute.

[00:20:36] So it’s the goal you think is to kind of break our mental model

[00:20:40] that this is these things are at odds one another.

[00:20:45] Like we often think about empowerment versus, you know, being more directive.

[00:20:51] And as it is, as if it is like a spectrum

[00:20:55] and you have to decide where to fall on the spectrum. Right.

[00:20:58] Yeah. So you’re saying that this is not a contradiction.

[00:21:02] Just like with the other example, you can or like do

[00:21:06] what’s good for the business versus what’s good for the team.

[00:21:09] So the fallacy is that we think in terms of versus one versus the other.

[00:21:17] I mean, you’ve used the word versus there,

[00:21:19] which is exactly the word to pick up on, because it’s not this.

[00:21:23] It’s not exactly.

[00:21:24] I know why you’ve used it.

[00:21:25] And it’s it’s kind of because it feels like the right word to use. Yeah.

[00:21:30] But these things, it’s not versus.

[00:21:32] So it’s this it’s this either or.

[00:21:36] Yeah. Sorry. It’s this both and mindset

[00:21:39] or either or mindset rather than both.

[00:21:42] And two things can be true at once.

[00:21:45] And it’s it’s developing the capacity

[00:21:48] to hold both of those things at the same time and lean into them.

[00:21:53] Depending on the situation, you know, the context that you find yourself in.

[00:21:57] And often that’s what what comes through the coaching conversation is one

[00:22:02] recognizing that the priorities there in the first place,

[00:22:04] you call these out to people.

[00:22:05] And it’s really interesting because they’re like,

[00:22:07] oh, I couldn’t have named it like that myself

[00:22:10] because they’re just experiencing it.

[00:22:12] But when you call it out, they can see it for what it is

[00:22:16] and then you can explore it with them, which actually leads on to,

[00:22:19] you know, the other one of the other things that we do

[00:22:21] a lot of in the coaching conversations is the safe to fail experiments.

[00:22:26] What are the things that you can go out and try?

[00:22:29] In order to get a better understanding of the situation

[00:22:33] and and so a safe to fail experiment is something that,

[00:22:36] yes, something that you can do.

[00:22:38] And if it doesn’t if it doesn’t go according to plan,

[00:22:42] it hasn’t hasn’t made you look stupid.

[00:22:44] It hasn’t damaged the business.

[00:22:46] Hasn’t it hasn’t destroyed a relationship.

[00:22:49] But you’ve learned something.

[00:22:51] You’ve you’ve got you’ve had that feedback loop.

[00:22:54] You’ve had that faster feedback loop

[00:22:56] that then allows you to iterate and try something else as it relates

[00:23:00] to being a human and a leader.

[00:23:02] All this this stuff is is quite hard.

[00:23:05] And it’s not it’s not necessarily apparent

[00:23:07] when you’re in when you’re in the moment.

[00:23:10] And I think that’s what that’s what that’s what that’s what

[00:23:12] the coaching relationship and space is is there to provide for people.

[00:23:18] Yeah, I think I don’t know if you would agree with this,

[00:23:22] but when when you talked about

[00:23:25] breaking this kind of false dichotomies,

[00:23:28] breaking these polarities and expanding your perspective

[00:23:32] made me think of what you said before about breaking the framework

[00:23:35] and getting past framework.

[00:23:37] Do you think it’s some of the frameworks that we use

[00:23:42] kind of corner us into into a way of looking at things

[00:23:47] that sometimes is limited, right?

[00:23:49] So they serve us well for a while, right?

[00:23:52] But they they create like a simplified version

[00:23:57] of the world where, for example, you know,

[00:23:59] serving the business versus serving the team.

[00:24:03] It’s two things that you need to find a sweet spot.

[00:24:06] And maybe that’s true for a while or, you know, in a simplified version

[00:24:10] that allows you to get from A to B.

[00:24:12] But you get to a point where this is not true anymore.

[00:24:16] And you need to think outside of that box.

[00:24:18] So frameworks don’t serve us well anymore at some point.

[00:24:22] I mean, I could not agree more with what you just said.

[00:24:25] What is a model? What is a framework?

[00:24:27] I mean, you said it’s it’s a simplification of reality.

[00:24:31] That’s that’s what it is.

[00:24:32] It’s reality, so messy, abstracts, confusing

[00:24:38] all those things that.

[00:24:41] The human brain has to sort of wrap some structure around it.

[00:24:44] Now, it’s not to say they’re not useful.

[00:24:46] They are that they’re more than useful, they’re essential,

[00:24:49] because otherwise the world is just it’s just too much for us.

[00:24:52] But they are a simplification.

[00:24:55] And I think, you know, this gets into the

[00:24:58] this is getting into the meat of some of the of the sort of leadership

[00:25:02] shifts that you’re trying to help a client with, which is to say that,

[00:25:07] yeah, if you’re you’re surrounded by all these models and frameworks,

[00:25:10] you’re told that if you follow them, you’ll be successful.

[00:25:13] But you’ve followed them and you’re you’re successful,

[00:25:16] but you’re not getting to the next stage that you want to.

[00:25:19] Or you’ve got there and things still things still don’t feel quite right.

[00:25:25] So what do we do with that?

[00:25:27] Let me just take a step back.

[00:25:29] So I tend to work with clients who.

[00:25:32] There’s different types of clients.

[00:25:33] I tend to work with clients who come to me and we have a really interesting

[00:25:36] we have we have this type of conversation.

[00:25:40] And I think we both come to an understanding that

[00:25:43] and this is back to Tiago’s post framework is that given where they are now,

[00:25:49] there isn’t an off the shelf solution for them.

[00:25:51] There isn’t an out the box.

[00:25:53] There isn’t me telling them, well, you need to go and do these things.

[00:25:57] And you will get your promotion or you will,

[00:26:00] you know, be more effective in the role you’re doing.

[00:26:03] The conversation is around we need to unpack this.

[00:26:06] Like we need to really unpack this, explore it.

[00:26:10] And we’re going to help you develop your own framework.

[00:26:14] And that will draw on all sorts of other frameworks,

[00:26:18] the really good stuff that’s out there.

[00:26:20] But you’re at this stage where, yeah, you can’t just

[00:26:24] you can’t just pull something else in,

[00:26:28] run your run yourself through it and out pops you as an evolved leader.

[00:26:34] We’re going to we’re going to work out what your framework is.

[00:26:36] So that’s that’s one aspect of the work.

[00:26:39] Now, depending on where someone’s at, that doesn’t always land

[00:26:44] because we’re back to we’re back to uncertainty.

[00:26:47] It’s when someone tells you

[00:26:50] that there’s a framework to get you to the next level.

[00:26:53] That’s very it’s very reassuring.

[00:26:55] It’s like, ah, right.

[00:26:56] OK, this this has happened before.

[00:26:58] There’s somebody else who’s been in my shoes and worked this out.

[00:27:02] So if I follow this and I do the right things, I’ll get to the next stage.

[00:27:06] That you know, that that feels good.

[00:27:09] If someone says to you, well, this is all quite nuanced and abstract,

[00:27:14] isn’t it like the world’s a very complex place?

[00:27:17] You’re at a stage where you need to work it out for yourself,

[00:27:23] drawing on all that rich wisdom and wonderful stuff that’s out there.

[00:27:27] Yeah, that’s not so cozy.

[00:27:29] That’s like, oh, this sounds like hard work.

[00:27:33] Yeah. And I want the answer.

[00:27:36] And I think, you know, getting but I don’t know.

[00:27:40] Hopefully, that’s a slightly less abstract way of of of explaining

[00:27:45] this sort of the shift that you’re trying to help someone make.

[00:27:49] And honestly, you know, people walk away at that point and they say,

[00:27:53] well, no, I’d rather go somewhere else and find the solution, as it were.

[00:27:57] But but lots of people don’t.

[00:27:59] And we go into these wonderfully rich coaching conversations.

[00:28:03] Yeah. You know, I’m trying to I’m trying to, you know, think

[00:28:11] trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who’s working with you.

[00:28:13] And I’m thinking, if you told me these things about my own

[00:28:18] like issues and things I told you how I would feel and I agree,

[00:28:23] I would feel kind of uncomfortable.

[00:28:25] And so I while you were answering, I I tried to ask myself,

[00:28:29] what is it something that would make me less uncomfortable about this situation?

[00:28:34] And that’s probably if I felt like there is,

[00:28:39] OK, maybe there is not a framework for model properly my own situation,

[00:28:43] but maybe there is kind of and I have to create this framework

[00:28:46] for myself together with you, together with my coach.

[00:28:49] But maybe there is kind of a meta framework.

[00:28:52] I don’t know, some kind of the set of questions I can ask myself

[00:28:56] to figure out how to create that framework or something like that.

[00:29:02] I think there are ways and means and tools and techniques

[00:29:05] of helping someone get there, which is which is

[00:29:09] which is some of the things we we talked about around,

[00:29:15] you know, these helping people

[00:29:19] work with polarities, helping people try these safe to fail experiments.

[00:29:23] There’s just, you know, going back to models, the theories here,

[00:29:27] the theory here is really interesting as we think about as it pertains to

[00:29:32] sort of mastery and development.

[00:29:33] People do get trapped with their models because if the model works well,

[00:29:37] then why would we want to?

[00:29:39] Why do we why do we want to shift to a different model?

[00:29:42] There’s some really interesting work around a guy called Nick Petrie,

[00:29:45] who’s a leadership expert, calls them heat moments.

[00:29:50] And actually, what you want to do is expose people to heat moments.

[00:29:55] And those are moments that are uncomfortable by design,

[00:30:00] because when we’re in, when things are comfortable,

[00:30:03] our models are they’re kind of working, they’re doing their job.

[00:30:07] They’re helping us make sense of the situation,

[00:30:10] which is what they’re designed to do.

[00:30:13] But when we shift into positions of discomfort,

[00:30:16] that’s when we realize that our current models,

[00:30:20] they’re not working because they’re not helping us make sense of that reality.

[00:30:24] And so where that’s when our models get disrupted and we we our brains

[00:30:30] generate new ones, they generate new models that help us

[00:30:33] make sense of this new reality that we’re in.

[00:30:36] So, you know, part of the reason of doing things like self safe

[00:30:40] to fail experiments with getting clients to do safe to fail experiments

[00:30:45] is to try and nudge them into these different realities.

[00:30:49] And, you know, I think as a as a point for anyone

[00:30:52] generally thinking about their career development,

[00:30:55] it is how do I push myself into these situations

[00:30:59] that we want to be stretched the right amount.

[00:31:02] We don’t want to be you don’t want to be too stretched.

[00:31:04] Otherwise, you just you know, you break down, you you burn out,

[00:31:08] you know, whatever it is.

[00:31:10] But you need to be pushed enough to make you

[00:31:14] change the way that you’re thinking about those situations that you’re in.

[00:31:18] I think it’s a great skill to being able to take something

[00:31:23] that is uncomfortable for you, like some kind of change in how you

[00:31:29] you do things and extract

[00:31:32] a very small first step that is meaningful,

[00:31:37] but doesn’t feel as stressful or or design a small journey.

[00:31:42] Right. I think it’s a very important ability.

[00:31:47] Yeah. And I think as a coach, you know, what you can do is you can

[00:31:50] you can listen, empathize to people’s experience, try and understand

[00:31:56] what’s going on for them.

[00:31:58] And that’s where, you know, coaching isn’t about telling people what to do,

[00:32:01] but you can make suggestions around things that they might go and try

[00:32:05] that they’ve not thought of themselves, that they can go and try

[00:32:09] that will help nudge them into those situations

[00:32:13] in which they learn more about the situation generally.

[00:32:16] But also they they learn more about themselves as well.

[00:32:18] They learn about how they respond and react to it.

[00:32:21] And by the way, I’m I’m thinking also at the work you’ve done with Tiago,

[00:32:26] which we will link the article in the show notes for everybody to see.

[00:32:30] And I love how he extracted these principles

[00:32:35] and he framed them as questions.

[00:32:37] And I remember a few of them.

[00:32:40] And for example, I think there is a question that is like,

[00:32:43] am I trying to be the hero in this story?

[00:32:45] And is that actually helping?

[00:32:47] And I thought, wow, this is such a great question.

[00:32:50] I should ask that myself not just once, but, you know,

[00:32:54] remember to ask that to me once a quarter or something like that.

[00:32:59] And it’s just great to be able to I think

[00:33:03] if we get to a leadership position, I take it for granted that you do already

[00:33:07] a lot of introspection and thinking about what you should do.

[00:33:12] It feels great to be able to surface like great questions

[00:33:17] that genuinely uncover ideas and parts about your work

[00:33:22] and yourself that you had not thought about.

[00:33:25] Yeah, I mean, that the is it worth with with Tiago’s permission?

[00:33:29] Because I have asked him and check, you know, this this

[00:33:32] am I trying to be the hero?

[00:33:34] Because I think that yeah, that was an interesting one

[00:33:38] in terms of it.

[00:33:39] Where did that come? You know, where does that come from?

[00:33:42] And actually, I think that talks to being the technical expert,

[00:33:46] being the person with the answers, being a person that

[00:33:50] and Tiago writes about this in great length.

[00:33:53] So do read his article.

[00:33:56] But, you know, being the person that gets the job done,

[00:33:59] gets to the answers, is busy, is running around.

[00:34:03] I think he refers to it as a, you know, it’s a badge of honour.

[00:34:06] And it makes you feel good and you feel like it

[00:34:09] that others must be looking at you and thinking, gosh, this, you know,

[00:34:12] this this person works, works really hard.

[00:34:16] Yeah, actually, you know, and we all we all we all

[00:34:20] tell our own story.

[00:34:21] You know, we we create our own stories in our own heads as well.

[00:34:24] And that actually, you know, one of the one of the big pieces

[00:34:28] of work I do with leaders.

[00:34:30] Is obviously exploring if there is something like that

[00:34:35] hero mentality there, but also trying to help them find time

[00:34:39] to not be the busiest person in the room running around.

[00:34:44] There isn’t one senior leader I’ve worked with

[00:34:47] or successful senior leader I’ve worked with who isn’t

[00:34:49] finding themselves, you know, time in the week to do the more reflective work.

[00:34:55] Now, there’s probably a little I think there’s a little bit

[00:34:58] of the risk selection bias in coaching, because you only experience

[00:35:00] the people that come to you.

[00:35:03] For coaching, but, yeah, just exploring, exploring these

[00:35:07] these things that we tell ourselves, these this these things

[00:35:10] that are going on at a deeper level, putting them,

[00:35:13] helping someone put them into words and then over time,

[00:35:17] you know, those those principles always emerge

[00:35:20] over over a series of conversations.

[00:35:22] They don’t they don’t come out right at the start.

[00:35:24] And, you know, my job as a coach is to help observe,

[00:35:28] reflect those back and and and draw them out of people.

[00:35:33] But again, it, you know, it takes us into this place of saying.

[00:35:38] That there isn’t six, those those those principles aren’t universal.

[00:35:43] Yeah, every every person you work with will have a different set of principles.

[00:35:49] Will there be themes?

[00:35:50] Of course, of course, there will be, you know, absolutely.

[00:35:53] But they will all be unique.

[00:35:56] Yeah. Speaking of themes.

[00:35:58] So would you say there are even though each one has a different

[00:36:02] combination of these questions and themes they need to explore

[00:36:05] based on their strengths or weaknesses and situations.

[00:36:08] Would you say there are some usual suspects

[00:36:11] or some questions that

[00:36:15] are proven to to be helpful many times for many engineering leaders?

[00:36:20] The first ones that you’re thinking when you’re working with customers

[00:36:24] to uncover more of their reality.

[00:36:28] Yes, there’s a question I love asking,

[00:36:30] which I will credit to a lady called Jennifer Garvey Berger,

[00:36:33] who does some wonderful thinking around leadership

[00:36:37] and how adults develop generally.

[00:36:42] Which is to ask

[00:36:45] what kind of leader are you now and what kind of leader do you

[00:36:48] do you do you need to become?

[00:36:50] Because it’s just a really good way of getting people to

[00:36:54] to sort of take that snapshot of well, what am I?

[00:36:57] You know, how am I leading now?

[00:36:59] What am I doing when what is working and what isn’t working?

[00:37:05] But then to reflect and recognise that there’s a shift,

[00:37:09] there’s a growth there, there’s things that need to change.

[00:37:15] And what are those things that need to change?

[00:37:17] What is going to make me the person that I need to be?

[00:37:21] I think with Tiago, one of the principles we had was

[00:37:25] how would an experienced CTO navigate this?

[00:37:30] So that’s part of the perspective shifting as well.

[00:37:33] You just often think of coaching as imagine,

[00:37:37] you know, you’re standing there and it’s night, you know,

[00:37:40] and you’re you’re shining a torch at something

[00:37:43] and you only see what’s in the light.

[00:37:45] But actually, there’s the stuff all around it.

[00:37:47] And as a coach, you’re just you’re just shining the torch around

[00:37:50] to try and uncover things that someone’s not seen

[00:37:55] or thought about before that perhaps they didn’t even know were there.

[00:37:58] And that and that’s that’s that’s the process that you go through.

[00:38:01] So that’s a question that I often ask people on,

[00:38:05] you know, early on in our coaching relationship,

[00:38:07] because it just it frames it really gets them thinking

[00:38:11] and it frames any work that we we might then do together.

[00:38:15] So I go through my own coaching journey.

[00:38:17] Some of these questions just just tend to come out of my mouth.

[00:38:21] And I’m never quite sure exactly where they’ve come from, which,

[00:38:25] you know, I’m led to inform.

[00:38:28] I’m led to think that that means I’m doing my job relatively well.

[00:38:32] But but but no, I think, you know,

[00:38:34] the fact that you have to think about this,

[00:38:37] I think it’s 100 percent coherent with what you said before.

[00:38:42] That is, we need to think post framework. Right.

[00:38:45] It’s not it’s not that easy that your job is to look at a set of questions

[00:38:50] and just ask them to everyone.

[00:38:53] And so it makes a lot of sense.

[00:38:55] But anyway, that the question about leaders, the leader

[00:38:59] we are right now versus the one that we aspire to be, it’s very

[00:39:03] I think it’s very important.

[00:39:05] I will ask that myself from from time to time.

[00:39:08] Perhaps a good way of framing this is to say that Tiago

[00:39:13] called out that I had asked him that I didn’t necessarily realize

[00:39:17] at the time I’d asked him, but I think as

[00:39:22] as we were talking about, I think it was delegation,

[00:39:24] you know, asking someone why they don’t why don’t you delegate

[00:39:29] can lead to quite a quite a protective response.

[00:39:33] Asking someone hard about delegating.

[00:39:37] Leads to a very different response.

[00:39:40] And, you know, I think really this this is this this stuff’s

[00:39:43] the heart of goes to the heart of what what can really help clients

[00:39:48] on as they go on these leadership.

[00:39:51] Transitions, transformations, because it helps them really get under the skin

[00:39:55] of of what’s what’s going on and what’s holding them back

[00:39:59] in a way that some, you know, some of the more

[00:40:03] the more straightforward, if you like, traditional approach to coaching,

[00:40:06] which is just predominantly forward looking.

[00:40:09] Doesn’t necessarily drive the same level of most.

[00:40:13] You know, what’s the word reflection?

[00:40:14] So I wanted to use the since we are talking about coaching,

[00:40:18] I wanted to use the final segment of the interview to explore

[00:40:22] something that I know you’re experimenting with, that is

[00:40:26] using AI to do some some such coaching.

[00:40:30] So how are you thinking about this?

[00:40:32] How do you think I can help with coaching leaders and with your work?

[00:40:38] Gosh, right. So I would I would be very clear from the start

[00:40:41] and say that in terms of using AI at a at a at a basic level of tech.

[00:40:48] But I think it’s more about what it can do and how it can help the client.

[00:40:53] The coach, let me just let me just contextualize this by saying

[00:40:57] that the the coaching industry is fairly traditional and quite old school.

[00:41:01] So the role that I can play in.

[00:41:07] Coaching brings up a lot of feelings for people and opinions, shall I say,

[00:41:13] even just the idea of recording a call that there can be a lot of opposition to that.

[00:41:19] I’ve been really lucky with the type of clients I work with because they are

[00:41:23] because I work in in tech.

[00:41:26] When you say to someone, hey, would you like to experiment with AI?

[00:41:31] The answer is hell, yeah.

[00:41:34] Like, of course, why?

[00:41:35] Why would we why would we not use this stuff to help?

[00:41:40] Why are you even asking? Yeah.

[00:41:41] Why are you even asking, et cetera?

[00:41:43] But I can say, you know, it does bring up very different responses for other people.

[00:41:48] So I just wanted to put that put that in there.

[00:41:50] This started just with building some GP, the GPTs with clients

[00:41:54] and putting notes into them so that they’ve got

[00:41:57] they’ve got that repository there to go back to.

[00:42:01] You know, I think in the in the most in its most basic form.

[00:42:06] You speak to your coach every couple of weeks, three weeks, whatever it is.

[00:42:11] If you’ve got those transcriptions there in in,

[00:42:15] you know, just with a basic setup.

[00:42:18] It starts to know you, it starts to know

[00:42:21] what you’re thinking about.

[00:42:22] I did some quite cool stuff with one client where we

[00:42:25] we did a little kind of baseline survey about

[00:42:29] who they were, what they wanted for their business,

[00:42:32] what they wanted for their life in the next five years.

[00:42:35] So, you know, whilst whilst it’s not there

[00:42:38] to necessarily help you make judgment calls, it can do it.

[00:42:42] It’s got that context.

[00:42:45] I think it’s going to be really interesting.

[00:42:47] So that’s how I’ve been using it with clients

[00:42:50] in its most straightforward form.

[00:42:52] The pattern matching that you can do,

[00:42:54] the reflecting that you can do are fantastic.

[00:42:57] And then your clients use these custom GPTs

[00:43:03] to get like lighter advice with respect to the deep sessions

[00:43:08] that they have with you, like everyday advice.

[00:43:10] They can ask questions and so on.

[00:43:14] Yeah, exactly.

[00:43:15] And it’s got it’s got all their content, it’s got all their context.

[00:43:18] And it’s something that I can go back into as a coach.

[00:43:20] And, you know, it’s more than just check in on, well,

[00:43:22] what did we talk about last session?

[00:43:24] But it’s, you know, it is it is so much more powerful than humans.

[00:43:29] We’re pattern matching machines and we’re very good at seeing patterns.

[00:43:32] But we’re not as good as an AI.

[00:43:34] So for things like that, you know, you can for reviewing someone’s year

[00:43:39] and helping them think about that and just surfacing things

[00:43:41] that you’ve not necessarily seen.

[00:43:44] What I’m what I’m also really interested in is what it

[00:43:46] what it will be able to do, you know, what it can do now.

[00:43:49] I’m not I’m not advanced in terms of what I can build

[00:43:53] from a tech perspective.

[00:43:55] But there are people out there that can, you know,

[00:43:58] what will it be able to do in three, six months time?

[00:44:03] Let alone a year or two.

[00:44:04] I think it’s going to be really I think the coaching industry is in

[00:44:08] for some big changes over the next few years, like like every industry.

[00:44:11] But yeah, it’s going to be really interesting.

[00:44:14] And I just wanted to make sure that I was getting on the front foot of it

[00:44:18] as a as a as a non techie.

[00:44:21] You know, there is there is this whole narrative

[00:44:23] that the people who are going to to benefit the most from AI for their lives

[00:44:27] is the ones that are going to be able to share the most context with it.

[00:44:32] Right. About about their work, their lives.

[00:44:34] And I believe that’s absolutely true.

[00:44:38] I also believe it’s not easy in many cases,

[00:44:42] because what does it mean to share context?

[00:44:45] How do I pull things out of my head

[00:44:49] about this or that thing that happens in my life?

[00:44:51] And I think especially about these topics and themes,

[00:44:56] the role of the human coach, even in a scenario in which AI takes over,

[00:45:02] AI does most of our job is going to be an incredibly important one

[00:45:06] where you are an expert who is able to to get information

[00:45:11] and feelings and ideas out of the people’s heads.

[00:45:15] You know, like, you know, what like a biographer, right?

[00:45:17] What does a biographer do?

[00:45:19] They ask questions to get that kind of information.

[00:45:23] And the AI can benefit a lot from that and as humans too, of course.

[00:45:29] I think you’re right.

[00:45:30] And I think for the time being, at least, that is where I could imagine

[00:45:35] a world where, you know, say, yeah, you don’t speak to your human coach

[00:45:39] every other week like you did before,

[00:45:42] but you speak to them maybe six or eight times a year.

[00:45:46] Yeah, because that is that the AI needs that context

[00:45:53] and where we’re at at the moment, the human

[00:45:57] is still the best medium, if you like, to

[00:46:03] have that conversation with the client.

[00:46:07] Yeah, to help draw that out of them, put it into the AI

[00:46:11] and then let it do its thing and that

[00:46:14] my whole philosophy around AI and coaching

[00:46:20] is augmentation, you know, it’s not replacement.

[00:46:23] It’s not how does I replace the human coach, which is what

[00:46:27] when you talk about AI and coaching, it’s interesting.

[00:46:31] A lot of non AI people just assume you’re talking about the AI

[00:46:34] doing the coaching. Yeah.

[00:46:36] You’re like, no, well, well, well, no, that’s not I’ve been

[00:46:39] experimenting with it for a year plus now.

[00:46:43] Never once have I used the AI to do my coaching.

[00:46:46] I’ve used it to help me and my clients

[00:46:50] get a better understanding of of what’s going on for us.

[00:46:54] And it’s I’m trying to sort of remain neutral,

[00:46:58] but it’s a really powerful tool.

[00:47:00] And I think I’m really keen to keep exploring how it can be used.

[00:47:05] Yeah, I think that a good way of looking at it

[00:47:09] is not necessarily at

[00:47:13] what the surface that is about skills, but more about that,

[00:47:18] which is I think it’s inevitable that our own the frontier

[00:47:22] between our own skills and those of the eyes going to restrict

[00:47:26] in favor of AI more and more.

[00:47:27] But more about what are the unique human

[00:47:32] factors that we are bringing on the table with our job.

[00:47:35] And to me that I’ve done some coaching in the past.

[00:47:40] There are elements of empathy and accountability

[00:47:44] that you build with the clients you work with that are just not there with AI.

[00:47:50] So they bank on us being human and sharing our challenges.

[00:47:56] And I don’t see even in a world in which, you know, worst case,

[00:48:00] the AI is perfectly capable of understanding all of these problems.

[00:48:05] I just don’t see it being just as effective.

[00:48:08] Right. Because of what bonds us as humans.

[00:48:12] But I might be wrong, of course.

[00:48:14] Yeah. Well, again, so we’re in this world of nobody knows, do they?

[00:48:18] And I’m not at the frontier of AI enough to know what it

[00:48:22] what might be in development now.

[00:48:24] I know, you know, I know that even now it can do more,

[00:48:29] you know, from just from the videos.

[00:48:31] It’s getting better at being able to do

[00:48:35] reading emotions and that sort of thing.

[00:48:37] But I perhaps it’s perhaps it’s as much a hope

[00:48:42] that we retain that human element,

[00:48:46] because if we don’t, then that feels even more scary.

[00:48:49] I I’m just not sure.

[00:48:51] But it’s certainly there was a good clip of Brian Armstrong

[00:48:54] the other day, Coinbase CEO, talking about how he’s using AI.

[00:49:00] And I’m keen to explore it with with with more clients as well,

[00:49:05] because I think there’s just a quick snippet.

[00:49:09] There’s a there’s a theory by a guy called Chris Aguirreis.

[00:49:14] He talks about espoused theory and theory in use.

[00:49:20] So when you’re working with a leader

[00:49:22] and you have that coaching conversation and they

[00:49:25] you talk about what you’re going to say at the next board meeting or town hall.

[00:49:30] I think his research effectively suggested that almost every time

[00:49:34] the person what doesn’t do what they said they were going to do.

[00:49:38] Yeah, obviously, now AI, if you’ve got the transcriptions

[00:49:41] of that coaching meeting and recorded the call

[00:49:44] and you’ve got the town hall or the board meeting.

[00:49:48] Then that opens up a whole new.

[00:49:52] They mentioned, you know, all

[00:49:56] permissions, confidentiality, you know, all dealt with appropriately.

[00:50:01] But if you’ve got that information, that opens up a whole new

[00:50:04] coaching conversation that you can be having with a CEO, CTO or whoever.

[00:50:10] I think the use cases are there’s a lot of use cases

[00:50:14] that we haven’t even necessarily thought of yet.

[00:50:17] Interesting times.

[00:50:19] Interesting times and exciting times.

[00:50:22] Yeah, that I’m an optimist.

[00:50:25] So I want to I really think we’ll use this for to to be more effective

[00:50:30] and to do better work.

[00:50:32] So I’m excited to see what’s next.

[00:50:35] I’m I’m I’m being I’m going to be an optimist with you.

[00:50:38] I’m trying I’m trying I’m trying.

[00:50:40] Some days I some days I slip into a bit of pessimism,

[00:50:43] but generally I’m an optimist.

[00:50:45] Yeah, yeah, me too.

[00:50:46] They say thank you so much, Richard.

[00:50:49] It was a great chat.

[00:50:50] And thank you so much for coming on the show.

[00:50:53] It’s been an absolute pleasure.

[00:50:55] Thank you very much. Thank you.

[00:50:58] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:51:00] If you found this chat valuable, you can subscribe to the show

[00:51:04] on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.

[00:51:09] Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review,

[00:51:12] as that really helps other listeners find the show.

[00:51:16] You can find all past episodes and learn more about the show

[00:51:20] at refactoring.fm.

[00:51:22] See you in the next episode.

VisĂŁo de grĂĄfico

Backlinks