The ADE Process:
Your Roadmap to
Meaningful Change

Federico Malatesta

Hi, Keith. Very nice to be here.

Federico Malatesta

Well, I had what I always wanted. It was the perfect job, a job I had been dreaming of my whole life. And three years into this job my company merged with another company, and it was a big transition for all the people involved, and I had a very large team.

What was happening is that I noticed the junior managers were coming to me after work, worried about how this transition was impacting their life. It wasn't about business.

I was very lucky that I had very good coaches in the past. I also had very bad ones, so I could tell the difference. And as this kept progressing I realised that maybe coaching would be an avenue at some point. When I decided to leave the company I did some consulting work for a short time, but then realised that coaching really was what I wanted to do next.

Federico Malatesta

I think first of all it's a good idea for people to have an understanding of what is coaching and what is therapy, because that is one of the questions we get asked all the time.

Therapy looks at something that happened in the past to explain the present, and therapy is essential when somebody has a real health issue: serious depression, serious anxiety, any kind of medical disorder. For that you need a therapist. It is a much deeper inquiry into what has happened to you, and how to heal, before moving forward.

Coaching clients are healthy. They have questions about aspects of their life, and usually the question they bring to the coach is not the real question. The real question you find out after a while. So what you focus on in coaching is really: what are the next steps? Where do we go from here? What kind of roadmap can we create for you to have a more fulfilling life?

So when you ask me what good coaching is: good coaching allows the client to determine their own path. A bad coach is one that tells you what you should be doing, what is good and what is not good. I think that is the most essential element of good coaching, letting the client be in control at all times.

Federico Malatesta

Oh, great question. There is one fundamental thing which I think is not discussed enough, which is that ideology always trumps intelligence.

What do I mean by that? Somebody can have very strong ideas about something, and those ideas suddenly create a very narrow view of what is possible and what is not possible, what is right and what is wrong. And maybe these people are highly intelligent. Actually, the more intelligent they are, the more likely it is that they have very good reasons for why something is right and something is not right. So dealing at a very high level with very intelligent people is sometimes difficult because of their mindset, not because of their capacity to process information.

Federico Malatesta

Well, there are elements of our identity which are necessarily linked to what we do. An important part of growing is understanding that this is only an element of who we are. It is not the totality.

Identity is a very complex problem. So complex that as I was studying, over the last ten or fifteen years, trying to create a framework for my clients, I actually ended up writing a book about it. The idea is that identity is who you are in relation to the world. It is not something that you have only in your head. You define yourself with others and through others.

So as you move from one job to another job you have different types of interaction, both in terms of power dynamics and scope of interaction. And what you realise is that you are also something else that you were not before. Sometimes you leave something, but you gain something else.

Life is constant change. We are always told you have to adapt to change, change is constant. It is something we live through every day, in every moment. And once we realise that, then it is easier not to get stuck to some behaviours or some ideas that were linked to a particular time in life.

Federico Malatesta

Ooh. I think for me the best piece of advice I got is: leave politics for the afternoon.

I was very interested in politics as a young man, but my mentor, a family friend at the time, realised that it would not have been the best path for me as a main activity. And looking back, he was absolutely right. I didn't realise it at the time, but I listened to him. So I'm still very interested in politics, but as a hobbyist, not as my core job.

Federico Malatesta

Yes. I think there is an element of me that really likes the business of doing things, and authorship. In politics you are more limited in this sphere.

Federico Malatesta

Yes. This is a process that I somehow translated from the business I used to run, and the first three stages of the process are these: assess, define and execute.

Why does it matter? The first thing when I get a client, but also the first thing I do for myself when I have to face something new, is assess where I am. I have to appraise my position. The problem with the self-help industry is that everything becomes a three-step process, no matter who you are, no matter your background, no matter your personal circumstances. And obviously that doesn't work. So the first thing is: appraise where you are. What are you, as an individual, in this particular moment in time?

Then the second step, define, is to define the direction where you want to go. There is a big difference between motion, which is doing things, and direction, which is going in a particular direction. And the objective is less important than the movement towards the objective.

And the third is actually doing the work. You execute what you have in your mind, because until you execute, things remain in your head, and they are just simple stories that have not run their course. Only when you execute them do they become real.

Federico Malatesta

Usually they get stuck the most in the passages: between appraise and define, and between define and execute. And usually it's one or the other. There are some people who really struggle to find a new direction. Other people have that direction clear, but they really struggle to move into execute. They really struggle to release the old stories they have in their head.

Federico Malatesta

I would say the first thing is being realistic about the scale of the enterprise. Depending on what you're trying to do it can be a lot bigger or a lot smaller, but the issues are the same.

You help the client create a roadmap of where they want to go, but you make it very clear that it is going to be a process. They have to release old stories, create new stories, and execute those stories. And when they execute, they might find they don't like the new stories, and then they have to go back, redefine the direction, and move again.

So you help them with the process. You give them the space to try, make mistakes, refine and move ahead. Because in the end, Keith, that's what we all do in life. We try new things, make mistakes, adjust, and try again.

Federico Malatesta

Yeah. I had a very successful businessman come to me last year. He was in his mid-fifties, thinking of retiring soon, and he was thinking: okay, what am I going to do now? I have no financial issues. How can I organise my life to make the most of it? I'm healthy, I probably have thirty good years. How can I commit the most of this time?

But as we went through the assess and define phases we realised that that was not his real concern. There was a hidden concern. He had a fear about leaving his position, because he was afraid of how other people would look at him when he was no longer the successful businessman. There was an element of: how are people going to treat me? What are they going to think about me now that I'm not that?

So he had yet to develop a different story. It was not about organising time; he had not defined the new stories. And so we worked for a few months thinking about what these new stories could be, and there were several. There was not one overarching story.

And then we went to the execute phase. We had a few ideas that we developed, and he, by himself, found exactly what his path was. There was a little trial and error, but only through that process could he test the water and see: yeah, that feels right.

Federico Malatesta

Well, first of all, they have to find the new stories. I am just creating the space for them to find a new story.

The other point, which is as important, is this. There is a verb in Italian which is tramontare. There is not an exact translation, but it would be to sunset. And the idea is that there are some things that have their own life, and then they end, and the end is not a failure. It is simply what nature calls for. We know that at the end of the day the sun sets, and once we know that, we are okay with it. We understand that it is going to be night, and we understand the sun will rise again tomorrow.

But when we look at our stories, sometimes we think there is a black hole at the end. So the process is to say: look, it is not a failure. It is not a question of whether a story was good or bad. You had a story because it was serving you at some point in time, for some reason. And now the question is: what serves you now? And sometimes the bridge is small, and sometimes the bridge is very large.

Federico Malatesta

You're welcome.

Federico Malatesta

The long story short is that I fell in love with horses about ten years ago. I didn't know anything about horses. I came here to the US, fell in love, and decided I couldn't live without horses. So I set up a small ranch in Montana, and then decided to move to Texas and set up a bigger ranch here, so I could live with horses.

Horses have a coaching role, which is a very particular role, because horses react to their environment in a much clearer manner than we do. They will let you know what they think about you very quickly, all the time, and so that can really be used as a catharsis with clients. You take a big CEO, somebody with a very alpha personality, and you put him with the horses. If the horse does not see his behaviour as congruent, the horse is not going to answer him, no matter how much he screams. There is no money involved. There is no title. Either the horse likes you or it does not.

From a personal point of view, living with horses is really a way of experiencing life on a different level. It really grounds you in daily activities that you cannot escape. I wake up in the morning, go and check on the horses, go and feed them, go and check in the evening. Horses have a rare ability to hurt themselves in all sorts of ways, no matter how safe their environment is. Something always happens. It is not all intellectual activity where you can say, I'll do it tomorrow. Something happens, you have to be there now, you have to feed them now. You don't feed them in two days. And this is a really grounding activity, especially for somebody like me who spends a lot of time in my head with my clients. This is the mirror side of life, where change is really constant and where you have to adapt to daily life.

Federico Malatesta

The main thing the horses teach is that they let you know when your communication and the stories in your head don't match. They understand very quickly if the way you behave is congruent with who you are. They don't know you. They only respond to what they feel, to what they perceive. And they are prey animals, so they are always concerned about predators. The more you are in tune with your own stories, the more you behave around them in a certain way, and they will respond to that.

So it is a very quick feedback. What would happen in a coaching session is that a client can lie to you, even unconsciously. They can tell you wonderful stories, and you only find out after three months that actually that is not the case. With a horse it happens sometimes in ten seconds, and so that allows for a better conversation much sooner.

Federico Malatesta

But we don't work on a horse. We work on the ground.

Federico Malatesta

You don't want to put people on the horse if they are not familiar with riding.

Federico Malatesta

Yes.

Federico Malatesta

There are realisations that come much faster. They suddenly think, well, I had this story, but it is not playing out, and I don't understand why. And they cannot use the same status, the same techniques that they use in their daily life. So suddenly they are left alone on their own devices, and that teaches you a lot. It is like throwing someone in the sea: either you swim or you don't.

Federico Malatesta

It is letting go of the old story. That usually is the biggest issue, and the fear of executing a new story. What if this doesn't work? What if I fail? That is the big deal. Sometimes they are clear about the direction they want to go, but they are saying: what if it doesn't work?

Federico Malatesta

When we talk about clarity and control we have to define these words very well, because sometimes it is easy to overgeneralise. We never have full control, even if we think we do, and we never have full clarity.

My favourite definition of leadership is moving forward under uncertainty and assuming responsibility. And so we have to move forward in life even knowing that we don't have control, or certainly not full control, and sometimes we don't have clarity. You might know which direction you want to go, and this is one type of clarity, but you don't know what is going to happen. You cannot be certain that what you're doing will succeed. So managing action with limited control, and sometimes even limited clarity, is, I think, a sign of adulthood.

Federico Malatesta

The first thing would be: appraise, and define the direction you want to go.

Especially for strivers, especially for people who are very active, motion is their default path. Okay, I'm going to work harder. I'm going to do more. I'm going to try something else, everything at once. But defining why I am doing this is the key element which is often missing.

You can take Bernie Madoff, the fraudster. He was doing a lot of motion. He had goals. Was the direction he was going ethical? No. And so asking this type of question first is really helpful, to determine that the ideas that you have are actually going to bring you where you want to go.

Federico Malatesta

Oof, that's a big question. I would think in terms of what would matter to me, which is the legacy of the people I interact with. So if I can somehow influence their legacy, that would be the biggest gift I could receive.

Federico Malatesta

My morning stretching. Every morning, stretching, and then going to feed the horses.

Federico Malatesta

Ooh. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy.

Federico Malatesta

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Russian literature, so that book changed my life.

Federico Malatesta

Oh, that's a difficult one. Well, Rome made me, but I'm in Texas now, and I hardly ever travel, so I would say Texas now.

Federico Malatesta

Ownership.

Federico Malatesta

Late night, for sure.

Federico Malatesta

The hard stuff I do during the day, when I have to do really heavy work. But usually I get my best ideas after everyone has gone to bed, and the dogs are sleeping, and the horses are fine, and I have a little time for myself.

Federico Malatesta

They think that success is always rewarding. But there is a phenomenon which I call success inflation, which means that for very high-achieving people, over time success starts to feel meaningless and actually becomes a constraint on what else they could do, rather than a reward.

Federico Malatesta

Personal responsibility.

Federico Malatesta

Harvest.

Federico Malatesta

People can find me at federicomalatesta.com, so it's my full name. There they can find information about my coming book, which is called They Are Lying to You: The Self-Help Delusion, and it's about all the stereotypes that self-help keeps promulgating just to make money. They can also find all of my writings on my website, Substack, Medium and LinkedIn. And for anyone going through a pivot or a transformation who is looking to have a chat about what direction they can go, they can contact me on the website. All the information is available there.

Federico Malatesta

Thank you so much, Keith. It has been a real pleasure.