Being Present: Working with the Indefinable

I work everyday with the coaching core competency called Coaching Presence. It’s fascinating, ephemeral and indefinable … yet one knows when it’s, well, ‘present’ (or as we coaches might say), in the space, or not missing. It’s a curious phenomenon, at least to the extent that I might say something like “the coach was at an early level of presence but a long way from mastery.” For me that kind of evaluation is intuitive but not easily explained. What’s interesting is that two coaches can agree, most often easily, that our perceptions are the same.

While Coaching Presence is a core competency of ICF professional coaching, I’m not writing this to only coaches. My intention then is to talk about the idea of “being present” as being a critical skill for effective work with people … period.

First a couple of definitions:

Present: being with one or others or in the specified or understood place. (it seems to me this is a behavior or action)

Presence: the ability to project a sense of ease, poise or self-assurance. (it seems to me this is a quality of a person, as in a distinction)

In thinking about this blog I began to pay attention to people interacting with one another as I gave priority to that level of noticing.

Here are two actual observations that I experienced as similar but not the same at all … see what you think.

(1) I watched as a politician was being greeted as a visiting dignitary … children presenting flowers, people in native dress smiling and waving, dignitaries greeting one another. I also noticed how the politician responded to these people. I was struck by the insincerity … the inauthenticity of it all … the performance, as it were. As a remote observer I did not experience any joy or pleasure in this scene … actually, I felt somewhat embarrassed. What’s key here is that I had a feeling about it at all … as if I had an investment in this person’s behavior.

(2) On another occasion I watched as a politician was being greeted as a visiting dignitary … the same scenario. However, on this occasion, the politician was clearly authentic … greeting people with great pleasure, paying attention to each, receiving gifts and flowers with pleasure and a feeling that transcended mere duty. There was something authentic and appreciative in this scenario. As an observer I experienced pleasure and even delight at watching a very powerful person being present in the setting at a level that was clearly a gift to those around. Once again, it seemed I had an investment in this activity.

What then is “being present?” What about it is so important that it would be a core competency of an entire profession?  That brings us first to …

Christine’s First Fearless Law of Communication:

Being personally present is central and essential to having an authentic relationship with another person,  no matter what.  Being a fan of Murphy and a teacher of logic in my university days, you might expect that I would expand on what I just asserted as basic. .

There are four corollaries to my First Fearless Law.

Corollary One: PARTNERSHIP. Being present to another person engenders and creates partnership, a core aspect of the relationship of coach and client.
Corollary Two: CURIOSITY. It helps to be curious about something.
Corollary Three: EXPLORATION. Partners can embark on marvelous journeys of exploration.
Corollary Four: DISCOVERY. Discovery is the inevitable and remarkable result of exploration.

Taking first things first, there is an order to all of this. Hopefully, the acknowledgement of order will calm the mind of those of us who appreciate and even demand order where order is possible.  It’s also my intention to assert that my First Law and its four corollaries are the essential pieces to not only effective, powerful coaching but are also essential pieces of effective, powerful communication in any domain. After all, coaching is but one way to communicate with another person or group of people.

Let’s take a look at the four corollaries. I’m going to put them into a diagram as I am inclined to do with just about anything. I like systems and visual relationships. For those of you who do also, this is an easy one. It’s the typical four-quadrant square.

Being Present:







































Working with the Indefinable to Achieve Definable Results






































Now we have a model, unproven, inelegant, subject to scrutiny and totally unsupported. But is it really? Why not conceive of this “picture” as just a picture of what actually happens when present to another person. In some realms we call this “possibility.” Could this be the order of things when taking the indefinable “being present” and translating it to “on the court action?”



I have a motive here. I teach coaching and often coach coaches. How does one teach the indefinable? Do I teach what it is not? Do I observe it and “catch it” in mid-air so to speak while exclaiming “That’s it!” Why would I not get the response from my student or client: “What did I do?” and back we go.



Tell me … How did you learn to be present? Are you present right now?

Learning How to Listen

I'm going to take a liberty here and relate a quote I found today to what we strive to do as coaches:

Author Ted Mooney described learning "how to look, and how to teach people to look":
If you stand in front of an artwork of even medium value, you really have to spend some time cleaning your mind of words utterly, and just begin to look, and keep yourself as blank as possible, for as long as possible, and you'll begin to see the relations of things, how they fit or don't, and eventually you'll be able to see the object whole, and then you can start letting words come in again, and they will be the right words. If you do the same thing on a street corner it works too, by the way.

I wonder if you agree with me that 'listening' can be another version of this description of how to look. After all, they are both sensory functions, 'listening' being the one we use more than 'looking.'

It takes something special with a language to describe a complex function in so few words. So with no permission from Mr. Mooney other than a faithful promise that I will only change the essential words involving seeing to listening, here goes...

"[H]ow to listen, and how to teach people to listen:

"If you hear the voice of someone from anywhere and from any social standing, you really have to spend some time cleaning your mind of words utterly, and just begin to listen, and keep yourself as blank as possible, for as long as possible, and you'll begin to 'see' (experience) the relations of things, how they fit or don't, and eventually you'll be able to hear the words as a connected whole, and then you can start letting words come in again, and they will be the right words. If you do the same thing on a street corner or in a group it works too, by the way."

Somehow this quote caught my attention, probably because I just wrote about 'routine housekeeping' as an activity of a coach. This quote says it better, at least in my opinion.

Like it? Does it speak to you?

Routine Housekeeping

Well, that's not quite the topic with this blog of course. I'm reminded everyday with every client and in every situation to keep my head clear when all about me is not. The essence of the "not" can be seen easily with the following stock phrases:

"I'm in my head."
"You must be in your head."
"I feel so ...."
"She never ...."
"I don't like it when ...."

You get the picture. We humans are full of involvement with our feelings and thinking and experiencing. That's the way things are. But as coaches, a major part of our skill set is to not engage these "heady" conversations, experiences and feelings while with our clients. Our job is to serve each client by being interested (as opposed to interesting) and curious. I'm going to boldly say that being "in one's head" is not exactly a recipe for effective coaching.

What do you think? Did you pick up on the word 'engage?' Never will I say that coaches shouldn't feel or think or experience. Our humanity is our gift to a person we coach. What I want to tweak here is the idea that "being in our heads" or being absent from our client is to abandon the purpose of coaching.

That may be a bit harsh.

Routine housekeeping. Once upon a time I managed a rule book for a sport (swimming). When we had minor adjustments (inconsequential, basically) to a rule we called it housekeeping in order to not get wound up in administrivia and word smithing too often. So let's see ...

Routine housekeeping in this conversation is about clearing our heads each and every time we work in our beloved profession. That's not some of the time, it's every time. My dad would say "clear the cobwebs" and I would say "turn the switch." That's what you and I must practice every minute we work.

What do you think about that?