Guest: Tini Fadzillah

Tini Fadzillah is an executive coach and trainer based in Singapore with clients throughout Asia.

She specializes in coaching C-suite and senior executives in performance, leadership and change; with a reputation of surfacing and creating sustainable shifts to the underlying conversations needed to unlock a leader’s full potential and drive results.

Tini co-founded TWP in South East Asia in 1996 and has worked with thousands of people from diverse cultures on both personal and professional goals. Her passion is working with people to design a compelling future and to translate their goals into reality.

Tini is a Newfield Certified Ontological Coach and is an MCC level certified coach with the International Coaching Federation. Her clients include PETRONAS, La-Prairie, Aditya Birla, Prudential, AXA, Singapore Airlines, Mastercard, Save the Children, Eastspring Investment and Afton Chemical.

Tini is a passionate advocate for the role of the body in creating a powerful leadership presence. She is certified to use Tension Releasing Exercises™ and Wendy Palmer’s Leadership Embodiment curriculum. She also co-designed and delivered the “Women and Leadership Presence” program and was an active member of the team that designed the Character Building component of the National Service in Malaysia. Tini is also a certified health coach and embeds wellness within her coaching narratives as well.

HIGHLIGHTS & TAKEAWAYS:

• KG:  You're a leader of one of the eminent coaching, training companies, and education companies out there. You continue to do different kinds of work. I know that you coach, you train, you podcast, you write, you mentor. Is there a red thread that ties all of it together for you? What's the driving force behind all that you do?
• TINI: Absolutely, and that's people. One of the things I always say is that I absolutely love working with people. I have a firm belief that people wake up in the morning going, how can I do a good job today? And some people hit the mark and some people don't. I get to work with people who have the courage to go, let's try something different. And it's easy for me to say it, but for my clients who really are willing to let go of some of their long-held beliefs is just really courageous. And for them to be able to see the outcome of that is just, it's crazy that I get paid to do what I do. I love people. And that's the thread that runs through everything I do.
• KG: What was your journey that got you to this version of you, where you said, I love people. This is what I want to do. And here's how I'm going to show up in the world?
• TINI: I'm going to say the way I was raised was one of the reasons why I'm here. If you can imagine my whole life up to university where I left home was really about and if you read The book, The Purple Book of Coaching, I talk about this, which is from day young, when I was really young. I just remember us always having these conversations around my dad's work, around some challenges he would have, and they're all linked to relating.
• TINI: One of the things that I learned, which bridges into the work I do today, is that everyone wants to do a good job. I do believe that. Some people hit it, some people don't. And I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning and says, okay, today's the day I'm gonna do a really bad job.
• TINI: My role, and a lot of coaches do this, is our job, if the client wants this, is to support them to create a different future. So to answer your question about where did this come from, I'm going to say it's from my parents, certainly from my dad's work. I still love seeing what's happening in the world platform, in the world stage and just the relationship breakdowns that are happening or the lack of capacity for this or that, or with some people who are doing it really well.
• KG: Tell me a little bit more about what that book (The Purple Book of Coaching) means to you and what your objectives are in bringing that book to the world?
• TINI: We have access to some of the great experts in the field of performance in the field of somatics or the body, emotions, language, ontology, which is the umbrella of it all. And we work with them day in, day out, day in, day out. And people who get to access them are the ones who register for a program or have contracted us to do a program in their organization. We wanted to get some of this wisdom together in a book that's accessible to people globally, beyond just when they sign up for a program. And so that's really the objective.
• TINI: The objective or the drive is to impact human beings. Our objective, I love what I do and it's a tool for people to design the future that they're compelled by, full stop. And so if this is one of the platforms that people can access so that they can, in my chapter, I talk about relationships, that they can really take a look at the distinctions that I'm suggesting impact the quality and effectiveness of relationships and that makes a difference to someone living in the USA, why not? That's really the objective, to collate the wisdom and curate something that everyone can access if they want.
• KG: If there were a one line summary of what the Purple book stands for, what's the message that you're putting out there?
• TINI: The book's objective is for people to leave knowing that you can design your future. You really can, regardless of the historical narratives.
• KG: You create a very positive future, the potential is always positive and uplifted and elevated. How are you able to tie those two things together? What is right in the world?
• TINI: Relationships are everywhere. The question here is, where are you thriving in the relationships that you are creating? Where do you feel you can improve? Things happen in life that something that looked like it was thriving may plummet. And for a window of time, you're not thriving, such as after the death of a loved one. And so you may plummet a bit and your relationship with death, your relationship with loneliness, et cetera, might surface. And so that's really the link I would start with. Would start with relationships happening everywhere.
• KG: Ethics and integrity, what do they mean to you?
• TINI: Someone's capacity to create a fulfilled life, is the link, which is not always about happy. Sometimes it's about what's fulfilling for me. It can include happy. It can include contribution. And so the link to Ethics, integrity is to be in line with what matters to you in my world.
• KG: Would you feel comfortable sharing a personal example where you felt challenged, but you navigated through it while feeling one, you stayed aligned with your values and two, you were satisfied with how you showed up in that situation?
• TINI: The story of being a mom and being a mom to a child with special needs. I actually think it was my values that had me and what mattered to me, that really had me get on this journey.
• TINI: There is that transitional moment and my capacity to have my values align myself to create the clarity and designing my future.
• TINI: For those who might be starting their journey, it might be like, it's still really gray and cloudy. And that's okay because we become stronger. It could be that there was a breakdown in the organization. It could be that you need to lay off a whole bunch of people and it could be anything that you perceive as a breakdown. I know it's the value of the work that I did, because I was already doing this work and now is my opportunity to live what I'm working with people to live. It's like, I get to be a self-coach and even access my peers.
• TINI: Relationships, which is no one's expecting you to do this yourself. My point of view is we're actually the worst when we're like, you handle it yourself. This is a solo sport. It isn't. It isn't in my world. And it was with the support of lots of people and the environment of people always asking the question of what is it that matters to you? And then getting aligned with that.
• TINI: We're all writing chapters. The book doesn't end until it ends.
• KG: In navigating some of the greatest challenges, focusing inwards on understanding yourself, exploring what's possible within you is what is critical. Would you agree?
• TINI: There's value in focusing in words. And what I mean by that is the reflective nature of in words.
• TINI: When I focus inwards and I grow and I learn by self-reflection. I actually become better when I focus out and come from a place of contribution. What's my contribution? And my contribution could be tough love. My contribution could be honesty. My contribution could be listening, whatever it is, but coming from a place of focusing out to be part of a solution. And what came to me is this idea of living with polarities. The power of polarities.
• TINI: It's actually necessary, us breathing in, inhale, exhale. You can't breathe by just exhaling all the time. It comes in a package. What triggered my thinking when you said inward reflection and then outward focus and I think that's really perfect and relating is like that too right this is all about relating actually where it's where am I relating with self what is my relationship with self and what's my relationship outwards it's a lovely polarity.
• KG: What are you observing are some of the most demanding ethical dilemmas of the day? Are you observing any patterns of the age right now?
• TINI: Let me just start with general patterns first. And this has been consistent and it's equally as consistent and present today. And it links with this whole premise of people relating with one another and this idea of ethics, maybe not so much ethics, but just being in alignment with my principles and being in integrity with it.
• TINI: If you're not working in an organization, then you can start to reflect on what are the organizations that I'm engaged with and how is this relevant? And the one that is consistent is this idea of being honest.
• TINI: Something that's not in alignment with fill in the blank. Could be not in alignment with the objectives of this project we're working on, or it's out of integrity with. Do I have the capacity to give this feedback? This is one of the breakdowns that happens. And what happens is it creates all of this relationship tensions, which then impacts people's capacity to produce results. Because I notice something which by the way is my perception of what you’ve done.
• TINI: People's capacity to be honest and talk. It doesn't always have to be confrontative. People forget that actually there is legitimacy in how you see things. All of you, how you see things, there is lot of legitimacy in that.
• KG: Could you maybe guide us on how that might sound if someone were sharing in a way that invites a fruitful conversation versus everyone buttoning down their hatches and saying, no, you are wrong. No, you are more wrong than I am. How can you avoid that?
• TINI: People default to their habits. The context of the conversation matters. What do I mean by context? Context means where am I coming from? What's my objective?
• TINI: If you're gonna have a difficult conversation with someone, I think for you to get plugged into is to ask yourself, what's the outcome here? And what's my objective? Is my objective to be right? Is my objective to make you wrong? Now I'm gonna suggest that objective, even though it's you getting clear about it, it's probably not gonna work. Now, if your objective is to give feedback to support the other person to be better next time, if your context comes from a place of care.
• TINI: If I can appreciate how they see their world, I can curate my conversation because my objective is not just to explode a bomb in front of them and say, all right, there you go. Please handle it. That's not effective. My objective is to have a message and I want to lend the message powerfully. And so I need to know who I'm speaking to and I need to curate that conversation in a way that I believe is going to be received effectively by the listener.
• TINI: Comfort is not necessarily my objective. Effectiveness is my objective.
• KG: When I think about relationships and navigating those that are valuable to us, sometimes it's about not being able to safely walk away. We do not have the luxury of being able to walk away safely from these places. We're engaging and the triggers are ongoing. The relationships are important. And I suspect often what happens is it becomes harder to stay focused on these two points that you are pointing us towards. It's very hard for me to be calm within myself and remind myself of the potential and the possibilities of the situation.
• TINI: You may not need to offload if you do it regularly. It could just be regular conversations to just check-ins with each other to support, to be a source of support. Talking through, so one of the strategies is just talking through some of the challenges that you have.
• TINI: A sidebar is that, if you think about one of the buzzwords now is longevity. Not necessarily live longer, but stay healthy in the life that we have. So stay healthy longer. And being in relationship with people, being engaged in communities is one of the ingredients for longevity and wellness. Mental health, the capacity to offload and talk and seek support.
• TINI: Start to notice your default patterns and break it down. Just take one behavior that you're going to try differently.
• TINI: One of the things just around breaking down the muscles, breaking it down and treating it like muscles is where it all starts to interlink. Get feedback. Get feedback from, if you have the courage, from the people who have given a lot of feedback about you.
• TINI: What I love about relationships. I love that it's not a formula. It really requires curating. It really requires empathy. It requires a commitment to initiate something and be clear about what it is that I want to create. And it requires me to go, this is not the relationship that I want to spend my energy on and be willing to walk away.
• TINI: We all have the autonomy. We all have the power to design the future that's compelling for each of us. And the analogy that I always use is the vision that I have, the work that I do is in line with the vision, which is when all of us or the lucky ones who reach 100 years old or whatever that old age is, when we're on our rocking chairs, that we can look back on our lives and not say, I should have, I could have, I wish I did. But rather to sit on our rocking chairs and look back and go, now that was a frickin' awesome life.

REFERENCES & LINKS:

TINI’s LinkedIn/Website page

LINKEDIN

THE COACH PARTNERSHIP

TINI’s Book Suggestions

THE PURPLE BOOK OF COACHING

The Human Conversation Podcast Channels

APPLE PODCASTS

SPOTIFY