Tuesday, March 30, 2010

What Coaches Must Do

There are two things professional coaches must do. From the broad array of coaching "best practices" there are two things that matter above all. I have come to this conclusion from my own experience as a professional coach, through my leadership of an internal coaching program, through my conversations with other coaches and through dialogue with organizational leaders who have hired professional coaches to support high-potential professionals in corporate development initiatives.

Coaches who want to have impact, preserve integrity and be a catalyst for learning and change must, must, must do the following: follow the emotion and challenge with candor.

Follow the emotion like a bloodhound, relentlessly calling out and coming back to the part that is often hardest to express. Rational thought is clean, precise, thorough and often highly defensive. It's useful, but only to a point. And then it becomes a hiding place. Emotions are messy, confusing, frustrating, scary and radically developmental. Coaches serving their clients in a powerful way recognize this and understand that inside the emotional content of the conversation is where the best work gets done. Staying in the emotion forces us to let down our defensive constructs and dwell out in the vulnerable open - no wonder we don't want to go there. And, yet, in the context of a safe and powerful coaching relationship, it is a place we can visit with increasing confidence, expanding our ability to really feel the hard feelings and to increase our options for how to use those feelings as fuel for the creation of our better future.

Challenging with candor is the essence of coaching integrity. I have heard so many examples recently of coaches playing it safe, failing to offer the candor, challenge and supportive confrontation required to help a client face their own reality. Coming from an organizational perspective as I do, it seems that coaches often find themselves trapped in the organizational dynamic - a painful lack of candor - instead of being an antidote to that reality by offering a refreshing dose of the same. There are too many stories of coaches backing off at the moment of truth, fearful that they will alienate their client, risking their contract, their reputation or both. Trust me on this one because I've been there, coaching from fear, from the need to be liked, admired, needed. What gets left unsaid is the stuff that always gets left unsaid. Nobody needs a coach for that.

Even the best of organizations suffer from stultifying hierarchies and homogeneous mediocrity, waiting for leaders to break free and forge new opportunities for creative expression and meaningful participation in the work. In that context, people are desperate for real conversation and real feedback. Coaches have a sacred opportunity to play that role and when we miss we rob ourselves of even greater credibility, opportunity and impact. We may conveniently and subtly convince ourselves otherwise but committed clients want the opportunity to explore the emotional landscape and they want authentic reactions to how they show-up. They want this because they know that achieving their goals requires hard work on many levels. And they invest themselves in coaching because they have come to understand that development always happens in relationship, and the more truthful the relationship the more growth that can happen.

My own experience tells me that the coaches who are most likely to follow the emotion and challenge with candor are the coaches who are willing to be the best clients. They are the ones who are deeply committed to their own learning and who provide themselves with the best, most challenging venues for their development. It's really pretty simple: if the coach doesn't have access to their own emotional terrain they won't be able to help anyone else get there. If the coach is unwilling to be challenged or confronted, there's no chance they will confront or challenge anyone else.



© 2010 David Berry

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Boomba, Hey!

When I was in high school I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I just didn't know it yet. In high school, I was deeply interested and involved in leadership and inspiration, just in a very high school way.

There was a small group of us on student council who used to run the lunchtime pep rallies prior to the Friday night football games. Since we weren't jocks, we figured we'd be the cheerleaders. And, we were pretty good at it.

At one specific pep rally I decided to try a new cheer, one I had learned that summer at student government camp (hey, listen, there are all kinds of geeks in the world...and there are all kinds of organizations running camps for those geeks to learn how to be even more geeky at what they are geeky about. Twas always thus and always thus shall be.) Anyway, the cheer was called "Boomba, Hey!"

Here's how it went down: donning my purple and gold "Lancer" attire I would stride to the center of the basketball court, students filling the stands on either side, and begin shouting my instructions: pointing to the right side, "You guys are 'Boomba!'. When I point to you, yell "Boomba!" as loud as you can!" Pointing to the left side, "You guys are 'Hey!' When I point to you, yell 'Hey!' as loud as you can!" And then I get started, slowly at first, methodical in my approach. Deliberately easing them into a pattern, predictable and soothing.

Call: "Boomba!"

Response: "Hey!

(Hear it in your head and remember, we're talking about 1,000 screaming high school students.)

Pointing right: "BOOMBA!"

Pointing left: "HEY!"

Right: "BOOMBA!!"

Left: "HEY!!"

Now, they're trying to outdo each other. Louder and louder. I am all powerful. I have them right where I want them. I point left and...nothing. I catch the "Hey's!" off guard. I try it again and they come on with vigor: "HEY!!!" Loving being first, loving the mis-direction. And then it gets fun. I start to play with them. I wish you could hear it as I remember it. I "wind-up" the "BOOMBA's!", starting low and building to an explosive finish:

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM- BA!" They go crazy.

I "machine-gun" it with the "HEY's!": over and over again: HEY!", "HEY!", "HEY!", "HEY!", faster and faster until they can't keep up. Hilarious.

I was 16 years old and in command. Leading, motivating, inspiring. By doing something silly, fun and, most importantly, simple. I doesn't take much but it has to be done with conviction, belief that this is the most important thing in the world. That there is no place else for me in this moment. I am right here, right now.

It took me a lot of years to get back to that place. A lot of years to figure out that more complexity isn't better. That simple passions, explored authentically, are truly powerful.

When in doubt, go with "Boomba, Hey!"




© 2010 David Berry

Monday, March 15, 2010

Careful...Carefree...Careless

Careful: controlled, exact, fitting-in, cautious, fearful, heavy, reliable, dependable, conservative, edited, unknown, uncertain, judgmental, closed

Carefree: light, refreshing, spontaneous, enjoyable, infectious, in-the-moment, willing, open, friendly, authentic, vulnerable, silly

Careless: reckless, wasteful, undependable, restless, loose, standing-out, sloppy, fearless, dangerous, risky

These are my words. My definitions of three terms that are extremely important to me right now. I want you to notice how my definitions reflect my feelings about these words. Notice the judgment, the discomfort, the aspiration. For me, these are definitely loaded terms.

On the continuum of careful to careless I've long made my home on the left-hand side. At the risk of oversimplifying the "why" it really comes down to childhood compensations that are really tough to let go of as an adult. As a 10-year-old kid who's family has been fractured of course you're going to go for "controlled, fitting-in, cautious." I look at my 10-year-old son and what his "concerns" are and I'm pretty well convinced that kids that age aren't ready to take on that much "careful" without it having some long-term impact.

And so, it's time for those old compensations to go. Not that it's that easy - I've been chipping away at it for years now. I think I'm just so damn close to reaching a new level of freedom that I feel the constriction as freshly as I ever have. Isn't that the way? The closer we come to beating down the resistance, the more desperately it tries to retain control. I just see it for what is and I'm over it. The old control needs are massively limiting, holding me back from expressing myself, risking more and giving chase to my dreams. Screw that. (See that? That was careless, the good kind.)

I think my closest friends and family would say that I am "carefree" a lot of the time. A few have even borne witness to my "carelessness." That's about safety, the strength of relationship, the certainty of real trust and acceptance. All of which equates to a low-risk environment.

I'm in pursuit of that same level of "carefree" (with at least an occasional dash of "careless") when the risk is higher - new circumstances, new relationships, new environments - when most people are happy to just fit-in. I don't want to just fit-in. I do that on auto-pilot. I want to stand-out, be distinct, be remarkable because I'm willing to express who I am, what I think and why with as much transparency/vulnerability/authenticity as I can muster.


© 2010 David Berry

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

272 Words

How many words does it take to say what really needs to be said? (14)

I am preparing for a number of talks and I find myself swimming in slides, quotes, stories, anecdotes and nuggets of information just so good that I can't possibly exclude them from my talk. Or can I? I am struck by how challenging it is to get really clear and to present that clarity with an exactitude that is refreshing and compelling in a world of too many words and too little meaning. I want to say exactly what I want to say with an economy of words and supporting evidence that is both significant, inspiring and powerful while it is also simple, elegant and concise. (120)

In the Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln accomplished what so few before or since have managed to do. He articulated the events and meaning of the day in both a deeply personal and universally powerful manner and he said it all under two minutes and in only 272 words. Lincoln was masterful. He met his moment with precision, wisdom and humility. The featured speaker for the dedication spoke for two hours. Who was he? What did he say? (197)

What Lincoln gave us was the essential truth. He didn't try to say it all or do it all. He didn't need to. It was neither the time nor the place. He said what mattered most when it mattered most. (237)

I look at my slides. I review my notes. I consider my experiences. It can all be boiled down. I ask myself: how much simpler? How much clearer? What really matters? What is my essence? (272)



© 2010 David Berry