Best Piece of Coaching Advice I Ever Received...

...did not come from a fellow coach, but rather from Tanouye Roshi, one of my Zen teachers. I use this advice all the time, and find it applies not only to coaching, but to so many parts of life and leadership. And now I zip it along to you. Here it is: Become the other person and go from there.

Not just listen to the other person. Not just ask clever questions of the other person. BECOME that person. Why? Because only then do we close the chasm of separateness. Only then to do honor the deeper unity that connects us in the now. And only then do we get out of our own way, thereby allowing our coaching to flow from a deeper wisdom. To “go from there” is to act from non-action, from which we naturally serve the best interests of our coachee, not distorted by our own needs, fears, or desires.

How do we do this? Here’s a practice that comes from Zen training that’s simple but subtle: relax completely and “hear” the entire person all at once. Hear not only their voice, which is literal hearing, but “hear” also their energy, their fears, how they smell, how they look – not as a serial scan, but all at once. This sort of cross-training our sense of hearing opens our own condition to a state of oneness.

I can always tell when I've been able to get out of my own way in coaching: joy invariably arises! Wishing you joy that knows no boundary!      -GW

Dogs and Teamwork

We know that playing with a dog can bring out Collaborator energy - tail wagging and all. And we know that Collaborator energy can be good for teamwork. Does it follow that a dog around the office could improve teamwork?  Apparently it does, based on research done by Christopher Honts and colleagues at Central Michigan University (The Economist, August 14, 2010). They gave 12 different teams the same assignment to come up with a collaborative design for an advertisement, and supplied dogs to some of the teams. Those on teams with the dogs consistently reported higher levels of trust, team cohesion and intimacy than those without. Maybe dogs could become a team's best friend.  

Might this work for virtual teams? Our colleague, Anthony, who's doing his doctorate on how to help virtual teams be more effective might have a chance to find out. That's his dog, Harley, helping at the keyboard.    -GW