In a word: Listen
In a Phrase: Listen to connect
In a Sentence: Growth requires us to listen to connect (heart -to-heart), not judge or reject.
 
The period from 25 weeks' gestation to 5 to 6 months of age is most critical to the development of the neurosensory part of the auditory system.[1] We are designed to listen and make connections to our external world from the most primal parts of our brain.  As we grow and develop, we learn to listen to our internal and external worlds, which can vastly cancel each other out. Knowing how we listen as adults is key to self-awareness and growth.  And, experiencing the most advanced form of listening through coaching can have excellent results in personal and professional growth.
 
In Judith Glaser’s, “It’s Time to Fix the way you are listening[2],” there are four common types of listening which I have edited slightly:

1. Noise-in-the-attic listening. To project that we are good listeners, we might sit silently while others talk. Outwardly, we appear to be listening. Inwardly, however, we may be listening to the noise in the attic—disengaged from the speaker’s ideas and involved in our own mental processes. Such listening tends to develop from childhood experiences. As youngsters, we may have heard: “Don’t talk while I’m speaking!” “Don’t ask so many questions!” “Why? Because I said so!” Conditioned by these warnings, many of us turn off our minds and habits of inquiry. Instead of clarifying the speaker’s intent, we are preoccupied with our internalizations: “Who does she think she is?” or “I can do his job better than he can.” Or, we may find ourselves planning tomorrow, or completing a thought—returning from time to time to listen to what is being said. Sound familiar?
2. Face-value, shallow listening. When think we are hearing facts, the words we are hearing are interpretations. In face value listening, the listener isn’t mentally checking back into the real world or conversationally drawing on layers of experience to assess whether the words explain what they purport to explain. Face-value listeners hear only literal meanings and make quick judgements and conclusions. 
3. Position listening. In organizations (yes, churches too), people tend to engage in position listening when they seek clues to how their competence is perceived and the impact of the speaker’s position on them. People listen for power dynamics. For example, a Ministry Lead might listen to the Council’streasurer annual report to determine whether her ministry area will be growing. What she hears and internalizes could lead to faulty assumptions and easily impact her motivation and performance as well as her relationships with other ministry leaders. 
4. Listening to connect.  People thrive on connection and affirmation, not criticism and judgment. Listening to connect quells our lower, primitive brain, which seeks to be right or judge others. Listening is not an end in itself, but part of a dynamic process between people that creates space for growth and engagement, for sharing and discovering, and for enabling new ideas, thoughts, wisdom, and growth to emerge.

How does listening to connect apply to coaching? 
 
I believe coaches need to identify their own processes for open, “listening to connect” conversations. When I prepare to coach, I spend about 10-15 minutes preparing my physical and mental spaces. I quiet my mind through breath work. This helps me clear my own “attic spaces” acknowledging and releasing thoughts, biases and solution-oriented thinking. When I enter into the coaching engagement my heart and mind are open to connect and hold a safe space. While coaching, I literally visualize connecting my heart to my client’s heart. 
My experience is that heart-focused connection enables me to listen deeply without judgement, reflect back what I hear and ask direct, open-ended questions. When I hear “self” judgement or rejection from my client, I “double click” on the words and explore what is underneath.  This is also true for shallow or positional responses. Double-clicking can look like, 
“Say more about…” 
“What associations do you have with…?” 
“How is … serving you …?” 
“Where do you feel…in your body? What does that part say about…?”  
“How does…impact those you interact with?” 
 
When the person I am coaching also embodies listening to connect (especially heart-to-heart), not judge or reject, they have access to thoughts, ideas and resources not previously explored. Breakthroughs happen. Trust deepens. Progress towards personal and professional growth and goal achievement is realized. 
 
Up next from Christy: 
In a Word: Flow
In a Phrase: Neuroscience of Level III Conversations
   
Christy Hartigan
Associate Certified Coach (ACC), International Coaching Federation (ICF)
MetroDC Coach (Level 2)
New Connections Campaign Director, MetroDC Synod

[1]Graven, S., and Browne J., Auditory Development in the Fetus and Infant, Science Direct, online https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1527336908001347
 
[2]Glaser, J., Leaders (October 2014). It’s Time to Fix the Way You Listen. Downloaded from Entrepreneur onlinehttps://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239221

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is doing many really terrific things to support the reboot of the denomination's coaching ministry. At present it offers free continuing education hours for those who have at least Level 1 training in the ELCA's current model of certification. Hosted by CoachNet Global, these free Zoom calls give participants opportunities to review coaching as a technology and art, and to see its application in specialty modes related to congregational needs. We have had conversations now on Stewardship, Discipleship, and most recently Congregational Redevelopment.

We began the Redevelopment conversation with a recognition that redevelopment work is a very unique and vulnerbale space. Beyond this, not everyone should coach this kind of space. Jonathan Reitz, CEO of CoachNet Global shared that he typically doesn't. As a movement starter himself, the redevelopment space is not one he relishes.

This gave us all a wonderful opportunity to reflect on our own unique contributions to coaching. We SHOULD be in some types of situations, and we should probably learn to stear clear of others. Knowing what to do with whom and when is an artifact of solid self-knowledge and wisdom born of experience.

Specialty coaching takes us into the difficult space of the "resident expert." The trainers amongst us work VERY hard to deconstruct the myth of the expert in ELCA Launch and ongoing training with new coaches. There are at least two reasons for this:

1. Building, equipping, and empowering clients requires us to draw from them their own wisdom and best resources. Good coaching doesn't create dependents. It drives true inter-dependence...which means there is a fully empowered human being (the client) leading the ministries God has entrusted to her.
2. Many (but not all) coaches discover that they are recovering explainers. The need to be the subject matter expert is too great, and perhaps confidence in the power of questions too little early on. So new coaches are known for their long pre-ambles and post-ambles. Jonathan Reitz could tell you all that in my specific case it took well over a year for this particular demon to come out!

But as we progress in our coaching, we learn how to add ourselves back into the conversations in more conscious and intentional ways. Once the unconconscious need to be the experts has been exorcised, and once our confidence no longer requires us to explain our questions, we can engage with larger pieces of who we are, leveraging our own experiences and selves for the sakes of our clients in ways that really do serve THEM and not us.

Related to this, Pastor Scott Suskovic quoted Jonathan Reitz back to all of us with, "...if you don't share your thoughts you are denying the client half of the Spirit's work in that conversation."

Wow.

So we were given a rubric for sharing.
It's ok to offer insights and information. But there are FOUR provisos:

1. It has to be ok with the client.
2. The client gets to tell you if the idea is helpful.
3. The client gets to tell you what it means to them.
4. The client gets to decide what to do with it.

Really helpful stuff, right? If you are an ELCA Coach and haven't gotten onto one of these Zoom calls yet, you are missing out. The content isn't always going to pertinent to where you are in your ministry and coaching, and to what you are doing, but like most things related to continuing education, if you can walk away with one profound new idea, it was probably worth your time. Maybe you should join us?

In gratitue,
Nathan Swenson-Reinhold
ICF ACC
ELCA Coach Trainer
Coach Coordinator, Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Synod

In the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Synod, the confluence of our relatively new coaching movement and the New Connections Campaign for the support of congregational growth, community engagement, and leadership support, was a very happy accident. The coaching movement here was already underway as New Connections was being concieved, but our leadership in the Synod Office, quickly saw how coaching could support the efforts of New Connections.

So we began to cast a vision that MetroDC Coaches and our larger coaching network could support our pastors, congregational leaders, and councils in their efforts to better and more focused leadership, mission, and growth. At present 40 + of our local leaders are engaged in coaching relationships. This is of course tremendous. At present just two congregational councils have taken us up on this offer. So there's room to grow on that particular front.

The last week of February 2019, lay leaders, deacons, and pastors, gathered at Camp Calumet in Freedom, New Hampshire, to be trained in the art and technology of coaching. In the New England Synod, they already have a movement of congregational revitalization in motion. It's called Forward Leadership (​https://www.nelutherans.org/resources/forwardleadership). But in this context, they are growing a community of coaches because of the insight that to extend the power of the Forward Leadership learning journey for congregational leaders and congregations, they need the support and intentional investment of a cadre of coaches. It was an excellent training in the northeast, in a beautiful venue, with even more excellent leaders. The Spirit is definitely up to something in the New England Synod!

Personally, I'm very excited because it looks like in more and more synods across the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, coaching is taking root as a tool to support our synods, leaders, and congregations as they seek to do the mission of Jesus in a culture that is pretty much post-everything.

This is how I've come to define it...

In coach training, we work hard at inviting new coaches to work on their own definitions. There are cognitive reasons for this: working the problem of the definition encourages thought and reflection. Words are powerful, and they don't just describe reality. They become reality. 

When I teach a new section of ELCA Launch, it always excites me early on to hear the definitions new coaches produce. The key to what's exciting me is the joy I feel over someone imbibing a way of being that's fundamentally transformational. I don't know if those I'm helping to learn coaching will become super coaches themselves, or simply subconsciously pack away the concepts and use them informally. In either case, I know that their presence with others will be changed, their questions better, and their outcomes more profound. 

MY power words are: ALLIANCE. and INTENTIONAL PRESENCE. and POWERFUL QUESTIONS. and NEW AWARENESS. and TRANSFORMATION. and CHANGE.

What is your definition of coaching?
What are your power words?

​- Nathan

In coaching circles it's called the "coaching agreement."
I call it the "coach's drill."
Every coaching conversation should have one. It's where we live into one piece of the uniqueness of coaching - the client always sets the agenda.

In broad brush strokes, the drill goes from broad to specific. Its moves look like this:
1. Broad Topic
2. Core Issue
3.Specific Desired Outcome

In a conversation, it might look something like this:

COACH: What would you like to work on today?
CLIENT: I'm struggling with a staff person.
COACH: What's at the core of that struggle?
CLIENT: The quality of his work is really poor.
COACH: What would it look like for you if this struggle were resolved?
CLIENT: Well, I guess either the quality of his work  would get much better, or I'd figure out how to move him on.

The drill comes out early in the conversation. If you were trained in CoachNet's CHAIN model, it probably shows up in the "hearing" portion of the conversation. This is because you can't work on something without knowing where you want to wind up. It's counter intuitive, but before you can explore where your client is, you need to know where your client wants to go. Then exploration of current realities and what will be necessary to bridge the gap from the current reality to the desired reality become possible. But without the drill, without the clarity of outcomes, you can't set up the tension or current necessary to produce effective transformation.

So when you coach, make sure you get out the drill. And then sit back and watch and be amazed at the kind of holes you can create through your client's challenge!

If you are in love with coaching, it is because you are in love with people. You probably have a natural "Barnabas" in you...a "Son of Encouragement." So it's easy to want to come to the aid of the person sitting in front of you especially when their esteem is low, when they feel cut off from their own sense of personal power, when they can't discern their own worth.

In these situations, being who you are, how you are, it's easy to just tell them; to tell them how unique and gifted they are, to tell them they don't have to be less than others in the room, to show them how they matter.

In coaching we are taught about DIRECT COMMUNICATION, those spaces in a coaching relationship where we share what we are seeing in the situation and with the client, making observations and inferences and sometimes asking powerful questions around those.

But there is an opportunity in coaching that's even more powerful than telling, especially when you are working overtime to help your client's perceptions around themselves shift. The opportunity is one of facilitating your client's own "saying" of the truth of who they are.

Hearing that I am worthy of respect, and saying that out loud myself, are two different things. One will bring about transformation faster and with more significance. And if you are Barnabas, then this will matter to you a lot.

Because that person sitting across from you -  that person matters to you, and what they think about themselves matters to you even more.

Get THEM to say it. And then ask them to explore it. And watch the transformation unfold before your eyes.

​

My commitment isn't to coaching. I love coaching, and love what it does for people. But my commitment comes from the posture it takes with people and what it does TO people. There is no other relational posture like it. Counseling isn't like it, consulting isn't like it, mentoring isn't like it, community organizing isn't like it. It stands alone.

This isn't important unless your goal is the transformation of people's lives. That isn't to say that human transformation can't occur in those other relational constructs. It IS to say that the path to transformation is shorter in coaching. That's because it works with how human brains, human commitment, and human effort are actually engaged.

Here's what I mean:
1. The client does the choosing. Human beings are more engaged and committed when they are in the driver's seat. Transformation cannot come from disengagement.
2. The client does the exploring. It's her journey. It's her life. It's her ministry. It's her concern. It's her challenge. The topography she's working on is in front of her and no one else. Because of this, it is uniquely RELEVANT to her.
3. The client does the realizing. The uniqueness of coaching is that it facilitates someone else's shift - the transformation of awareness. Only your client can have that shift. Your job as the coach is to leverage presence and the best, cleanest questions you can to facilitate that shift.
4. The client says it. As behaviorist Steven Sisler asserts, the human brain is more committed to what it says than what it thinks. Saying something engages commitment in a way that thinking never will.
5. The client acts on it. Perhaps most unique of all, in the coaching relationship, when there is a shift of perception/awareness/insight, the client can be asked: what is different for you now? What will you do with this? What will you do differently in this next week because of this? The insight of coaching engenders action, new behaviors, and because of this the transformation of life.

I'm not committed to coaching. I'm committed to human transformation. As a leader in the body of Christ, I've been called to catalyze kingdom in Christian community. And the Kingdom is all about people...people who are stepping in new ways into the unique narrative of the resurrecting God.

I'm a coach because I'm committed to transformation in light of the gospel. And nothing else gets it done quite like coaching.

What are you committed to?

Towards human transformation,
​Nathan