Interview with Catalyst 14 Partner Liz Palmer

In this month’s interview with a Catalyst 14 team member, Vanessa Rogers interviews Liz Palmer, a partner at Catalyst 14.

Liz first trained as a coach in 2011 after a long professional break to raise her two sons. Having spent her early career in manufacturing industries working to improve the performance of individuals and teams, coaching was a natural way for Liz to return to work that she enjoyed whilst also having the flexibility to be able to care for her children.

Liz’s youngest son has severe autism, which has had a profound impact on her own journey as a coach. Her interest in clean language and Gestalt approaches in her coaching work come from supporting him to find his own potential and bring that into the world.

Liz met Damion in 2013 and they quickly discovered they shared a purpose and set of values around the work that they do. Having worked together since 2013 delivering coach training programmes, Liz was delighted to join Damion at Catalyst14 in 2019.

Thinking back, Liz, what was your first experience of coaching?

My first experience of coaching was when I decided to train as a Practitioner with the Academy of Executive Coaching. When I left my corporate role in 1998 on maternity leave, coaching was not yet a mainstream development intervention. At the time that I was re-engaging with the workplace in 2010, coaching was more firmly established and, with its focus on supporting the development of individual potential, it aligned well with my previous experience.

What sparked your interest in it, would you say? What made you want to get into coaching?

I had an interesting start to my career, studying engineering and spending time in a variety of functions in global manufacturing industries, including organisation development, quality, change management and human resources. I worked across the business, from the shop floor to senior management teams and enjoyed the variety of perspectives and challenges that offered.

As my career developed, the common thread to the work I enjoyed the most, and found myself involved in, was supporting individuals and teams to improve and get better at what they did. When I was considering what I could do to upskill myself after having such a long professional career break, this was the essence of what I was interested in pursuing. I have a dear friend who headed up an internal coaching function in a global business at that time and she suggested that I look into a coaching qualification with the Academy of Executive Coaching. The rest, as they say, is history!

What is it about coaching that you love?

There is much about coaching that I love. One of the most compelling things, and we hear this from people who come on our programmes, is when you witness someone grappling with a challenge, often feeling a bit stuck, and then coming to a realisation — a way ahead, a shift in their perspective, a new idea or approach, owning a strength. It’s powerful and it’s humbling. To see someone find something in themselves that they didn’t realise they had, to reframe something that’s been hard for them and find a way ahead, I just think that’s amazing.

And human beings are endlessly fascinating. It doesn’t matter how long you are a coach, every time you go into a conversation it is going to be different. Each individual you work alongside is unique and the connection that you forge with them is also unique to the two of you. The conversations are meaningful and sometimes difficult, and often not conversations that the individual can have elsewhere — so there is a sense that this is work that is really making a difference to that person in that moment. And that the impact of any changes the coachee makes creates ripples in the work that they do and with the people they work with.

What have been some key influences on you as a coach?

You won’t be surprised to hear that the biggest influence on me as a coach is what I have learned from our two sons, and in particular from our youngest son. His autism means that language is incredibly difficult for him, both in his understanding of it and his ability to express himself.

As he was growing up, we had to be mindful about how we interpreted the limited language he used, and the context in which he was using it, in order that we did our best to understand and honour his expression of how he was experiencing the world and recognise when we could not fully understand. There were many occasions when I experienced well-meaning individuals projecting their own interpretation of the world onto the limited language our son was able to use, without realising that was what they were doing.

When I came across the work of David Grove, and his development of a “clean language” approach in his therapeutic work, I realised that it was an approach I had already been working with for many years. As a coach, my intention is to enable people to express their experience of the world and to play that back to them, so that they can understand and explore it for themselves, take what is useful and change what it not.

Our youngest son has been supported over the years by caring and inspiring people across many professions, disciplines and crafts, all of whom have enabled him to bring his potential into the world. This has inspired in me a belief that everyone has more potential than they realise. So even when someone is really stuck, even when they are in a really difficult situation, even when they think there is no way ahead, there will be something important that can emerge — even if that is simply a change in how the individual is thinking about their situation.

I was introduced to Gestalt by two dear friends who are also coaches, Dr Sue Holland and Sally Bogle. One of the principles of Gestalt is to pay close attention to what is happening in the moment, to what is “figural” for the client, as that is what is taking their attention. By working in this way, something interesting will emerge, even though neither the coach nor the client knows what it is when they embark on the exploration together.

These are the beliefs that the bedrock of my coaching practice. If I’m sitting with someone and they are stuck and I’m stuck, and neither of us knows where to go next or what’s going on, these are the principles I come back to. It’s an important question as a coach: what do you believe at a deep level that will sustain you in those difficult moments?

Thinking about that time in 2011 when you were first coaching, if you could go back now and talk to yourself as a new coach, what would you say to yourself?

That’s a great question. When I had been coaching for a few years, I remember that I had a familiar and frequent interference which was a voice that said “you are not challenging/provocative enough as a coach.” It became such a powerful interference that I almost stopped coaching. I had to work with it for a few years before I was able to have a different relationship with that voice and what it represented for me. That was one of the reasons why I did my senior practitioner qualification – to stretch my own learning and invite some in-depth and honest feedback from other experienced and trusted coaches.

As I reflect on it now, I feel I needed to go through that to strengthen my own practice, my understanding and acceptance of how I work as a coach, and the value that brings for my clients. Much as it might be tempting to go back and tell myself that I am challenging as a coach, I wouldn’t want to deprive myself of such an important element of my learning and growth as a coach.

I think I’d say to myself “enjoy the ride!”. I was fortunate to be able to make the choice to train as a coach and start my own business, and to take time to build it up. Had I known where it would lead, then I would have saved myself some angst earlier on about whether I could make a success of it. I would be able to tell myself, “you’re going to be able to do work you love, with colleagues who share your values and will become good friends, and the work you do will make a difference to those you work with – not all the time, but much of the time”. I have enormous gratitude for all that this has brought to my life.

And how would you describe your coaching now?

I’m more comfortable as a coach now and have confidence in the way I support my clients. Over time, you have more experiences of supporting a range of clients in a breadth of situations that give you experiences that you can draw on in your practice. I have confidence that I am able to meet a client where they are, and support them as they explore and navigate their challenges and questions. And I have the support of my excellent supervisors who provide me with a vital space to explore and learn from my practice.

The bedrock of my practice that I described earlier remains at the heart of how I support my clients. Through my ongoing CPD I’ve added some more perspectives and techniques which expand the range of approaches that I can draw on that I didn’t have at the beginning. And I’m still learning – I don’t ever think, “Oh, I’ve got this”. There’s always more to learn – about myself, about what it is to be human, about working to support others.

Thinking about all the CPD that you’ve had over the years or recently, what has been the most impactful, memorable, your favourite?

That’s a hard question, because they’ve all contributed different things to my learning. Early on my exploration of clean language and metaphor was a significant influence on my practice. My Senior Practitioner programme was the most impactful in terms of stretching my practice and building my confidence as a coach. More recently, I have done of lot of development in Systemic Coaching and Constellation, and that has had a big impact on my learning and practice. I find it a fascinating lens on the world, and not just in coaching. It is a great way of understanding the complexity and connectedness of human and natural systems.

 What advice would you give to new coaches in training?

Enjoy the ride!  You are your own best experiment, so first and foremost, pay attention to what is going on for you in any given moment. The more you can learn about yourself – your values, beliefs, assumptions, emotions, reactions – the more you will be able to make a conscious choice about how you use all your resources to support yourself as a coach, and in service of those you work with. People who train with us are often surprised about how much they learn about themselves whilst they are on a programme. Be open and curious, and kind to yourself.

What advice would you give to coaches setting up their own business?

I am certainly not an expert in this regard, and I can only share my own experiences and observations of others who work as coaches. One key observation is that often coaches have a mixed portfolio of work that they do. And that’s true of us. Whilst coaching is our sweet spot and we stick to that, our Faculty team are coaches, coach trainers and supervisors. So be prepared to diversify a little and have a range of work that you enjoy doing so that you have a number of income streams to support you, especially as you grow your coaching practice.

And finally, thinking about the future Liz, how do you see your coaching practice evolving?

That’s another very good question. One of the main evolutions of my practice since joining Damion at Catalyst14 has been my training and development as a supervisor. I remember Damion saying to me that he thought I would really enjoy working as a supervisor and he was absolutely right! Being able to support coaches in their own practice is a joy and a source of continual stretch and learning for me and I hope it will be a part of my practice for many years to come.