I’m the scald in your castle - or Combined Martial Arts

This article is one of the self-reflection series. This time it is quite personal, and I believe that it can be useful for others. It illustrates a specific course of thought and internal considerations of "Who am I professionally?". What's more, it is crowned with a metaphor that captures its essence in a short and memorable way. I wish everyone would find such a metaphor that could be a reference point in times of doubt. A metaphor for themselves, above all else, not just one that "sounds good"; although this particular one also meets the second criterion.

Part I

Finding the answer to the question: who am I (professionally, of course) is not easy at all. How to put many years of diverse experience into one sentence, which is the whole point here? I've been asking this question for years and hardly anyone could answer it briefly, specifically and credibly. I had a problem with it myself. And it’s quite pointless writing about easy things because everyone has figured them out already. Approaching the aim, you can use the reverse technique and start by answering "Who am I not?". That's exactly what I did. An additional inspiration was the discussions, partly stirred up by yours truly, about the condition of coaching and its relation to other forms of supporting people.

The effect is that with full awareness I avoid calling myself a coach, although it is so fashionable and ennobling for many people. This term is vague enough that practically it means almost anything. And if it means anything, it is rather useless. The more so that anyone can formally call themselves a coach. For this reason, we have an abundance of coaches for any aspect of life. According to Ockham's rule, we should not multiply entities, that is, explain the unexplained by introducing further unexplained concepts. Sexologists deal with sex, beauticians with skin; trainers are for sports and speech therapists for speech, etc. No "coaches" are needed for this and it is just confusing people, mainly for sales purposes. What's more, for many people a coach, a mentor, or a trainer is one and the same thing. Some even say that it's enough to look into an English dictionary to find proof. Well... But then the word coach also translates to a sofa and a bus, so the translation method is a dead end (alright, I have misspelt it on purpose…).

Nevertheless, let us truthfully apply the fundamental principle of communication - the principle of cooperation, and let us try to understand the intention of the coaching environment: globally organized, setting work standards for coaches and guidelines for supervision, as well as granting and verifying relevant certificates. I'm also assuming goodwill, the pursuit of continuous self-improvement, the maturity and modesty of such coaches. Fortunately, there are quite a few of them after the flood of the lowercase ones. I have great respect for them and I will always defend them against putting them together with the coaching amateurs, coached by other amateurs.

In the case of my environment (managers, owners, entrepreneurs in general), I am increasingly afraid that coaching as a method is becoming too limited.

The needs of managers are so diverse in a quickly-changing environment (and it's changing increasingly "quickly") that limiting ourselves to just one method of asking questions and circling around solutions is not sufficient anymore. The more so that the client (my client, i.e. a leader or someone aspiring to this role; I'm not generalizing) practically wants to have me as a partner ready to provide not only inspiration, but advice, and sometimes simply hard knowledge. They do not want to run around to different people looking to find different puzzles of the same picture. They want to have someone with whom they can talk about most of the puzzles, always looking at the WHOLE picture. Thus, my business knowledge and my own experience in this area are of great importance. Relying on the extraction of knowledge that already exists in the client has its limitations. Very often the knowledge simply isn't there, and no matter how deeply we dig, we find no hidden treasure. Anyway, Socrates rightly argued that his mother, a midwife, could not help all women, but only those who were pregnant. Too often, we forget about this aspect of "pregnancy" and keep on convincing that coaching is good for everything and everyone. Let me just bring up the example of the fashionable "career coaching" concept. Very often the client has no idea how the labor market works and how to professionally operate within it, what Positioning means, what this fashionable Personal Brand idea is about, how to build and implement his strategy on the market, how (executive) recruitment processes work and how to behave in them, quite often does not even know the basics of communication (including writing a good CV, or creating a LI profile), etc. You must then help him in a different way than by asking questions and stimulating his intuition. It's because, without knowledge and experience, intuition alone is not worth much. And a coach cannot do that; even if he wanted to break the rules, he would fail, because... quite often he has no idea about it.

My personal conclusion – the method is not “god”; the client and his needs are “god”. So what do you call what I do when working with a client? My personal and original name is...

COMBINED MARTIAL ARTS

It might appear a bit pompous or showy, but it captures the essence of things very well. Combining coaching, mentoring and counselling, it requires three times as much humbleness, mindfulness and concentration on the client. It's something like the Krav Maga principles:

- Choosing the most effective techniques of different styles

- Focusing on real situations (of the Client)

- Effectiveness is the goal, not the process itself

- Client's activity and initiative are essential; it must be stimulated.

Isn’t it still quite vague? Of course, it is, but alas - it cannot be less vague; at least, not at the beginning of the discussion with your recipient. It comes with a very significant danger, which can be illustrated with an anecdote from George Bernard Shaw's life. Allegedly a lady pointed out to him what wonderful children they could have had together – combining his wisdom and her beauty. Shaw wittily responded, "What if they turn out the other way round...?" There is a danger that I will use the right techniques on wrong occasions. However, limiting oneself to one technique only (with equally vague borders) is not a solution. I can also make mistakes, so the point of reference should be the Client and not the method. We're left with giving in to the humble procedure (worked out by the coaching environment, praise them!) of authenticating ourselves to the Client: discussing our experiences, references, rules, goals and style of cooperation, the way to verify them, the Client's needs, as well as possible procedures for external process control. Let me emphasize it - discussion, and not a sales presentation in a “plumber” style ("Satisfaction guaranteed; one session costs so and so").

Quite often there is a natural sequence of methods used while supporting the Client. In the very beginning, digging to find his personal purpose, naming values and turning them into behaviors, creating long term life/work targets, coaching seems to be the best and natural method.

Then we move to stage two: moving it from idea and speculative areas into clear life/work strategy, including measurable milestones and several potential scenarios (while decision of “no plan” is also a kind of conscious plan). It brings also communication package, finally in written form, on paper as it verifies well all what we think sounds good “in the air”. During that stage we clearly move towards mentoring.

And then we have the third and final stage – how to make the world listen to us and support us then? In that period just consulting approach becomes very efficient.

Of course it never works within ideally separate stages. It is always a mix, but centre of gravity could move as described above.

Still a bit vague? Sure, as the whole coaching model. But it works very well in my case (well, rather cases of my Clients, indeed) and summarizes properly my 18 years experience there.

Part II

Now let’s go back to the scald. So what does the “I am a scald in your castle” title phrase mean? The value of this metaphor lies precisely in the accurate definition of the role I attribute to myself. Here's what this metaphor means to me:

-       The castle is YOURS; you lead your life, you are the Lord/Lady of the castle. You hire me to support and not to take the blame for your decisions or lack of thereof. I will help you define opportunities and learn the consequences of individual choices so that you can make an informed decision. I will also tell you what others have done in your situation and what the effects were. I will inspire you to act, supporting you in minimizing risk

-       A scald wanders; he does not stay in one castle forever; such is his role, but also his nature. He is pushed by relentless curiosity about everything. You hire me for specific tasks, to support you at a specific moment in your life, for a specific period of time. My role is to support you effectively and help you act on your own as quickly as possible. I will not make you dependent on me. When you decide you need a scald again, he will return and then leave again, in order to support others. Due to this, the scald  also learns and gains knowledge/experience to share it with you and with others

-       A scald "entertains" you with very different songs. A good scald must have a variety of repertoire to skillfully adjust it to your current needs. Those who sing only sad or only happy songs are useless

-       A scald shares his experience and thoughts, submitting them to your consideration and opinion and... that is his profession.

Summary 

Obviously, I do not wander around the market saying "Hello, I'm a scald" :-). This is a fantastic metaphor for my self-reflection and for stimulating discussion with the environment, but not necessarily useful during the first conversation. So how do I define myself in business terms?

 In a deliberately simple way – I am a Consultant in the area of Executive Search / Leadership Development (for companies), and Personal Development (for managers). Everything that is most important in one short sentence, which is the core that summarizes the essence of things. What is my role, for whom, in what sector. I may also add EMEA to specify the geographic dimension of my experiences and activities. The important thing is the sentence is easily understood by the recipient. After that, I can move go to the essence of my methodology of Combined Martial Arts. And only at the end, I can refer to the scald metaphor. Then it becomes a logical sequence and the metaphor, apart from the beauty of it, takes on a deeper meaning. As I've written at the very beginning - to a large extent for myself because this is an article about my internal struggle.

PS As always, I owe you a clarification where the title metaphor comes from. I am not the author, unfortunately. It is Frank Herbert (yes, the Dune author). The full quote is:

?I’m the scald visiting your castle. I bring songs and news from other castles I have visited, and some of those are strange indeed. I sing for my supper and those other castles of which I sing are partly figments of imagination.”

Frank Herbert, obviously, wrote it in a different context than consulting. As for me, I was immediately struck by how perfectly the quote captures the essence of thoughts that have been on my mind for a long time. I started giving it more thought until today's epiphany - the answer to the question "Who am I (professionally)?"