[00:00:00] Joseph: So, hi everyone, and a very warm welcome to our latest episode of Coaching in Focus. I am your host, Joseph Grech, and I am joined by Marwa Farouq. Marwa, how are you doing today?

[00:00:16] Marwa: Good. Hi everyone.

[00:00:17] Joseph: Good, good, good. I’m excited to be speaking to you today as well. And before we start our conversation, I just want to give a little bit of background to our listeners, to our viewers, in relation to your experience.

[00:00:29] Joseph: So you are a leadership coach, you’re a strategic advisor as well, with Red Kite Coaching. and consulting. And you have worked for many years, over 20 years, in relation to driving significant and lasting cultural transformations in organizations, particularly showing your commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives as well.

[00:00:54] Joseph: And our focus on the episode today is around equity. and how we can center equity in our coaching practice as well. So shall we start from that aspect around what equity actually is? I feel sometimes there’s still a bit of confusion on equity, equality. So shall we start from that point of view? What do you think?

[00:01:13] Marwa: Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s a really good starting point and I have a really fun metaphor. that really helps people I work with to, it’s not my metaphor, but it’s one that I use all the time since the day I heard that from a colleague, um, in my past organization. So if you think of the metaphor of a party, equality is inviting everyone to the party.

[00:01:35] Marwa: Diversity is making sure that those that are invited into the party are representatives of the community that you’re inviting people from. So that’s equality, diversity. If you think of inclusion, that’s inviting those that you’ve invited into the party to participate in planning the party with you. So choosing food, music, the layout of the party, that is sort of including people in doing it.

[00:02:02] Marwa: And then finally, I would say belonging is that everyone feels comfortable taking part of this party. So even if people have come. They’re actually comfortable going to the dance floor or not dancing and sitting and chatting and that kind of thing. Equity is when everyone has the ability to access that party.

[00:02:25] Marwa: So regardless of everyone, where everyone lives, they have proper transportation or means to be able to join the party. So, cause you, many times you can invite people, but they’re not able to access. That’s your part.

[00:02:39] Joseph: Such a lovely metaphor as well. I know. I love it. I always picture as well, some of our viewers might have seen that picture of the tree with the apples and the different, uh, so equalities having the same leather and equity, a slightly kind of longer leather as well to reach

[00:02:57] Marwa: the fruit.

[00:02:58] Marwa: So it’s sort of that different, that subtle difference. I think where the confusion is, is what’s the difference between equality and equity? And I think both are needed and both are important, but equality is more about fairness, making it available to everyone. Equity is more the access for the resources, support, opportunities, is not dependent on things that are outside your hands, and these things are like your identity, for example.

[00:03:26] Joseph: Yeah. Yeah. And the privileges that some individuals might have had just as part of the societal ways how we live as well. Right. Right. So in terms of centering equity then in coaching sessions or in our coaching practice, what does that actually really mean in everyday

[00:03:44] Marwa: terms? I’ve been exploring this for some time now and I think it means different things depending on which angle you’re coming to it from.

[00:03:51] Marwa: So it could mean one aspect, it means that you as a coach, You’re committed to a journey of learning more and being more aware of the different context and worldviews that exist out there, or those of your client, especially if I work a lot with organizations and so on. So I’m really keen on understanding what you’re saying.

[00:04:12] Marwa: Who are the members of these organizations that I work with and what kind of inequity exists within their context? So that could be one thing, your own learning orientation and as a coach, it could be also something about sort of how you make agreements with your, those that you coach with your clients.

[00:04:32] Marwa: I was facilitating a session recently with the ICF actually about that same topic. And someone had said, one of the participants had said, Oh, to me, that means that when I’m doing my coaching agreement, I’m going to call out or give permission to my client to actually call me out when I’m being irrelevant or undermining a specific context that is important.

[00:04:57] Marwa: To them, and she wanted to write it as part of the agreement. So that’s one way of doing it. It’s just looking at the coaching agreement and how are you building this coaching agreement to create space, safety and space for the client to bring their own context that are many of the times not necessarily named explicitly.

[00:05:18] Joseph: It’s such an important point, isn’t it? This idea around how do we kind of flex our agreements so that they’re serving the client more fully rather than just being a contractual agreement. It’s about the client’s ability to engage in that space with

[00:05:33] Marwa: us. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think just sort of to build on your thread here, another way of where we center equity.

[00:05:42] Marwa: And I think that’s sort of what we already do is like really being centered in the client point of view, and being focused on where the client coming from, what’s their experience of whatever they’re going through in the moment and being centered on in, I would extend that on in their worldview. Thank you.

[00:06:01] Marwa: Really trying being curious and trying to understand what’s their view of that matter and why that view exists. And I think last but not least, I would say evoke awareness, which is another key thing around being a coach is just sort of spending time. If you come into these coaching conversations aware of what equity is and what contributes to inequity, for example, you simply can be curious and ask And invite more awareness into what are some of the things that may be contributing to that experience or this situation that might be outside the client’s hands, for example.

[00:06:38] Marwa: Or if you’re coaching an executive, for example, how is their power and privilege sort of painting their worldview or their understanding of a specific situation? Yeah,

[00:06:49] Joseph: what’s resonating with me is this importance of the context that the individual is coming to the coaching sessions in, and his idea around power, privilege, kind of imbalances in that.

[00:07:05] Joseph: and that dynamic are really important for us coaches to consider. So would you say that if I am centering equity in my coaching practice, would you say it kind of starts with self awareness? Like how, how do I know if I’m centering

[00:07:21] Marwa: equity? Yes, I definitely would start with self awareness. I think one of the things all of us as coaches are committed to is continuous learning.

[00:07:30] Marwa: Like it’s just such an integral piece of what I love. Why I love being a coach, it’s just that I’m continuously in a journey of, um, learning about myself and about others. And I think in taking that to center equity, you need to be, to learn, you need to learn about yourself, your identity, your own socialization, which creates your worldview, your bias, your own biases, for example, and how these are different from others.

[00:07:57] Marwa: So there’s just. Just sort of being more aware is the first step for sure. And then I would say the second step is sort of learning, learning about the other and how that’s different from others. But definitely that would be my first step.

[00:08:12] Joseph: There’s acceptance of that biases do exist because we’re human beings, because I think none of us want to say that we have biases, but we do because of socialization.

[00:08:21] Joseph: It’s part of us growing up as humans.

[00:08:24] Marwa: Absolutely. I think we all, it’s just a human nature. Um, again, with an example or metaphor that a colleague of mine that I respect very much was, I see as an expert in DEI. She would always give that example. If you see a snake, you’re going to run away regardless of this is a venomous one or not.

[00:08:44] Marwa: And it speaks a lot about just the bias. We are conditioned. Most of us are conditioned that. Snakes are scary. So you will run when you see one. And I think that’s just the, and the same goes for dolphins, for example, most probably if you see a dolphin, you’ll smile and you’re like, Oh, cute.

[00:09:04] Joseph: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So being, being open, you use the word curious earlier as well as I really liked, I think, which resonated with me as well. So, so what are some of the myths? What do you think about inclusion, um, coaching?

[00:09:18] Marwa: I think the biggest one around diversity, equity and inclusion in coaching or really in anything that you need to be an expert to be able to be inclusive, um, an expert or you need sort of experience or something like about depth of expertise, years and years of learning.

[00:09:38] Marwa: And, and I don’t want to undermine that I, as I said, I think it’s very important that Us as coaching, and I think actually as human beings, that we’re continuously learning about ourselves and others in the world about equity and in, and what’s, what creates inequity in the world. I do think this is important, but I don’t think it’s a barrier to being inclusive, to trying.

[00:10:00] Marwa: So two important things, I think. One is true commitment to learning. So if you’re truly committed to learning, you don’t have to be an expert to try to start experimenting, to bring inclusion into your, coaching practice. But the other thing that I think is very important is committing to also being vulnerable and being able to say, to own it when you create harm, even if unintentional.

[00:10:25] Marwa: I think these two things are key to sort of, uh, offset the myth of that you need to be an expert in DEI, in diversity, equity, inclusion, to be more inclusive or equitable as a coach.

[00:10:39] Joseph: Mm. Mm. This idea around even a small step can really be a big step.

[00:10:44] Marwa: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I’m a strong believer that, uh, in experimentation and that one small step will lead to another small step.

[00:10:53] Marwa: And after 10 steps, you’ve actually taken a leap. And that is how change happens in many of, in, in many ways. Yeah. For human beings.

[00:11:02] Joseph: Yeah. Because there’s different levels to this, right? For example, you mentioned power earlier. I think at a level is noticing that power and noticing, um, the levels of power in the coaching session.

[00:11:14] Joseph: But then as we deepen our learning, we can also try and focus on, well, how do we minimize that power and get more of a partnership? And again, if we deepen our then coaching practice and our learning, it’s about, well, how do we use this dynamic of power that we’re accepting in this coaching relationship that is happening?

[00:11:30] Joseph: How do we use it so that we support the client and in terms of minimizing the power and exploring the power dynamic? Absolutely. I can really see this idea around the different levels. That we can work with.

[00:11:44] Marwa: And I think it’s almost, you’ve actually mapped out a little bit of what we’ve been talking about.

[00:11:50] Marwa: This idea that it starts by awareness, being sort of being aware and curious about the power dynamic. That’s just sort of starting with awareness. And then this idea of experimenting with a few things and what that means, the things that you’ve learned, what do they mean to you and to the client and so on.

[00:12:06] Marwa: And that’s again, experimentation. And then evoking awareness to our client is another. Thing, which is sort of this idea of, okay, now that we know this, how do you bring that prep to be present for your client? How do you help your client have that same awareness and act upon it? Of course, you

[00:12:23] Joseph: can really see that.

[00:12:25] Joseph: It’s so nice that you reflected back the process that, um, that it’s like an applied version of what we were talking about. As you were telling me, I was reflecting on this idea around that there are these small steps. However, there are also some challenges like in a way there are things that get in the way What do you find are some of the main barriers that you’ve seen perhaps that can get in the way in terms of centering equity?

[00:12:53] Marwa: There is a few but there’s one that I always like to talk about first Which is fear because of what’s happening in the world around us and all of the tension uh, political, social tension around diversity, equity, inclusion, especially also in the last, I would say 10 years or so, there’s a lot of fear about one, opening the subject, but also saying the wrong thing or asking the wrong thing.

[00:13:21] Marwa: And I think that is one of the biggest detriments to having more equity in the world or more inclusiveness in the world, when people are so scared that they just. stand back and not engage. This is the biggest barrier in my perspective, especially when it comes to coaches.

[00:13:39] Can

[00:13:39] Joseph: I share something there actually?

[00:13:42] Joseph: Yeah. It’s interesting because I’m reflecting back on when I’m training our coaches on the ICF programs and when it comes to some of the ethics equality sessions, I do notice I’m a lot more careful. There is a bit of fear that I notice in me. I’m a bit more, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.

[00:14:03] Joseph: It shows consideration as well, but I can see that I think for some people it might then stop those conversations from happening because we want to get it right. And then that might stop us from actually engaging in the conversation in the first place. I can feel it, as you were telling me, I, I noticed it in myself as

[00:14:22] Marwa: well.

[00:14:22] Marwa: Absolutely. We all have it in a way. And as you say, I love that you said, it’s because I want to be considerate. It’s all of us. We all don’t want to be, want to be contributing to the other person where we innately, I think as human beings are, we want to be supportive of others. We don’t want to intentionally harm others.

[00:14:41] Marwa: And that fear of doing that, uh, sort of has us shying away from engaging in such a conversation. And it’s a vulnerable space, diversity, equity, inclusion, just that conversation is a very vulnerable conversation. And we know it’s a sensitive one. Um, so I think fear… is a natural part of that dynamic. And I would encourage, I think, part, a lot of what I want to do now with this idea of coaching with, um, centering equity in coaching is to encourage more coaches to experiment with small things, to be courageous, to sort of almost what you said, like perfect is, um, you said that we want, we want to get it right.

[00:15:23] Marwa: And I think. Perfect is the, there’s this quote, I think, perfect is the enemy’s good or something. Yeah, something like that. Good is good enough as long as, and I want to caveat that because it’s important, as long as that you’re willing to own it if you created harm. So if you’re talking to your client and you’ve said something, that sort of impacted them or asked them a question that they felt sensitive about, making sure that you’re able in your own language to name and acknowledge that harm and just say, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.

[00:15:55] Marwa: Or when you’re asking the question, say, I might be wrong, but I wanted to put the question down and feel free to not answer it. Sort of some of these things that would help the conversation be stay going, isn’t zero, isn’t no engagement at all.

[00:16:11] Joseph: It shows genuineness in us as, as coaches as well, that we’re being, we must do it human.

[00:16:16] Joseph: We’re being human, we’re being genuine with our client. Um, we’re not these perfect expert coaches.

[00:16:22] Marwa: And it’s there. It’s just like, as you say, we’re being human. It’s just there. In my experience, what has been happening is when I bring it into my coaching, it’s almost like an aha moment in itself of like, yeah.

[00:16:37] Marwa: That has been contributing, you know, like this actually happened to me a few times where people weren’t expecting that the coach is going to bring a question about that. And then when it comes, it’s like, yes, I want to explore that. There’s almost more curiosity and more engagement.

[00:16:54] Joseph: It feels like it was in the room and we both noticed it and actually we’re shining a light on it now and say, well, what, what shall we do with this?

[00:17:02] Joseph: And being honest with each other. So would you say, what I’m hearing is being, you know, developing our self awareness, having transparency with our clients, they’re kind of key mindsets that really help us. Are there any other mindset that you think enable equity inclusion in our coaching practice?

[00:17:23] Marwa: Yeah.

[00:17:23] Marwa: So I think, um, a couple of that stand out on top of the ones that you mentioned. One is humidity. And I talked again about this idea of like, being humble enough to say, Oh, I approached this in the wrong way, for example, or so there’s something around humidity in owning your impact, whatever it is, as a coach, but also humidity To know when your worldview is not the only way world of this idea of like knowing that your truth is not your only true is not the only truth and there’s humility with that because like our worldview comes with a lot of lived experience and a lot of different work that we’ve done.

[00:18:06] Marwa: So it’s hard sometimes to come into a coaching conversation and like sort of hear something that you have very clear judgment on and just pause and ask with humility without, there’s this concept of humble inquiry, which I love very much. And it’s this idea that you’re asking question, not in a way that is leading to somewhere, but you’re truly curious about the client’s.

[00:18:31] Marwa: lived experience, or the client’s experience, or view of what they’re going through. So, humility is number one, and number two, which is very close to it, is being centered in the view of the client. So, humility and being centered in the

[00:18:46] Joseph: view of the client. I’m trying to unpack that a little

[00:18:49] Marwa: bit. So, the humility I’ve talked about, the view of the client, I think a lot of the times, especially if the Client and the coach come from different backgrounds were unable to connect with them because we’re really holding on to our view of the world and I think part of one of the things actually that is that I’ve learned with as part as.

[00:19:13] Marwa: Part of the getting certified with the ICF is this idea of being centered at the client view. I’m not trying to push my perspective on my client. I’m actually being grounded in being curious about how the client is seeing the situation, what they view as the barrier, what they view at the solution and what they view is within their control or outside their control.

[00:19:35] Marwa: And sort of with that help to evoke awareness and move them into sort of action or impact from where they are.

[00:19:43] Joseph: Yeah, this idea of my opinion is not that important, or actually it’s not important at all, to a degree. Yeah. Um, sometimes when clients ask, you know, what do you think of this? That’s the first thing that genuinely comes to mind, I think, well…

[00:19:58] Joseph: To a large degree, my opinion of what I think about, it’s not important what you think about it. Yeah. Is by far more important than what I think about this?

[00:20:05] Marwa: Yeah. I like to, when, when a client asks me about my opinion, I ask, I, I actually like to ask them, how would my opinion be helpful? Like, what is it?

[00:20:15] Marwa: ’cause um, uh, sometimes it’s power. They think that somehow, because you’re the coach, you should know. what to do. Um, and if it is, I sort of try to, I like evoke awareness. I like this word very much, like try to evoke awareness about the sort of how that might not be true. But sometimes it’s actually, which is a broader topic for another time, but it’s neurodiversity at play.

[00:20:43] Marwa: Some people, their ways of thinking, they like to bounce off ideas and it helps them sort of progress. and process the

[00:20:51] Joseph: discussion. I notice that in my own thinking patterns, I’m quite extroverted in my thinking. I wouldn’t say I’m an extroverted person, but in my thinking, even if I’m by myself, I’ll be talking out loud.

[00:21:04] Joseph: Because I think the sound of saying it and the sound of being in conversation with somebody about it really helps to formulate my thinking or writing it down, a form of expressing it. Can really help me.

[00:21:16] Marwa: Yeah. Yeah, like me. I’m a verbal processor too. So I like to talk through Things and it just really helps me process my thinking and a lot of the times people that we coach you’ll see I use tools with different people.

[00:21:32] Marwa: But like, if I’m coaching a team specifically, and there are different people in the room, and you could almost see how some are getting stuck with a reflection, and some are just like, the thoughts are just right there. So I would usually just like, open a Google Doc, and I’d say, Okay, let’s take five minutes, and everyone write down their thoughts.

[00:21:52] Marwa: And what that creates is some Silence to help people that process in different ways to actually gather the thoughts and talk Which

[00:22:00] Joseph: really brings us back to equity because that to me is an example of equity you provide you’re noticing that self awareness You’re noticing what’s happening and then you provide them the tools to help people Engage in the activity and support themselves Ah, you mentioned tools.

[00:22:15] Joseph: Are there, and some tools that you use, are there any tools that come to mind that you feel enable equity

[00:22:21] Marwa: and inclusion? Yes, there are tools that I like personally to use, but I think in general, because coaching as a profession is a lot about curiosity and sort of reflection and so on, so I would say most of the coaching tools bring in some kind of equity.

[00:22:37] Marwa: But there are three tools that I like to use a lot. One is the sphere of influence as a tool, this idea of that what’s within my control, what’s outside my control, and how and sort of help people think through that the constellation exercises. So this I having a prompt question and letting them put their dot somewhere within the circle.

[00:22:58] Marwa: And then the identity wheel, I would say, identity wheel exercise is quite a popular exercise, but it just has all types of different things that contribute to your identity. And I like to stress always that identity is not a static thing. So how you, how would you define your own identity in the moment?

[00:23:17] Marwa: Because identity could evolve and change and so on, and then help them see how that could impact. The situation that they’re bringing and, and, or, and sometimes if I’m coaching executive, how their identity is different from others and how’s that impacting them and their work and their perspective. And, and, and I find that these three specifically come in handy a lot of the times when I’m trying to bring that perspective.

[00:23:42] Joseph: And for any of our listeners, um, there’s, there’s a lot of information about this that they can search online as well. We can add a couple of links. Yeah. Um, some examples here as well.

[00:23:56] Joseph: Did you know that at Become we offer a number of different coach training programs to people just like you? If you’re new to coaching, there is a level one diploma in integrative coaching. If you’ve been coaching for a while or perhaps you’re already an ACC coach, Then we have the Advanced Diploma in Integrative Coaching, which leads all the way to the PCC credential by the ICF.

[00:24:20] Joseph: We also have a number of CPD programs and certificates, including Mentoring and Supervision. To find out more, go to tobecome. org or just check the show notes.

[00:24:34] Joseph: We’re getting quite close to our time that we’ve got together, and I was just wondering if there’s any… of our listeners who are thinking about equity in their own practice. Where do they start? Start considering this a little bit more actively. What do you think?

[00:24:50] Marwa: I would say, I would recommend two things.

[00:24:53] Marwa: One is start by sort of learning a little bit about some of the things that contribute to inequity. in the context of their work. So I work a lot of in organizations, for example, and I spend a lot of time learning about what contributes to inequity in organizations. So if you’re working with families, for example, this is something that you want to look at what kind of inequities exist within families.

[00:25:18] Marwa: I think that kind of awareness will help them bring in some of that or evoke awareness about some of that. And then start small. Think about if you’re doing Reflections or exercises and so on. Think about different ways different people can do these same exercises, similar to my Google Doc example. So these are just two small steps.

[00:25:40] Joseph: Yeah. Don’t be afraid to start small. And also thinking about something that we talked about earlier. We talked about agreements. Can I go back to your agreements? How are you making these agreements? Can you put some flexibility in terms of these agreements to make them more inclusive as well?

[00:25:56] Marwa: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:57] Marwa: Um, one of the things that had come up, uh, something that just came to my mind. One of the things that came up in the session that I told you about, the Centering Equity session, someone had asked the question around what if my identity is coming in the way, my own identity is coming in the way of the people talking about their own identity or vice versa.

[00:26:19] Marwa: If people are coming to me because they relate to me in a certain way. And I think actually, Both of these are, uh, are good things. They’re not bad thing. They’re opportunities to explore. So if people are coming to you because of your identity, because they relate to you, that’s great. That gives you even more, a bigger opportunity to bring in that equity conversation into the coaching.

[00:26:41] Marwa: If they’re not, I think that’s an opportunity to say, I’m aware of how my identity is different. And I just want to invite you to bring in what you, or whatever, or in the agreement as we say, but I think it’s just an opportunity. To actually invite, name the elephant in the room or invite to that conversation.

[00:26:59] Joseph: Yeah, being curious about it is going back to that is the first step really. That can lead to self awareness.

[00:27:07] Marwa: Yeah, yeah. And

[00:27:08] Joseph: naming it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you Marwa for this conversation as well. I’m sure that a lot of our viewers, uh, will find this useful because it’s such an important topic for us coaches to consider in our practice.

[00:27:22] Joseph: And I do think at times we get trained in a particular way. And in terms of Really, being to digest some of these concepts, it takes time. Yes. We need to practice, we need to develop that self awareness, notice what’s happening in ourselves, in our clients, and work with that. It’s not just a quick training program, it’s a constant curiosity.

[00:27:42] Joseph: It’s a journey. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a journey. It’s a journey. Well, thank

[00:27:46] Marwa: you again. Thank you so much for inviting me. I’ve enjoyed this conversation, as usual.

[00:27:50] Joseph: Same here. Same here. Same here. Take care of yourself. Thank you. Bye,

[00:27:54] Marwa: Joss. Bye

[00:28:09] Marwa: bye.