Key insights from the conversation

Philosophy and practice of coaching

• Òscar's journey from individual coaching to systemic team coaching, highlighting the complexity of human relationships in organizational settings.

• The role of self-exploration in coaching, stressing the importance of understanding oneself to effectively coach others.

• Challenges in coaching, including readiness, dealing with internal conflicts, and the significance of resolving personal issues for effective coaching.

Interpersonal dynamics and communication

• Viewing organizations and teams from a human perspective, acknowledging individual challenges.

• Balancing work on the system and the individuals within it to enhance team dynamics.

• Emphasizing non-violent communication and emotional openness as keys to building deeper connections.

• The role of meaningful questions and genuine curiosity in fostering understanding and relationships.

Personal development and reflection

• Discussion on personal challenges and growth, underscoring the importance of authenticity and life balance.

• Roberto and Òscar's personal experiences and insights into self-improvement and vulnerability.

• Encouraging the audience to engage in meaningful conversations with close ones and share experiences, promoting personal and communal growth.

Full transcript

Here is the full conversation transcript, edited for clarity and conciseness.

Roberto

Hi Òscar, it's a pleasure to see you again. I am very excited to have this conversation with you.

We met for the first time in a coaching training here in Barcelona, and I remember I was very impressed and amazed by your curiosity, all the things you constantly learn, and all your experience.

This was one of the things that in this coaching training they say is like a magnet for wonderful people, and I can certify that this is the case with you, and it is an absolute pleasure to have this conversation with you. Can you present yourself and explain how you got into coaching?

Òscar

Absolutely. Thank you, Roberto, for your kind words in this case. The pleasure is also mine, like wonderful people getting together. We have an expression in Spanish that says that God creates them, and then they get together. That's a bit of what has happened with us in this course, and seeing you, how much you have grown, who you have become, how thorough you are, and how dedicated you are when you do things inspires me every day.

To answer your question, you should know that I call myself a bridge between worlds.

I bridge between the academic and the professional world, and it's something that I have done my whole life. I bridge between rational and emotions and love to bridge, in this case, between coaching, life coaching, and more professional coaching. And I do that by bringing my whole self, theory, and practice. And that's something that defines what I love to do. And I mean who I am.

Roberto

That's a beautiful metaphor, the one of the bridge, and I can see that it can apply to many things. It's like connecting different things. And then something beautiful happens when you bring two worlds because you have both.

Òscar

I always connect what you know with the concept of not knowing what you don't know. And for me, that's the concept of bridging.

You may know one side of the bridge, but you don't see what's on the other side of the bridge. That's what brought me to coaching, the human complexity: you may see a lot about strategy, you may know a lot about culture business, and even you may see a lot of people, but you cannot know all of them, and you cannot know what matters to all of them, and you cannot deal with the complexity of human relationships. And that's where bridging comes in, constantly pushing you to discover something new, and that keeps me alive.

Roberto

Absolutely, and the discovery never ends. What I also love about the bridge is that when you go to the other side, you can come back, and you can take back things so you can decide which side you want to go on each moment, and every time that you cross, you access to more things, so it's not limiting, it's like opening new doors.

It's a beautiful metaphor, thank you. And how was the beginning of your coaching journey?

Òscar

I became chief of staff some years ago, and I understood the complexity of human relationships because when you work with leadership teams, these teams are composed of leaders, who tend to be people with experience and strong opinions and come from successful experiences. It tends to be a room with a large amount of ego. It's people who believe in who they are and what they have achieved.

Then you put them together; they have entirely different experiences, and each tries to convince the other that they are the ones who are correct, and for them, it's much more challenging to try to build an alignment. A system that works by itself and is not about them; it's about the system.

I have been working in a strategy my whole career, but that's much more complex, and I need new tools to deal with that complexity. And here is where Alex Galofré told me: "Oscar, you need to do coaching".

And I said yes, but I am more interested in systemic, team, and individual coaching.

He told me you should begin by doing the fundamentals of individual coaching first, and then you can go to team coaching.

Here's what I did: I did the "fundamentals training", a three-day training where you discover the basics of individual coaching.

These days were very strange for me because we went into a place where you had 30 people willing to open themselves up to the last detail of their lives. There was so much emotion and openness that, for me, was difficult to manage at the beginning. I wanted to learn coaching tools. I didn't want to explore my inside.

Roberto

So it was like: "Give me the tools!" And they said: "No, no, no, I won't give you the tools. First, look into yourself and see what is there."

Òscar

It's like using these tools with yourself, and then you can use them with others.

I remember my first coaching session with somebody was challenging because I went there hoping that the topic was going to be easy, and the person told me, "Well, you know, last week I lost my dog, and I feel horrible, and I would like you to help me with this topic."

It's like shit, I love dogs. That's a tricky topic; for me, it was a rough landing. And at that weekend, I understood why it is essential. I understood the power of coaching, but I was not ready to go further than that. So then, I went into systemic coaching.

Roberto

It looks like you first saw what coaching is, which helped you know what you told about the story about the boardroom and all the leaders. And you realize these are people, and each one has its challenges and struggles; it's like seeing the organizations and the teams from a human perspective.

So it looks like you are bridging, as you said, the tools, the techniques, and the human and emotional part. How do you see this dance?

Òscar

It's a beautiful dance, and it's a difficult one. And my assumption two years ago was that you don't need to go deep into the person. You need to play with the system and how they interact together. That was my assumption: let them be, and let's play with them as a group, and as a group, we can build something more significant than their own.

And then something changed; I applied all the systemic coaching techniques to a leadership team, and the individual struggles brought it to a situation where, even if we tried to work on the system, the system was not strong enough to deal with the individual.

And then I said: Well, maybe there is something additional here that we should work on. Working in the system is insufficient; you may also need to work in the individual.

Roberto

So what I hear is both sides are necessary. It's not always one or the other. So we are first of all persons, and then we have to work on ourselves.

And then, of course, we are part of systems.

This reminds me of one of the beautiful things about coaching, which I also think generally extends. We cannot take anyone where we have not been first. So if we want to have a good relationship with someone, if we're going to connect with someone, if then first we didn't do our, let's say, homework. You don't know what you want; you don't face these emotions.

What happens if you don't embrace this discomfort, for example, if you avoid conflict?

Òscar

You don't improve.

Roberto

Exactly. We're stuck. This is one of the most challenging parts. We may think we don't want to have conflict because it's not a pleasant thought at the beginning, but if you feel that conflict is a way to connect to that other person, to understand and listen, you end up with a better relationship.

Òscar

You know, two things come to mind based on what you said.

The first thing is readiness. If you are not ready and are not ready to explore yourself, go deep. You're not going to be able to go deep. Everything begins with us, and you can bring it to others. You cannot force anybody to follow a journey. People need to come with you. Like kids, you can try to teach your kids all the mistakes that you have made in your life, but they need to go through these mistakes. The experience of others is not going to change how they're going to approach that.

Roberto

That's beautiful. And at the same time, it frees us from responsibility because you don't have to teach everything. You don't have to fix anything or anyone because no one wants to be fixed first. I don't want to be fixed; I want to fix myself; I don't want to be fixed from the outside. We take off the responsibility of "fixing the other person".

Then, if you don't have to fix anyone, you cannot fail. I'm not failing; I'm just showing you what I see. I care about you, I show you what I see in you, I can mirror you and ask you questions.

One of the pillars of the co-active model is that "people are full of resources, complete and whole", so they will know what to do if it's not the right moment. Who are we to judge?

Òscar

It connects me with what we say in coaching: the 100/100 in the coaching relationship. In a coaching relationship, both sides must bring 100% because if one gets more or less, the relationship and balance are broken. And when we work with teams, with our kids, with family members, with friends. When we step over the 100% mark, we don't let the other person be. Trying to solve their problems wounds their journey; we are not allowing them to solve their problems or live and experience their journey.

I always love to go the extra mile, but when I go the extra mile, I don't let the other person be. I understood that it was not about me; it was about them, and it changed drastically my approach.

Roberto

This reminds me of micromanagement, which usually does not come from a place of "I want to control you, I want to do everything, I don't trust you." Often, it comes from a place of "I want to go the extra mile. I want to do it perfectly. I want to do an amazing job". At the same time, we take power from the relationship because we are doing more.

Instead, when you believe everyone is complete, creative and full of resources, you will be surprised at how many better things come out.

Òscar

I think it connects with the conflict you mentioned, and I believe that conflict with others always begins with conflict with ourselves. When we go into micromanagement, we go because we fear something. We fear we are not enough. We have the fear that we are not going to make it. Then, we put all the effort into proving to ourselves and others that we deserve to be there. We conflict with ourselves; we have voices telling us, "You are not good enough". And when we have this internal conflict, it will become an external conflict, so first, we need to understand where we are.

Roberto

That's interesting. I see it in two ways.

One way is, "I want to do this because I want proof from the outside" to validate my worth. Here, my value comes from the outside.

At the same time, this drive can also be "I want to improve for myself", and if it comes from a place where I want to improve myself, and I don't expect this external validation, then it may take out some pressure, and you are doing it for yourself, not because you want to prove something.

So, I think it's a tricky balance. And again, it depends on how you live it because the action is possibly the same. You are doing the same, but from which place you are doing it? From growth or fear? Play to win or play not to lose?

Òscar

One experience I have is when we think we do it for growth, but in reality, we do it because we judge ourselves. For example, I want to be seen as active and energetic, always going the extra mile; I am always for you and will always support you. I need to be seen like that because it's intrinsic to my personality since I was a kid.

Then what happens? I micromanage myself, and it has an impact on me. I don't have a balanced life. Yes, I judge myself a lot. I have terrible conversations with myself, and that's having an emotional and personal impact.

Then, for me, the point is how I stopped trying to be seen as something that I am not and accepted that I am just me, and I want to impact the world through being who I am and nothing else than that, with my weaknesses and my extremes.

And I think that's a big challenge, and that's where you were going, Roberto, in the sense that I grow from my essence, from who I am, not what I want to see myself on from where others want to see myself.

Roberto

That's beautiful. And this is also an example of what you said in the beginning about being self-aware of what we are, who we are, and what we're expressing now. As we do the coaching training, we are more and more aware of ourselves, which also allows us to be more aware of others because we first look into ourselves, and then we can be open from this.

Of course, we all have our saboteurs when we leave our comfort zone. We will never get rid of this. It's part of this readiness that we've discussed if you are not ready to accept your contradictions, emotions, and complexities.

I'm very curious now: How do we apply coaching skills to our daily lives, whether professional or personal? What would be your biggest learning and the

one tool if you had to choose one that you bring to your day-to-day from coaching?

Òscar

The first one is that it's not about you.

That's the big thing: who cares about you? It's about the other person, their journey, and what they feel.

You don't need to understand; you just need to hold the space, and for me, bringing that to our world, day-to-day work and life is super important

because we judge continuously. We go into a room. Somebody has not done what we expected, or somebody is in a bad mood, and we tend to judge based on how they are impacting us at that moment. What about if we leave outside the room the impact they are bringing to us? And we are just there trying to understand where they are coming from, what challenges they are facing, what they are worried about, what's limiting them. That can change how I do things and feel about things.

The second is bringing our vulnerability and emotions to our daily conversations and lives.

Yesterday, I was doing a training program with amazing leaders. And we got to a point where we were speaking about emotions, and I asked them, What's your relationship with emotions? Some words came up in this discussion: complex, denial, difficult, challenging.

For us, as humans, dealing with our emotions and expressing them is difficult. We live in a society that values the rational more than the emotional. I try to do more every day to bring my emotions into place and share them. I have a way of expressing myself and saying, "Hey, this is how what you said impacted me! Here you have it! That doesn't mean that I am judging you. I just want you to know that I feel like that so that you can tell me how you feel, and we can build from having all the information, not just what we think the other one wants to hear."

Roberto

Oh, it's beautiful! At the same time, you say it's not about me. And while not being about me, I share how I feel, and this helps me to let go of my

vision and connect better with you. I see these two as a part of the same.

And this also connects with what you said about vulnerability, and we don't know how to express emotions.

We don't know how to say, for example: "when you said that, I felt frustrated", or imagine what you say to a colleague: "When you interrupted me in the meeting, I felt disrespected". Imagine saying that, and if we don't say it, what happens? We keep thinking about it, and then only think about ourselves. So it's all about me, and it's not about them.

I hear normalizing the emotion, accepting it and then we take off the energy, and we can go and do other things.

Òscar

It's the non-violent communication, sharing what happened and how I felt, and that impacted me, so I would need that other thing from you.

Roberto

You know the metaphor: when you are waiting for kids (congratulations), I'm sure you see pregnant women everywhere. And it's the same world. What changed then? Now you are looking for that.

So I say that when you get into this habit of thinking of relationships, connecting with people, and being interested, you start seeing applications everywhere.

If I had to choose one thing, the simplest thing would be asking questions, listening to the other person, and being curious because this is what also got me close to coaching. I'm very curious, and I love to hear stories, to listen to what projects people are working on and what excites them, and all these things. This also allows you to connect to the person and discover what's on the other side of the screen.

When you ask questions out of curiosity, if you are really interested, I bet you will always find something interesting from anyone. If you ask, for example, "What's the thing that you are most excited about?" people's faces will light up because they're talking about their dreams and values, which is one of the most beautiful things.

And then what happens? People feel seen. And we usually don't talk about these things; we don't talk about values and dreams.

Coaching helped me go deeper into everyday conversations and be more interested in the person. You have a better connection when you are more interested in the other person. You have a better relationship. You have more fun. You discover amazing things. And it is a "win". So why not?

And it's so easy. It's not true that we don't have time. Yes, we have time. It can be just 5 minutes in a meeting; when you see someone and feel discomfort or frustration, you call them and ask about it. Maybe the person will say: "No, I was not frustrated. I was angry". And then you start the conversation. You always start from this curiosity, which can be two or more minutes.

Once you have the habit, you will see opportunities for asking questions, and everything will look more attractive. And you will see amazing people as they are, and you will see that every person has something special, and you can just bring it out and ask.

Òscar

It reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons, where Homer goes and says I'm going to speak about my book. And as humans, when we meet, we say, "Yeah, yeah, speak about my book. This, my book, you know". As them instead about their book, and you will learn things that you will be able to write in your book, and I think that that's the magic of learning, of the curiosity that you talk about.

Roberto

I'm curious, and this is also out of my curiosity. What's what's your biggest challenge? And at this moment, the project excites you the most.

Òscar

Both things connect in this case. It's the dilemma of being and doing.

During my whole life, I have tried to do many things. When I was a kid, I was super innovative and creative. I was what is called an early person, a creative person. And at school, they taught me that that was not valuable; what was valuable was being able to study. Then I learned that by doing things

is when people would value me, and then the world would see that I was unique and special.

Since that day, I have been my whole life chasing that desire to be seen as somebody valuable, somebody exceptional.

My journey today is to stop doing what I thought was the thing that gave me value to begin and to come back to feel and to be who I am, who I am, who I am so I can start to do the things that make a difference for me.

That connects a lot with parenthood and becoming a father. I don't want to educate or be with my kids, somebody I am not. I don't want to be doing things and showing them that doing things is how they will define their personality. I want to be myself in front of them and show them that you can be loved just for being who you are, not for what you do.

How many times in our life they tell us, hey? Amazing what you did, amazing what you have done. Amazing what you achieved.. next... next.

But how often do they tell you: I love who you are, I love your way of being, I love your presence? And that's my journey these days; it's trying to stop doing, and instead of doing, be much more and be ready for when my kids are born so I can be a much more present father, a much more being father.

Roberto

That's brilliant. And it connects again with the being and seeing the person, and just as in coaching, you see the person, show what's there, and don't have to judge; you just watch that and appreciate it. Then, you can also do things from a place where you are at peace.

Òscar

You begin from your essence. As you said, I would love everybody to do that because we all are naturally complete, creative, and full of resources. We are whole. And when we see the wholeness of people, magic can happen.

And what about you, Roberto? Then, what's your current challenge?

Roberto

Well, I would say my challenge, but at the same time, what excites me is that I have so many things I want to do. FOMO.

I want to be patient, accept that things don't happen simultaneously, and enjoy the process.

You see a lot of opportunities, and there is a delicate balance between being very focused on what you want and accepting that you cannot do everything and that the possibility will still be there and that you will have time. I don't have to feel overwhelmed by all these things.

Òscar

And I am sure, Roberto, that you are making the right choices. You have all the tools to choose precisely what you want to do next.

Roberto

So, I would like to ask you one more question: Now that you have a new project, what's the best way to reach out to you or follow up on this conversation?

Òscar

You need to contact me on Linkedin, or you can go to my website, and I will be super happy to continue this conversation.

And then, Roberto, if you had one thing that you could ask our audience today. What would you like to ask them?

Roberto

I would make a challenge, which would be to ask more meaningful questions to the people. For example, ask: "What's

your struggle?" Or "What's your biggest challenge?" to someone close to them and see what that would be. And I'm sure there will be surprises.

Òscar

That's a fantastic challenge. People, accept Roberto's challenge and see what happens, and share your experiences with us. Of course, that could be amazing in the chat here today, later on, or at any moment.

Roberto

That's a beautiful way to close this conversation. Thank you, Òscar. Super fun.

Òscar

Thanks to you, Roberto