149: Coco Decrouppe

Listen to full episode:

Joe Krebs speaks with Coco Descrouppe about reaching full potential relationships with the Soccer Field Method®. We touch on the individual, pair, and team space and use the metaphor of a soccer field to explore the various areas. Spoiler, there is a heart in the middle of the field, not a circle. Find out why in this episode.

You can grab her book here: The Full Potential Relationship - The Soccer Field Method or visit her webiste: cocodecrouppe.com

Transcript:

Agile FM Radio for the Agile Community.

[00:00:07] Joe Krebs: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Agile FM. Today, I'm here with Coco Decrouppé, um, and she is an author, a team trainer, a top 15 leadership coach. She's a blogger, she is, and this is what we want to talk about here today, the creator of the Soccer Field Method, where she also wrote a book about.

The book is full title is The Full Potential Relationship and the Soccer Field Method®. Welcome to the podcast.

[00:00:36] Coco Decrouppé: Thank you, Joe. I'm very excited to be here. I'm looking forward to the conversation and I'm honored that you asked me.

[00:00:43] Joe Krebs: Wonderful. And this book which we, I just mentioned the full potential relationship, the soccer field method.

I was immediately drawn to it as I'm a huge soccer fan myself, but soccer is not, or knowledge about soccer is really not important when reading or approaching the book or the method itself. And I think that's a correct statement, right?

[00:01:03] Coco Decrouppé: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's not needed.

[00:01:06] Joe Krebs: Awesome.

Yeah. So the book actually is a grouped into three areas and I want to touch on those if possible with you. Today, the first one is the relationship with yourself because it is about the full potential relationship, the book. The second one is the relationship with another. And the third one is the relationship with the team.

And that relates to listeners on the Agile FM podcast. Now I do have to say your background is not in Agile, but I believe there is. A lot of things the agile community can take away from from your writing. If that's okay with you, I would just start diving into the first part.

[00:01:43] Coco Decrouppé: Yes, please. .

[00:01:44] Joe Krebs: , the first thing I noticed when I read the book was like the biggest chunk, just in terms of material of your book is actually in the first part about yourself, like just in terms of pages really focusing on. On the first one. So we often work in agile teams. But when we're looking at individuals within the team, how could this the soccer field method in particular be relevant for an individual team member, for example, like a software engineer or a leader or a coach that you do.

You do coach to coaches, right? And in this case, it would be an agile coach. How would this technique and what's so special about your soccer field method? In looking at a soccer field itself how is this important for an individual on a team? How could this be helpful?

[00:02:32] Coco Decrouppé: Yeah, very good question.

Very important question I feel. So the soccer field really is an analogy for a relationship, and we all have relationships. in private and business life. So it doesn't matter what your role is. It's not important what you're in, what industry you're in. We all have relationships. And we really need only two lines of the field.

It's the middle line that separates us and the outer line that connects us again. And one challenge for leaders is the question, when do I need to be with my team? And when do I, when is it okay to set boundaries for myself? And that is a solution. approach to deal with this question on a daily basis in difficult situations.

And the first step is the self leadership. So we have the two lines, the middle line, the outer line, and we have the two spaces. You have your side of the field. I have my side of the field. And this is where we can show up a hundred percent authentically with our skills, with everything we are. And our world is fast.

There are lots of expectations, no matter what your role is. And we tend to think a lot outside of us. instead of thinking for ourselves, what can I actually control? And this is what the self leadership stands for. How do I step back, calm myself down and reflect on what is actually needed? What are my responsibilities actually?

What are my values? What are my thoughts? What are my emotions? Even this goes deep here. So a lot about emotional intelligence, but it's a lot about stepping back. And we need this in every role, especially when we talk about transformation, change, all these things that cause Lots of confusion and stress for people.

[00:04:34] Joe Krebs: This is also like related to how I show up in the morning for work. What I take away from work, like very, like, selfishly speaking, right? It sounds like it's all about me at this point, right? So this is the part of your method is all about me. Is that a fair statement?

[00:04:51] Coco Decrouppé: Yes. It has a lot to do with the mindset and how you show up because every team Or every team member leads the team with their mindset.

So it's very important to be aware of how we show up and this is also the power that we have. I don't like calling it selfish. Like, yeah, it's a very important word actually and how we phrase that. I call it more self determined. to really pay attention that we do need oxygen. First, we need to step back, we need to calm ourselves down and pay attention to our needs.

First, before we then go and help other people and strengthen the team and support each other.

[00:05:35] Joe Krebs: Yeah. So from a methods perspective, let's say I'm a software engineer. Is that you just mentioned like the emotions, right. How I would show up, but also from a self determined in terms of learning, right? So I come to work, possibly want to improve how I want to be as a professional within my team.

Right. But what do I want? How do I grow? Does that also fall into my side of the soccer field.

[00:06:03] Coco Decrouppé: Absolutely, that we understand what do I need also in working together, what is important to me. Sometimes I need more details from a person. Sometimes I need less details for a person, for example, and we need to communicate our needs in order to work together.

And then there is what comes natural to us, right? Some are more technical oriented and others have an easier time in creating and building relationships, building trust.

[00:06:34] Joe Krebs: Yeah.

[00:06:35] Coco Decrouppé: And whatever comes natural to us, we always have to outbalance the other side. We also have to focus on the other thing.

So when the technical side comes easy, we also need to pay attention. How do we actually connect? How do we communicate? So like we stayed in the beginning, we have the midline that separates us and the outer line that connects us. For some people, it's easier to set the boundary and be more intro, they're more introverts possibly.

And for others, it's easy to connect. So we need both lines and both skills. In order to really work together.

[00:07:10] Joe Krebs: So even within my own field of the soccer field, I still have different segments, right, in terms of learning, how I possibly open up to other people, communication, collaboration what are my skills and capabilities?

So we can look also inside the team a little bit of an agile team, but if we're looking a little bit more on the The outside of the team that could be leaders stakeholders, people that are interacting with the team. And I know you do work a lot with leaders and provide leadership workshops with your method.

What's, what could, do you have an example for a leader, like in that own segment within your own part of the soccer field and that individual said, like, and what kind of things would a leader be watching out for interacting with others?

[00:08:01] Coco Decrouppé: . So this, whoever's looking at the field gets. Their side of the field, so everybody has , the self leadership. Right. That is step one. Step two is the conversational part of it, and it's not important really. Who's on the other side? That could be a client.

Could be a customer. Customer, it could be a team member, it could be a family member even.

This is a space in the middle that we haven't talked about now, but this is a space in the middle where we communicate. And connect again and have simple methods to help us structure our conversations and get our point across, but also listen to what the other person needs. It's a dialogue.

It's a dialogue. Right?

[00:08:45] Joe Krebs: Yeah.

[00:08:46] Coco Decrouppé: And learning how to do that is, is simple, but it does take a little bit of time and effort to do that. Since this method always starts with the self leadership, I want to first of all, calm myself down and understand what do I actually want from the other side without crossing that boundary, respecting that boundary.

And once I have identified on the self leadership, what I actually want and what my expectations are from the other side, it's much easier to communicate. But often I hear leaders who Find themselves in a challenge where they don't know why their team doesn't react.

That they themselves are not. clear on what they actually expect on the self leadership level from the other person. Yeah. So we need to be clear first what we want also from the other side and then communicate it in a solution oriented way.

[00:09:41] Joe Krebs: Interesting. So there's, so what's,

what I think is interesting about this method is a few pieces to it is obviously is it's universally applicable, right, to leaders, as you said.

The interaction with clients or even family. This is not limited, obviously, to anything in the agile space, but it also applies very well to the agile space. I found myself while going through the material. You just mentioned that there is. The other side of the field. So far, we have just spoken about the one side of the field, our own, and what goes into that.

Let's explore the other side a little bit. What I like about the soccer field method, not only that I am interested in the sport myself, is that I do like metaphors of learning, right? So I feel like the technique, the method you're introducing is very easy for everyone to capture, and I'm pretty sure everybody has seen the soccer field.

And how it works. Now, what's interesting in your technique is when you look at a soccer field, there's usually a circle in the center of the field. For you, it's a heart. Why? What does the heart represent? It's wonderful visual there.

[00:10:51] Coco Decrouppé: Yeah,

[00:10:51] Joe Krebs: do these two sides of the field connect and why is there a heart?

[00:10:55] Coco Decrouppé: Yeah, I wanted to make it cheesy. So for the yeah, so it all starts, like you said, with the self leadership, your side of the field and the goal where we have our calm place, so we know how to calm ourselves down. And then we step forward to communicate in the middle of the field where I call it the heart of communication, which is the heart of communication.

It stands for a human way of communicating on an eye to eye level, which is a very human need. And we understand, we communicate directly and transparently. It doesn't matter if the other person knows the method or not, we are responsible and at the same time, it's our power that we come in a certain mindset and communicate whatever we think is needed in combination with the listening skills.

So this is the glue of the method, the heart of communication and communication itself. It's the glue to relationships and teams and organizations. We need communication to connect.

[00:12:04] Joe Krebs: Right. And that is particularly like the one to one kind of communication, right, between two individuals. And something like that I could easily foresee in an agile team being very important, not only as a team level, but one on one in something we often do.

It's called pair programming. Why is that so important? Like in pair programming, there would be two individuals. Sharing a keyboard, but sitting next to each other in a space and communicating a lot about what they're seeing in front of them and working collaboratively together. Why is that so important in your method that it gets its own space?

Not only the individual, not only the team, but there's this one on one.

[00:12:45] Coco Decrouppé: Yeah. I actually think it's both really important right there on an individual level one on one, but also on a team level, there's a lot of impact that we can have when we look at team meetings, and you're in a leadership position.

And the one on one is so important because we need to talk about how we can work together. what you need from the other person. We feel like it's logical to me. So it should be logical to the other person. That's not the case.

And I feel like I've said it already once, but the other person for some reason did not hear it.

So we need to repeat and really sit down, not only what we were, but also how we work together. And it's always easier to start and, play the ball to the other side first and say, okay, what do you need for us? In order for us to work better together, what do you need? And may I share what I feel will be best, what I need from my perspective. So we really share both sides.

[00:13:44] Joe Krebs: Right. And that is in software engineering, super important. There's so much ambiguity, so many misunderstandings, somebody explains it in a certain way, and I might still be listening to it. But I might just totally understand it in a very different way than the sender has sent me.

The message might come across very different, like the telephone game very typical. Yeah. So why the heart beside cheesy, like it is the heart of communication?

[00:14:14] Coco Decrouppé: Yeah, it is the heart because it stands for the human conversation. It's really, I feel like it needs more heart in business.

We need to have that heart to heart conversations.

There are conversations we need to have as a leader when you need to let somebody go. There are difficult conversations all the time. And we might really like the person and want to keep the person on the team, but we don't see the performance. So we can have a transparent conversation or see, I really value our relationship.

And for this position, I need a certain kind of skill set that I don't see right now. So we can be more transparent, a lot more transparent, actually, to build trust, even in these kind of conversations. And it has a lot to do with a respectful frame to really approach each other. No matter what our backgrounds are, our experiences are, our culture is, right, really and

[00:15:12] Joe Krebs: even the spoken languages might be different.

Right. So absolutely.

[00:15:15] Coco Decrouppé: Yeah.

[00:15:15] Joe Krebs: So much to consider. Now, taking this to the next level in our conversation just notice that it is already complex. Two people to communicate and, having a shared understanding. Now, if you're taking this to a team level, the complexity increases even more.

So that would be the relationship with the team. So we're still having our own side. We're still having the one on one we're still having the heart, but now there's an additional complexity coming in when. When we have a relationship with the team what's in your method that, where you address this kind of complexity when you're working in teams and how does that look like?

[00:15:57] Coco Decrouppé: Yeah. So it basically multiplies by the number of. people on the team, right? Because everybody comes with their backpack, emotional backpack. And it's like when you think of a hurricane, some transformation, sometimes transformation or change can feel like very confusing. And we want to help people, or this is what I do too, in teams or individual, with individuals, I help them go to that eye of the hurricane, basically, to be in the calm, while there's a lot happening on the outside.

And you can Make big decisions and do a lot, but on the inside, I invite you to feel calm and know how to step back. That's the same thing for the team, like, because it becomes just more intense with more people, whoever looks at the model and method always gets the one side of the field. And with the team, we have like in the image, we have more people on the other side, not one individual, but more people.

So it becomes more a 3D like skyscrapers, but that everybody comes with 100 percent field and with their emotions and expectations. And there is crucial to really respect the boundary in the middle, because we tend to either go on the other side and want to do. Work for others because they don't get it done or we allow them to come on our side and we are completely exhausted at the end of the day or end of the week because we let basically everybody in so it's important to. understand that in order to have that balance, it's okay to set the boundary in the middle. It's okay to say no sometimes. That's a difficult one for people. It will help us to not take things too personal. We respect that boundary and we leave whatever they say or do or not to on the other side where they are.

And then we come to the conversational part in the middle where we do need to talk about things and about our goal.

So the balance again between the self leadership, staying calm on your side, knowing what is yours, what is it not. And the balance to holding the outer line for the team. So reminding them like a soccer coach or any team coach, we, we come together and you remind them, this is our goal, this is our strategy.

They are the experts, but still we need to be reminded that we are playing on the same field. So the leader needs to know, and everybody on the team really, how to step back, calm down, but also connect through communication in the middle to strengthen the outer line and the team and the organization.

[00:18:50] Joe Krebs: Yeah, this is awesome. So boundary management is important. The lines are there for a reason. In a field, I think like in every sport, right? We we see now there is just one example for everybody listening to this. Why this is not, you don't need necessarily soccer skills to participate in any of your workshops.

And here's one there is a situation I just want to take that as an example here with you. It's never really happening in, in the actual game. But there is a chance that somebody might swap shoes or switch shoes, with another and that's just like an interesting metaphor as well. I think we often use walk in my shoes kind of concept.

That is where we're actually swapping the shoes I would assume. Can you just give a little detail on what that means just for listeners to see that? This is not fully soccer. This is obviously

[00:19:37] Coco Decrouppé: yeah, it is a metaphor and like, it's not about playing against each other. The soccer field method is all about playing with each other and becoming a stronger team.

So swapping the shoes is I think that's a tricky one for people because We tend, and it's a beautiful thing too. We tend to think for other people and feel for other people. , some of us Right. Others have a more difficult time. And it's great to understand what is happening on the other side and what a person feels on the other side, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to feel the same thing.

. So I can be at the calm place in the goal and still create the space for the other person to express how they feel. or what their challenges are. And because I'm not confused with them, I'm not overwhelmed with them, but I'm there holding the space, I'm able to guide them and accompany them through the process of reaching a goal and moving forward.

So I think stepping in each other's shoes can be helpful as long as I stay on my side emotionally. It's, I mean, very important to listen what the other person is going through. And that way.

[00:20:57] Joe Krebs: Yes, it's an awesome technique. Now, this is audio recording only, so people can't really see that.

A lot of smiling faces. There's a lot of cards there is, as you can imagine is lots of tools that are being shared within the classroom. Lots of in person kind of delivery and you're taking this metaphor, obviously into the workshop itself. What is the like the common feedback from people that exit your course?

So what is it you often hear, like, just like a quick like maybe what's a common theme, like just in terms of self reflection when they give you an evaluation or if they follow up with you? What do you hear? I know it's positive because I see smiling faces everywhere.

[00:21:41] Coco Decrouppé: So yeah, the workshops are very interactive. I believe in a light atmosphere and spirits because we're talking about serious deep complex topics. And yes, of course, there's soccer field is a big part of it. But it's also one card of a 26 cards toolbox for leaders that are created. And it's a fun way and gives us just topics to discuss that are very practical for people.

So the methods they use in the workshop is like, are like Lego serious play, very interactive, colorful, playful approaches to talk about this serious topics. And we do start with clarifying what is impactful leadership? What is it not? And I invite everybody to share their experiences.

And by doing that, people find themselves. Hearing about other situations that they didn't even think of. And they're very personal stories. So we connect right away and that makes, creates a very trusting mindset and atmosphere right from the beginning. And therefore I believe, because it's a very human approach people come with their personalities and we invite everyone to be authentic, obviously, and the combination with my tools, in the end people leave.

Thankfully, very fired and what I hear a lot is that they knew about self leadership, but now they understand why it is so important in order to lead an impactful team. And this is really also my main motivation because I feel that we don't talk enough about the self leadership and in the end we are by slowing down, we are quicker at our goals.

[00:23:32] Joe Krebs: Yeah Coco, this is this is awesome. And I want to thank you for spending some time here with the listeners of Agile FM. You do more than soccer field method training courses. Obviously I wanted to connect the technique to the agile community. Also doing a lot of training and coaching.

In other areas. I wanted to use the soccer field method as a way to connecting the agile community to maybe a new tool in the toolkit to explore. And yeah, and then for everybody who is interested in your workshops, they can also find us on the show page obviously, but also at cocodecrouppe.com.

Everything will be there. So I want to say thank you and good luck with the soccer field method.

[00:24:14] Coco Decrouppé: Thank you very much, Joe. Thank you for having me.