The Way Beyond Coaching Class Experience - Advanced Level

On 2 June, we finished Way Beyond Coaching Class 1, the first edition of our Coaching Programme, entirely designed by us after 11 years of delivering a programme in partnership.

We wanted to have the testimonies of those who participated and ask them to write an article to 5 pairs of hands. But on second thought, it seemed more fun and more dynamic to get together (virtually) to chat which, after all, is what we most like to do!

We talked with Celina, Joana, Marisa and Tânia. Maria, for not being able to be here, wrote.

Angela - If you met your best friend on the street on the day you got your degree and he asked you "What's that a degree in, what's it like, what's happened?" what would you say about what you've been doing? 

Tania - Wow! That's a question.... I posted on Linkedin that I was finishing the Advanced Level and I got three contacts from ex-colleagues asking if I was enjoying it. I said yes and they asked me "So tell me more" and I said "No, I can't tell you by message, if you want to call and we'll talk because just by message you can't describe it".

To date, I have already received four phone calls asking for feedback on the course.

In addition, I went to dinner with my immediate family to celebrate on the day we finished the Programme, and I needed to share the final work and other things about the course.

This is to say Angela, I've been going around in circles a bit but I think this is all connected. So, what I told my sister and my nephews was that, for me, it was a brutal program of self-knowledge, I lived it in a very intense way, it shook a lot of things up and I think I came out much better than I went in as a person, besides the coaching tools that are also very useful in my professional life.

This Programme was a "serious thing", which involved conscious decision-making, self-knowledge, opening horizons and looking at others. My professional practice clearly changed, for example, in not assuming things as absolute truths and just for that (which is already quite a lot!) it was worthwhile and what I transmitted was very much that!

Angela - So you would say it was a programme of self-knowledge? 

Tânia - Yes, of meeting. Of meeting myself, with myself, of questioning, of understanding, of searching. Look, I can say that I started to read a lot more, to look at human interactions in a different way, to be more critical, to try to help by listening more to people. For me, it was very much in this perspective.

Celina - Look, I said it was a rediscovery of myself. I made an analogy with a puzzle (in fact, that was what I used in my final presentation): the Introductory Level gave me some self-knowledge and so did the Advanced Level. And I think it is looking from the outside and being able now to reinvent myself, whether in terms of the tools it gave me, the interactions it allowed me or the experiences I had. In the same way I conveyed that it was an intense experience on both personal and professional levels.

Marisa - The first thing I say is that, for sure, this Programme is a different experience for each person, so I can share my experience but I know that a person who comes to do the same Programme will certainly have a different experience. I think this is an experience, a very personal Programme and it will touch people in different ways. For me it was a process of self-knowledge and emotional release, it helped me to think. Not only the Programme but also the people who did it with me, helped me to think, to know myself a little more and to confront myself with certain facts and situations of my life. From a more professional point of view, to improve my skills as a leader, as a person who gives feedback and challenges his team, who helps the team to grow. I definitely feel that I have acquired a series of tools that I have applied and that, as the person responsible for a team, have helped me to give better feedback and I have also received very positive feedback for the way I give them feedback and also for being able to make them think and challenge them more as we have learned here in the Programme. So, I think it was a win-win at a personal level and for what I want to transpose to my professional reality, in this case, team management.

Joana - It is difficult to say, because to say "this course started to change my life", sounds like something a bit esoteric. If I met someone I would say exactly that: it started to change my life and I am much happier, not only in the understanding of the way I think and act and am, how I live with others, but also because it deconstructed some ideas that I had very deep-rooted, that I was a super listener, for example. It changed on a personal level because I live much more serenely and I think more about beliefs and habits that I had and I have tried to change, "...". In the relationship with others it has been very important... So, I think it has made me braver and sometimes it shakes me here because I have started to question my vulnerabilities without always having the need to apologise for them. And then, as I love people so much and being able to relate to them, to do something that contributes to helping people find their goals and purposes and be happier, that's great! And the Programme gave us a lot of tools for that.

Maria - Using the Way Beyond's perspective of what coaching is, it deepens the "art of the conversation". I would say that my great initial motivation was to deepen techniques that I use in the area of leadership consultancy and that the course responds to this motivation in a very consistent and practical way, but beyond that, it allowed me to grow as a person, to reveal to myself aspects that were more hidden and to notice them, feel them and try to deal with them making me a more complete human being. I have believed since I was very young that this life can be a path of continuous improvement and, by essence, infinite, and this course was another step on that path.

Angela - Suddenly, listening to you it sounds like we are talking about another Programme and not a Coaching Programme. This leads me to another question: what is the metaphor or image you would use to characterise the Programme and your experience on this Programme? 

Celina - The puzzle for the fact of looking with a completely different perspective, in the sense of a different reconstruction and for having now a wider vision.

Marisa - The caterpillar that turns into a butterfly. The capacity we have to transform ourselves and, at each transformation, to become better than we were at the previous one. After all, sometimes this process of transformation is a bit hard because when the caterpillar is closed in the cocoon, the process to free itself must be painful, but it's worth it because then something better and more beautiful comes.

Joana - My metaphor represents what I lived and experienced during the Programme and it takes me back to the life cycle of the butterfly. As a caterpillar, I feel that I was feeding as much as I could on learning, on experiences and connecting them with what I had already lived and was living; later on, when it is transforming into a chrysalis, even before leaving as a butterfly, it was a period of endurance. I began to develop new ways of thinking and being and relating to others. The short time of the butterfly's life I also see as these natural movements between fears and learning, setbacks and conquests, a single observer and multiple ways of seeing multiple realities.

And the butterfly shows this too: the fact that it does not want to be closed and can meet others and help them discover their goals and pursue them.

Tania - I am remembering an exercise we did in the Programme where I thought about the swallow and the roots and about flying and returning to my space, and it is making perfect sense to me. In other words, I have learnt to refocus on what is my safe harbour, my base, but for me, coaching has brought me this awareness that I need to fly, to meet people, new places and to always have this present in my life, without neglecting my reality. I was thinking here of another analogy. I have here the world map and... I know where I am, I am in Portugal and I, looking at the world map, what did the Programme give me? The idea that the world is a diversity of people, as if each dot, each country, each continent represented different ways of thinking. And the Programme, apart from the knowledge, gave me the humility to recognise that each person is so rich because of the different way of being. Acceptance I think was one of the great perspectives that the course gave me. Always with the awareness of where I am, but also that there is a whole world of people, thoughts, opportunities and predisposition to know everything that surrounds us, and for me it is important never to lose this image of the world map.

Joana - And I think it is a path of discovery and that this Programme also shows us the virtues of exploring and helping to explore other possibilities, which may hurt, but you grow with it.

Tania - Of course, it hurts in Alaska, it's freezing!

Maria - More than a metaphor or image, I share an experience I had on my first romantic weekend with my husband. I signed us up for a "canyoning" activity in Gerês (I thought we were going canoeing). Well, as soon as we got there they started giving us helmets, wetsuits, harnesses and I was a bit confused because I didn't understand the usefulness of so many accessories until... We went into Gerês, without canoe, and the idea was to go down the river just with our body, when we needed to swim we swam, when we needed to jump between cliffs we jumped, if we needed to rappel or climb we did it. It was spectacular, and much more than I ever imagined when we signed up!

Angela - Listening to you, it seems that it's difficult to describe the Programme in a pragmatic way "Look, this is a Programme where you learn this and this, and at the end you get a diploma". It seems that this Programme is not quite like that. I was hoping that you would say that in a concrete way, but, it doesn't seem easy...

Tânia - Apart from that stratospheric emotion thing that it provoked in me, this Programme is a very serious thing. The classes are very well organised, the teachers are extremely professional. I feel the need to reinforce the seriousness, not only of reflection and change, no! There are specific themes, specific readings... It's a serious thing that requires dedication and commitment.

Angela - Of the changes you see and have implemented, which are the ones you like the most? 

Celina - The way of being was the one that I see had the most impact and that, in professional terms, was the most felt. From the point of view of being more transparent with people and having the courage. I highlight this way of being more transparent.

Joana - I like to feel that I listen better and put myself in the place of others; I like to feel that I live well with the discoveries I made, I live with more transparency with myself and with others; I like it when people say that they see in me a greater serenity. It's the better understanding that it's not only through joy that we go, but also through sadness and that this is good, for example, when we need to rebuild. And, finally, the possibilities it has opened up for me, namely for a greater understanding and acceptance of the other and to recognise that reality is not really only what I saw.

Tânia - I am pleased with the awareness that I made and that contributed to a greater confidence and security and to a greater acceptance of others, of myself, of what I have to improve and what are the possibilities I have. Then, there was another change in my behaviour: I feel more inclined to debate and discuss ideas and not to accept the things I hear without questioning. I feel myself raising more and more questions and sometimes even in a provocative attitude of trying to understand the other person and make us both reflect.

Maria - For me, it's knowing how to live better in grey areas, knowing how to live better with uncertainty and to expose or propose myself. It is living with less certainties and finding that, contrary to the fear I had that my self-confidence would be shaken, it actually came out stronger!

Angela - And what was the most difficult thing to accept or experience during this Programme? 

Celina - The beliefs that we became aware of as we carried out the tasks. Those beliefs that are so deeply rooted, the realisation that they are limiting and not enhancing change and that these are our vulnerabilities. ... during the Programme we are forced to reflect on this and to place ourselves, even in front of our colleagues, in a position of vulnerability. And that was strange at the beginning, because it hurt, but I think that was the great wealth and the catalyst for change.

Tânia - It takes courage and that was only possible because of the environment of trust and comfort for sharing that was created and that allows us to be very comfortable and to share things that are very much ours and vulnerabilities that are sometimes difficult for us to admit. It was also difficult for me to realise that I still have things that I didn't want but that are still there, "...". This was the most challenging part of the Programme.

Joana - One of the things I said at the beginning was "This is great, but it's going to ruin my life". I think that what was most difficult for me was to realise that, in the end, I didn't expose myself or know myself as well as I thought I did and that I was trying to get others to know themselves better, but that the exercise I was doing with myself wasn't that great after all. And that, as it turns out, sometimes I'm a big "finger-pointer".

And look, the hard part is accepting that this exercise is going to be necessary forever.

Maria - Hard to accept there was nothing, but what surprised me most was the ability of the teachers to create an environment so conducive to self-discovery, self-knowledge, listening and challenge, not only because of the content they passed on to us, but because of the quality of their presence, the way they are and the way they are in the programme.

Angela - Who would you not recommend this Programme to? 

Tânia - I think this requires a high level of commitment and seriousness. It requires time for us to have our minds free to dedicate ourselves because a Programme like this should not be done lightly. I think that it makes no sense for a person not to come out of this Programme better than he or she entered it. And more, when I see the market flooded, I think "No! This is a very serious thing, messing with people's lives!".

ANGELA - But Tania, who wouldn't you recommend? 

Tânia - To those who wanted to do this for sport, to those who didn't have the high level of commitment...

Joana - Look, someone immediately came to my mind. Until today, I've never heard from this person a "Yes, you're right!" or a "Yes, I'd never thought of that perspective". Look, holders of the absolute truth! Such people should not do.

Maria - I can't see anyone to whom I wouldn't recommend... The programme is open enough to be used by different profiles. I would only say that it takes dedication and that if, at a certain moment, a person may not have availability not only for the face-to-face classes but also for the tasks, then they will not take advantage of it as much and may even compromise their contribution to peer learning, so I would not recommend it only to those who do not have availability.

Tânia - People without commitment, people who only want a diploma and without maturity, which I think is linked to commitment. Maturity gives us the possibility of humility and of seeing different perspectives in order to take real advantage of the depth that the course has.

ANGELA - And who do you think would benefit most from doing it?

Joana - Who is curious.

Joana - Now I was thinking of those who say they are dissatisfied, who like to know other ways of doing things and at the same time, in fact, the holders of the truth. 

Angela - So the people you wouldn't recommend it to could be the people for whom the programme might make sense in the first place.

If you were influencers, what would you do to publicise this Programme? 

Joana - It's difficult... "Look, do this Programme and it will make you happier! It sounds silly but that's what happened to me.

Tania - You will gain greater knowledge about yourself!

Joana - A person who did the Introductory Level and who is very close to me said "You don't know what has already changed in my life!

Tânia - Marisa published one of these days: "I could write that today I finished a stage of my life but, in reality, today I started a new stage". And I thought that's exactly what it is! It's not something that ends but something that is beginning.

Joana - I feel that it was also a period in which we were able to share, by spending a lot of time together, other ways of being and living, and also the people who worked with us, these teachers, brought us things that other people wouldn't have brought. And the way the Programme is designed is exactly that, the time that is given to each one, the depth that each one chooses, it is not directive at all. Each one chooses what they want to do with it.

I would also say that it is a Programme that "scalps" you, but only to those who want it to. For me it's the time, the depth and the generosity of the people who are involved.

Tânia - That's it, Joana, it's dedication! And this has to be reciprocal because if you don't dedicate yourself at the same level that other people give you... you feel that there is a lot of availability and dedication, those people are really there! Dedication and respect for others.

Joana - It's a programme in which certain themes are worked on and in which the people themselves, the teachers, work on these themes with themselves. They are coherent! They are not different things and that gives comfort.

Tania - They are unpretentious and the Way Beyond School itself that... feeling the vulnerability of your teacher sharing with you something very much their own, I think that's what makes the Programme so human, so realistic and experiential.

Joana - It also gives us this idea that only in this way, questioning, going through difficulties when you have to question yourself, only in this way can you help the other, from some shoes that also question themselves.

Tânia -That'swhat I felt: a great immersion in ourselves and that is only possible because the environment there allows you, puts you at ease and questions you without making you uncomfortable.

I think that is to your credit! It is of great humility and honesty the way you position yourselves, so deep and serious! Without hesitation!

Maria - I would make a post saying: we will all be remembered for the quality of the relationships we foster during our lifetime and a large part of those relationships are built by conversations, why not challenge yourself to be in those conversations in a different, more complete, open and available way? Coaching is an art of helping others and like all arts it needs technique and practice, how about starting with Way Beyond's course?

Angela - What would you change about the Programme to make it 'out of this world'?

Maria - I particularly liked the fact that the course is "of this world" because it allows us to apply our learning on a daily basis, not only professionally but also personally, in fact, it makes it very clear that the two are inseparable! I thought it would be fun to play coaches and the teachers as coachees, it could be an extra challenge at the end of the course!

Tânia - I think the classes were very diverse and took us to such different contexts... maybe challenging our limits more.

Joana - I would include more lessons on feedback. Sometimes I felt I would like to share more of the work on assignments, what we felt, how we did it. Not to be a process just between student and mentor.

Tania - I feelthe rhythm of the lessons should be more regular. One of the classes I liked the most and challenged me the most was the theatre class! I still think about the intensity.

Angela - My dears, thank you so much for your time!