photo credit: chez_sugi

Coaching is the latest in a long legacy of professions designed to heal the human spirit and our human communities.  At this juncture in history, we live on a threshold — asking new questions and seeking new answers. What is on your mind these days as you think about your place in the world? What is opening up for you about what is essential and possible in this time of great change?

I’ve continued to explore in my work and my writing the impact of contextual and communal stories in our lives and workplaces. For example, I’m speaking at the ICFA Conference in Adelaide on September 1 as part of a gathering of coaches to explore how to create more sustainable lives, practices, leaders, and organizations and communities. I’m working on a large coaching culture project designed to shape the collective stories in support of greater accountability at personal and team levels for learning and development. When asked by a team member how I would measure “success” in the end, I responded that if I felt that 100 people whose lives we touched in the project “woke up” to what was truly possible with this work—for themselves and others—than we will have done well. In each case, it is releasing the need to wait for others to begin and instead embracing the opportunities we have each day to take a few steps forward in conversation with others.

What are you waiting for?

I was reminded of a few lines from Annie Dillard’s marvelous book, Holy the Firm:

There is no one but us. There is no one to send . . . but only us, a generating comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time . . . [feeling] exhausted [at times] and unable to see the thread . . . But there is no one but us. There never has been.

Where can you add beauty, grace and compassion today — even if it is just one flower in the street, one moment in time?

photo credit: valentin.d

I’ve been away on holiday as the new year has begun. Even with the gift of a new American president, I find it hard not to wonder how we will fare in the coming year. One of the approaches I have been taking with clients is to return to some  classic mythological motifs as a way of understanding the broader narrative patterns at play in organizations and in the lives of its people. In doing so, I am increasingly drawn to my work on liminality and the role of ‘in-between’ spaces in development. In the Western world, the Grail legends provide a powerful set of stories about these spaces as part of the human quest for knowledge and growth. It is important to remember here that the Grail is about who we become not an object we obtain.

In her magnificent book on the centrality of language in understanding the Grail stories, Linda Sussman writes, ”The person seeking initiation at the end of the twentieth century is called not just to connect with the tribe(s) of the past but also to prepare the way for the ‘tribe’ of the future. Obviously, this tribe will be very different from the ones our ancestors knew. . . .  We are the tribe of the ‘in-between.’ ” It seems to me that history is marked by certain periods in which humanity’s choices become even more pronounced. I believe we are in one of those periods.

We can no longer take for granted that the technologies of the future will save us from the unintended consequences of our present lives, but must instead be more accountable to previous generations in terms of what it means to be ‘sustainable.’ We can no longer take for granted the historical notions of continuous progress, but must instead factor in the future generations in terms of what it means to ‘succeed.’ For many of my clients, it is about recognizing that we are moving into new territories in which new approaches to leadership are required. We are leaving behind one era but are only beginning to discern the contours of a new one. As Sussman writes, ”In the process, one has quite often to give up a favorite storyline to gain access to a larger context.”

Three tips on living an in-between life

1. Recognize that there is no ‘normal’ to which to return. Much of what has enabled us to get this far may have to be set aside to make more room for what has yet to be imagined. What you are being asked to leave behind in order to take your next steps? In my own professional life, it has involved letting go of the need to “fit in’ in order to make more room for my own vision and leadership.
2. Recognize that we each must enter the ‘forest’ where it is darkest for us (as it was for those who sought the Grail). This darkness is about aspects of ourselves that remain hidden within and/or from us, but that hold the key to the next stages in our development. Only when we move out from the safety of what we know and who we once were can we see what else is possible. I saw this in a recent workshop in which a new leader came to face her fears around claiming her Voice in relating to her boss (by moving beyond waiting for him to grant it to her). 
3. Recognize that the greatest opportunities for growth are found in-between what was and what is not yet. It is in these spaces that we can most clearly see what is being asked of us now. To be successful, seek out new allies, draw on new resources within yourself, lead with strong resolve and true humility. I saw this in a coaching client who was willing to forego the comforts of a familiar place in one leadership team in order to discover a new role (in a new organization) that challenged him to grow in some profound ways.

Those who have gone before us and those who will come after us—in our families, our communities and our organizations—are calling on us to rise to the occasion as part of the ‘tribe of the in-between’. What is your Grail?

photo credit: wadem

As I travel to work my clients or research a subject for my next book, I am increasingly convinced that these three aspirations have a lot to say about what people hunger for in organizations and communities. This seems particularly true as we head deeper into a brave new economic world in which many of our assumptions and plans are being dashed. What will breakthrough from this time of breakdown? It remains to be seen how and when the proverbial phoenixes will rise from the ashes that are unfolding around us. However, the ancient practice of using stories to help people frame adversity as part of a larger Narrative are helpful here as a means to retain a sense of faith, hope, and love.

I begin here with Faith. Hope and Love will follow . . .

Faith

While known for his sage insights on marketing, Seth Godin offered this distinction in his book, Tribes: “Religion is the way things have always been done, whereas faith is the underlying commitment to ‘the big idea.’” Religion is about resurrecting the old General Motors; faith is about the commitment to rethinking transportation, communities and lifestyles. My work is about helping clients find the ‘big idea’, the core ‘story” at the heart of their work—and finding new ways to bring it to life. As institutions and certainties wobble, faith is the commitment to the big ideas that truly matter.

Faith is the balancing force to the fear that has crept into many our consciousness (and into our checkbooks) to varying degrees. Faith is not the same as blind trust; it is the return to what is essential and what needs to be done. Faith is not about a naive idealism or a narrow fundamentalism; it is an opportunity to ask the hard questions and make the hard choices in service to the ‘big ideas.’ Faith enables us to build bridges from the ‘religions’ of the old world to a new world based on a deeper understanding and courageous embodiment of our commitments to the human story.

Narrative work and coaching are powerful tools to help people and organizations to create and cross these bridges. As I recently shared with the top leaders in a large professional services firm, “there is no ‘normal’ to which to return.” They can either settle for sifting through the ashes or they can get to work on building the phoenix. My role is to coach them to fully rise to this occasion. All they need is a little faith. . .

What would you be doing if you had more faith?

photo credit: gregloby

In working with my organizational clients, I am often struck by the sense that the past recedes and the future arrives ever more quickly. The net result is that people are increasingly working in a compressed sense of the present, not always the best state for decision-making or coaching. This trend is exacerbated by continuous ‘discontinuous change’ and easy access to seemingly unlimited knowledge at our fingertips in the present moment. What seems lost is the ability to place ourselves in the broader expanse of time. What can we offer our clients in such times?

Three ways a narrative approach can help

1. Becoming more knowledgeable about the connections between narrative structure and our identities and behaviors (see “The art of thinking narratively“). In many ways we are hard-wired for stories; inviting people to share their stories enables them to contextualize their experience and find greater meaning. They are no longer prone to feeling like temporal orphans, but can instead place themselves in the broader flow of time.

2. Becoming more conscious about our state and our actions in the present moment through increased mindfulness of our narrative patter. If we expect clients to be able to be able to integrate more from the past and the future into their present decisions, we need to help them develop greater awareness (of self and others) in order to do so. An expansive mind and heart enables them to engage more fully in the now.

3. Becoming more diligent in reducing the background ‘noise’ so as to more readily hear the signals from the past and future that are most likely to be relevant in the present. I did this recently with an organization in which the ever-rising ‘bar’ kept them from appreciating how far they had come on their culture change journey. We developed a visioning process they are using to define what a coaching culture would look like for them (markers for a desired future) and we built an internal discussion forum they are using to share stories of what they are doing differently now in their coaching conversations (markers from a less-desired past).

If we are to move well through this challenging time, we need to restore a sense of the flow of time even as we get better at being in the present moments in which we find ourselves. It is time for a new story of Now.

photo credit: freeparking

Thanks to Jo Carson for reminding me of Gregg Braden’s story about the true nature of intentions: While traveling with a Native American rainmaker in a drought-stricken part of the desert of the American Southwest, he witnessed the rainmaker at work. Once he was done, Gregg asked the man if he had prayed for rain. To which the man said “No.” When asked why, the main responded, “You pray for rain, you don’t get anything. You have to feel the rain, and smell it, see what it does for the land. You have to be the rain. You have to pray rain.

Where is my faith?

It seems like a timely story as we wrestle in the U.S.—and now globally—with significant economic challenges. Why, you might ask?! Because in some ways it is a crisis of faith. Not just faith in our money and our banks and our leaders, but ultimately  faith in ourselves. While many of us have seen this coming, it has been unnerving to say the least as it has spiraled down so quickly. We doubt ourselves and worry for our future. Many people have been left gasping on the cusp of a momentous election, wondering when the rain will come to quench the fires of our anxieties. Enter the story . . .

The “bail-out” merely postpones the inevitable hard choices in front of us regarding reconstructing our lives and our identity to be more sustainable and equitable. As the man said, if you pray for rain—by standing outside the system and hoping to be rescued—you get nothing. It is like clients who want their lives to be different but they don’t want to change.

What is mine to do?

One thing I am taking from this time is to look at my own willingness to pray rain. I can’t wish it all away. How do I need to change my habits, my attachments, my willingness to sacrifice for my daughter and those who will come after me in order to create a healthier life? It is a time for courage, compassion and imagination in seizing this moment instead of being seized by fear.

The old stories about consumption as salvation, celebrities as heroes, greed as virtue, and war as a solution have run dry. It is time we create and live new stories with our lives. It is time to be the rain! And so, I will add my drops to help bring about that new story. . .