Ep.3 Bringing Metaskills to Life

In this episode, Katie talks to CRR Global faculty member Kiki Kesseler about bringing Metaskills to life. Across this conversation, they discuss:

• The concept of Metaskills and why they are useful for coaches
• Embracing metaskills so they aren’t simply understood but embodied
• The gap between intention and impact
• The influence of Metaksills, professionally and personally
• Ways we can practice being more conscious and intentional communication

Kiki Kessler is a CRR Global faculty member for both courses and the certification program. Kiki believes that the value of working with teams, individuals and relationships lies in the balance between revealing to the clients what is trying to happen and educating them on how to self-manage similar issues in the future for a more positive and productive relationship. Kiki focuses on people development and brings 20+ years of experience in cultural diversity, coaching, training, and team management across various industries, with corporate roles in Sales & Marketing, Business Development and Training. She specializes in team development, conflict resolution, leadership skills and systemic coaching. She is known to create a trusted atmosphere of positive energy that encourages the client to align, communicate, learn, and implement changed behavior. With clear education and the use of practical tools, Kiki inspires a can-do spirit among leaders. Her strength lies in combining coaching and training skills to enable growth. Originally from The Netherlands, she speaks Dutch, English, and German. Her cross-cultural experience was established through living in Austria, the United States, Germany and the UAE over the past 18 years, working within culturally diverse environments, organizations and teams. After a four-month adventurous drive from Dubai back to the Netherlands, Kiki and her family are now based close to Utrecht, The Netherlands.


For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Transcript

Key 

SC - Sandra Cain

KK – Kiki Kesseler

[Intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe relationship matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m you host, Katie Churchman, and in this episode I’m talking with CRR Global faculty member Kiki Kesseler about bringing metaskills to life. Across this conversation we discuss the concept of metaskills and why they’re useful for coaches; embracing metaskills so they aren’t simply understood but embodied; the gap between intention and impact; the influence of Metaksills, professionally and personally; ways we can practice being more conscious and intentional communication. Kiki Kessler is a CRR Global faculty member for both courses and the certification program. Kiki believes that the value of working with teams, individuals and relationships lies in the balance between revealing to the clients what is trying to happen and educating them on how to self-manage similar issues in the future for a more positive and productive relationship. Kiki focuses on people development and brings 20+ years of experience in cultural diversity, coaching, training, and team management across various industries, with corporate roles in Sales & Marketing, Business Development and Training. She specializes in team development, conflict resolution, leadership skills and systemic coaching. She is known to create a trusted atmosphere of positive energy that encourages the client to align, communicate, learn, and implement changed behavior. With clear education and the use of practical tools, Kiki inspires a can-do spirit among leaders. Her strength lies in combining coaching and training skills to enable growth. Originally from The Netherlands, she speaks Dutch, English, and German. Her cross-cultural experience was established through living in Austria, the United States, Germany and the UAE over the past 18 years, working within culturally diverse environments, organizations and teams. After a four-month adventurous drive from Dubai back to the Netherlands, Kiki and her family are now based close to Utrecht in the Netherlands. So without further ado I bring you Kiki Kesseler talking about bringing metaskills to life. 

KC – Kiki, welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast, I am so happy to have you back on the show for season five! 

KK – Thank you Katie, great to be back! 

KC – Today we’re talking about bringing metaskills to life and I wonder if we can start, for all of our listeners who may not be familiar with the term metaskills, if you could introduce this concept? 

KK – Yeah, well I’m gonna use as best as I can the way we describe it in the courses and there we introduce it as follows: a metaskill is a stance, an attitude or a philosophy from which the coach operates in order to consciously and intentionally help shape an emotional field in which the client can do that work. So that’s quite a mouthful. 

KC – And I guess I want to ask you then, how are metaskills useful? You mentioned as a coach, so how are they specifically useful to us as coaches? 

KK – Well in my own experience it really helps me to stay in tune of what’s happening right in front of me, where I temporarily become part of the system that I’m working with, align with the emotional field and when I do that I can adapt my voice, my facial expressions, the way I hold my body, the energy that I generate in order to either meet the emotional field that the client is experiencing or that I think they are in that moment, but I can also choose to shape and shift into something that helps to either clear some of the energy that they’re in or help them cross an edge into another energy so they can lean into other aspects of themselves to get some new information, to have a different conversation, to have a different bodily or emotional experience. 

KC – They really are such a powerful tool and you mention the word energy and I find that they really help us to tap into those different energies that we bring and it’s amazing that you can put one word in your head, ‘curiosity’ or maybe ‘serious’ for a certain client and it can change so much, you said the facial expressions, the gestures, and all of that is going on behind the scenes and yet this one metaskill can completely change the way we show up with our clients and thus how that session goes. 

KK – Absolutely. What metaskills are we in right now? 

KC – What metaskills are we in right now? I’d say there’s a lot of delight right now and enthusiasm, what about for you? 

KK – Some excitement, passion for this work, connection, really feeling very connected with you in this conversation, connected to the material that we’re discussing, the work that we get to do through that. 

KC – I love that you’ve brought that question, what metaskills are we in right now, because so often I think we can just show up with what we wake up with that day and that’s fine if it’s serving us but quite a lot of the time it’s not and by the time we get home to our families we end up taking home something really unhelpful or unskillful, and I think those reminders, those constant reminders: what metaskill am I taking into this coaching session? To this party? To my family? They’re so useful because then we can be more intentional in our impact and in our lives. 

KK – I think that’s crucial to underline, that word that you’ve just used, the intentional. First being conscious of what we would like to create so we can also get part of the experience that we want for ourselves or for that relationship. Then, take responsibility for bringing that energy in rather than making somebody else responsible for it. It really helps and I often see that… I mean we’re talking about it from a professional stance right now, but at home this works just as well, maybe even better, but it’s something that I’m still learning every day. Like if I want a good conversation where we go into depth can I bring depth or am I waiting for somebody else to ask the deeper questions? Or if I wanna have a connection with the kids and have fun, am I in that mood or am I the metaskill of read a book with a cup of tea on the couch? Sometimes I find there’s a discrepancy with what I want and the energy that I am in in that moment, and do I have enough gusto to then change that? But as simple as well as like ok guys, let’s clean the house together and we turn on some upbeat music. That will help to get into that spirit of doing that type of work. 

KC – Yeah. 

KK – And making it more fun and more enjoyable and like we’re in it all together. I really believe that music and different types of music are also in that field of metaskills. 

KC – And it’s amazing how much that can shift your mood. When I’m doing presentation skills coaching, I will often suggest to people do something that changes your state, so it might not be for everyone doing press ups but for some of my clients it’s getting down and doing 10 press ups, for other people it’s dancing, and it can completely shift you out of that nervous state or that anxiety that might be showing up. It’s amazing what we can do if we use the body, it’s this amazing instrument that we mostly ignore because we walk around with sort of our heads on sticks and we forget about this intelligence below. 

KK – And when you say that I’m also thinking that when we start working with this concept of metaskills in the courses and through certification for those who choose that path, it might sometimes still feel a bit abstract, like it’s something that because we’re doing it consciously and intentionally that it comes from the head. And I also believe that when we as students and practitioners of this work, we start to expand on our inner range, you know, from geography that whole mention of secret selves that makes you you, all of these secret selves they come with a particular energy. One is maybe a little bit more outgoing and vibrant and playful, the dancer or the rockstar and you have others that are more reserved, great listeners, sometimes a bit shy, but every secret self holds a quality and the more you get familiar with that whole range you get familiar with that talent of energies that you can lean into and you don’t have to so consciously or actively think about, oh now I need to bring this kind of emotional field, I have to choose that particular metaskill, it’s less robotic. And I bring this because you mentioned the body and I think when you get to connect with your gut and with your heartbeat and with your shaking knees and all of the information that your body can bring into you of what’s going on in the emotional field, it becomes easier to lean into that palette. And I’m moving right now, you don’t see that as a listener on this podcast but you get into that flow where it’s easy to lean into a different metaskill and three seconds later another one shows up and you’re not attached, you’re not fixed on what it should look like. 

KC – I love that you mentioned that you’re moving a lot now, we’re both standing. I know for me if I want to get into a higher energy metaskill, something that requires more energy from me, perhaps enthusiasm or motivating, I need to stand up. I can’t do that from a chair. And yet, I started to stand up so much when I was coaching that one of my supervisors once said ‘why don’t you try just sitting down?’ And I sat down but I was really forward in my chair so it was like I was ready to go and the suggestion was I leant back and it created a whole different energy space for me to play in. Calm, relaxed, observing, all of those started to show up and I think the body is such an amazing way of shifting us if we need to shift. 

KK – Yeah, absolutely. That was a whole different range of secret selves then able to come out when you did that, that leaning back. 

KC – I’m curious about our title because we said this was about bringing metaskills to life and I think quite often we can understand this in terms of, from an intellectual standpoint. Oh yeah I get that, I’ll take curiosity in. But how do we really live this and embody this? 

KK – And you’d like to start with curiosity? 

KC – Let’s go there, let’s get curious about curiosity. 

KK – So with curiosity for me, and I think what we need to say upfront – the way that we do metaskills, between you and me, there already will be a difference. I think we need to acknowledge that as human beings we have all learned these energies in different ways or we express them differently, so hold that there’s a whole range in which one metaskill like curiosity can be expressed across the board. There’s not just one way of expressing that. And of course, we can give examples of how we would do that. And I think for me curiosity is, it’s not so much in what I say but it’s more how do I listen? What’s the facial expression that I’m bringing? For me that’s often with a slightly raised eyebrow, a more open look in my eyes. Maybe I’m leaning forward a little bit, or when I’m leaning back I really express that I’m holding the space from my core, from my center. I think the tone of voice when I speak, there is that kind of raised as if you’re asking a question, that kind of goes like ‘and what goes next?’ That also, I think tone of voice for me is also very important when coming from different metaskills. 

KC – And I loved all of those elements that you mention there because we can check in with those throughout the session so that we can become aware of actually are we aligned with what we meant to bring into this session? Is it creating the impact that we want? I noticed the other day, I think I meant to bring in curiosity and yet I noticed I was speaking quite fast and I was quite held in my posture and I’d had quite a task oriented day so there was a lot of directness and I was able to check in with some of these signs or signals as you mentioned, my gestures, my body language, and it wasn’t curiosity, it was so far from curiosity. And so I think just being aware of that, like what is your voice doing right now? How is that sitting in your body? All of that can help to align with self. And then check in with is that what I wanted to do and is that serving the system right now? 

KK – And then when you caught yourself being more directive rather than curious, did that also allow you to make that shift? 

KC – Mmm, it’s like a mirror. I think that’s what’s so powerful about metaskills. It’s because we are doing this already. It’s not, in many ways, new because we show up differently say with our partners than we do with our colleagues at work, there’s range within us. And yet metaskills gives us that choice and I think as soon as we think ‘what is my metaskill right now?’ it’s that mirror of ‘oh, I haven’t thought about it’ or ‘I haven’t connected with that, that actually isn’t what I wanted to bring’. And I don’t know about you, but I have to keep coming back to that every single day and reminding myself, otherwise it’s just autopilot. 

KK – Yes, and as you said that I was actually thinking in the role of front of the room leader or when co-coaching, in the preparation of any of those events, designing with your colleague, like what is the metaskills that we want to hold? And we also do this with the assistants in the room before leading the course, and to see what we lean into and what we intentionally bring and then we have these whole rituals of not just mentioning the word like ‘fun’ or ‘calm’ or whatever we think is needed for the space, for the participants, but we stand up, we embody that metaskill through movement, we bring all of those movements together in a kind of dance and then stir it into a big pot as a soup and then we spray it into all the corners of the room and maybe not 10/10 but 7, 8 times out of 10 when we then have a conversation around the DTA, about the atmosphere, the words that we put out are often coming back into the DTA or into what that system is experiencing together and that, I mean we say that metaskills cast spells and it sounds a little airy fairy, and it really does work that way, it’s very intentional and I think that’s the casting spells bit, because it’s so intentional it becomes part of the space we find ourselves in. So, to have that preparation, to really think about how do we want to be in order to serve their work. And that is just the beginning of that day or of that workshop or of that coaching moment or training, and with every break or every moment that we get like how are we doing? Is this still serving how we show up? And staying conscious and intentional on what might be next and how do we need to shift? I think it’s a great exploration. And again, it allows you not just as an individual but also within that third entity to continue to expand that range. 

KC – It gives you that check-in point. A while ago I was working with a co-lead and we wanted to bring fun and lightness and we got to a break and we said well, there’s not much fun or lightness in the group, and it doesn’t feel like there’s much fun, and we realized that there just wasn’t much fun in our third entity and the way that we were having these conversations. It starts from there, it doesn’t just start from when you get in the room, it starts from that energy you bring in those pre-meetings together. And that was just such a lovely moment where we burst into laughing because what a wonderful mirror, what a moment of awareness. And then from there we could choose to change. 

KK – Yeah. And then it automatically came what you actually wanted for yourselves. That you might have not fully embodied it or that you’re not really doing the work, walking your talk with intentions that you thought you had. 

KC – Well I think that’s the thing with metaskills, sometimes we can think a metaskill but the impact that we have is very different from our intention. And so, I wonder, how do you go about closing that gap between this intentional metaskill and then the impact that it actually has on a group? 

KK – Well, don’t be too attached to what you think is what you’re going to bring, and I think you just mentioned that - you need to stay in tune, is the energy that you’re bringing really having the impact on the emotional field? And if it doesn’t, what needs to be adjusted? I don’t think you can hold yourself responsible on how it’s going to land on the other side. We have no control over that. But you need to stay connected to it and then shift if what you thought was going to work is not working. So, closing the gap, I think, can only happen when we stay like in a moving side to side, right now, because I feel like that fluidity, that flow and non-attachment to those energies. 

KC – Yeah, that’s such a good point because my version of curiosity might seem patronizing to someone else and as you say, I can’t be responsible for how that lands, and yet what I can do is I can tune my mixing desk, my metaskills mixing desk we could say, in a slightly different way. So, I might turn up some of the professionalism and turn down some of the lightness so it lands slightly differently, and then see if I get a little closer to what I was hoping to get to. 

KK – I do find that this getting to know oneself and learning how to trust your intuition and how you want to show up and seeing the impact of that takes practice, for some more than for others. But it is so crucial in the work that we do. I mean you can ask a question in endless different varieties and it really depends on the metaskill, and we do practice this somewhere in the courses. You can say I love you like ‘I love you’ or ‘I love you’ or ‘I love you’ [in different intonations] and all of that are different metaskills that are behind it, that are just expressed through the tone of voice and facial expressions in that moment, and some body language, of course. But to become more and more fluid with that, self-secure with that, it takes a lot of practice and I think for me metaskills are my pet peeve, like I really, really love working with that and in the practices in the room, in supervision sessions, when people are going through certification, I spend quite a bit of time on this when appropriate, when that really is the growing edge for the student, because it can really have such a strong impact and with just slight shift of metaskill the intention of the coach can land so much better on the other side. 

KC – So until this becomes more natural for someone, more in their bodies, how would you suggest they go about practicing this to bring more metaskills into their coaching work? 

KK – Well there are different ways and find other ways if what you like is not mentioned here, but I think… Ah – I remember, and I think it was either Faith or Marita’s tip a long time ago. If you have a chance to read a book to a child and you can lean into the different characters with their different habits and voices, the child will let you know if it’s engaging and if you’re getting the hang of the different metaskills. If you read it flat, monotonous, the kid will say this is not fun, I’ll go and do something else. I took this a little bit too far, I think, when I started reading Harry Potter to our son and then there was a lot of Hagrid in it. For me he had a Scottish accent but there was a lot of it and then in-between the Hobbits and the whatever, I don’t even remember all the characters, but there was so much shift that I couldn’t even cope anymore at some point! But that’s a nice way of practicing. Or watching a movie that is in a language that you don’t understand and you start to look at what’s the emotional field in this particular scene? How would I pick up on that? What are some of the signals? How does that make me feel? So, I think it’s really important that you get in touch with your own emotional experience as well, trusting the signals that your body are giving you. 

KC – Yeah. 

KK – Because that is information coming from the emotional field and because we choose metaskills in order to meet or influence the emotional field, we first need to be connected to it. 

KC – Yeah, I love what you’re saying. I think it’s so interesting around how we can choose, and I remember someone saying to me that you can practice this in a coffee shop queue. Put a metaskill in your head and see if you can have a different impact when you order your coffee, on the barista. Maybe you take enthusiasm or excitement and see how that works. And you realize that it has a different impact! You might make someone’s day, and we can do this in so many different ways, of course. The place I always use it is before a coaching session. Before every coaching session, because sometimes I have quite a lot of almost back-to-back calls, I will write down a word and as you say, that word often changes, I’m very fluid with it, but if I know that I’m in quiet a… well, as I was in the other day, quite a directive mood, it’s quite helpful for me to just write down ‘I’m going to take in awareness to this call, enquiry and awareness’, and then I can consciously choose to shift gears and not unconsciously take in something unhelpful. 

KK – That’s a great tip. And also nice how you are holding yourself accountable in showing up, not just what will work for you but mostly I guess what will work for the client that you’re meeting. 

KC – Well I love what this conversation is pointing too because metaskils really bring to life the idea that relationship is a two-way street. I think we can sometimes feel quite disempowered in relationship and feel like everything’s out there, and I wonder how for you, metaskills have given you a sense of your locus of control. 

KK – Well, pause. No, that makes me think. The locus of control with me, well, if it helps to generate a certain atmosphere then I’m just as well responsible for that and this is something that I also talked about in the podcast around vulnerability, but it was much easier to get grumpy, not get what I want and then taking ownership for what I want, like I want to have that intimacy or I want to have that good conversation, then saying or speaking to that, saying that out loud, there I have a choice with what metaskill I am then bringing that awareness to the relationship. That is really something where different aspects of self have a conversation in my head trying to battle it out like, ‘he’s ignoring you so you can just be nasty’ or there’s the one who says yes, but if you want that conversation or that intimacy how will you address it now? How you will address that you are in need of something or that you see an opening for something? And I think that’s where the metaskill part then comes into play because if I were to come from an upset tone, that is not going to set the stage for anything that I want. 

KC – It takes a lot of courage though to own that because it’s easier in some ways to stay in the ‘if only they changed we’d be happier’, or ‘I wish there was more fun in this relationship, there’s no fun anymore’ and I don’t have to be responsible for fun when I say that. Whereas actually when we lean into the relationship and the metaskills I have to bring some of the fun. That’s a part of the relationship and I’m a player in that. And I think that’s sometimes hard for us to own as humans because it brings us back to that tiny piece where we actually have agency. We don’t have control over a lot of things but that is the bit where we do, and I would say most of our lives we’re not putting our attention there. 

KK – No, and I think if we look for instance at, and we teach this in intelligence, the metaskill of appreciation and the impact that that has and of course, I think every human being has as a basic need to be seen or to be appreciated, to be valued, and I can feel very alone, not seen, a part of me not seen and I’m longing for appreciation. When we then actively step in, and I’m talking again about this relationship with my husband that I have in mind, if we actively start sharing appreciation but not just the robotic ‘you do this great, thank you’ and ‘you did that, I appreciate’ – no, that is not going to do the trick. But if we take a moment, open our hearts, speak with love and honesty, because maybe also you want to blend in some of this is what I don’t really like, that is also possible but then you’re in a space where all of that information is welcome, and it has such a profound impact. We don’t do that enough. But when we do it I can really feel the difference. That’s an important one I think for relationships as well, the metaskills. Appreciating it allows you, when you really hold it as a metaskill and not just as a tool, to actually continue to see what the other person is bringing. It’s so easy to see what you don’t like but holding that metaskill will allow us to say oh, beside the stuff that I’m not enjoying so much this is still something that I really appreciate about you, it keeps so much more potential in front of you. 

KC – That’s a lovely way of holding Gottman’s 5-to-1 positive to negative ratio, because you could be having quite a challenging conversation, but you could do it with the metaskill of love. And I think then that does hold that ratio in a more skillful way and I think all of that can then have such an impact on the dynamic, the overall sense of positivity in the relationship. And I think the same applies to our teams. When we design the team alliance, so often you get these sort of buzzphrases, oh yeah we want respect, we want openness, we want trust, but there’s no sense of that in the way they’re sharing and I think that’s why metaskills can be so powerful, particularly as the coaches because we can model that and then ask what would openness look like? And then we start to get a sense of the, I guess, the how. Is that for you what metaskills are? Do they live in the how, that being space as opposed to the doing side of coaching? 

KK – Absolutely. Of course, you’re picking up stuff from your brain as well. That brain might sit in your head or it might sit in your stomach or in your heart but you’re picking up on information and their might be an action related to that like oh, seeing that there is grief in the system might allow me to lean into another tool or to take, I don’t know what the action will be in that moment as a coach but that would be the doing of it. The being of it is being with that system in that moment, maybe taking some silence. Just allowing that emotion to be present, holding the space, and then coming back in but even now I’m noticing that the tone of my voice is shifting as I’m imagining that kind of situation. And you come in from tenderness and care and heart, inquiry and awareness. But it’s very different to be in that kind of situation than when conflict is irrupting in front of you, you need to hold the reigns in order to create safety and you want to come from easy command or even authority and I’m standing up straighter now and my voice becomes more directive and I use language that is more directive in order to guide the process. So, I think that ability to feel in and adjust yourself. And in order to come from authority I needed to cross an edge. I think very often allowing yourself to come from a different energy means crossing an edge because that part of you, that secret self, has been living sometimes in secondary, has been maybe marginalized and to lean into the energy you first need to bring that secret self more into the primary. 

KC – Well what are some secret selves that aren’t so secret, perhaps, anymore for you? That have become part of your metaskills toolkit? 

KK – Well I think the one that I just mentioned, easy command and authority, structure, patience. I think my defaults are still and were also very present when I just started out and I’m referring to front of room leader role - heart, compassion, compliantness, - that was me at that time and I’m talking 7-8 years ago, that was my come-from place predominantly, not just in that role but in life, and over time I learned that I have more range and I actively work with some of those secret selves that have been dormant. I think that’s the beauty of doing this work together because between two coaches or two front of the room leaders you kind of know what your default metaskills are. Your strengths as well. And then throughout the day or on day two you could say well, trusting that we both hold range and that we have our defaults, let’s swap. So now, Katie, you take heart and compassion and kindness and I’m going to take time keeping and structure and authority because then our third entity still holds all of that and it becomes more fluid between us, and then it’s beautiful to also demonstrate that towards a group of learners, students of this work. 

KC – I always think one of the best compliments you can get as a co-coach or a co-leader is, say when someone refers to something you said but they say it as the other person – 

KK – Yes. 

KC – and then that really talks to the idea that it’s your third entity speaking. I love that idea of sharing the metaskills and it can be then such a joyful learning experience because you then stretch in relationship. 

KK – Absolutely. 

KC – It makes me think of, Martin mentioned on another podcast around how he doesn’t see team coaching as a product, he sees it as a process and I think as new coaches we so often come in with all of our tools and we want to throw all the tools at our clients and actually this is fundamental. I wonder what advice you have for someone who’s maybe new to metaskills and this work, how to cross some of these edges? 

KK – When I started learning ORSC I wanted to be very much a good student and I really wanted to know the steps and I got really frustrated with myself if I got the next step wrong or I didn’t ask the right question but I was so focused therefore on my notebook, the overview of the steps that I was not connected with what was actually happening in front of me and although we were practicing scenarios there was still an emotional field very real to be worked with. So of course, you want to get a hang of the structure of a tool and we can coach systems without tools, we coach systems when we come from metaskills, when we use, and this might be a term that not everybody is familiar yet, but when we come from the coaching or the systemic coaching competencies. Metaskills are one of the ten competencies that are crucial for this work. Leaning into the emotional field, reading it, working with that is crucial for this work. So, yes, trust that you have your book with you, that you can always look at what’s the next question but as soon as you have offered a next question or a new insight allow yourself to connect with the client, how they are behaving together, emotional field that sits right in front of you, because that is the information that will allow you to then come with another energy if needed. But you first need to feel that. So, if you’re really looking at your notebook and worried about what the questions are then that’s going to be quite difficult to do at the same time. And it’s a process, also that is a process, it’s not about getting it all right, it’s about continuing growth and also being patient with yourself in that process. 

KC – I really love that point and being a systems coach isn’t simply about what we do, it’s about how we be and maybe it’s harder to measure how we be, there’s not such an obvious ‘I got it right’. I guess in general in coaching there’s not a right or a wrong, there’s not a tick box approach and that is perhaps a big edge for many of us to cross because there’s a lot of uncertainty in it. And when we use a metaskill it may not be the right metaskill. But as you mentioned, how can we stay flexible with what is emerging? 

KK – Yes to that. 

KC – Thank you so much for this glorious conversation, Kiki, and for dancing with me and sharing so much of your range today. 

KK – Thank you very much, I wish you a wonderful season continuation and until next time. 

[Music outro begins 36:43] 

KC – A huge thanks to Kiki for that wonderful discussion that explored how to bring metaskills to life. Here are my key takeaways. A metaskill is a stance, attitude or philosophy from which a coach operates in order to consciously and intentionally help shape the emotional field from which the client can do their work. Working with metaskills involves being flexible so that we can meet the client where they are at. We may choose to shape and shift the emotional field in order to help a client discover a new insight, cross an edge, have a different experience or lean into different aspects of themselves. We can sometimes be unconscious about what we bring to our relationships. Metaskills help us to bring conscious and intentional awareness, the energy we choose to bring to our relationships. In order to bring a different energy to our way of being we can play music, shift our position for example to sitting to standing or change our tone of voice or pace. These are all ways of embodying metaskills. The body is a great resource for tapping into our range as coaches. Metaskills are an amazing place for us to grow as coaches. A subtle shift in metaskill can help our intention to land in a completely different way for our clients. The more metaskills we can tap into the more range we have at our disposal as coaches and human beings. Metaskills can help us to be more aware of our locus of control. They help us to take ownership and responsibility for what we want and enables us to embrace the interdependence that lives in relationship. Thank you for listening to the Relationship Matters podcast. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with your colleagues and friends so that we can continue to spread these ideas across the globe, and if you haven’t already, do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. And for more information on the ORSC courses please visit CRRGlobal.com. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. We believe Relationship Matters from humanity to nature to the larger whole. 

[Music outro 39:27 – end]