Episode #52 ~ Coaching Supervision in Organizations with guests, Jeff Nally & Kimcee McAnally
May 30, 2023
Garry Schleifer
In this interview, we talk with Executive Coaches, Jeff Nally and Kimcee McAnally who are the authors of an article in our March issue “Journey to Excellence” entitled: Coaching Supervision in Organizations ~ A game-changer to improve the impact of coaching.
The thought of working with an experienced coach to support leaders is a well-accepted practice across corporations and industries around the world. Leaders readily engage with coaches during leadership transitions, challenging situations, and to enhance their own skills as leaders in their organizations.
But who takes care of and develops the coach? Often times, coaches are independent and run their own business, fending for themselves when it comes to their own self-care and personal development. Coaching supervision is a well-established practice in many parts of the world to support the coaches themselves as they coach organizational leaders.
The purpose of coaching supervision is to enable coaches to introspectively look at themselves, how they coach, and about their professional health as a coach. As a result, coaches are better able to develop and enhance their own skills so they can better support the leaders and organizations. According to a 2021 publication, “The role of the supervisor is that of a supporter… in the professional development journey and not that of an assessor” (Hemmer et al.)
In this podcast, we will discuss supervision – how it works, the benefits, and how to incorporate coaching supervision for yourself as a coach, or in an organization.
Dr. Kimcee McAnally is an accredited Coach Supervisor and Partner at CoachSource. Her background includes extensive executive level business experience; academic qualifications (Ph.D. & M.S. in Organizational Psychology, B.S. in Psychology); coaching certification (EMCC European Individual Accreditation/EIA Senior Practitioner), and accredited Coach Supervisor (EMCC ESIA European Supervision Individual Accreditation). Kimcee is passionate about coaching and supervision and contributes to the industry through research, publications, and conference presentations. Kimcee co-authored the book, "Executive Coaching for Results: the Definitive Guide for Developing Organizational Leaders," published by Berrett-Koehler and recent chapters in “Innovations in Leadership Coaching” and “Coaching Supervision: Voices from the Americas.
Jeff Nally is an executive coach, coaching supervisor, and professional speaker inspiring leaders and coaches through the neuroscience of human interaction. He is the Chief HR Officer and Chief Coaching Officer at CoachSource, the world’s leaders in experienced executive coaches. Jeff led the executive coaching practice at Humana and co-authored Rethinking Human Resources, Humans@Work, and Coaching Wisdom with coach colleagues. He is a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation and is a Senior Certified Professional through the Society for Human Resource Management. He earned an MBA from Georgia State University.
Join us as we learn more about coaching supervision for yourself as a coach, or in an organization.
In this interview, we talk with Executive Coaches, Jeff Nally and Kimcee McAnally who are the authors of an article in our March issue “Journey to Excellence” entitled: Coaching Supervision in Organizations ~ A game-changer to improve the impact of coaching.
The thought of working with an experienced coach to support leaders is a well-accepted practice across corporations and industries around the world. Leaders readily engage with coaches during leadership transitions, challenging situations, and to enhance their own skills as leaders in their organizations.
But who takes care of and develops the coach? Often times, coaches are independent and run their own business, fending for themselves when it comes to their own self-care and personal development. Coaching supervision is a well-established practice in many parts of the world to support the coaches themselves as they coach organizational leaders.
The purpose of coaching supervision is to enable coaches to introspectively look at themselves, how they coach, and about their professional health as a coach. As a result, coaches are better able to develop and enhance their own skills so they can better support the leaders and organizations. According to a 2021 publication, “The role of the supervisor is that of a supporter… in the professional development journey and not that of an assessor” (Hemmer et al.)
In this podcast, we will discuss supervision – how it works, the benefits, and how to incorporate coaching supervision for yourself as a coach, or in an organization.
Dr. Kimcee McAnally is an accredited Coach Supervisor and Partner at CoachSource. Her background includes extensive executive level business experience; academic qualifications (Ph.D. & M.S. in Organizational Psychology, B.S. in Psychology); coaching certification (EMCC European Individual Accreditation/EIA Senior Practitioner), and accredited Coach Supervisor (EMCC ESIA European Supervision Individual Accreditation). Kimcee is passionate about coaching and supervision and contributes to the industry through research, publications, and conference presentations. Kimcee co-authored the book, "Executive Coaching for Results: the Definitive Guide for Developing Organizational Leaders," published by Berrett-Koehler and recent chapters in “Innovations in Leadership Coaching” and “Coaching Supervision: Voices from the Americas.
Jeff Nally is an executive coach, coaching supervisor, and professional speaker inspiring leaders and coaches through the neuroscience of human interaction. He is the Chief HR Officer and Chief Coaching Officer at CoachSource, the world’s leaders in experienced executive coaches. Jeff led the executive coaching practice at Humana and co-authored Rethinking Human Resources, Humans@Work, and Coaching Wisdom with coach colleagues. He is a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation and is a Senior Certified Professional through the Society for Human Resource Management. He earned an MBA from Georgia State University.
Join us as we learn more about coaching supervision for yourself as a coach, or in an organization.
In this episode, I talk with Jeff and Kimcee about their article published in our March 2023 issue.
Garry Schleifer:
Hi everyone, this is Garry Schleifer and I'm presenting you Beyond the Page, brought to you by choice, the magazine of professional coaching. Choice is more than just a magazine. It's a community of people who use and share coaching tools, tips, and techniques to add value to their businesses, and of course impact their clients. It's an institution of learning built over the course of 20 years, yes we're in our 21st year publication, dedicated to improving the lives of coaches and their clients. In today's episode, I'm speaking with executive coaches, Jeff Nally and Kimcee McAnally, who are the authors of an article in our March issue, Journey to Excellence entitled, "Coaching Supervision in Organizations, A game changer to improve the impact of coaching. Let's talk about Dr. Kimcee McAnally. She's an accredited coach, supervisor, and partner at CoachSource. Her background includes extensive executive level business experience. Academic qualifications are a PhD and an MS in organizational psychology and, I always laugh when I have to say a BS in psychology. So there we go. There's a breakdown already. Her coaching certification includes an EMCC European Individual Accreditation. She's an EIA senior practitioner and accredited coach supervisor. Did I say that already ? Oh, no, that's different. So, a coach supervisor with the EMCC, ESIA European Supervisor, Individual Accreditation. A mouthful, but they're distinctly different because I've heard about this already. That's how big supervision is. But I digress. Kimcee is passionate about coaching and supervision and contributes to the coaching industry through research, publications and conference presentations. She co-authored the book "Executive Coaching for Results, the Definitive Guide for Developing Organizational Leaders", published by Barrett Kohler, and recent chapters in Innovations in Leadership Coaching and Coaching Supervision, Voices from the Americas.
Jeff Nally:
I've heard of that one too. Our Jeff Nally is an executive coach, coaching supervisor, and professional speaker, inspiring leaders and coaches through the neuroscience of human interaction. I hope you're going to write for our December issue. He is the Chief HR Officer and Chief Coaching Officer at CoachSource, the world's leaders in experienced executive coaches. Jeff led the executive coaching practice at Humana and co-authored Rethinking Human Resources, Humans at Work and Coaching Wisdom with coach colleagues. Jeff is a professional Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation and is a senior professional through the Society for Human Resource Management. I should hope. He entered an MBA from Georgia State University. He advocates for coaching as a board member of the at SHRM, to all of us, SHRM Foundation and the Gay Coaches Alliance, and he is next year's president. Jeff was named one of the 20 people to know in , oh , I didn't know this about you, in HR by Business First of Louisville. And is it , did I say that right? Louisville. Close enough for a Canadian.
Garry Schleifer:
Close enough for a Canadian.
Jeff Nally:
It's actually Louisville.
Garry Schleifer:
Louisville. Okay. Oh my goodness. And is the 2021 recipient of the Thomas J. Leonard Coach Humanitarian Award. Welcome to both of you. Thank you for joining me. I hope I got all those credentials correct. Great to have you here. And I'm really glad to have you here specifically to talk about supervision and organizations. So it's a distinctly different article in this issue than where others went, which is awesome. I also want to thank you for helping us increase the awareness around, I hesitate to say the need for supervision, because you don't need to have supervision but the desire to, as our title says, Journey to Mastery and I'm corrected it's Journey of Mastery, because mastery is not a destination. So let's get into the whole supervision and organizations. What are the reasons or motivators an organization would want supervision for their external coaches?
Jeff Nally:
So I'll start. At CoachSource we get to work with a lot of organizations and ironically the need or request sometimes for supervision in organizations doesn't come from the place that you would think it comes from. You would think it comes from the coaching practice leader, HR, leadership development. But more and more it's coming from procurement, vendor management and supply management. And that's because those departments have finally found out that there's executive coaching going on, and they go to the coach practice leader and they say, you know, we have standards for quality improvement for everything from pencils to the software that comes into this company. How do you know these coaches are great coaches? And how do you guarantee their continuous improvement and development and know that they're doing what we need for our organization? And so supervision is one of those ways to convene coaches that are coaching at an organization, but away from the organization. So in many cases, at CoachSource, we lead the group supervision or supervision experience. So the organization gets to say it's in CoachSource's hands. We know the coaches are getting supervision outside on their own, and they're being convened as a cohort, a community of coaches to reflect together in group supervision about their challenges, curiosities and surprises that they're experiencing while they coach inside our organization. So they improve and they get better as coaches. So in many cases, it's coming from supply management and vendor management, not a coaching practice leader.
Garry Schleifer:
Good discovery.
Kimcee McAnally:
I was going to say very well said, Jeff. I think I'll give you an example. As you were talking, I was thinking maybe an example here would help. So we have a client as an example, and the client organization required that the coaches have supervision. Coaching is so confidential that people don't often have a safe space to talk about it. So we're providing group supervision for this particular client. What I see from the coaches as they're in supervision, some of who have had supervision and some who are very new to it, this was even their first experience for several of them, is an opportunity to talk about what's happening for them in the organization with their particular clients and just have this safe space where they can really reflect on, is there a way they can support and serve their client better. So I think the supervision, when you first experience it, you start to understand the value of it, and you walk away thinking about, this is something I should take to supervision. It's an opportunity for them to really work through any issues or challenges or even just reflect on something very positive that has happened in this confidential space that they coach.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah. Well that's well said. And our listeners today and our subscribers will know this, the article gives some other examples in there as well that really tell a lot of the story about organizations and supervision. I'm going to take a slight turn here and I don't know if you guys know the answer to this, but what do organizations do if they have an internal coaching program? How does supervision enter into the conversation?
Kimcee McAnally:
Yeah , I don't know what they all do, of course. I hope what they do is provide supervision to their internal coaches. The internal coaching world is different, as we all know, than the external world. So they're embedded in the organization, in the culture, in the structure, in the infrastructure of the organization. They have other kind of specialized challenges along with the coaching world and so I think what the best practice would be for organizations that do this is to provide supervision, usually group supervision, because it is nice to be able to reflect on what other people are seeing. Are they seeing the same thing? Are there trends that are happening? And what can we as a coach community do differently? So I think it's a very similar model. There's probably less individual supervision internally and more group supervision versus externally you get a combination of both.
Garry Schleifer:
I'm guessing the procurement person is making sure that they get the right coaching supervisors, right?
Jeff Nally:
They are. I'll offer this as well. So I led coaching in a Fortune 70 company for almost 10 years. I was an internal coach. I hired another internal coach. I brought in external coaches from different firms. About five or six years into it , I went to a coaching conference and learned what supervision was. I realized this is a private, confidential, safe place to have reflection not focusing on coaching competencies, but reflection about who am I being as a coach and what's surprising, etc. I went right back to the company. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is great. We need supervision for the two internal coaches, us, and maybe even the externals. Because my colleague and I, even though we're peers and we did what we called peer coaching. We coached in different parts of the organization. We never compared notes or broke confidentiality, but we tried to make sure we were contextually connecting with all the challenges that our clients were experiencing. But it was a really fine line and the company said, no supervision, no way. We're not paying for it. We're not doing it. Frankly, we don't even know what it is. You're not good at explaining it, which is always the challenge. So we went without supervision and I could really tell that we were limiting ourselves, that we could become a better internal coach cadre. And that moreover that the coaching we would deliver to the hundreds of internal leaders that we coached throughout any year would be even better if we had supervision. So I got to see the downside of not having supervision and I think it's more than just a missed opportunity, that it's essential that internal coaches have supervision.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah. Wow. Well said. I just can't help but think of the question, here we are talking about supervision and when we did an issue on mentor coaching of like maybe five years ago, this wasn't even on the North American radar and it's gone from zero to a hundred. Any idea why that is?
Jeff Nally:
I'll start. Several things have happened. I think there are several coaches who, like me, do all their professional development that's required by the credentialing agencies or professional associations across the world. And those are all great, and they focus on coaching competencies, how you coach and what's happening in a coaching experience and engagement. But frankly, after, several years of that kind of continuing ed over and over again, you're like, there's gotta be something deeper. There's gotta be something that has a different dimension that adds to this, doesn't take away, doesn't replace, but adds to this. And when I found supervision, I'm like, oh, that's it. Now there's a reflective space with a certified supervisor who has a variety of methodologies to help me reflect on who I'm being and what I'm curious about, what I'm surprised by and what's happening inside all the different ways of being. And I think several people in the Americas became supervised. So they had their own supervisors then they became trained, certified, and/or credentialed in supervision. It created kind of this tipping point where now we have several supervisors across the Americas who are out there advocating that coaches look beyond what I would call basic professional development and what's required maybe in the Americas. And look at how are you doing in your own reflective practice that takes care of you, that re-energizes you and compliments the competencies and mentor coaching and other things you're doing, but is a totally different experience. Kimcee, what would you say is the North America?
Kimcee McAnally:
So what came up for me as I was listening to you, Jeff, is I think there's a push and a pull . The pull is what Jeff just described, which is, wow, I found this thing. It's fantastic. I've been missing it. I really need it and so I want to get that. The push, if I look at Europe primarily, is come from the organizations, like EMCC as an example, that require supervision. So if you're going to be an accredited coach there then you need to have supervision at least quarterly and so people have started to get exposure. So that's a little bit of a push for people. And there's other organizations there as well. As well as the companies there start to expect it, they see that some of their coaches are having supervision. They like that idea. It feels a little quality control, as Jeff was saying. and so the organizations are requiring it. So that's the push. And then the pull is, Hey, I really like this. I think it's a little bit of both and we were just late bloomers when it came to the United States as an example. It's just taken us longer.
Garry Schleifer:
Well, I was around in the early earlier days of the International Coach Federation, and there was always that light conversation about we shouldn't do supervision because that would align us too closely with counselors and therapists. And now it's like, whatever, let's just go for it for the benefit of coaches and for the people they serve. There was something around mentor coaching. So let's remind our listeners the difference between mentor coaching and supervision. You alluded to it slightly.
Kimcee McAnally:
I was going to say there's mentor coaching, there's mentoring, there's coaching, there's supervision, there's all these differences. So when I think of mentor coaching, as an ICF as an example, what ICF requires. They require mentor coaching around their competencies in order to get your certification. Very different. Doesn't have much overlap in my mind with supervision.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah and useful as supervision is. So one's for your craft and one's for your person is how I like to think of it. Okay. Good. We talked about how you get yourself into an organization, but how do you get an organization to start thinking about supervision as an important tactic or an important tool rather?
Kimcee McAnally:
I'll let Jeff do that one first because he came from internal so he'll have a different insight.
Jeff Nally:
I think as coaches and coach providers, we've started advocating in early conversations with organizations that supervision is just a good part of having a coaching program and however you get supervision, whether it's one-on-one or group, that's an essential element. Just like having a good cadre of coaches knowing which coaching programs go with which coaching with leaders in the organization, when to have certain types of coaching programs. This supervision is basically front and center. It's part of a complete coaching experience and an organization can't ignore the supervision part. Because it typically happens after the coaching begins or coaches have so many hours of coaching at an organization, it feels like something at the end. But we've started to talk about it with organizations right up front as they begin to think about creating coaching programs using internal and external coaches in different ways and making it part of the whole coaching program.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah. It just makes sense when I hear of this. I'm recommending that our listeners listen to some of the other podcasts as well because it's a beautiful thing we've taken on as a profession. I really do. And just for ourselves. I've had the experience of it as well and I can't recommend it highly enough. Speaking of recommending it highly enough. So how does someone like me get started with supervision as a coach if you've never had the experience? I'm going let Kimcee do this one.
Kimcee McAnally:
I was going to say, I always recommend that you need to find a supervisor first or you need to find a supervisor of course. But first I think it's just experiencing it. You put yourself in a different head space to be thinking about yourself, your practice. It's not necessarily solution driven , although it can be, but unlike coaching where you're trying to come up with a result and you're working towards something, it's often just sitting back and really just thinking about like, what's keeping me up at night? And what was that conversation I had with my person that I was coaching in ? You know, it didn't go quite right. Is there something I could have done differently? And so it's just sort of getting inside your own head and just thinking it through again, all for the good of your client and for your own development and your own health. So I would say the first thing is really just experience it . Find someone. Many of us are willing to give you a supervision session just so you can see it, whether it's individual or a group, and experience it. Then think about what you want to get in a supervisor and find that. There's registries obviously like EMCC has a registry. I don't know if ICF does yet. I know they were working towards something and even your local chapters will know other coaches. People that you interact with, network with, they will have probably some recommendations for people.
Jeff Nally:
The Americas Coaching Supervision Network also has a directory of supervisors in the Americas.
Garry Schleifer:
And that website would be America's...
Jeff Nally:
Americas Coaching Supervision Network. Try that in the Google search and we'll see what comes up.
Garry Schleifer:
See what comes up .
Jeff Nally:
I can't remember what the new web URL is, but it just comes up every time because it knows the same thing.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah. Well, I can't recommend it high enough. I experienced it in a coaching organization I work with. They called it something else. They called it the Courage Hour but it really was about what are you afraid to say? What are you worried about? Like you said, Kimcee, what's keeping you up at night? The first time I did it one hour I was sailing. I was like, oh and it was done in a group setting. I'd like you to perhaps give us some indication of the differences between individual and group. But I had a group of peers plus a leader of the session and I had all these ideas. Some resonated, some didn't. I just went on and it ended amazingly. So to our next question about what's the difference between individual and group, what are the pros and cons?
Kimcee McAnally:
Oh, Jeff looks like he wants me to start. So I'll start with individual supervision. Individual supervision, it's all about you. It's all about what's on your mind, what's happening for you in your practice. It's your alone one-on-one time, just you and your supervisor. It tends to be a little bit more expensive obviously, because it is just one-on-one. But no time is wasted. I mean, you are just totally focused on you. And it could be one issue you're bringing, it could be something else that you're bringing. We've had people show up and not know what they want to talk about and then as we sit there for 30 seconds, they think of what's been on their mind and what needs to come to the surface. So individual supervision is very personal and very much about you. Cntrasting that with group supervision. Group supervision is less expensive, less costly because you have a group of people, let's say four to six people, who are working in a group with one particular supervisor. But you get the exposure from other coaches, you get to hear from them. Like what are some of the issues that you may not have thought about it, but you've experienced that before. Or it might be something that you even kind of tuck away for something that comes up in the future and you think , oh, I remember thinking about this during supervision and how they might handle something. So you get that camaraderie, which is great because sometimes coaching can be a kind of a lonely world. A lot of times. So a lot of people really enjoy the group supervision process.
Jeff Nally:
And I'll just add that in the group supervision process, there's so much room for creativity. There is in one-on-one, but any supervisor that does group supervision always has a variety of ways that they lead supervision. Sometimes it will be a few moments where the coach, who is the supervisee, will present their case or present a few cases or things that they're thinking about. Then the facilitator may say, okay, everyone go around and ask one question that would help you clarify what those are and then they do that. Then there may be other points in the supervision where the group supervisor says, all right , everyone go around and name one emotion you've seen in the supervisee in the past five minutes. So as a supervisee you get a lot of different perspectives. And as the participant in group supervision, you're actively being facilitated into what role do you play? Are we asking questions now? Are you offering points of view? Has the supervisee asked for guidance or help? It's a really useful dynamic. The one thing I will say about the group supervision, it doesn't matter how long you plan. Six or eight people for an hour and a half, it goes by so fast because you may hit one, two, or maybe three supervision topics and have three different people be the supervisee. But everyone is so actively engaged and there's such a great dynamic it flies by.
Kimcee McAnally:
One really good point I want to mention too is if you are in group supervision, you may not have your issue addressed every single time.
Garry Schleifer:
Of course. It's like group coaching.
Kimcee McAnally:
That's where the individual supervision is nice because it is just your time. My suggestion for somebody just starting out on this is try both. See what you think. It's not unusual for people to do both individual and group supervision either at different times in their career or at the same time. It is a different experience.
Jeff Nally:
I've done mostly one-on-one supervision and hirer supervisors periodically for six months or a year and love that. The advantage of going to coaching conferences is there's usually a group supervision session or a group supervision happening. So I like to experience those with other coaches. There was one I went to and they did group supervision and each of us had a bag of Legos and it was a Lego facilitated group reflection on supervision. It was such a very creative and interesting dynamic that I think there's just so many different ways for coaches who become supervisors to be creative, to try lots of new things and to help people in a one-on-one setting, coaches in a one-on-one setting or in a group setting, get the reflective practice and experience that they need.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah. No , it sounds fun. And I have to say to our listeners, it is a fun learning collaborative, thought generating experience. Yeah. That's great. Now you mentioned a few samples of issues that coaches bring both in the article and in this conversation. What's the top three?
Jeff Nally:
I will say that number one is the, I don't think I was a good coach in that session with that client last week. So it's the I failed or I have fear or I had an imposter session where I didn't do anything right. I think another one is there are influences and people or things outside of the coaching engagement like a leader or a team or the company or economics or whatever. There's an external force of some kind that is actually impacting the coaching and I don't know how to handle that. I don't know if I should include it or exclude it or if I should try to ignore it. I think third would be ironically around continuing to be open and setting and resetting expectations as a coach with my client and as a client with my coach. We think the contracting is done upfront but I see so many coaches who come to me with in supervision where something's changed or the dynamic or flow of the coaching is changed and the coach isn't sure how to re-address that, re-contract for it or re-engage a coaching client that is suddenly not in the same space they were when coaching began.
Kimcee McAnally:
Yes to all of the above.
Garry Schleifer:
I want to say, first of all to Jeff, you just gave me some supervision because I just thought of a client who I need to recontract with. I was wondering where we were going and that would be the great best start. Let's re-contract. Sorry Kimcee, your turn .
Kimcee McAnally:
No, that's great. I'll say yes to everything Jeff said. And I was thinking about these are the kinds of things that come up in supervision that are a little more subtle. So something happened and here it is , that's one way . But I've had some supervisees, I guess I call it coaches who come and they say, you know, I'm having this trouble and here's my problem. And they may even describe it in terms of their client. I have problem with my clients just aren't showing up. My clients aren't answering me. My clients aren't X, Y, open to the idea of supervision. And when we really kind of get down to it, it's something that the coach is doing. And so this is about the coach and service to the client, of course, but seeing what the coach is doing or not doing. And so if someone sees themes or trends in their practice, they might want to bring that forward to supervision, think about it, reflect on it, talk it out, and they might be able to see something in themselves. I'll give you an example. I had someone recently who said, of course shall be nameless, but the coach said, for some reason I'm interviewing and I'm not getting picked very frequently and that's unusual for me. I used to get picked all the time and for some reason I'm not getting picked when I'm interviewing. And so in that frustration as we worked through it, we talked about what's changed, what's different over the last year or two years when you've been experiencing this. By the end, this coach had rethought about how this coach was going to show up. Even starting from the time of creating the interview time slot. So the coach , I don't want to say he or she. The coach was having the admin schedule. Well, that wasn't a very personal approach and other coaches had a much more personal approach. Instead, the coach changed that, and now the coach is the one who reaches out and schedules it. I got a note from this coach about three weeks ago that said, you won't believe how it's changed for me that all of this sudden showing up differently.
Garry Schleifer:
Isn't that amazing?
Kimcee McAnally:
She hadn't put two and two together, I guess I would say. I know I'm going back and forth, the coach , and so it's things like that that something that's just kind of on your mind that's bothering you and what might you be doing differently as a coach?
Garry Schleifer:
That was very interesting and I wouldn't have thought of that one. Having interviewed a number of supervisors for this issue, that's a new one. That's awesome. Thank you. Well, we are coming to the end of our call and I have a big question. What do you want our audience of subscribers and listeners to do as a result of our conversation and the article?
Jeff Nally:
Well, I'll, I'll start. Two things. One is, and we haven't discussed this, but the supervisor, part of their role is for the two of you to be peers in a peer exchange. It is not only okay and allowed, it is useful and helpful to share your own experiences with each other. I know when we're coaching a client, we don't do that all the time. We're not supposed to throw our experiences on top of them, but in supervision, it's okay for the supervisor and the supervisee to share their own experiences and learn from each other. So it's a professional peer which is really unique and different. So that's what they'll experience. The second thing is, similar to what Kimcee said, and I've noticed this when I've been supervised. Once something has shifted for me after reflection or in a supervision session, it is shifted for every coaching situation and client and engagement from there on into the future.
Garry Schleifer:
I'll bet.
Jeff Nally:
It is hardwired differently than a new skill or a competency and who you're being and how you perceive and behave and coach changes for everybody else you coach from there on for the rest of the future. It's a long-term thing that's sticky. So I would want them to know that when you go into supervision, it's not the western definition of supervision, like a manager who's looking over your shoulder. It's a professional peer and it can be incremental, but it can also be really life-changing for you and every one of your coaching sessions from there on.
Kimcee McAnally:
Okay. So since Jeff came up with two, I better come up with two I suppose.
Garry Schleifer:
Here we go.
Kimcee McAnally:
So I have two. One is to people who have never experienced supervision, I'm hopeful that if they're watching this or reading the article or reading your publication, they're thinking maybe there's something there. Maybe I should try it. So my hope for them and my encouragement to them is just try it. Try it and see what you think. Be open to the possibility that perhaps this is something good to incorporate in your practice. And the second thing I would say is to people who already have experienced or have a supervisor, maybe sit back and reflect for a moment and think am I getting everything I want out of supervision? Is there anything that maybe I need to shift or change a little bit and have that conversation with your supervisor or a peer or someone so that you can get the maximum benefit from supervision.
Garry Schleifer:
Yeah , good point. Good point. Yeah. Why bother doing it if you're don't take anything out of it? Hello? It goes to what you're saying earlier, the example is you may need to recontract what you got solved. You might get one thing solved just like that and you're still in a group and it's like, okay, so what's next? Right? And I love the example of the business itself. I'm not attracting and connecting with enough clients. That one was really good. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but do either one of you offer group supervision or individual supervision, or are you too busy with your internal and your corporations?
Kimcee McAnally:
Yes to both.
Garry Schleifer:
Yes to both. Awesome.
Kimcee McAnally:
Jeff and I are both so passionate about supervision, we would always find the time to help people out and give them that experience. It's such a game changer. I came into supervision when I think I'd been coaching 20 years, maybe 22 years and I was like, what is this thing? Then I discovered that , where have you been all my life? I mean, it was that kind of an experience for me.
Jeff Nally:
Yeah. And I will share, when I left the organization where I led coaching, the very first thing I did since I was out on my own was to hire a supervisor and then get in supervision training. I was so hungry to grow and develop in new and different ways now that I was out of the constraints of my employer.
Garry Schleifer:
Wow. Interesting. So folks, where's the best way to reach each of you?
Jeff Nally:
Yeah. So you can reach me by email at jeffnally@coachsource.com.
Kimcee McAnally:
Yeah, and same thing for me , kimcee@coachsource.com.
Garry Schleifer:
Got it. Thank you both so much. This is awesome. We could go on for more because I can tell you're both passionate and I got the bug. So I'm committing to finding myself, and if you know one that you want me to join, a group supervision. I'm going to start with group. I've had individual and now I'd like to try group. So let me know. And to all of our listeners, that's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. Like I mentioned, Apple and Spotify are a couple of our top downloading experiences, so find it there. Or you can go to our website and don't forget to sign up for your free digital issue of choice magazine if you're not yet a subscriber by going to choice-online.com and clicking the signup now button. I'm Gafry Schleifer, enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks again.
