Mike Shreeve: “As a coach, personality-wise, you need to be prepared to give up being right; that can be difficult.”

Mike Shreeve (EMMC Senior Practitioner) is an experienced coach and teacher that has built several coaching and consulting businesses. He works with a diverse portfolio of clients ranging from startup businesses, entrepreneurs who want to build structure, educators, mentors and professionals.  He has a background in teaching, accountancy, HR and NLP. He enjoys walking and playing tennis (sometimes both at the same time!).
At the Bridge he leads the Mentoring and Coaching Practitioner course.
 
You have a diverse professional background—as a teacher, teacher trainer, HR manager, entrepreneur, and now a coach/mentor. What experiences or turning points in your career influenced your decision to become a coach?
For me, my early career was exploring different paths. I am quite impatient, and I like learning new things, I didn’t really understand my own heart and it wasn’t until I was in my early thirties that I realised I was totally immersed in finding out what made people tick and how can they live to fulfil their potential. I read every psychology book I could lay my hands on and started a quest to learn more. The HR, teaching and now coaching offer different contexts to arrive at this destination. Then, in the last ten years or so, I realised that coaching and mentoring create the best results in the shortest time.

When did you start your cooperation with the Bridge?
I met Andrea on a course I was running in Canterbury called Coaching for Teachers in July 2018. I really liked her approach to teaching and her steely intuition. Klaudia attended the same course in 2019. They invited me to speak in a Conference and participate in a teachers reboot camp.  The rest is history. We like working together and I love the Bridge School and other initiatives of Klaudia such as Kogneo and up to now I have survived and not annoyed them too much.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of your work as a coach/ mentor?
It is important to realise that the rewards from coaching and mentoring are indirect and a selfless act as all credit goes ultimately to the client.  The measure of your success is watching their development and sharing both their pain and joy. Ultimately all credit goes to the client because they act whilst you watch. You are a sort of catalyst. So, if you are looking for affirmation and praise you may be frustrated!
 However, having the opportunity to see people make steps and tackle issues, they thought they couldn’t, is wonderful. You become a trusted witness to their life, and it is an immense privilege and honour. Recently a client wrote to me to say he couldn’t have achieved the last five years without me and that really touched me.

What are, in your opinion, essential qualities of a coach?
Difficult to answer this as there is no one way to coach. I think being authentic, emotionally clear, and being true are good starts as well as capable of being trusted and psychologically safe is essential. Change and progress come from this trusting presence rather than any particular tool or technique or method. I would add believing in your client’s ability to change and solve their own dilemmas might sound obvious but not always there in practice. And being positive/optimistic, not by ignoring real pain and difficulty, but able to stay “adult “enough to give the space the client to be free. It is also recognising what can change and what is part of the human condition and outside of our control. There are many other optional qualities that depend on the coach. One I prize very highly is being creative which is essential for me.

Have you ever had to turn down a client? If so, why?
Yes, a few times. It is usually because I don’t think I can help them, I don’t have the time or capacity, or they expect more than a coach. Sometimes I think the relationship won’t work or they may be better off with a therapist.

Coaching has become a buzzword, and it seems like anyone can call themselves a coach these days. In your opinion, what truly sets apart a skilled and effective coach from someone who lacks the necessary skills?
The Hippocratic oath of “do no harm” should apply to coaches as well as doctors. I believe some help is often better than nothing even if sometimes unskilled.
 However, coaches can do damage if they try to influence their clients’ outcomes or attempt working in areas, they have no real skills. I think bodies like the EMCC show coaches the fundamentals that keep coaches and more importantly clients safe by ensuring that standards are high and minimising risks.
Even experienced coaches will make mistakes and, when it happens. it depends on the quality of the relationship built to ensure that this mistake can be rectified.
It is important to realise that coaches are partners with their clients and the expert on their life is the client not the coach. Sticking to this principle avoids most harm.

Can anyone who has some kind of expertise become a mentor? 
Our definition of mentoring is that a mentor has the expertise to understand a context but not to offer solutions and use coaching methods to help the client solve their own dilemmas. It is not giving advice. The mentor can help by understanding some of the key issues and tailor their questions accordingly. This can double effectiveness of the process. However, being an expert is often a barrier to coaching and the mentor must be prepared to surrender knowing the answer. This is insurmountable for some! However some kind of training and a formal qualification offered by the EMCC can help the transition from expert to mentor.

You use a holistic approach to coaching and mentoring, what exactly does it mean?
Some providers break their training into Business and Life Coaching. We don’t make the same distinction and believe that many life issues spill over into work and vice versa. We look at all coaching and mentoring as about understanding the whole person and their context, This gives you more scope to pursue “your brand”  and have more time to choose the area you can make the most difference. We aim to build on your transferable skills from your business, education, life, artistic or sporting background. We encourage you to learn the context of your client and give you a range of tools to approach this. We explore emotional and life values as enabling deeper conversations. This gives you a greater range as a coach.

Do you think coaching skills should be a necessary tool for everyone working in education and/or management?
I do think having people skills is necessary for many areas, and coaching.is a good way.  Organisations that major on people’s development, particular in education, make better teachers and managers and retain key people.

Why did you choose EMCC and no other organizations?
Mainly because of David Clutterbuck who is a wonderful person. I had met him several times and read many of his books. He is still very influential in the EMCC.I feel very European and EMCC has people from all over Europe(and Asia)  and is a joyful warm community of exceptional coaches. I am proud to be a member. This is no reflection on other bodies. ICT is more American based and culturally different in the way we approach coaching. I think EMCC is more flexible and research based and smaller. However, we all sign up to similar standards and therefore are equally valuable. For those who want to review options I recommend this article by Professor Clutterbuck himself. See article by David Clutterbuck

If I´m an ICF certified coach (ACC or PCC), does it make sense to get EMCC accreditation as well?
Sometimes, particularly if you want to transition to coaching in English if you are working say in Slovakian or German languages. A second reason could be if you want to become more holistic in your approach.  We are finding that a business issue is often wider than it seems and it is useful to explore meaning,  emotions, life situations or energy levels and having a holistic approach is very useful.
A third reason is we link theory to practice, so you know why what how and what if of any given approach.
In many cases the other qualifications are equivalent to ours so we would advise you to save your money.! Our practitioner is like the ACC whilst the PCC is similar to senior practitioner.

Is everyone suitable for the Mentoring and Coaching Practitioner course?
No. You need to have at least B2 in English. Those who don’t, struggle. Personality wise you need to be prepared to give up being right, that can be difficult.
If you are not sure, please speak to us.

You´ve just recently finished tutoring the 3^rd course Coaching Practitioner. Are the graduates ready to start coaching?
We are really proud of our graduates, and they are already making a difference to peoples’ lives and will continue to so in the safe hands of the EMCC community.
By the time they finish our course they are already coaching. I would say everyone who passes is ready and if they join the EMCC they have backup and supervision to continue growing. Coaching is an infinite journey, but you need to start asap.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone starting out as a coach, what would it be?
Keep learning and stay humble, oops that’s two.