The Meyler Campbell Interviews: Clare McGregor

Clare tells fascinating coaching stories and is a hugely entertaining speaker. In the third of our MC interviews, Clare told our editor Ian Florance about her journey to coaching in Styal Women’s Prison.

Where did you grow up?

I come from an RAF family and we lived all over the world: I was only six months old when we moved to India, for instance, so my schooling was, to say the least, varied. I ended up as a boarder in a girls’ school in Berkshire, the motto of which was “Quietness and Strength”. I’m not much good at quietness but one report from my house-mistress said I took punishment well!

Fortunately, I was bright and the sort of child who learns by osmosis. I had a very different sense of risk from anyone else which, I think, was an inheritance from my father being the first Red Arrow pilot number nine. Risk and death were around all the time and, as I say in my book, that sense of the shortness of life and its fragility pushes me continually.

However, when I was asked to write an essay at school on my ambitions I didn’t have any; I had to make them up.

I had a couple of experiences which affected me hugely. The most powerful one was when I saw Fourteen Days in May, a 1987, prize-winning documentary film showing the period just before Edward Earl Johnson was gassed in the Mississippi State Penitentiary for rape and murder. The film argues against the death penalty and maintains that capital punishment is disproportionately applied to African-Americans convicted of crimes against whites. The closing credits describe how Edward was later proven innocent. That, and finding out about a young boy murdered in a snuff movie really affected me.

Why did you study classics at university?

I applied to do Natural Sciences at Cambridge but when I had to translate Catullus’s poem on the death of his brother in my A Level Latin exam I thought ‘I’m not giving that up’. I didn’t get the grades they wanted but was given a chance at a Classics degree by Professor Mary Beard, who is now a well-known author and television presenter. Mary thought I was ‘interesting’ (which is a double-edged word) and I owe so much to her, not least the lesson that it’s best to be comfortable being who you are, not putting on an act.

But before I went to college I was supposed to spend a year learning about industry and science. I got an interview with Shell and was dropped like a hot brick as soon as they knew I was going to do Classics. Instead I ended up learning a lot more by working for Community Service Volunteers in Glasgow, quite apart from the fact that, in parallel, I had to teach myself ancient Greek while I was up there. Later on, while I was at Cambridge, I worked in a night shelter and offered support to homeless people to keep grounded in what the real world was like.

Where did you start working?

As a lot of people do, I was going to go into advertising, but given all my experiences I wanted to run a charity. Initially I was involved in fund raising, ending up working with Help the Aged. I moved to Manchester and that was my first connection with Styal Prison which is a couple of miles from Manchester Airport. I became a trustee of the Revolving Doors Agency, a charity which seeks to improve services for people with multiple problems, including poor mental health, who are in contact with the criminal justice system.

But, in the end I wanted to run a charity rather than just be involved in fund raising. I resigned and worked on a number of projects from mentoring for sex workers to working with communities on counter-terrorism. Public sector bodies such as the Ministry of Justice and Department of Health have used me as a consultant.

What motivates you? As we’ve talked you’ve become quite emotional talking about specific people and the problems they have faced …and often solved?

In the book I quote the idea that people come up with better solutions by being curious than by being furious. A friend suggested I was still both curious and furious!

I’m not political with a capital P but am driven by a sense that the world is unfair and ought to be fairer. I want to make the world a better place – that’s the G in my GROW, though perhaps not a very SMART one! And, as I said, I’m fueled by a sense that we don’t have long to make a difference.

How did you become a coach?

I’d just started out as a consultant. You may remember the days when Blair’s Labour Government was putting money into distant learning. I got a diploma and found I was good at it. I enjoy the magic of silence.

Anyone can help a person develop goals to some extent. Helping someone uncover their values and strengths is more difficult. The very best thing I think a coach can do for their client is help them overturn the assumptions that are holding them back.

I worked with senior people in organisations for some years, paying myself a low salary and saving up money to establishCoaching Inside and Out.

Is there any difference between coaching senior organisational leaders and people in prisons?

In terms of the techniques you use, no. They are exactly the same. As I say above, most coaches can help people develop goals. But there’s a difference in underlying assumptions, motivation and drive. People behind bars often hugely underestimate their ability to reach their goals – often having no sense that they can achieve very much at all.

A great coach – as Nancy Kline describes – plays with assumptions and gets to an AHA moment – a decisive realisation about something that drives action and change’s personal direction. Overturning assumptions is where the real magic of coaching lies.

Of course the level of pain behind bars is huge. As I write in the book, while we now believe over 40 per cent of prisoners in Styal may be coachable, if you pick a prisoner at random, there is only a one in ten chance they would not have a mental health problem. So, what is at stake is often huge.

Have you ever felt fearful?

Perhaps occasionally a tinge but no more than that.

What do you hope for from your talk to Meyler Campbell’s network?

I want to change peoples’ assumptions. When I’m at the prison that’s my underlying motive when I deal with clients or staff. It is my aim whenever I’m interviewed.

I’d like to see some people decide to do more for others in whatever works for them.

I want to make people laugh as well so I naturally lapse into comedy.

In the end I want to make the world a better place and everything I do is a small part of making that happen. I look forward to hearing the parts other people want to play.