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Fascinating Ethics
13 Plays1 year ago
As a self-regulated profession, our industry ethical standards are the foundational guidelines for every professional coach. They are set in place to support everyone involved in a coaching engagement. In this episode, our guest Hilary Oliver, MCC, shares her extensive experience and fascination for the topic, together with some tidbits for every coach.
#coachingskills #coachtraining #ethics #IFC #professionalism
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:03
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Welcome to Prime Space, a Prime Coaching Academy podcast with your host, Elias Coutori.
00:00:14
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So hello, everybody.
00:00:16
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I am delighted here to bring to you a guest in our podcast today.
00:00:25
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I have with me Hilary Oliver.
00:00:28
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Hello, Hilary.
00:00:30
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Hi, Elias.
00:00:30
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How are you?
00:00:32
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I am delighted to have this conversation here with you.
00:00:35
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Thank you so much for joining us for this episode.
00:00:39
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My pleasure.
00:00:40
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And I hope that the listeners will enjoy it too.
00:00:43
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I am
Meeting in Reykjavik
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positive.
00:00:44
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I have to say that how do I know Hillary?
00:00:48
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I met Hillary last year when I went to Iceland to support a coach training program for the Reykjavik University.
00:00:57
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Hillary, Oliver and Cheryl Smith had been focusing and leading that program for many years and they invited me to support them last year.
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And I knew of Hillary and
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But I had never met Hillary in person or I had never even had a virtual conversation with Hillary before.
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And it was a delight for me to meet these two ladies and Hillary specifically, not only because I saw the professionalism.
00:01:30
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and the level of training that they were bringing to those students, but to see Hillary as a person and to see the gentleness and the beauty that exists in her heart.
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And it was truly a delightful moment and a privilege to meet you, Hillary, for sure.
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Thank you.
00:01:53
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That's such kind words.
00:01:54
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I really appreciate that.
00:01:56
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And as you know, I enjoyed the time you spent with us.
00:01:59
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You had a week with us and it was fun.
00:02:02
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It was a lot of fun.
00:02:03
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Because I do think work should be fun.
00:02:05
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Yes, absolutely.
Hilary's Career and Retirement
00:02:07
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For those who don't know Hilary, Hilary has had a long career in the corporate world as a senior director in IT.
00:02:14
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She is also an executive coach, a coach supervisor and a trainer.
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One important fact of Hilary's career is that Hilary was part of the global board of the ICF for five years.
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and was the chair in 2017.
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I think that that's so important because if we look back at the history of the ICF, there were such crucial decisions that were made during that period of time, Hillary.
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So thank you for your gift to the community during that period of time.
00:02:46
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Hillary is retired now and enjoying her love for sports and tennis and nature.
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And one fact about Hillary is that she was an endurance walker for a long time.
00:03:02
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She would go for these 100 kilometers walk in two days and showing her passion for nature and sports.
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And now, Hillary...
00:03:13
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stays as a volunteer to these walkers, supporting them.
00:03:17
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And one fact that she was sharing with me here, she can see the parallel of supporting these athletes and her coaching career as well in supporting her supporting role there.
00:03:31
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So thank you for that, Hilary.
00:03:33
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You're welcome.
00:03:34
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And I know I'm mad.
00:03:34
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People think I'm mad doing it, but I loved doing that work.
00:03:37
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And I love the volunteering now as well.
00:03:40
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It's so it's and it is very similar to coaching in that it's really important that we to help motivate people, especially when they get stuck and they're tired.
00:03:50
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And in the sense of the races, it's about giving them food and a bit of fun and talking to them, which is a bit like coaching.
00:03:58
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I love that.
00:03:59
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Thank you for that.
Contributions to Ethics
00:04:01
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The reason why I wanted to have Hillary here is because of her work in ethics.
00:04:07
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And ever since I started the podcast, I always wanted to do a podcast, an episode in ethics.
00:04:12
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And I held back because I wanted to have the episode in ethics with Hillary because of all the work that she has done in ethics.
00:04:22
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So let's jump in, Hillary.
00:04:24
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Hillary, why ethics?
00:04:28
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I...
00:04:29
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It probably sounds a bit odd, but I find ethics fascinating.
00:04:33
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And the reason I find it fascinating is partly the fact that there is no right or wrong in ethics.
00:04:40
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It's a puzzle that you have to work out.
00:04:44
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And I first got interested when I attended a podcast, or back then it was on the phone because we didn't quite have that.
00:04:53
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And I remember going through this webinar about ethics and...
00:04:59
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I realized then how as a coach, we often and will, most of our ethical things we step over in ethics are done accidentally.
00:05:10
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And as I was listening to this webinar, one of the examples they gave actually was something that I had just done.
00:05:18
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And it wasn't anything major, but it was one of those things I thought, wow, I had no idea I had actually stepped over an ethical piece.
00:05:29
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It was all about hiring a virtual assistant that I hadn't got them to sign a contract to confidentiality.
00:05:37
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And that got me into thinking, well, actually, maybe there's something more interesting about ethics.
00:05:42
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And what I find, though, and why it's important, I think, is because it is so...
Ethics in Coaching
00:05:49
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not black or white, there's so much grey, it means you have to be on top of it all the time.
00:05:56
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And I think it's also about really focuses in on professionalism.
00:06:01
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If you look at any organization or any profession like lawyers, accountants, et cetera, they all have ethical guidelines and they're there for a purpose.
00:06:12
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And we as coaches have ethical guidelines.
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And I always stress that they're not rules because we cannot always say this is what you need to do or invariably you can't.
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But it's about those guidelines that we should sign up to.
00:06:26
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And if you sign up to something, you need to understand it.
00:06:29
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And so for me, it was about a journey of understanding and then sharing what I what I feel about ethics and my understanding of ethics with coaches.
00:06:38
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That's why I did it, why I did it and why I do it.
00:06:42
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Yeah, one of the things that I appreciate that you're saying that there is an ethical guideline.
00:06:47
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One of the things that I so appreciate about ethics, and I emphasize this every time I talk about ethics with coaches, is that, you know, we are a self-regulated profession.
00:07:00
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Ethics is the guideline that will support us in staying on course.
00:07:09
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If we don't have these ethics, there is so much room for going astray and not being able.
00:07:18
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being professionals, as you as you said, so this helps us to stay in the course of coaching and being there for the for our clients and being a legitimized profession, I believe.
00:07:33
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I absolutely agree with you.
00:07:34
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And
00:07:35
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It's the guidelines that we have are so good that will allow us to stay self-regulated because I do fundamentally believe that it's the right thing to do.
00:07:47
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And most coaches, if you ask them, will say that.
00:07:50
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But we need some form of guidance.
00:07:53
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regulation, if you like.
00:07:54
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And so being self-regulated, we need a good comprehensive set of guidelines that help us navigate things and remain professional.
00:08:02
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Because otherwise, we'll have other people telling us what to do who are not coaches, and they wouldn't necessarily understand what we do.
00:08:09
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So I'm really impassionate about the fact we have great guidelines.
00:08:13
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And I think the ICF does really well on monitoring those and updating them according to social changes, global changes, et cetera.
00:08:23
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And so they always have to be evolving.
00:08:27
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I appreciate you highlighting that because even to me, sometimes we go into the topic of ethics.
00:08:36
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Oh my gosh, we're going to talk about ethics.
00:08:37
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But there is a beauty around ethics.
00:08:41
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There is a reason for ethics.
00:08:43
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We are professionals.
00:08:46
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The ethics is foundational to all of this.
00:08:49
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So to me, it even excites me about getting to know ethics even more and be mindful about that.
00:08:55
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So, Hilary, another question for you here.
00:08:58
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For the coach professional, for the individual here, what do we need to keep in mind when we think about ethics?
00:09:09
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That is a really great question, actually, that...
00:09:13
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that we keep on top of the guidelines, but that they are only guidelines, but they give us a sense of what we're doing as a professional and what
00:09:27
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If we're regularly having a look at them, we can make sure that we are fit for purpose.
00:09:34
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Because that's what it, in some ways, that's what it's about is as a coach, part of my fit for purpose is am I doing good?
00:09:42
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Am I doing no harm?
00:09:45
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And in between that can be a lot of different things.
00:09:47
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And the ethical guidelines help me with that.
00:09:50
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So I think it's really important to understand what they are.
00:09:54
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And one of the things I like to say is I want people to understand that they're more than words on a page.
00:10:01
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So bringing them to life with examples of what certain paragraphs and code means and how that might present itself, I think is really important.
00:10:12
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which is, again, why I'm always happy to see that the ICF requires us to do so many ethical CCEs every year.
00:10:20
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And it's not a tick box.
00:10:21
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And I think doing ethics isn't just, oh, I'll go on that webinar and just sit and listen.
00:10:27
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It's about really understanding them because it's part of who we are as coaches and fit for purpose.
00:10:33
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Oh, wonderful.
00:10:34
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If we see ourselves in an ethical dilemma, what should we do?
Guidance in Ethical Dilemmas
00:10:43
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Another really good question.
00:10:45
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I think there are a number of things that one can do.
00:10:48
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Obviously, you can look at the guidelines to see where there might be some indications of what we might do.
00:10:56
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I think one of the key things about ethics for me is you need to have people who you can go and talk to and talk things through in a confidential manner.
00:11:07
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Now, that could be a coach supervisor.
00:11:10
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Really important role for a coach supervisor is to check in on ethical dilemmas, even if they hear something that you haven't picked up.
00:11:18
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But also to go even to another coach and say, let's have a conversation.
00:11:24
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Here's the kind of the context.
00:11:26
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I'd really like to have an understanding on where your thinking is.
00:11:29
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Because I think, again, it's part of a really good ethical content or ethical conversations is to have a conversation.
00:11:38
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What's your view on it?
00:11:39
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Where do you come from with this?
00:11:40
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What have I missed?
00:11:42
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and then refer again back to the guidelines to see whether or not I am about to contravene guidelines or not, and what I should perhaps do about it.
00:11:54
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So I think it's about having a look for yourself, look at all the facts around it, what might I be missing, and then go and talk to someone else and see what they might add into that conversation and then make a decision.
00:12:07
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And one of the things I always then teach, I guess is the right word, is having made a decision, you've done whatever it is, either changed something or decided it's okay, is review it.
00:12:20
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We often forget to go, okay, a few weeks ago, this came up, I made that decision, I put that into action, and
00:12:29
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Would I have done anything else based on whatever happened after that?
00:12:33
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So review it afterwards.
00:12:34
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So have that sort of process in mind about thinking, talking, think, decision, review.
00:12:43
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Here comes reflective practice again, even in ethics, right?
00:12:49
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You cannot look at ethics without doing reflection.
00:12:53
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Absolutely not.
00:12:55
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Fantastic.
00:12:56
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Another thing that you mentioned there that I want to emphasize is the fact of the community.
00:13:01
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We are not in this alone.
00:13:03
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And I always say this when we are talking about ethics in coach training.
00:13:08
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The beauty of the resources that we have within the ICF and within the coaching community at large for us to get support is,
00:13:20
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Oftentimes I see that when there is an ethical question, it's always important to get other perspectives.
00:13:28
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And we do have communities of practices.
00:13:32
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We have lots of conversation within the ICF around ethics.
00:13:36
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So in our colleagues, I always say that we are
00:13:41
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We do our practices individually, but we cannot have a sustainable practice alone.
00:13:48
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We need the community.
00:13:49
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And here's one one big point of it.
00:13:52
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Completely right.
00:13:54
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Yes.
00:13:55
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Because, you know, and as we both have said now, it's really difficult to make a decision in around ethics without talking to others, without seeing different perspectives and different ideas.
00:14:09
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At the end of the day, you'll make you'll make the decision yourself.
00:14:12
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Yeah.
00:14:13
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And let's face it, even like my very first ethical dilemma, if you like, way, way, way back then, you know, most of the times it's not something that is going to be a real problem, as most of them are quite small, but they still need attending to.
00:14:31
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100%.
00:14:33
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Thank you.
00:14:33
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Thank you for that.
00:14:35
Speaker
What else do we need to keep in mind here regarding ethics?
Ethical Decision-Making Framework
00:14:40
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They're not, well, I think it goes back to this thing about they're not rules.
00:14:45
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It's not about thou shalt not.
00:14:48
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It's more about his thinking about doing right.
00:14:56
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And there are some really good...
00:15:00
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Books on ethics as well.
00:15:02
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I'm going to mention this because years ago when I've really started getting into this, there was an English professor, which is quite nice, called Professor Roger Steer.
00:15:12
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And he wrote this book called Ethicability.
00:15:15
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And it's a lovely book.
00:15:17
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It's mainly in some ways based on working in business, but we are a business.
00:15:22
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Coaching is a business.
00:15:24
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And he gives some really good examples of ethics and
00:15:29
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where ethics intervenes at times wrongly, but also has some lovely mnemonics at the end to actually think about what you might think about when looking at a dilemma.
00:15:41
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And I'll share one if I may, which is one, it's right, R-I-G-H-T.
00:15:47
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And he says, okay, here's one way to look at it.
00:15:50
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What are the rules?
00:15:51
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In my case, I'd say guidelines, but it wouldn't fit right.
00:15:54
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But what are the rules around this?
00:15:57
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What is in integrity?
00:15:59
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So what is your intent there?
00:16:02
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What is in integrity with you in this?
00:16:05
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What good might an action take?
00:16:08
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What harm might an action take?
00:16:11
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And then the last one, which is T, is what is the truth?
00:16:15
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And by that he meant, if whatever is going on was written as a, and your decision was written as a newspaper headline, could you stand behind it?
00:16:28
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And I thought that, again, was just a lovely way to look at an ethical dilemma with that as a guideline for working it through with the action you're going to take.
00:16:38
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Could you stand by it?
00:16:41
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And I think that's important for any decision that we make, even after we've spoken to people, is does it feel right?
00:16:48
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Is it comfortable for you?
00:16:49
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Can you do it?
Closing and Listener Invitation
00:16:51
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Well, thank you for that.
00:16:52
Speaker
Thank you for that nugget of wisdom there.
00:16:56
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And thank you for the resource as well.
00:16:59
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And Hillary, thank you so much for sharing with us your wisdom.
00:17:05
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I hope that you are going to come back and share with us more of your experience and the nuggets of wisdom that you have gathered throughout your brilliant coaching career.
00:17:18
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Thank you so much, Hillary.
00:17:19
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Thank you.
00:17:20
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And I really appreciate being invited to do this.
00:17:23
Speaker
Take care and happy podcasting as you go.
00:17:26
Speaker
Thank you.
00:17:26
Speaker
Thank you, everyone, for listening.
00:17:28
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And don't forget to subscribe and share this with others as well.
00:17:33
Speaker
And I will talk to you next week.
00:17:35
Speaker
Take care.