Beyond Knowledge Conversation

Dorka Nagy-Józsa has been developing organisations, processes, and leaders while successful projects signposts that she appears to know what she is doing as she leads the Y2Y team.

As a PCC certified coach, she has an unwavering cheerful attitude towards lifelong learning while her name became one with unfiltered communication, bold topic discussions and openness to talking about pretty much anything.

But does she really always know, or does she know that she doesn`t know it, and that what makes her know better? :)

We chatted with Dorka about her experience with "beyond knowledge" and how this should be or could be utilised as a professional coach.

How do you see the learning process as a coach?

The first couple of years working as a coach are typically dedicated to gaining more competencies.

We learn to ask questions, read books, and learn new coaching methods and tools. Along the way, we lose the need for new skills and realise that tools can narrow down perspectives, and, in some cases, using them would stand in the way of development. 

We start stepping back. We begin to forget. Honestly, at this point, I couldn`t recall why we were told as coaches at one of the first trainings that we shouldn`t ask "why" as coaches. If I think about it, it was probably to help us understand that it is not about our curiosity. But these rules somehow get drilled into us. 

However, as a coach, it is my responsibility to ask "why". 

Not because of my curiosity, which doesn`t even cross my mind at this point, but because, there and then, I feel that this question would help my client think about triggers, for example. But this is just a random example.

What does `beyond knowledge` mean to you, and how can it be applied in coaching?

When you start working with clients, you begin to see patterns. 

At first, these patterns help you understand and progress faster. You get what a leader who is losing self-confidence is going through while he could delegate twenty years ago but not now. In the beginning, seeing patterns helps. Later, it Later, it becomes a barrier. You quickly start seeing things that are not there. We are hallucinating, not just robots, you see :)

This is when not knowing comes into play. This is the point where you need to be able to detect yourself, observe what you are doing and maybe discover that the seesaw of co-creation tilted once again with you sitting on the down side.

This is what `beyond` is for me. This is when you understand and comprehend how to clear your head from everything: tools, learned competencies, and patterns. You would still need those. Up to a certain point. And after a certain point.

How do you know when you get to this specific point? When do you need to use a tool or knowledge, and when should you embrace the `beyond` approach?

As a beginner coach, you use a tool when you feel that you need a push in the process. The breakthrough happens when you realise you don`t have to push. 

As long as you reflect on `where are we now` and `how is this useful`, you can be more help to your client in finding obstacles instead of using a myriad of coaching tools and trying to push him or her to the left or right. But why? It is more likely to satisfy your urgency drive. As Phoebe said in Friends, there is "no selfless good deed". 

You learned about not knowing at the Beyond Knowledge workshop. What was the most memorable for you?

That it is not evident to everyone that we can make bread from at least six different recipes. And that it is obvious to me that I can. I wouldn`t allow myself not to know how to bake bread by heart. A great variety of bread, actually. 

The exercises in this course taught me more about myself in three days than the 300 hours I spent on various other trainings.

What comes into my mind about that is that I should go again to a Beyond Knowledge experience... :)

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