Chapter 4
Presence

Image of a circle that is divided into six equal parts, labeled “presence,” “empathy,” “feelings,” “boundaries,” “embodiment,” and “courage.” The sector labeled “presence” is shaded solid.

The ability to shift from reacting against the past to leaning into and presencing an emerging future is probably the single most important leadership capacity today. It is a capacity that is critical in situations of disruptive change, not only for institutions and systems, but also for teams and individuals.

—C. Otto Scharmer (2013)

Getting Present

To be a great coach, one committed to being fully awake and alert to ourselves and all that is around us, we need some sort of mindfulness practices. Practices that connect us to our internal experiences bring value to the way we relate, work, and coach. A practice builds our capacity to stay attuned to our self, center our self, and cultivate our internal dialogue in the service of doing our work well. As a wonderful friend and Buddhist chaplain, Claire Breeze, reminds us: “Mindfulness is not about sitting on a pillow; it’s about building the capacity to tune into what is happening in the moment, to notice it and work with it. It’s not about emptying one’s mind; it’s about noticing what’s going on and building a practice of curiosity.” A mindfulness practice, a discipline returned to daily, changes the way we relate, changes what we notice, and deepens our work as coach by cultivating our presence. Breeze also reminds us that it is impossible to get a mindfulness practice wrong. Find what works best for you, no need for crossed legs on a mat in a quiet room with a candle burning. There is no one right way!

While it’s rarely useful to be prescriptive about the necessity of a practice, I am certain after many years of this work that we all need practices that continually cultivate our presence, support us, and become disciplines we can come to rely upon each and every day. Our deep presence is a cornerstone of masterful coaching work and there is no shortcut to developing our presence.

Life brings many lessons to us and over many years I have learned about the necessity and power of presence in times that are both joyful and painful—a well-cultivated presence changes the way we coach and the way we live in relationship to ourselves, others, and the larger world. Like many others, I thrashed about for several years finding a practice I could land on and routinely rely upon. I tried group meditation, I tried setting myself up with a mat in a specific spot for a daily meditation, I explored a regular walking meditation and, in the end, I realized I could create something unique that works for me.

Good Morning, Sun

Today, my favorite practice includes an early morning routine I like to call “Good Morning, Sun.” I naturally awaken early before the sun has risen, I go downstairs, make myself a cup of coffee and then go back upstairs where I have a chair that looks out on a deep canyon with a view of the sun as it rises over the Pacific Ocean. I say good morning to the sun and I engage in my own personalized form of meditation. Sometimes I take only a few minutes and other times I allow longer periods of time to drink in the sunrise, appreciate all that’s good and right in our world and then center myself for what is ahead for myself in the day. When I’m on the road I do my best to find a way to say good morning to the sun and often, in a city, it is an early morning walk as the sun is rising and the city is mostly asleep—magical! We live in a complicated world that doesn’t always make sense, we do work that when done well, requires our full, undivided attention and we are often managing substantial workloads and commitments. For me, consciously creating space in the early morning to center myself, clear my mind and body, and notice what is showing up in me—this is a practice that I have come to rely on to be at my best each day.

Neuroscience provides ample evidence of the power of a mindfulness practice. Studies reveal that attention changes the brain and mindfulness strengthens our attention. Mindfulness is the act of simply noticing. As coach Claire Breeze reminds us, mindfulness is the “avatar of not knowing.” Contemporary mindfulness practitioners reassure us we can make this work in our lives wherever we are and under any circumstances that work for us. This is a potent tool for deepening our presence and cultivating our continual development.

DEEPENING YOUR IMPACT: BUILDING YOUR DAILY MINDFULNESS

Practices

  • Three Cleansing Belly Breaths: This takes only a minute, it is possible to do in the midst of a meeting or coaching session without others even noticing, and if used regularly it becomes a reliable support.
  • The Lion’s Breath: This takes a bit of space and privacy and can also be done in a minute or two, giving loud and deep voice to three or four big exhales.
  • Individualized Presence Practices: These are often best when we customize what will serve us best. The secret is not in the what but in the regular discipline, the daily commitment to the practice.

A mindfulness practice builds our “curiosity muscle” and helps us to slow down to notice what is happening in the moment so we might use it well. We’ve all had moments when we deeply connect with another human being. Something almost magical happens for a few minutes, maybe a bit longer, and the essence of the connection lies squarely in the full presence of both humans in the conversation. For most of us, this is not an everyday experience, especially in our fast-paced world of today. So often we are on some wild triple-duty path attempting to engage in a conversation while texting someone and simultaneously considering another burning issue. This has become so common many of us find ourselves thrown off a bit when a connection happens that has this powerful quality of deep presence.

My Internal Landscape: What I’ve Learned from Deep Presence

I mentioned earlier in the introductory remarks that I was married for many years to a brilliant man, great partner, and loving father of our three sons who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at a relatively early age. The journey we went on together spanned several years and the nature of our connection continually eroded as his memory receded. Throughout the journey he taught me so many lessons about the power of deep presence. Early on in the disease, this required the simple act of slowing down (slowing way down) and matching his pace so we could connect in small conversations that were meaningful, sometimes fun, and always human.

The act of slowing down did not come naturally or easily to me. It took a lot of false starts and frustration before I began to notice that slowing required me to suspend old experiences of us and let go of how we used to be or how I wished our connection might be. As I began to develop my ability to suspend and let go, I noticed my presence grew and a stronger connection emerged—something fresh, unexpected, and much more real for both of us. Later, when he had very few words, he was present in ways that were harder for me to connect to. I was aware, though, that he was almost always acutely present to the sound of my voice. He couldn’t reliably identify who I was in his life, but my voice signaled a safe harbor for him. Once again, when I could suspend what had worked in the past to connect, letting go of my desire for even the smallest of conversations, and deepening my presence enough to do this, I stumbled onto a profoundly satisfying way for us to be present for one another in a new form. He was a writer, reader, and lover of poetry. I knew all of his favorites and I turned to reading him some of his favorite poetry over and over each evening, suspending my old wish that he would speak and letting go of wanting to connect as we once had.

What unfolded was numinous. He would beam with joy, the anxiousness of his brain’s state would recede for a time, and we would connect, present to one another in that moment and in that way. This was a daily practice for me for most of the last months of his life. I would hold a goal of consciously shedding work and demands of the day and intentionally turn my focus to be fully present to this precious relationship. Of course, I was imperfect and especially imperfect when I was in a state of looking for what I wished for: what had been, what I knew. When I could let go of the seeking and allow what was to simply emerge, I could begin to experience the power of deep presence, the work and discipline it demands, and the grace it creates in the human relationships that matter to us. While this experience is particularly personal and poignant, it easily translates to our presence in coaching—our ability to suspend, to be, to wait for the other to signal us through their offers.

The Wisdom of Dorothy Siminovitch

Dorothy Siminovitch, longtime colleague, master coach, teacher of a much-esteemed coaching program in Turkey, as well as a psychologist steeped in Gestalt, radiates and embodies presence like no one else I know. Maybe she was partially born with this gift and likely her years of immersion in the field of Gestalt therapy deepened this capacity. The field of Gestalt psychology focuses attention on the quality of our contact with another, examining how we extend, invite, withhold, or intrude into the space of another. Siminovitch (2017) aptly reminds us as coaches, “our presence is an intervention.” Powerful words, potent reality. Our presence is perhaps the most essential tool in our coaching quiver and presence (in whatever condition it might be) comes with us, shows up, and gets noticed the moment we have our first contact with our client, regardless of our awareness of self. Dorothy embodies her work in presence. It doesn’t matter if we are sitting over a meal together, talking on the phone, or having an email conversation; her presence is palpable and the sense of connectedness I have upon ending our conversation buoys me. Something has changed. I have felt fully seen in this electrifying moment.

How do we pull apart the many strands that make up this deep and full presence, enabling us to come to our work prepared, grounded, breathing, alert, attuned to self, and attuned to our client? This rarified territory of deep presence requires preparation. It demands an ability to put the rest of life “on the shelf.” It calls us into a deeper state of being that is intentional, grounded in all of the self and ready to do the work of coaching. This state we call presence represents our ability to be so thoroughly in the moment that we almost create a sensation that time has slowed down and, in so doing, a psychological broadening of perspective has unfolded.

Is Your Presence an Intervention?

This is the work we must do to be at our best as coach. The task can sound daunting at first. While artificial, I find it helpful to pull apart the strands of presence and imagine there are actually layers of presence in ourselves, in our relationships with others, and in our surroundings, and when these three layers are in synch we are able to achieve this state of deep presence.

Figure 4.1 represents my observation over years of working with coaches, writing about coaching, and extrapolating from my own experiences as a coach. There are at least three dominant layers to presence that are helpful in our work: (1) presence to the inner rumblings; (2) presence to the relationship; and (3) presence to the ecology.

Image of three cogs, labeled “presence to self,” “presence to context,” and “presence to third entity,” which are interlinked, that is, they are shown as moving in sync with each other; the movement of the cog labeled “presence to third entity” drives the movement of the cog labeled “presence to self,” whose movement in turn drives the movement of the cog labeled “presence to context.”

Figure 4.1 Three Layers of Presence

Presence to the Inner Rumblings

Our foundation always starts at home. This is the essential building block (and thus the largest in Figure 4.1) that extends our presence in the other two domains, as well. Building presence to our own inner rumblings requires practices that allow us to continually draw inward with ease and cultivate awareness of our voices, our preferences, and the cacophony of our inner rumblings. The ability to journey inward and pay attention to my heartbeat, my pulse, my thoughts, assumptions, biases, desires, and judgments only comes with regular practice. We return to this notion of a discipline as essential for a great coach. Cultivating mindfulness supports our presence and ultimately requires a practice—one uniquely suited to you, not a prescribed practice you’ve read about. A disciplined practice allows us to be awake to what happens internally when we are not fully present. We cannot develop and sustain this deep presence without a personally customized, regular mindfulness routine that brings us closer to our self, allows us to notice the endless stream of internal chatter, and cultivates our capacity to center in the moment.

For most of us, the common cast of internal characters impeding our presence is predictable; it includes our preferential minds: our judgment and biases, old stories, beliefs, preoccupation with something that is capturing our attention, and our incessant inner chatter. Sometimes these internal rumblings and intrusions are only vaguely in our awareness and at other times we are awake enough to our internal landscape that we can make adjustments.

Presence to our biases and assumptions is elusive and only vaguely on the periphery of our awareness. Otto Sharmer’s Theory U model (2018), as shown in Figure 4.2, examines the internal path we need to travel in order to presence ourselves.

Image of a U-shaped arrow with the arrow head present at the right end of the “U,” pointing upward. In the space within the curve of this arrow are the words “open mind, open heart, open will.” Six dots are marked on the arrow at equal distances, labeled (from left to right) “suspending,” “redirecting,” “letting go,” “letting come,” “enacting,” and “embodying.”

Figure 4.2 Scharmer’s Theory U Model

Source: Adapted from Scharmer (2018).

At the top of the “U,” he recommends building a small practice to hang any assumptions and biases out in front of oneself in order to create the space to notice our naturally preferential mind, to wake up to the beliefs we are holding, to provide the needed space to create awareness and in so doing, begin to release them a bit. Following his U curve downward in Figure 4.2, he suggests that once we have taken this first step in what he terms presencing, we are able to observe what’s being said and what’s happening with a mind that is widened and slightly more open, able to let go of old stories and biases that impede our presence. This letting go leads to our ability to sense more and connect with heart, thus arriving at the bottom of his U in a state of presencing, able to engage in a thoroughly present conversation.

The coaching vignette that follows spotlights the power our assumptions and biases have in disconnecting us from our clients. You’ll see in this description the unfolding of Scharmer’s presencing process.

VIGNETTE: THE INVISIBLE COST OF A COACH’S UNEXAMINED BIASES

Martin’s boss encouraged him to seek coaching to hone his leadership style. Martin is an older physician leader who is able to build a trusting and caring rapport with his patients; yet those who report to and work with him experience his leadership style as intimidating and on the verge of bullying. The head of his department asked him to engage in some coaching around this issue and while Martin was a little reluctant and felt he was in the last lap of his career, he was willing to step forward to explore.

If the coach fails to take the time needed to get present to any assumptions or biases that might arise based on a brief conversation with Martin’s boss and Martin himself, the coach’s full presence would likely be impeded. Without taking this moment, a coach could easily walk into the first session aware that they find his bullying behavior particularly noxious and they could also be wondering if at his age he will be interested, willing, or able to make any changes to this behavior. If the coach proceeds without bringing these assumptions and prejudices, which include old experiences and unexamined ageism biases, into full awareness, they will compromise presence, alter their approach, limit the ability to create a strong working alliance with the client, and generally degrade the quality of work that can be done together.

Sometimes building presence seems like it ought to be easy and simply focused on managing ourselves as coaches. The simple stuff of schedules, pace, attention to space—it turns out not to be so simple and makes a big difference in how our work unfolds. This vignette tracks the impact of unmanaged preoccupations!

VIGNETTE: WHEN PREOCCUPATIONS SUBVERT OUR ATTENTION

Yikes, My Clock Is Running Me, Says the Coach: Regrettably, we’ve all been there from time to time when our presence is not optimal. The story is familiar to most of us. The day has been busy, we didn’t take enough time to review the calendar the night before, the morning started very early, and then it happens—two or three minutes between appointments and the next one is a coaching call. Without sufficient time to review notes or the space to get one’s self fully present, we walk into a coaching session feeling uncentered and wobbly. The toll this takes on the coaching session that ensues is undeniably significant. When a coach hasn’t taken the time to get present to self or pay attention to the themes of their coaching work, they are left entering a coaching session focused on calming the self in the moment, madly working to put on the shelf any leftover emotions from the last call they were on. Now, the coach’s inattention becomes a part of the coach-client third entity impacting what can be accomplished in this session. We all get it; nobody wants to be in this compromised position. Yet, I often have coaches tell me there is no choice and no time to create space to get present. The list of reasons, which sounds on the surface rational and reasonable, is long. The reality is, in this all-important presence domain, this is the simplest level of presence we can attend to. It requires us to set our intentions and create clear boundaries and then, live by them. In the world most of us are living in, this takes a heavy dose of self-management and transparency, allowing us to stay truer to ourselves, to take our recovery as seriously as we take our work states, and to build practices that support this discipline of full presence.


DEEPENING YOUR IMPACT: CULTIVATING FULL PRESENCE

  • Build a 30-day practice using a notepad twice a day to simply record any awareness you had throughout the day of biases and assumptions about others. Jot short notes, keep it simple, and on Day 30, see what themes you can learn from!
  • Practice more asking and less assuming by equipping yourself with some simple inquiries that may potentially alter your perceptions. Questions such as: Do I have this right?, Is this what you mean?, and Are you saying … ?
  • Regularly disrupt your opinions and beliefs by asking yourself, Is that really so?

Another dimension of our inner rumblings is the constant chatter roaming through our minds, this cast of characters inside our heads that gets in the way of our full presence. Some common chatter you might recognize:

Without a mindfulness discipline and a focus on our full presence, we go off track routinely through our conversations, our coaching, and in our most important interactions. Our version of off track might be subtle and almost imperceptible, but it turns out in coaching—work that is highly relational—the impact is significant. Years ago, I spent time training in Gestalt Therapy with Miriam and Erving Polster, early founders of Gestalt following in the footsteps of Fritz Perls, in the late 1970s. In our group work with them they would speak of the “resonance chamber” we create with another when the chatter is at bay and we are fully centered and in the moment with the client. They would constantly observe when we left that resonance chamber. Calling attention to it heightened our awareness of the degradation of our presence and the loss of connection with the other when the chatter was front and center.

DEEPENING YOUR IMPACT: STRENGTHENING YOUR RESONANCE CHAMBER

  • Take two weeks and following each of your coaching sessions, track those times in a session when you were fully present. What were you doing, what were you being that allowed for that full presence? Take notes and see what you can uncover that is helpful going forward.
  • Pay attention as well to somatic cues when you are in this resonant state to see if you are able to identify some signals that support your resonance.

Finally, our inner rumblings also track, albeit sometimes vaguely, the innumerable stressful situations that have occurred throughout our days. In today’s world, the variety of common stressors continues to grow: freeway traffic, endless email activity, longer work hours, travel delays and snags, conflicts, and disagreements at work. If you have an active family, these stresses likely grow exponentially. Many suggest we experience at least a dozen of these stress events on a daily basis. This is normal for all of us; yet our capacity to track and manage our stresses can impact our work. If you are feeling stressed and out of sorts, this will inevitably hamper a strong resonance with your client.

According to current neuroscience research, our inevitable daily stress occurrences set in motion a series of hormonal reactions beginning with the secretion of epinephrine and norepinephrine into our bloodstream. These secretions raise our blood pressure and our breathing becomes quicker and shallower. Simultaneously, the body begins to release cortisol into the bloodstream, rendering us cognitively and emotionally impaired. In other words, a stress situation sets in motion a complex internal hormonal reaction.

If, as coach, you are not adequately present and awake to notice and attend to this stress reaction, this will impinge on the resonance you are able to create with your client. Without an awareness and attunement to our stress levels and without an adequate practice to bring ourselves back to center, our presence is considerably diminished.

In order to be responsible as a coach, we need routine renewal moments in our life spread throughout the day. What qualifies as a renewal moment or a renewal practice? Well, many of us might label the end of day glass of wine, a weekend nap, or a summer vacation as our reliable renewal practice, but none of these is sufficient. Our renewal practices can’t be accomplished in a single vacation or long nap. They need to be fully integrated into our daily routines. As Boyatzis reminds us, we can’t effectively engage in “binge renewal.” Instead it must be fully blended into daily life, allowing us to call upon these practices when we need them. The space between a stress event and our ability to return to center is when we need one of these practices most.

DEEPENING YOUR IMPACT: STAYING FRESH—A RENEWAL PRACTICE CHECKLIST

  • Create music playlists for renewal and have these readily accessible in the office, at home, in your car, and when walking.
  • Find a reliably soothing walking path that is short and easily accessible for a short renewal walk.
  • Keep a favorite book of poetry or two nearby with quieting choices earmarked.
  • Invoke your mindfulness practice.
  • Use a body-oriented practice like yoga, tai chi, aikido or your favorite to unhook.

Presence to the Relationship

Presence to our inner rumblings is the condition that allows us to fully turn attention to the relationship. Given our work in coaching happens in this field of presence, creating a strong resonance chamber allows for fostering of a strong working alliance. Only our full presence grants us the capacity to notice the whole client, including voice, language, message, emotion, body, and somatic signals—all the essential dimensions of our client. There is my domain, the unique domain of my client, and a third domain created when coach and coachee come together. Presence to the relationship with the coachee is our attunement to this third domain.

Our We-Q

Fridjhon and Fuller (2013) use the term holonic shift to describe this pivot wherein we shift our focus from solely the client in the room toward the unique domain of coach and client: a shift from EQ to Social Intelligence wherein we focus on the we or, as Peter Hawkins terms this, our We-Q (Leadership Team Coaching, 2017). Our awareness of the unique qualities and experience of this third domain provides valuable ground for exploration with the client. Attending to what uniquely emerges when you come together with this one specific client is a rich source of information for both of you.

What It Means to “Use What’s in the Room”

When we are able to be present to the relationship, the “we-ness” of each coaching engagement, we can uncover possibilities for exploration that are easy to miss if we are focused on historical data. Irvin Yalom (2002), an early expert in group therapy and later in individual psychotherapy, uses the concept of immediacy. He writes, “Immediacy refers to the immediate events of the session, to what is happening here—in this relationship, in the in-betweenness—the space between me and you and now.” Yalom stresses that the work happening in a session (coaching or psychotherapy) is a social microcosm if we use it. The client who comes to coaching because they need to develop more presence in their role, and while in the coaching session avoids eye contact, rarely initiates conversation, and waits until the coach speaks, is demonstrating how they show up in other settings and the coach’s reaction is likely to mirror the reactions of others. When the coach is alert and able to use what’s in the room, stepping back and noticing, inviting coach and client to reflect, something new occurs. This here and now experience in coaching seems to heighten emotions and this often facilitates a critical moment for the client (de Haan, 2008).

This use of immediacy or turning up the heat is often a major shift for a coach because we have few relationships in our lives where we step back and freely comment on what we observe, what patterns we see, and inquire about how our client experiences this. In the early stages of coaching, we need to remind ourselves this is a contractual relationship that is vastly different than a social relationship. Those seeking coaching want to make deliberate changes and this is a very different space than most others.

DEEPENING YOUR IMPACT: BUILDING AWARENESS OF THE “THIRD ENTITY”

Mentally scan your current clients and ask yourself some of these questions:

  • What is the unique quality of our connection?
  • What and how do I feel in the presence of this client?
  • What can I learn from my own internal experience?
  • What is my experience in relation to this client that is distinctive?

In the following vignette, a coach describes the dynamics of a client interaction that create a particularly unique situation relative to this “third domain.”

Using What’s in the Room: Cultivating the Third Entity

As you read this vignette, pay close attention to the third entity and see what you notice.

VIGNETTE

Raphael is coaching a client he is finding particularly challenging. His client is a senior leader in a demanding role and a fast-paced industry. The client typically takes their coaching call while either driving or being driven into his office in the heart of a large urban city. Raphael finds this dynamic distracting and challenging and he has an inclination to ask his client to change this distraction by only taking coaching calls from a private office. As he steps back and looks at this situation through the holonic lens or a We-Q perspective, he instead uses what is “in the room”, sharing his experience of finding himself distracted during the calls as horns are honking and the occasional ambulance siren is zooming by, finding it hard to stay connected to the client around the coaching exploration. Raphael admits to his client that it is common for him to feel some anger rising during these calls, as well. He uses nonjudgmental language that provides the ground for exploration and comments, “We’ve been engaging in this coaching for a couple of months and what I notice is how hard it is for both of us to stay connected to what seems like an important topic as sirens and horns are sounding off in the background. Honestly, I’m aware that at times I lose my own concentration and even find myself a little annoyed at the spin all around us. I wonder how this works for you and what you notice? I’m also aware that you have a desire to build stronger presence with your team and I just wonder if we could take apart what happens for us and see what we learn and perhaps how it is interconnected.”

If Raphael had simply asked the client to stop taking coaching calls while driving or being driven, he would have missed an opportunity to use what was happening between them, in their interaction in the moment, and in himself as the coach. Ultimately, he would have missed inviting the client to reflect on their shared experience and the impact the environment has on the relationship. In this case, one of the coaching goals was strengthening this leader’s connection to his senior team, so the potential breakthrough moment may be doubly meaningful for this coaching work.


DEEPENING YOUR IMPACT: CULTIVATING ATTENTION TO THE THIRD ENTITY

  • Experiment with a metaphor that describes the interaction you have with each of your clients. You’ll be tempted to build a metaphor solely about your client, so stay alert and use a metaphor that aptly describes your dance together.
  • Spend the next week or two paying attention to what qualities are present when you come together with others in your life, be it family, friends, store clerks, and build your awareness of this third entity more often.

Presence to Our Ecology

When I say ecology, I am talking about the most basic, root definition of the physical surroundings that shape us as organisms. Presence to our surroundings sounds so simple and obvious and yet it is more multilayered than just location. It may not be standard for many of us to be in a coaching conversation while driving in the midst of rush hour traffic, but there is an inescapable reality that in today’s world we manage the glaringly obvious environmental factors like the clock, our devices, and the physical environment we consciously create to do this work. If our smartphone sits beside us, it reduces our presence to one another. If our physical surroundings are in the midst of a busy restaurant or in an open space of an office setting where someone might pop in, these factors will impede our work. Paying attention to setting up the conditions for us to do our best work, for both coach and client to be fully present, this is an important ingredient for success.

Another layer of presence to our ecology is in our attunement to the broader ecosystem in which we are working: the corporate culture, the country and its culture, and the broader world. Geopolitical forces seem to have the energy of tectonic plates today and if we ignore these, we loosen our presence to our clients. I recall being in London working when the Brexit vote came in and my client was in such disbelief we needed to stop and spend a few moments acknowledging her reaction to what was very much in the air. Similarly, I was on an early client call in the United States the morning after the 2016 U.S. presidential election and, again, attention to a multitude of emotions and reactions to this event was essential before any other work could come into focus. In both cases, attunement to these broader geopolitical systems was essential. The ecology present inside the organizations in which we coach reveals another layer that requires presence. Not long ago, I was working inside a large system in the midst of a significant merger. The team I was working with literally didn’t know who among them would stay and who might go. The anxiety was real and palpable. To proceed as though this reality could be ignored can only happen when we are not present to this layer of our work.

Our ecology is most commonly focused on the larger systems we are working in as coach and as client: the team, the larger department, the organization and their mission, the culture of the company or specific parts of the company. The timbre of the financial services industry is quite different than health care; the world of manufacturing looks and feels vastly different than that of today’s tech companies. We must be present to these realities.

Once again, it is easy to notice these layers of presence are intertwined and the presence to self is at the core. Without this layer firmly in place, it’s easy to get wobbly in our presence to the third entity and wobbly in our attention to environmental factors whether at the global scale or at the scale of a particular division of an organization inside which we are coaching. Consider some of these questions as you reflect on your current coaching engagements:

  • Are you alert to major changes, challenges, and tensions that are present at this time in the overall organization and in your client’s particular division and team?
  • Are you attuned to any geopolitical tensions that might be on your client’s mind and potentially distracting?
  • Are you aware of your client’s larger world—family, commitments, challenges, and tensions?

DEEPENING YOUR IMPACT: STRENGTHENING PRESENCE TO ECOLOGY

  • Our Surroundings Matter: We surely know that looking at the inbox on our laptop does not support presence nor does trying to have an important conversation in a busy restaurant setting serve our work. Our surroundings matter, from photographs, lighting, quiet, privacy—cues that support our presence allow us to get centered. Pay attention to your surroundings and explore any ways you can make small adjustments that will support your best work.
  • The Context of the Coaching: Each context has a different feel to it, whether they are tech companies, financial services, health-care organizations, or manufacturing. When working with a leader inside an organization, spend time learning about the culture, what’s unique, and what their current headlines are that are important for you to factor into the work.