Beyond the Page Podcast ~ From Intimidation to Transformation: Coaching Genius Leaders

In today's episode, we're honored to have Suzi Pomerantz as our guest. Suzi is an award-winning executive leadership coach and international bestselling author with over 30 years of experience coaching executives in 250+ organizations worldwide. You'll see that Suzi's journey is nothing short of remarkable as she shares insights from her career, from coaching genius leaders and scientists to her breakthrough strategies that transform them into extraordinary leaders.

Suzi's expertise extends to leadership strategy, leadership influence, and finding clarity in chaos, making her a top 4% executive leadership coach. She was one of the first to receive the ICF's MCC credential 25 years ago and is a thought leader in the coaching industry.

In her latest article, "The Genius Quotient ~ Strategies for Coaching Brilliant Scientist Leaders,” Suzi explores the profound impact of coaching in healthcare. She's also a prolific author with over 50 publications about coaching, ethics, business development, and 11 books including bestseller, "Seal the Deal."

Suzi's transformative experience overcoming Imposter Syndrome, thanks to a memorable encounter with Gloria Steinem and Peggy McIntosh at the Women Lawyers Conference, is a highlight. She reveals her three-step coaching process and discusses the strategy of designing experiments to encourage trying something new.

Watch the full interview by clicking here

Find the full article here:   https://bit.ly/BTP-SuziPomerantz

Learn more about Suzi at http://www.suzipomerantz.com and explore her extensive Library of Professional Coaching here

Suzi has a special gift for our listeners: Download a free copy of her book ¨Seal the Deal¨ here

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
 
In this episode, I talk with Suzi Pomerantz about her article published in our September 2023 issue.

Transcript

Garry Schleifer: 0:08

Welcome to the choice Magazine podcast Beyond the Page. choice, the magazine of professional coaching, is your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today. In each episode, we go beyond the page of the articles published in choice Magazine and dive deeper into some of the most recent and relevant topics impacting the world of professional coaching, exploring the content, interviewing the talented minds like Suzi's behind the articles and uncovering the stories that make an impact. choice is more than a magazine. For over 20 years, well, it's actually 21 now, we've built a community of like-minded people who create, use and share coaching tools, tips and techniques to add value to their business and, of course, what we all want impact our clients and their lives. In today's episode I'm speaking with, first of all, I have a bio, but I have to say my dear, dear, dear, dear, dear dear friend Suzi, how long have we known each other? Umpteen years.

Suzi Pomerantz: 1:13

I think since at least 2009, but probably earlier than that.

Garry Schleifer: 1:19

Probably. So, let's hear a little bit about Suzi. She's an international bestselling author and she's the author of an article in our latest issue “Humanizing Healthcare ~ Courageous Coaching at a Crossroads.” Her article is entitled “The Genius Quotient Strategies for Coaching Brilliant Scientist Leaders,” and I would even just say just brilliant leaders but she focuses on the science in the article, but we'll hear more when we talk to her.

Garry Schleifer: 1:49

Suzi Pomerantz, CEO of Innovative Leadership International LLC, is an award-winning top 4% executive leadership coach and international bestselling author with 30 years of experience coaching executives in over 250 organizations internationally. Suzi specialized in leadership strategy and leadership influence, helping executives, teams and organizations find clarity in chaos, and isn't there a lot of chaos? She was one of the first executive coaches to receive the ICF's MCC credential 25 years ago and is a thought leader in the coaching industry. Like no kidding, she currently serves as strategic advisor to our editorial board for choice, the magazine of professional coaching, as well on the advisory boards of Harvard Business Review and The International Journal Philosophy of Coaching. She's authored over 50 publications about coaching ethics and business development and 11 books, including her bestseller, Seal the Deal, and she's been a contributor to the Sticky Situations column of choice Magazine for umpteen years. I think we're just getting with umpteen.

Garry Schleifer: 3:03

I know it's just like forever and thank you very much for that. Brilliant, brilliant insights. If you get it. When you get your copy of choice, check out Sticky Situations. Suzi is there in every issue. She co-founded the world's largest free online coaching library 14 years ago, The Library of Professional Coaching, and we'll share a link with that in the description of this podcast. To learn more about Suzi, you can go to suzipomerantz. com, and we'll mention that again at the end. My friend Suzi, thank you so much for joining us today.

Suzi Pomerantz: 3:39

Thank you, Garry. Thank you for having me I'm excited to be here and thank you for helping start the library 14 years ago because you were part of helping us create that way back when.

Garry Schleifer: 3:51

Well, goodness, and remember the other thing we created, The International Association of Professional Coaching Publishers.

Suzi Pomerantz: 3:59

Oh yeah, IPKPA.

Garry Schleifer: 4:03

We could never make it into something that didn't turn your tongue into the eyes.

Suzi Pomerantz: 4:07

International Professional Coalition of Coaching Publications, something like that .

Garry Schleifer: 4:16

Yeah, and here we still are. I don't know where we're going to take that anywhere, but you know we are passed across so many times. But enough about that, let's. Let's get into a little bit about the article. You've written so much for us already, Sticky Situations, what made you say oh, I've got to write this for this issue?

Suzi Pomerantz: 4:37

You know it's funny, every time the theme comes around for whatever quarter you're working on, that could be the upcoming quarter. I look at the theme and I think you know, do I have anything to say about that? Because you're generous and always inviting me to write for each of these issues. And when healthcare came around, I thought you know what? I better have something to write for that, because 90% of my clients are in healthcare. So, let me think, yeah right.

Suzi Pomerantz: 5:05

And when I read the questions that you send out to the people who say, yes, I'll be happy to write an article, it just struck me that you know what I? I was intimidated when I first met these scientists because these are people with multiple high-level degrees. These are people who are full-on geniuses and you know it's uncomfortable to punch about above your weight class in intelligence, right? and it's. It's fun to hang out with people who are smarter than you because you can learn from them. But to take on coaching them just felt really daunting at the beginning. And, of course, never one to shy away from a challenge.

Suzi Pomerantz: 5:46

I dove right in and figured it out, so I thought that's probably something that I could share with the readers of choice and with coaches around the world, which is we don't have to be intimidated to coach above our weight class and intelligence and in fact, they do most of the work for us. They're really quite delightful and lovely clients.

Garry Schleifer: 6:07

Yeah, well, as you, as you mentioned quite nicely in the article, I do want to ask how you got in front of them? How did you end up working with these geniuses?

Suzi Pomerantz: 6:23

I was already working with attorneys, so I guess I've got to start there, because attorneys are intimidating intellectuals in a whole different way.

Suzi Pomerantz: 6:32

And that came out of work that I was originally doing at DuPont, the chemical company, and I was working in the law department at DuPont coaching some of the leaders in the law department there back when in the mid 90s, when they were doing a really innovative thing with their legal model. They were sort of revolutionizing how law is practiced and how their law firms support their corporate law docket. We're doing it and coaching lawyers. Lawyers are naturally very referral-oriented, so I was coaching these lawyers in this corporate environment and everyone they were referring me to, were other lawyers and other law firms and other corporate law departments. So I ended up having an entire coaching business full of law clients, even though I'm not a lawyer, and I thought, good grief, I don't want to spend the rest of my career only coaching lawyers, even though they're challenging and wonderful in all their own ways.

Suzi Pomerantz: 7:37

But I was at an ICF conference and I happened to sit next to a woman who had just taken over bringing in external coaches to the National Institutes of Health. So here in the USA we have NIH the National Institutes of Health, which is comprised of 27 institutes and centers. So you might have heard of the National Cancer Institute. That's one of the parts of NIH, and famously you would have of course heard of with the whole COVID thing, he was a director of an Institute at the NIH.

Suzi Pomerantz: 8:12

So there's Francis Collins, who was the head of NIH during the whole COVID thing used to be head of the Human Genome Research Institute, which is one of the institutes of the NIH. there are 27 of them and over the last, however, many umpteen years?

Garry Schleifer: 8:31

I mean, is our word for the day?

Suzi Pomerantz: 8:33

Word. I mean, I coached more than 100 leaders at NIH who across all these different not all of them, not all 27. I guess I've been in about 19 of the institutes and centers. Yeah, so that's how I got into. It was sitting next to someone in ICF conference who was new to the job of having to find coaches for NIH and we struck up a conversation and she got me in and I've been there ever since.

Garry Schleifer: 9:04

Wow, and in particular NIH. For those of us who don't know, I'm Canadian, so I know a bit about it, but how did you specifically end up with geniuses, scientists, geniuses like? There must have been tons of people to coach when they draw into you referral.

Suzi Pomerantz: 9:23

So a lot of it is referral word of mouth, but it's also these are the people who are leading, you know. So what happens in NIH, just like in other organizations when you you know if you are masterful and proficient in your particular technology, you get promoted into leadership of other people who are masterful, right? So the same thing happens at NIH. You know, if you're a really good whatever you are, scientist, researcher, doctor, whatever you get promoted to lead other scientists, researchers, doctors, whatever. So that's. And I focus at the leadership level, on my clients or director level and above. So I work with the top-level leaders in any organization across the world and at this organization, they all happen to be scientists, many of them with more than one PhD or they're. They have a PhD and an MD. You know they are brilliant.

Garry Schleifer: 10:22

Wicked smart.

Suzi Pomerantz: 10:24

Yes, wicked smart, exactly.

Garry Schleifer: 10:29

Oh, and you've alluded to some of this, but for those who haven't read the article. What do you like about working with them? And I would ask they say you seem to love working with them.

Suzi Pomerantz: 10:39

I do. I love working with them and it surprised me. I did not expect to love working with them and in fact, just a little aside living in the DC area and having a coaching business, I have scrupulously avoided working with the US government because that's sort of the assumption, right, if you live in the DC area, the local clients are government. So when I discovered that I love this particular aspect of the government, I was surprised.

Suzi Pomerantz: 11:13

They, what do I love about them? They are really lovely, mission-driven, very caring people. They wouldn't be where they are without that. They're drawn into the medicine that they're performing or the research. They're drawn there because they want to make a difference. They're drawn there because they care deeply about people or they care deeply about the mission of their portion of the NIH. I do have healthcare clients outside of NIH to, and I would say that's also true of them. They care about the mission, they care about patient care, they care about people. They care about impacting science in the global community. You know they care, and I like that.

Garry Schleifer: 12:01

Yeah, oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, okay, so, and so my turn for a little bit of an aside. I'm just reading and rereading this article. What came to mind? And now, in this conversation, did the words imposter syndrome ever come up for you?

Suzi Pomerantz: 12:20

No, because I had already overcome that dealing with lawyers for many years.

Garry Schleifer: 12:25

Oh, good point. Yeah, I'll bet. Because early in the conversation you're mentioning it's like who am I to be coaching these wicked smart people?

Suzi Pomerantz: 12:36

Yeah, it's terrifying. Initially, when you recognize the scope and magnitude of their sheer brilliance, you're like I will never achieve that. But to your point about imposter syndrome with the lawyers, there was this one conference I spoke at back when I was mostly working with lawyers, and this was a conference for women lawyers and they had brought me in to speak and it was a really exciting conference because the keynote person was Gloria Steinem and I got to sit with them at lunch.

Garry Schleifer: 13:08

Oh my gosh.

Suzi Pomerantz: 13:08

Yeah, but one of the other people we brought in to that event was a woman named Peggy McIntosh, who was a professor at the time at Wellesley University.

Garry Schleifer: 13:17

Wellesley University? I don't know.

Suzi Pomerantz: 13:19

And Peggy McIntosh had written a series of articles called Feeling Like a Fraud. She wrote them back in the mid-1980s and they are still relevant today. You can find them online if you just Google Peggy McIntosh, Feeling Like a Fraud, and so anyone who does have challenges with imposter syndrome I would recommend reading those, because they're really well done and I actually had many conversations with her with Peggy about that. So I overcame all that or made my peace with it during my period of coaching lawyers. So by the time I got to the doctors, I was good.

Garry Schleifer: 13:56

Thank you for sharing that story. What a great insight. It's interesting because over my coaching career I've been asked oh so who do you coach? What industry? I always say it's like well, I coach people, and they're the experts in their lives. I'm not expected to be an expert, I'm expected to be a partner in the journey. I'm not a mentor, which would be somebody who has expertise. So I can't possibly have the expertise of every industry I coach. I would never get around to coaching. So it's yeah, you're early on. The imposter syndrome is like no, they're who they are. They put their pants on one leg at a time. I like to say right.

Suzi Pomerantz: 14:41

Yeah, but to your point Garry, if I put my business development hat on, my response to that query is to find and, this would be for everybody listening, to find the thing that is the common red thread that runs between all of your, all of your coaching They may all be in different industries, they may all be in different kinds of roles, but there is something that they have in common that makes them your ideal clients. So, for me and the link between attorneys and scientists, which doesn't seem to have a link, is that they are all wicked smart, mission-driven, and looking to accomplish big things, and my role as a coach is to help amplify their success. So that, to me, is who I coach. It's not that I just coach healthcare or I just coach scientists, or I just coach attorneys.

Suzi Pomerantz: 15:30

I don't coach people like you, but they are wicked, smart, mission driven and looking to accomplish big things.

Garry Schleifer: 15:36

Yeah, wow, well said. You know you bring up a really good thing in your article. You mentioned the three tricks, and one of them is remind them of the mission, and as you said, it doesn't matter the industry, people are committed. If you want to make a difference, they're committed to the mission. It's part of the psyche. Speak a little bit more about. I mean, some of these are just obvious. Number one is just listen. I mean, that's what we're trying to do. But what else would you like to say about the three steps, especially design experiments? I really love that. Tell us about that one.

Suzi Pomerantz: 16:13

Okay, so I'll start there. Design experiments. So, I love to use this with all coaching clients, but it works particularly well with scientists because they're trained in experiments. They think in experiments. That's who they are.

Suzi Pomerantz: 16:29

So when you stumble upon in a conversation something that they need to unpack or explore, or perhaps it's a strategy that they might want to try, but they have a little bit of fear around it and helping them hold it as an experiment rather than a task they have to accomplish, or an assignment or a test or whatever they might be holding it, that would generate fear. If they hold it as an experiment, all of a sudden you can see their eyes light up or if you're on the phone with them, you can just hear them get it in the moment. You can hear their breathing change because in that moment they're like oh okay, this is familiar territory. I know what to do with experiments.

Suzi Pomerantz: 17:14

So with a client who's not a scientist, I might guide them through how to design an experiment around whatever it is that they want to try or explore. But with a scientist, I don't have to guide them. I just say how would you design this as an experiment if you were to try something between now and our next call. What design elements would you put into that experiment? And then they just start talking and they're off to the races, right, they know how to design it, they know what to do with the data and how to tweak it. When the data shows them, whatever it shows them, you know they. And they're usually very excited to report back on it in the next call, because it's just another experiment and if they run labs, they're used to experiments.

Garry Schleifer: 17:56

Right and, like you said, quite brilliantly, and you'll see a shift in their energy from fear to possibility. I love that, that's great. Well, I have another question for you to help us with coaches. What would you recommend to other coaches listening who find themselves outmatched intellectually with a client?

Suzi Pomerantz: 18:17

Yeah, I would say don't be intimidated, even though your first sort of automatic response might be oh goodness, what have I gotten myself into? You know, you can still make a huge difference with these people who are making a huge difference, because what you bring to them, by being able to listen d eeply a nd reflect back to whatever the reflective inquiry yields, you can help them untangle. You know, we all have tangled thoughts. That's why coaching, that's why we all need coaches. But these people, whose brains are functioning above the rest of ours, they still have knots to untangle and you can help them untangle those knots by just creating that space for them, because if you create this space for them and invite them into it, they'll do the untangling themselves. They're that smart.

Garry Schleifer: 19:14

Yeah, as most clients will, right. Truly.

Suzi Pomerantz: 19:18

Truly, right. But the fun of coaching them is they need less input from us. So, honestly, there are some days I just get on the phone and listen. I don't even hear and to your point.

Garry Schleifer: 19:31

That's step number one, or one of the three key elements listen, mission and experiment. Just a different take on model, if you will, for working with wicked, smart people.

Suzi Pomerantz: 19:44

Yeah, yeah, it's really, it's truly a lot of fun, because, especially when they start telling you a little bit about what they're doing in their science or what they're currently obsessing about, what scientific problem they're currently obsessing about and some of them are obsessing about things I'm curious about- like neuroscience or what's happening with COVID research, or it's?

Garry Schleifer: 20:06

Suzi, it's not your agenda, it's theirs, stop it. But in listening, I get to learn. I know it's sort of a happy byproduct I get to learn.

Garry Schleifer: 20:16

I know it gets us more engaged with the topic, something we're really truly curious about. You know, something else came to mind, and it's something I'm toying with and practicing in my coaching. Something brought to my attention how do you say it? Not the hierarchy, but when clients come to coaching, they look up to a coach or they put the coach in a higher position and not an equal position. And it's just interesting because I'm hearing that, you know, when you first started with these wicked smart people, there was a little bit of like oh my gosh. These people are so smart and I don't have. It's interesting to bring the power dynamic and continue to watch different power dynamics in coaching relationships and you know, to keep bringing it back to you're wicked smart in that area, I'm wicked smart in this area. Let's work together in a sense, you know, to simplification, oversimplification, but it's just something I've been toying with and in my you know, along with other things, that it's all come out of like really in depth looking at the core coaching competencies.

Suzi Pomerantz: 21:22

So yes, and that's a really interesting point, because they are the ones that I'm working with. They're all leaders and whether they're new leaders or experienced leaders, they're hungry to learn about leadership and they recognize that it's a different skill set and a different domain than whatever they're doing in their science. So to that degree, they do approach our conversations like you know, like we're on the same level and I'm bringing the leadership insight and they're bringing the leadership challenges and we're sort of driven together.

Garry Schleifer: 21:54

Yeah exactly, exactly. Oh my gosh, this has been absolutely wonderful and thank you so much for those three steps. It was just like tools you know tools in your tube option and, hey, sounds like you could use it with non-scientists too.

Suzi Pomerantz: 22:09

That's what I was just gonna say. They work with everybody.

Garry Schleifer: 22:12

Exactly.

Suzi Pomerantz: 22:13

They work particularly well with this population.

Garry Schleifer: 22:15

Wow, what would you like our audience to do as a result of the article and this conversation?

Suzi Pomerantz: 22:23

Well, I would say a couple things. One, don't be intimidated by clients who are smarter than you. You still have something to offer them and you can still help them untangle something in their heads that they're grappling with. And the other thing is just to make everybody aware of the free resources available at the Library of Professional Coaching, and there are tons of articles. There's over 1100 now articles in the library and they've all been vetted. They're all high caliber. Many of them are from choice Magazine, and we also have a new thing happening there where we have several whole entire books that you can download for free. There are three books right now and we'll be adding more as the year progresses, so that would be something to check out. You just go libraryofprofessionalcoaching. com and click on the bookstore and you'll see one of the boxes that says free books.

Garry Schleifer: 23:18

O h my gosh, that's so generous, and that's what I know of you and the Library of Professional Coaching and the values that we share here at choice Magazine is we're always coming from generosity. So thank you very much for that and thank you very much for joining me today. We said it earlier, but I'll let it come out of your mouth what's the best way to reach you?

Suzi Pomerantz: 23:42

suzipomerantz. com is the website and I'm on all the social media, so find me on LinkedIn and X, which is formerly Twitter, Facebook. Oh, you said that I was like oh yeah, I know it's weird, I'm not used to it yet, I know, oh well, and whatever the new one is, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not on the new one. I'm not threads or whatever. I'm not on that one yet. Just the usual old ones Facebook and the old ones for us old folks, right?

Garry Schleifer: 24:11

Well, thank you so much, and that's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe to your favorite podcast app. If you're not a subscriber, you can sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice-online. com and clicking the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks again, Suzi.

Suzi Pomerantz: 24:34

Thanks for having me, bye.