Coaching as a Closely Held Enterprise:Interview with Christine McDougall

Cherie Kellahan

This article first appeared in the International Journal of Coaching in Organizations, 2005, 3(2),32-38. It can only be reprinted and distributed with prior written permission from Professional Coaching

Publications, Inc. (PCPI). Email John Lazar at john@ijco.info for such permission.

ISSN 1553-3735

2005

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Coaching as a Closely Held Enterprise:Interview with Christine McDougall

Cherie Kellahan

This article is based on an interview that occurred early in 2005, between Christine McDougall and the interviewer, CherieKellahan. Cherie is one of Christine’s clients and was the head of Marketing for McDonalds Australia for many years. Hercareer change includes talk back radio. Christine agreed to be interviewed for several reasons. She is a single parent, has beena small business owner herself for 20 years, and is one of the pioneers of coaching in Australia. She felt this interview may addsome inspirational perspective to other coaches. Her business has evolved from basic life coaching, to specialist work withsenior executives as they mature and emerge as powerful, integral leaders.

Interviewer: How did you become a coach and is thatsomething you have always wanted to do?

Christine: I had been looking for my vocation for 37 years.I was sort of dragged into coaching because my bestfriend who lives in San Antonio, Texas, told me that Iwas a coach four years before I got started and I reallydidn’t understand what she was talking about, so didnothing about it, even though I trusted her. I guess youcould say that the universe conspired for me to becomea coach.

I was living in the US during my 37th year and therewas an opportunity to take a scholarship with CoachUniversity, at this stage still knowing nothing aboutcoaching. Coach University suggested that if I wantedto be a great coach (and I don’t like doing anything byhalf measures), that I get my own coach, so I hiredMichele Henkle Ireland who is still my coach eight yearslater. It was during my first coaching session that I gotit. This IS me, I have found my vocation. It’s beenonward and upward ever since.

Interviewer: Sounds like it has really been about yourevolution as an individual and that fits in with whatyour business is all about (personal evolution). Youreally walked the talk before you believed you could goand help other people to evolve themselves?

Christine: It is also one of those critical pieces. We doneed to walk our talk. As part of my training I was told

that my clients are going to be one step in front of me orone step behind me. Sometimes that drives me crazy,because it’s so true, but it is imperative in my mind thatcoaches are highly committed to their own personalevolution because if you want to have long termrelationships with clients which is what I do, then ifyou do not stay in front of them, if you can’t keep currentwith your own emerging process, you are going to beleft behind.

Interviewer: That is a great philosophy to live but it isnot always easy. What were some of the obstacles, ifany, that you had to personally overcome to get to whereyou are today?

Christine: I think probably one of the biggest obstacleswas one I managed to get over in the first six months ofmy business. I know this obstacle gets in the way of alot of other coaches and professionals. It is to get pastthe belief that you have to sell yourself to get business.One of the many big distinctions between coaching andconsulting is you can package a consulting service, andhave it be delivered successfully by many differentconsultants. It is very difficult to package a very personalexperience, which is what coaching is.

However, it’s not me they are buying. I might be theattracter, why people consider buying, but ultimatelywhat I have to be able to do is to hear, identify andclarify what the client is looking for in a far better waythen they can articulate it. If I can do that and they know

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I can do that then I make the sale. What I had to learn todo was stop trying to sell myself and instead come froma place of service. The moment I got that, that it was notabout me needing to sell myself but me really needingto identify and provide exactly the service that the clientwas looking for, then it was easy. Often they don’t knowwhat they are looking for themselves, until the coachidentifies it for them.

Interviewer: So it’s about witnessing and supportingsomebody from an objective position?

Christine: Yes, it is, I still believe it’s one of the mostpriceless relationships that exists because it is thatcomplete clarity of support without the emotionalattachments that get in the way of so many of our otherrelationships.

Interviewer: Why do you think all of a sudden thatcoaching has become so popular and so accessible?

Christine: It’s a really great question and it’s a questionthat a group of senior coaches and myself discussed atthe ICF board level. Why coaching and why now? Whydon’t we go to other professionals? What need hasarisen that coaching addresses now? I actually believethere are many answers to those questions. Ourtechnology and our speed of living and our wholegeneral lifestyle has on one level increased ourconnectivity but on another level it has increased ourisolation.

Also coaching really only applies to people who havereached a particular level of their own development andhave both the financial means and space/time meansto start exploring some of life’s big questions, and theirown awareness. Why am I here? What am I doing?Where do I want to go? And so on. 20, 30, 40 years ago,I don’t think that question existed so much because weweren’t at that level of development to ask thesequestions. Coaching, as we know it, would not take offin the highland tribes of Papua New Guinea!

Having reached that level of development, coaching isone of the few places you can go to have a conversationthat exists in multiple domains. We’re dealing with the

exterior ‘I’ domain, ‘I’ as in personal component, whichis the way we behave in the world, what we do, ouractivities. We are also dealing with the interior ‘I’domain, our internal values, our interior conversations,our beliefs and emotions. We’re dealing with the waywe relate to other people and the world, our world views,our relationships, the culture that we are raised in, andwe are also dealing with the systems and structures wehave built around us, our form of government, ourtechno- economic base.

Coaching is one of the few conversations that allowyou to exist in all four of these domains. For example,psychology will either live in the interior and theexterior, but not so much in the social structures andsystems. Consulting often lives in the exterior structuresand systems, or in the cultural change domain, but rarelyin the interior world of values and beliefs. Coaching isreally the only place that I know of where you can showup as a whole human being and the coach will explore/work with you in all domains. The same applies tobusiness coaching.

Looking at the four domains of a business, includingits interiors and intangible, unmeasurable domains,commonly known as the soft skills, is normal in thecoaching conversation. People have been exploring andup-skilling in the exterior world of measurables forhundreds of years, and are beginning to realise thatsomething fundamental is missing. Our interior world.Our soul.

Interviewer: Do you think that is perhaps why coachingis now becoming as or more popular than therapy,traditional therapy, because it’s not focusing onrestorative work but because it is all-inclusive, touchingon every area of a persons life?

Christine: I think there is another component to that,which for some people is significant and for others notas significant. There can be a stigma attached to workingwith a therapist, that there is something wrong withme. Whereas the place coaching comes from is that thereis nothing wrong with you, we are not needing to fixyou. It is about enhancing and adding to what alreadyexists.

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Interviewer: Is that why a lot of coaches have their owncoaches and is that why you mentioned that you have aeight year relationship with your coach, which is longerthan some marriages? There must have been some reallyinteresting developments within that relationship.

Christine: In what I call a masterful coachingrelationship, which is what I always strive for withclients, every time I step into the coaching conversation,in fact, even when I am not in the coaching conversation,even now talking to you, I know that my coach sees memore clearly than I do, in my greatness. She alsounderstands things that get in the way of me being mygreatness. Every time I step into that conversation orthat relationship, who I am goes up a couple of notches,I become a better person. I become more integrated. Ireckon that is a pretty valuable relationship?

Interviewer: Absolutely. What are some of the wins youhave had with clients? Obviously you cannot talk aboutspecifics but generally speaking, what are some of thereal achievements that you have seen happen withpeople that you have worked with?

Christine: In the area of coaching that I work with,personal emergence and personal evolution, it’sunusual actually to get the really outstandingachievements and measurables. I generally do not workwith people specifically around their performance.(Performance coaching lives predominantly in theexterior domains.) I am working with people aroundtheir emergence as a human being, their unfoldingdevelopment, which is not always a pretty path. I don’tmeasure success with clients in a typical way; I measuresuccess by the value of the relationship, which is not aco-dependent relationship.

If the client stays with me long term and gets tremendousvalue from having a partner in their own personalemergence then I know I am doing my work. Needlessto say I have coached people to higher salary packetsand other great achievements but I don’t consider thatto be the only winning part of my coaching.

Interviewer: So it’s really about the relationship? Is thatwhat you enjoy most about your work?

Christine: The relationship? I think the human experienceof unfolding is at times, painful, tricky and can beincredibly joyous. Having a partner in that unfoldingwho stays objective but at the same time, very loving, isincredibly valuable, and that is the type of coachingthat I do. There are other coaches that specialise inothers areas.

Interviewer: There certainly seems to be a lot of peoplewanting to move to the next level. How do you thinkpeople should or could identify what the right step isfor them in terms of hiring a coach?

Christine: The very first question is clearly identifyingwhy you would want to hire a coach? What is it thatyou want to get? What do you want to get from thatrelationship? What can the coach offer you that fits yourneeds? I still ask the question: what it is that is uniqueto my coaching that I offer? It’s really about perspectiveor clarity; I give people sight, which may not soundlogical.

Interviewer: It sounds perfectly logical to me.

Christine: I don’t know whether that is the right answer,I think it is both sight and partnership, but thepartnership is different than the partnership mostpeople would have with their spouse or their best friend,it’s a different relationship.

Interviewer: I notice that you quoted Martin Luther KingJr. on your website. We all know that one of his primarymessages was certainly about rallying behind non-conformity. Would you describe yourself as a non-conformist?

Christine: There are some areas that I am happy toconform to and other parts that I would definitelydescribe myself as a non-conformist. To questioneverything, not from cynicism or suspicion, but becausescience and what we know changes everyday. We reallyneed to question everything. What is real? I don’t know.Personally I am not very good at taking orders unless Iam enrolled on the team.

Interviewer: What have you gained from having that

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perspective?

Christine: Good and bad. Sometimes it can be lonely outthere on the edges of nonconformity. I know Einsteinsaid something fairly similar ~that we won’t get changeby using the same thinking that created the problem inthe first place.~ Certainly the people who arechallenging the status quo, and looking at things witha different perspective, are the ones who will create thechanges, but that path can be a lonely one and can befraught with danger.

I have a picture of the original scout (in an army) whoused to ride out and check out the situation ahead andwould often come back with arrows in his hat. You canget the slings and arrows of people who don’t agreewith your particular view. However, unless we havethose people we are not going to move through theproblems and situations that we created. I love workingwith the non-conformists of the world because it’s alonely and courageous and bold thing to do, and can bevery rewarding. The truth is that I, they, we, are notalways right in our non-conformity, and we have to beable to bear that.

Interviewer: That can be a bit of a pill to swallow.

Christine: Don’t stop giving it a go.

Interviewer: It sounds to me that one of the key areas foryou is personally believing and identifying with thework that you do and then refining it. Within coachingthere are obviously tiers and levels and ways ofcoaching people. I imagine it would keep you prettybusy?

Christine: Yes, I am constantly re-defining myself and Iconsider myself to be a fairly intense person in my work.I have wonderful clients. I am constantly re-inventingand I think that is one of the essentials and also thepleasures of the vocation. As I change who I am, thebusiness evolves and my product line evolves.

Interviewer: Sounds like you are on the go all the time.What is a typical day or week for you?

Christine: Generally I do my one-on-one coaching andgroup work on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdayand I have Monday for strategic business development,Friday for leftovers, for clients and/or catch up.

Interviewer: How do you prioritise the things that areimportant to you?

Christine: I have learnt that if I don’t do the things thatare very important first thing in the morning I won’t dothem. I have a meditation and exercise program that Ido before the day gets started and as long as thathappens, I am in pretty good shape. Working foryourself can be fairly isolating, particularly if you aredoing phone-based work, which I do. I love it, but somepeople struggle with the isolation. My healthcare andmy spiritual practise is the number one priority andthat comes first.

Interviewer: So it is finding the ways and means ofsupport for you to be your personal best?

Christine: It’s the story of the big rocks first. The eveningsand the weekends are a time for my daughter and me.

Interviewer: I imagine that it would be quite taxingrunning a small business and raising a child as a soloparent? They say that there is nothing harder thanraising a child and successfully running a smallbusiness or starting a small business. I am sure you areaware of the failure rates of starting a small business inAustralia? You have single-handedly managed to doboth, so, if there were one key element, what would yousay would be the secret of your success?

Christine: In my early naiveté as a parent I thoughtchildren’s characters were formed by their parents butquickly realised that children are born with their owncharacters. We parents can simply enhance thecharacter of our child. I started off with great material.My daughter is extraordinarily wonderful to live withand work with and be around. That is something I gotfor free. In addition, I have always stayed in dialoguewith her, including her in my work and decisions.

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For example, I am in the process of compiling materialfor a book and I sat with my daughter a couple of weeksago and said for a short period of time the only way Ican see myself doing this is to give up weekends formaybe months and months. She didn’t like the idea atall, but we are negotiating, working on pro’s and con’s,and rewards, like a white Christmas this year (a trip tothe Northern Hemisphere). I have dialogued with hersince she was very young, and have always beenastounded by her insights and contributions to theprocess.

Interviewer: That is wise. So it’s not so much aboutfinding a technique or strategy to balance the time, ordivide the time, but more about being open andcommunicating and determining together what thepriorities are right now?

Christine: She is learning to take on more and moreresponsibility around the home. She had to be anindependent child from an early age. The last time Imade her lunch…I can’t remember…or breakfast.

Interviewer: It sounds like the two of you have an evolvingpartnership as well.

Christine: Without question…yes…

Interviewer: Would you say you employ some of thecoaching techniques that you have with your clients,with your daughter?

Christine: I wish I were a better coach with my daughterthan I am. For some reason I find being a parent mucheasier than being a coach for my daughter. I must admitmy coaching skills with my daughter are rarely used.She still doesn’t understand what I do. Recently I havebeen using coaching more with her, particularlyworking with the harsh conversations teenage girlshave with each other.

Interviewer: You were saying that the best coachingrelationship is really that independent partnership andthat is probably why when we are too close to somebodyit is difficult to coach them.

Christine: I find that coaching my daughter is very trickywhen it is about her. It is easier to coach her with herrelationships to others.

Interviewer: Needless to say, even with thecommunication and the dialogue, I think that runninga small business successfully and being a solo parentcertainly puts some challenges in place and demandson your time and your resources. So for all the othercoaches reading this and running their own smallbusiness, what do you typically do to keep your ownbusiness growing? What do you focus on? What is themost important aspect for you?

Christine: I have learnt from the school of hard knocksthat you have to constantly be “marketing.” For me thatis to be constantly in dialogue and relationships withpeople, always looking for mutual opportunity. Themoment you stop doing that, you can pretty muchguarantee that the effects will be felt 3-4 months downthe track. I am fairly introverted, therefore I have learntto market in a way that really suits me. I am not going togo to a networking function; you won’t find me there.You have to keep yourself in the conversation and atthe level you want to play. You also have to buildpipelines into your business. Big healthy ones!

Interviewer: And to be clear on what service you areoffering?

Christine: And what I can deliver, what is the differencebetween my service offering and those of other coaches.

Interviewer: How would you say coaching most helpsor can help a small business owner? What are the typicalsituations that you think small business owners cancome to coaching to work on?

Christine: Simple business practices that they don’tknow of, can’t see, aren’t clear about. It can be systemsthat create efficiencies. Their marketing and what theyare saying, the alignment between what they are sayingand what they are doing. Very often there is a blindspot and misalignment. Are they leveragingrelationships, are they thinking about buildingnetworks to really support themselves? How they are

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showing up in the world? Is there a gap between whatthey say and what they do? It can be their interior, theirown belief, self-talk, or their values or mismatchedvalues. It can be the culture they have created, or wantto create, and the view they have of the world. In otherwords, coaching a small business requires working inmultiple domains.

Interviewer: Yes, and it sounds more holistic. Thepersonal emergence focus can easily be applied to asmall business owner, or to a corporate executive or to astay at home Mum?

Christine: Yes, because ultimately the principles are thesame. It is easier for us to see the relationship ordisrelationship between our friends than it is to seedysfunction in our own life. The coach is the personwho sees the relationships or disrelationship and theinternal beliefs patterns that are pulling you down, seesthe breakdowns in systems and structures. The coachcan see that more clearly because they are external.

Interviewer: How would you take that and use it onyourself? Do you coach yourself?

Christine: No.

Interviewer: That is a client that you are not willing totake on?

Christine: I have my own coach because I need thatexternal clear-sighted perspective. At times I’ve hadmultiple coaches in different domains because whileMichelle is my Head/Lead Coach occasionally I needsome specialist work.

Interviewer: She is your Lead Coach? Having workedwith her for a long period of time, how do you thinkthat your life has changed?

Christine: Every year I reach a place and go “Wow, lookhow far I have come this year” not believing that I couldgrow so much. And yet it happens every year. Oh, howblind, deaf and dumb I was back then 12 months ago,how come I didn’t know this? My daughter has taughtme, just by being around, to be more compassionate

then I ever was before being a parent and I am certainlylearning more about humility, and still have a lot tolearn about that. I just love the learning process.

Interviewer: Obviously anybody who is involved withcoaching is compassionately and actively evolving andmoving forward in his or her lives. If you were turningup to a 20-year class reunion next week, what do youthink might be an obvious change, one that peoplewould notice straight away?

Christine: I don’t know. I would like to think that theywould say I am grounded, connected, and open andhave a very high personal presence.

Interviewer: I didn’t go to school with you and I certainlycan tell you what you were like back then, but I can tellyou that that is my experience of you.

Christine: Thank you. Personal presence, if there isanything that I aspire to in my own life, that’s what it is.

Interviewer: That is a great aspirational value. Where doyou see the future for coaching?

Christine: That is a great question; it’s one I have beenasking myself recently. A group of senior coaches fromaround the world got together in Quebec City in Canadain November 04. At one point there was about 8-10 ofus sitting around the table talking about what the futureof coaching is, and we did go off the charts with some ofour answers. I think that as our own self-awarenessdevelops at an increasingly accelerated pace, it’sprobably going to be the technology in the physical form,the thinking and the structural form where most changewill occur. We will have more models and frameworksto work from, giving people ever greater perspectives. Idon’t think that coaching is going to go away until weget a significant number of people to a particular level.

Interviewer: I wish you all the very best with this future.Thank you for your time._______________________________________________

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International Journal of Coaching in Organizations

Christine McDougall

Phone: 61 7 5527 5155Email: Christine@syzergy.biz

Christine McDougall founded her company Syzergy in1997. Syzergy is an international coaching companyspecialising in the emerging leader. Her individualclients are based around the world.

Christine has been a Board member of the InternationalCoach Federation for five years, her last year in theposition of Vice President. She was the inauguralPresident of the International Coach FederationAustralasia. Christine is on the editorial board of theInternational Journal for Coaching in Organisations.Christine is also a founding member of the InternationalConsortium for Coaches in Organisations and has beena keynote speaker at many events around the world._____________________________________________

gather together to promote, critically examine, and fur-ther the field of coaching in organizations. While ICCOis grounded in the practices of executive coaching, italso embraces other forms of coaching that occur inorganizational settings.

The field of organizational coaching encompasses di-verse coaching applications: executive coaching, busi-ness coaching, performance coaching, leadershipcoaching, and alignment coaching, among many otherstrategies. What these diverse coaching applicationshold in common is a conviction that men and womenin management and leadership positions can benefitsignificantly - and, consequently, so will their organi-zation - from the thoughtful, neutral and compassion-ate assistance of an effective and experienced coach,who may either stand outside the formal authority struc-ture of the organization, or be a part of the internal pro-fessional development system of their organization.

If you are interested in finding out more about ICCO orwish to become a member of this organization, furtherinformation regarding membership in ICCO is to befound by contacting Patti Erck at the Professional Schoolof Psychology, 9912 Business Park Dr., Suite 170, Sac-ramento, California [Phone: 916.364.0252, Fax:916.364.5511, Email: pattie@psp.edu.] An applicatonform is also to be found in Issue One (2005) of IJCO onpage 66.

The IJCO Logo:What Does It Represent

The co-executive editors of IJCO have been asked aboutthe logo that adorns all covers of the journal, as well assubscription forms, policy statements, etc. This logocomes from a much larger work of art--a statue calledKabala--that was created by Julian Harr. The logo repre-sents two birds (vision) , two hands (support) or twoflames (energy). We think that vision, support and en-ergy are three of the key ingredients in effective organi-zational coaching practices.

- William Bergquist- John Lazar

_____________________________________________

The International Consortiumfor Coaching in Organizations (ICCO)

ICCO is concerned with the human service endeavorknown as coaching in an organizational context, with ex-ecutive coaching as its core application . ICCO members

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