EAFH51: Michael Tucker, ICF Professional Coach, My Utopia is No Conversation About Social Justice

Dr. Dave:

Hello and welcome to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast. This is Dr. Dave, your host. I wanted to just define social justice today and say that social justice is fair and compassionate distribution of wealth, opportunities and privileges within a society, equal rights and equitable opportunities for all.

Dr. Dave:

The conversation today is with Michael Tucker, my friend. He's an executive and team coach, consultant, speaker, and author. Welcome, Michael, how are you, man?

Michael Tucker:

Hey, hey, What's going on, Dr. Dave? Thank you so much for having me today. It's been a long time coming for this conversation.

Dr. Dave:

You tell me, it's been a long time coming. Yes, it has.

Dr. Dave:

Why don't you kick us off with a short elevator pitch about, one minute, about what makes you the professional coach that you are. Number two, why here in Tucson, that's the street.

Michael Tucker:

The rumor is true. Maybe we can get back to that. Just a little bit about my style. I'm an International Coaching Federation coach and ICF credentialed. I've been coaching for the last six years. I primarily work with executives, executives, entrepreneurs, leaders. What I would say that sets me apart is my ability to cultivate a very, very high level of trust and safety with my clients.

Michael Tucker:

What ends up happening is the space that we create together becomes almost electric in a way. What happens is, that allows me to access a higher degree of intuition, which I'm able to put into the type of questions that I ask. The questions ultimately end up accessing different dimensions of the brain. Which allows the client to be able to see things that they didn't see and make moves a little bit quicker than probably they would have ordinarily. It allows them to really kind of pull the results to them in a pretty effortless way. That's what makes me different. I've got lots of stories. We can talk about that.

Dr. Dave:

We'll get into it. What are you wearing, man? I like it. Dashiki?

Michael Tucker:

Yeah, brother. Well, so check this out. A number of years ago I was in Ghana. Actually the drum behind me, I got from Ghana as well as well as the dashiki that I'm wearing and some other things.

Michael Tucker:

It's just something that when the mood strikes me and solidarity with African people and the diaspora on the continent, I put it on, because it just allows me to kind of tap into that. This is one of those conversations.

Dr. Dave:

Hey, man, I love it. I love the way it's set up. Let's talk about how does social justice show up for you in your experience as a professional coach, man? What does that look like?

Michael Tucker:

I would say social justice shows up for me in three very specific ways. The first one is, who gets coached and who doesn't get coached? Typically in a corporate environment, which is where you find most folks who are engaged in executive coaches, executive coaching is primarily reserved for the top leadership.

Michael Tucker:

We have to ask the question, who's at the top of the leadership? If the company has not made a commitment to diversify and include individuals who don't look like members of the dominant culture, then you will have the same folks receiving coaching all the time, which is what you see. That's the first thing, who gets it and who doesn't?

Michael Tucker:

The next is accessibility and affordability. Are you aware that there's coaching available? Do you even know what coaching is? Is it easy to access? From a affordability standpoint, although companies typically pay for executive coaching, there are other forms of coaching, just in our... For example, there's Family Life Coaching, which typically deals with individuals and families and so forth.

Michael Tucker:

One of the things that I'm doing is, I serve on an advocacy committee for the Family Life Coaching Association. The work that we're doing is, it's very much focused on making Family Life Coaching available through insurance. That's another big part is, accessibility and affordability.

Michael Tucker:

Then, quality of coaching. Is your coach trained and certified? That's really important. There are a lot of people out here calling themselves coaches, but they've never done any training. They've never done any certification. But they will tell you what to do. As you know, that's not coaching at all.

Michael Tucker:

Also, is this individual able to hold space for you and your identity? There are a number of people now, we've always had these folks around, it's not like they're new, folks in the BIPOC community, folks in the LGBTQ+ community, whether you're a man, whether your woman. Is your coach sound mind enough and does this individual have the presence enough to hold that space?

Michael Tucker:

If they're not, are there diverse coaches available for you? For example, the work that I've been doing with an organization, shout out to Coaching for Everyone, Dr. Jay Victor McGuire and the work that he's doing, Ashira and the rest of the team over there.

Michael Tucker:

One of the things that they are doing is, they are, number one, getting diverse coaches trained through their fellowship program. Then also making sure that these coaches are available, not only at the corporate setting, but also for K through 12 schools, for nonprofits, for youth in underestimated communities. These are really, really important aspects of how social justice shows up in the coaching space for me.

Dr. Dave:

That's beautiful man, underestimated community. I want to talk about some of the social justice experiences that challenge you to want to bring about change, especially in those underestimated communities.

Michael Tucker:

I would say that, not only is this something that's going on on a global scale, the need for social justice, it's also personally. One of the thought leaders I follow is a woman named April Dawn Harter. She runs an organization called Narcissism Anonymous. What she talks about is she talks about how overt and covert narcissism gives birth to systemic racism and anti-blackness, and all of these other isms.

Michael Tucker:

How she defines narcissism is violence against oneself and violence against others. A lot of times people don't realize that those negative things that they're saying to themselves, because they've been conditioned to say it or think it, that's violence against themselves. That can carry out into one's life.

Michael Tucker:

That's what's going on from a larger standpoint. It's really this kind of a thing. But when it gets to me personally, where it touches my family, I was born and raised in a little town called Hopkins, South Carolina. The land on which I went to high school was once a plantation that many of my ancestors came from. There's that.

Michael Tucker:

Then, just having an experience for example, with my brother. My brother, he suffers from an incredible amount of seizures because when we were young, he was hit in the head by a white bus driver. He's experienced in all kinds of medical conditions to this day. Having seen him being pulled over and thrown in jail just for driving too slow, right? There's that kind of thing.

Michael Tucker:

Then my own personal experiences with the institutional racism that's built in the startup communities. We've had conversations about that. There's some very hidden things there that people don't necessarily see unless they are directly impacted.

Michael Tucker:

Then just this desire to want to cultivate and educate folks in a way that they can come from a deeper place of just love and connection with others. Definitely a lot of reasons that this shows up for me and there's a strong connection to this work for me.

Dr. Dave:

Oh man. I get that, when it becomes personal. When we think about George Floyd killing in the United States, that sparked an outcry for social justice in the world, not just in the US.

Dr. Dave:

How did that tragedy affect your thinking about the need for social justice changes, not only in the United States, but globally?

Michael Tucker:

That event, I would say, that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. From just a personal standpoint, it caused me to question my relationship to my country. You're a veteran. I'm a veteran. I've never had to question that before. But that event was so impactful for me that it caused me to just question. It caused me to dive into history and read books and study information that I had never studied before.

Michael Tucker:

It also, what I felt for me was a call to stand up for justice, where I saw that there was injustice in my world. Not to necessarily go looking for it, but to be present with it and to be honest about what I was seeing. One of the ways that I do, I mean, everybody has their own path and their own way, but one of the things that I've committed to doing, is being intentional about really identifying some of these problems that creates suffering. Really focusing on wellness, economic initiatives in my community. That's how I address it.

Dr. Dave:

Amen. That's great. At least you have a path forward. You have some thinking around how you want to deal with it. But as a professional coach, where do you feel you have the most opportunity to affect change for social justice in your profession, or even with your clients?

Michael Tucker:

I would, from a client standpoint, very much being that voice, that advocate, that person that has a different perspective and sharing it on a larger stage there. But also in terms of my relationships with my clients, making sure that I show up with the appropriate level of cultural sensitivity for the folks that I'm working with. Just connecting with them in a very deep heart-centered way.

Michael Tucker:

Then one of the things that I'm doing now, I haven't shared this with you, but I've been pulling together research, just vast amounts of scholarly reports and data and information about the African influence on the world of leadership and coaching. There's so much information about coaching and leadership from a Western perspective or an Eastern perspective.

Michael Tucker:

However, when you look at the history of humanity, we know that it began in Africa and there were great civilizations there. A lot of these principles actually come from those civilizations. I feel that it's important to make this work visible. I feel like it's one of the ways that we get to honor our ancestors. It's also a way to demonstrate historic representation.

Michael Tucker:

Then also, I just think that there are some unique nuances that I'm finding that are just going to help take the profession to another level. That's how I see myself involved in that regard.

Dr. Dave:

I can't wait to see or read some of the stuff that you've dug up. Talk to me about a few actions that you're taking personally to improve opportunities for people affected by social justice challenges in the agile community. Because I know you're new to the agile community and you've been around for about a year now. How are you bringing that forward?

Michael Tucker:

I want to give you credit Dr. Dave, because really you're the one who introduced me to this space. I'm beyond honored. I would say the biggest way and the first way that I was able to actually make a contribution was through your 5 Saturdays program.

Michael Tucker:

Working with the young people and introducing this way of experiencing the world and seeing the world to them. That right there, it really kind of opened the door for me. The next is, we've got a project that we're not ready to put out in the public yet, but we're working on.

Dr. Dave:

You're working on it.

Michael Tucker:

We're working on it. I's really about being able to introduce agile to again, these underestimated communities. Then finally just making sure that I tell everyone that I know, who looks like me and doesn't know about agile, all about agile. Not only just in the black community, but in other communities of color where there's an interest.

Michael Tucker:

I recently introduced one of my friends to this work. She's now certified. We were just talking the other night about her path to moving more fully into the role of a product owner. That's how I'm doing it. It's just one person at a time.

Dr. Dave:

No, that's beautiful. That's beautiful that we're actually bringing this way of working, this way of thinking into our community. Let's talk about what would the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging utopia look like for you? Utopia, we're talking about. DEI and B, what will that look like for you?

Michael Tucker:

I had to really think about this, because when I think about utopia, it's the perfect type of situation. In my perfect utopia, we don't even have this conversation, because it's not needed. My perfect utopia, people are fully aware of their wholeness and their living and operating from that wholeness. There are not systems that benefit from folks creating violence against themselves or violence against others.

Michael Tucker:

That's what my utopia looks like. I think that each of us, we stand on the shoulders of giants in terms of our ancestors. There are a lot of good folks doing a lot of good work right now. Maybe we'll see this utopia in my lifetime. Maybe we won't, but I'm holding the vision for it.

Dr. Dave:

That's where it starts, right? Because if you can't perceive it, you can't achieve it.

Michael Tucker:

Absolutely.

Dr. Dave:

It has to start with having that vision for it. Michael, thank you so much for giving some time today, sharing your wisdom, your knowledge with this audience. Is there anything you would like to say finally before I close?

Michael Tucker:

Absolutely. I would just like to invite those of you who are in the agile community or any other community that are watching this, or listening to it, to just take a moment to just honor wherever you are and how far you've come in your journey with what you're doing in life. Really just take that moment to be present and to express gratitude for yourself and for all the abundance around you, because it's very, very easy to see challenges and not be able to see the other side.

Michael Tucker:

This is a great opportunity to acknowledge yourself, maybe acknowledge somebody in your family or one of your friends, and really just kind of share that love and brighten someone else's day.

Dr. Dave:

That's a great way to end. Thank you, Michael. Thank you audience for listening to the KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast. I hope this learning experience would also prompt you to take and seek more and discover how you could contribute to a positive experience for BIPOC lives.

Dr. Dave:

It really doesn't take much. All you need to do is to tap into your own humanity. Here's a few places you could find this recording. You'll find the Agile for Humanity podcast at KnolShare with Dr. Dave Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, on Spotify.

Dr. Dave:

You can also find it in the following websites. On the agilealliance.org website, the knolsharewithdrdave.com website, the grokshare.com, knolshare.org, and agileforhumanity.org. T.

Dr. Dave:

We have quite a few places that you could actually listen, watch this story today. The music for this podcast is done by my niece, Kiana Brow Hendrickson. This podcast is copyright 2021, KnolShare, Dr. David Cornelius. Until next time, be well, stay safe and connect soon. Looking forward to more conversations by Goldman.

Michael Tucker:

Absolutely. I look forward to it as well. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Dave:

Thank you.