Coaching, Re-defined

Coaching is a young profession, a still developing field emerging at a time when a new kind of conversation is necessary to meet the challenges of our time, to crudely paraphrase both Peter Block and Julio Olalla. As such, what coaching actually is, how it is defined by its leadership and practitioners and how it is understood by its customers and clientele is slowly and steadily evolving.

In its search for definition and clarification, coaching is trying to become less San Diego and more San Francisco. Let's face it, San Diego is an awesome place but where the heck is it? There's lots to do and see but sometimes it feels as if there's no there, there. It's sprawling, disconnected and uncoordinated. San Francisco, on the other hand, couldn't be more identifiable, distinct and clear. It is TransAmerica, Golden Gate, Marin Headlands, Presidio, Chinatown and Coit Tower. San Francisco is definitely "there." And you know what the biggest difference is? (no, not the politics, but that's a good one...). The biggest difference is concentration and identity.

In most parts of San Diego you could be anywhere in Southern California. I'm talking from Santa Barbara all the way down. In San Francisco you can only be in San Francisco. Take it or leave it, love it or hate it, that place is what it is. And, while the image of a peninsula might feel too narrowing and even claustrophobic it offers a concentrating effect that tightens up identity while still leaving room for interpretation. The Haight and Pacific Heights are more than a little different.

So, what's the point? Well, coaching seems to be inching its way along the continuum from sprawling, disjointed, "everywhereness" to a "somewhereness" that feels a bit more distinct, somewhat clearer and know-able. As a practitioner in the field, I sense a move towards definition that is refreshing, if not wholly clear. The best evidence is the new "definition of coaching" found on the website of the International Coach Federation (coachfederation.org):

"Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential."

Compare this to the old definition and see what you think:

"An ongoing professional relationship that helps people produce extraordinary results in their lives, careers, businesses or organizations. Through the process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance and enhance their quality of life."

Personally, I miss "extraordinary results" but I am thrilled to see the word "creative." Also, without the word "relationship" it seems we miss the point that development only happens in the context of an "other." For me, a hybrid makes the most sense, so I'll take a few liberties and offer this:

"Coaching is a thought-provoking and creative professional relationship that helps people produce extraordinary results; at home, at work or in any endeavor worthy of meaningful change."

It may not be perfect but, for me, it gets us a little closer to San Francisco. And, for coaching, every mile north on Highway 101 is a journey in the right direction.

© 2010 David Berry

Lineage

A dear friend faced the gut-wrenching challenge and responsibility of eulogizing his father, tragically taken away too soon. With courage, passion and deepest respect he entered the moment, bringing with him a family history, a family legacy he described this way: “a legacy that my grandmother called ‘the red blood of the pioneers’ –- a legacy born of centuries working the soil, the fortitude to keep walking forward in the face of the inertia of the world.”

To know this man is to know that this legacy is not about him, it is him. To know him is to understand, without ever hearing the words, that he is the pioneer, the present chapter of a long and fascinating story. The evidence of it – his work, values, motivations and adaptations - so compelling, so true. He is living out the best of his lineage as he is opening up to the harder questions it also contains.

There is weight and power in both acknowledging and accepting my inheritance. How is it present in me today? In what ways might I strengthen and advance the storyline through my beliefs, commitments and actions?

I am the son of clergy, teachers and doctors; naval officers and farmers. I see in myself the impassioned preacher, both faithful and questioning. I see the confidant and the bedside manner if not the scientific aptitude. I see the respect for ritual and protocol, the keeper of traditions. I see a cultivator and a catalyst.

And while I am proud and honored to live out these attributes, they are only part of the story. I also have within me aspects of my inheritance that I feel responsible to change. Living in me are some hard truths about what came before that can either be confronted now or passed along to my children. Though my lineage may be unchangeable its future progression is in my hands. As it continues I have a profound opportunity to influence the feel and focus of its forward path. By doing so, I honor those who came before by applying the lessons of the present to the patterns of the past.

© 2010 David Berry

My Dinosaur Tail

If the question is, “how can I be more present – meaningfully and deeply present - in my relationships, in my work and in my aspirations?” the answer can be found in your dinosaur tail.

At the Hudson Institute’s Advanced Coaching Conference last week, coach and author Doug Silsbee shared a metaphor that has immediate and powerful relevance in my life. Maybe it’s because I just turned 40 or because I am finally beginning to own both my earned and inherited gifts but the image of the dinosaur tail landed hard and well.

He asked us to imagine that we each have a long and powerful tail in which resides our lineage – I am the son of clergy and of teachers, the descendant of admirals – our experience, our competence, our learning and our achievements. Attached to us as it is, residing in us as it does, it is with us all the time. And, in the form of a tail, if we are mindful of its presence, it swings behind us with assuredness, stabilizing us and allowing us to be more present, available and generous.

I spent so much of the last decade of my life looking for what I did not have, for what wasn’t there, instead of capitalizing on what was present and available. I was not ready to trust myself because I viewed my life through the lens of comparison and deficit rather than the lens of acceptance and generosity.

Now that I feel that tail swinging behind me, I am shifting. I stand in front of a room, I sit across from a client, confident in what I have to offer but no longer tied to a vision of perfect, a vision of failure that is consuming and debilitating. There is freedom in the tail; recognition and trust that each new circumstance is an opportunity for all of me – lineage, experience, competence – to be present, to be generous.


© 2010 David Berry

More Edge, Less Middle

The edge of the brownie is the best part. Everybody knows that.

The edge of the cake? That’s where all the frosting is.

The edge of the pie, where the crust is golden brown, is clearly the most satisfying.

How about cheesecake? Where the graham cracker crust meets the cream cheese? Definitely the best.

Oh, and on a perfectly cooked piece of prime rib, that crispy, lovely edge that just melts in your mouth? Well, that’s a whole lot more satisfying than the plain stuff in the middle.

What I’m getting at is that the edge is where the action is. And, there’s more than just extra calories preventing us from hanging out there more often. We learned early on to stay safe. Here’s an experiment that proves it (courtesy of creativity expert, Kobus Neethling):

Find a mom of a baby who is actively crawling. Find a nice big room and put mom and baby in the middle of the room. Ask mom to let the baby crawl around the room. It’s just about certain that before that baby ventures too far away (and you know she’s headed straight for the most interesting – dangerous? – thing she can find) mom is going to pick up the baby and bring it back to the center of the room. Makes sense because that’s mom’s job. Keep the baby safe. This only becomes a problem when it becomes over-learned.

Think of how this shows up within your organizations. The level of paternalism is staggering. Under the umbrella of “we don’t want them to get hurt” too many leaders are keeping people in the middle of the room instead of sending them out to the edges to where the good stuff is waiting. Maybe it’s their own fear of the edge that they are projecting onto their teams. Maybe it’s a lack of imagination and curiosity. Whatever it is, it’s limiting the resourcefulness and learning of the organization and that’s no good in the midst of constant change.

The answers to so many of our new questions are not going to be found in the old playbook, the one that sits squarely in the middle of the room. And, why would we look for them there anyway? The middle is crowded. Most everyone’s already there. On the edge there’s elbow room. Room to breathe, to think, to relate, stretch, explore and create.

In the middle is safe. A safety that is comforting and important. And a safety that is smothering and constraining when we’ve stayed too long.

Yes, on the edge there is risk. Not of falling but of becoming. Ideas played out, gifts revealed, practiced and refined. Where failures become the best lessons.

This is not about recklessness or fearlessness. This is about the individuals who make up the organization, not the organization itself. This is about taking action in spite of present fear. Creating the space for bigger, more expansive living. Encouraging lives of courage and exploration the primary questions being: how much contribution can I make? And, how will I make it?


© 2010 David Berry

Exploring the Edge

"It's out on the edge that we find the wind to take us higher." Dewitt Jones

Last Wednesday afternoon, as I was getting ready to speak to a group of HR professionals in the Seattle area, I understood this quote in a new way. Invited there to share my experience and to inspire new kinds of thinking about leadership, learning and change, and just moments away from starting, I noticed a tremendous energy welling up in me. Part nervousness, part exhilaration, part confidence, part humility, it was an energy that could not and would not be ignored. I recognized it is a step towards the future I am creating with every new action that takes me toward the edge rather than back to the middle.

Dewitt Jones is a photographer, long with National Geographic magazine. When I heard him use this quote in the context of human achievement he was drawing on his experience of watching eagles ride the updraft of wind that races up the face of a cliff. If the eagle doesn't position itself far enough out over the cliff it can't take advantage of the upward current and reach heights where it can really soar. Now, I don't need to remind you that eagles have specific physical advantages that make hanging out on cliff edges a little less risky for them. Namely, they can fly.

Eagles soar because that's what they are built for. Their purpose in life is to get up nice and high so they can spot and hunt the food they need to feed themselves and their families. I also bet that they really like flying. How could you not? That said, it's hard to imagine them having doubt or fear about the whole enterprise. I'm guessing you wouldn't overhear things like: "Geez, Tom, this is awfully high!" or "Hey, uh, tell me again why we have to jump off this rock?" They do it because that's all they know.

As for me, land dweller that I am, I know too much other stuff. I know that I can fall, that the ground is unforgiving and that when I hit it hard I remember it for a very long time. The thing is, most of that is fantasy. It's a clever game of make-believe. Sure, I've failed and fallen but really not that often and always, always, it has been a powerful teacher at exactly the right time. More often, when I've moved toward the edge of experience I've flown just fine, even soared a time or two. And, yet, these are the moments I so easily forget when faced with another edge, another chance to fly.

Last week, I flew again. And, this time I will not forget it. I owe it to myself to turn the learning into knowledge and the knowledge into motivation for yet another chance to leap into the unknown and ride with humility on all that is there to hold me up.


© 2010 David Berry