Ignition Coach Spotlight: Chris Irwin
Today’s coaching spotlight is part of a series where we will feature and celebrate the diverse and talented coaches that work with Ignition around the globe. We hope you enjoy getting to know a bit more about the wonderful folks who make our work unique.
Today, we are featuring Chris Irwin, a consultant in organizational alignment, based in Toronto, Canada where he has worked with Executive and Management teams to find greater personal and organizational alignment. Chris is also Program Director for Leadership Certificates Health Leadership and Learning Network (York University, Faculty of Health) and a coach for The Mindgym. For a full bio, visit his about page here.
What inspired you to become a coach?
I was inspired by the ability to provide someone with an unfiltered perspective on what they themselves are thinking and contemplating. I think of it as bringing out their own knowledge and wisdom rather than trying to force something new onto them.
I really like working with people to shape the systems they are a part of to remove barriers where they can. Part of coaching is accepting where you are, but also making it so there aren't so many things in your way.
An example that I use involves school busses. The busses that I have been on were set up so that, at the end of a shift, the driver has to walk all the way to the back of the bus to leave. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but this set-up ensures that the bus driver will notice anyone hiding or sleeping on the bus. This safety vigilance is baked in and doesn’t depend on the driver assigning importance to it. The safety check is almost impossible to avoid.
Whether working with individuals or with teams, we can focus on what is within someone’s sphere of influence to determine how they can affect the system. I’ll ask questions like: “What is getting in the way?” or “What doesn't support the behaviors that you're looking for?” I enjoy asking these kinds of questions to help people make the system work better for everyone.
What is your favorite thought leadership resource?
The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia is an obscure book by Bernard Suits, who taught philosophy at the University of Waterloo. I have had some good conversations with my friend Tom Hurka about this book. If I were to add a more businessy resource, I would suggest The Age of Heretics by Art Kleiner. It is a bit of a “History of World” for thought leadership because you quickly realize that ideas and concepts repeat.
How have you been able to overcome the emotional and physical challenges of the pandemic?
There are two things that I have found as silver linings to the changes we experienced: getting outside and active again and relishing downtime when it presents itself.
I have always tried to mix exercise into my work schedule. When I was teaching in the summer session at the business school at York University in Toronto, I would bike the 8 or 9 miles up to the University when I had class. At first, in the early days of the pandemic, I tried to get fresh air by running in my local parks but, with so many people on the trails, it started losing its allure.
Jumping rope proved to be an excellent--and less crowded--alternative. As with anything, it took awhile to get used to and skipping is tiring! This also seemed to be less influenced by bad weather like wind or rain. It was not only great for my physical health, but I noticed it was also helpful for my mental health to give me a routine which got me away from my computer or a screen every day. It has been a great coping activity and as a bonus, I have skipping skills that I didn’t have 10 months ago: double jumps and the boxer skip are solidly in my repertoire.
The other thing that bubbled up is reading for pleasure. I did my undergrad here in Canada at McGill University in Montreal. As an alumni pandemic response, they launched an online book club. I have always been a reader, but had gotten out of the habit. This was a nice push to read and then engage in discussions. With no commuting and travel, I found a bit more time so that in the evenings I could sit and read for an hour and that has been really nice.
What has been the biggest adjustment of 2020/2021 in regards to how you approach your work? How have you adjusted your work with your clients?
This was the first year in a long time in which I did not teach at least one 13-week university course. This gave me a much different rhythm; I no longer tracked time by asking “what week in the semester is this?” I have been able to focus more on my direct-to-client work and my schedule has been more flexible for delivering training for partners.
As far as shifting client work goes, we’ve all gotten used to meeting online. I've been surprised at the level of engagement that we are able to accomplish in a virtual environment. So much of the work that we do, whether it's working with clients or working with people, we would be sitting in the same room and breathing the same air. There's a whole lot of value to that, and I believe that will return. The virtual interaction just seems so much easier for people. I am certain that people will still try to multitask, but I have felt that people really enjoyed and needed an interactive conversation to break up the day.
I have also been surprised by how efficient we have become. Before the pandemic, I could spend the better part of day commuting for an hour-long meeting with a client. Now we can jump on zoom at the time of the meeting and if we’re done in 18 minutes instead of 30, no one feels short-changed.
That said, efficiency can quickly become somewhat “transactional.” I miss developing relationships in person. I was lucky in that I continued working and strengthening established relationships in the last year. Developing brand new relationships in an online environment is really tough because people don't get as much from you as they may need. I think that part is really challenging in a purely virtual world.
What is a major misconception people have about your line of work?
I think that my line of work is helping clients figure out where to focus their time and energy. The misconception might be that "figuring out where you need to focus" has a “right” answer. I think people can fail to appreciate the ambiguity that business leaders have to embrace in making such decisions. I am involved in a project now to help develop a performance framework. That sounds like it would be easy, but there is a great deal going on here and, despite templates and trademarked approaches, the answers are far from easy.
Tell us a brief story about a moment you saw the impact your work had on a client.
At the very beginning of 2020, Ignition began a WAVE leadership program with a team of leaders for a Real Estate firm in Toronto. This started as a series face-to-face sessions and we had built-in some working groups so that these people leaders could experiment and report back.
Needless to say, the pandemic interrupted this plan. We transitioned the entire program to online with team video calls and it worked extremely well. We are all getting used to functioning more on these platforms, but this program ended up providing a very valuable means to this team to stay connected at a time when everyone was feeling very disconnected. The Vitality session was especially impactful because we were emphasizing the importance of taking care of yourself so that you can better attend to your team. This was a very timely message for this group and provided a rich development experience for this group of leaders.
Do you have a regular meditation or mindfulness practice and if so how does it help?
I exercise 4 to 5 times a week for 45 minutes to an hour. As I mentioned before, for me this is either skipping or running both of which are super repetitive. I don't listen to music and quite enjoy letting my mind go quiet or wander from thought to thought against the unrelenting rhythm of my steps or jumps.
What other practices do you have to build your resilience levels?
I keep a good sleep schedule and am good about calming down in the evening. I try to spend some quite mindful time in the morning. This takes different forms and I could be more rigorous about this routine.