Writings
Presence
November 07
Over the past several years, we've been asking ourselves
what is the secret behind successful coaching,
facilitation and conducting masterful conversations.
For sure, there are core skills, models and principles
one needs to learn and master. For example, the
skills of advocacy, inquiry and reflective listening
are critical for truly effective leaders (skills).
Understanding the difference between divergent
and convergent thinking is extremely useful for
solving challenging issues (models) and entering
into difficult conversations with a clear intention
(principle) will make it more likely that a conversation
will produce healthy outcomes.
Yet, there is something that undergirds the effective use of skills, understanding of models and integration of principles. We, and many others, call it presence. The challenge is how to describe the experience of presence. Webster"s describes presence as "the fact or condition of being present." Okay, now what. It then defines being present as "at or during this time, now."
"At or during this time" is all about being fully aware of what is happening now. It is an awareness of what is going on in ourselves, thoughts and feelings: what is going on with those in our immediate vicinity (our coachee, the people in our meetings, those we are having difficult conversations with), and what is going on in the larger context we find ourselves in (the particular meeting, the situation our coachees finds him/herself in at work, the larger environment).
For me, being present involves noticing where I am attached to the past (paying attention to where I might be triggered) and the future (how am I going to get my way here). I need to pay attention to not only what the other person (or people) are saying but also how they are feeling. Finally, I need to be listening to the "music" beyond all the thoughts/feelings that may be present, in myself or others. I need to stay open to what is it that seems to be emerging through our conversation.
To embody the experience of presence, I need to be in a place of "not knowing". I suspend my ideas of how things should go (where the coaching conversation goes, how the meeting will end up, what the other person in our difficult conversation should say). In this place of not knowing, I actually create space for my intuition to kick in. I have a sense of what the appropriate skills, model and principle are needed for the interaction.
It's much like a good jazz musician, who knows how to improvise. She needs to know her scales, so that in the moment of improvisation she has something to work with. Likewise the more we practice our skills, understand models and integrate principles AND practice presence, the more likely we are to create value for those we work closely with.
Practice: Presence
There are many different ways of practicing presence. Here are a few:
- Take a few minutes each morning and/or evening to just focus on your breathing. Notice any thoughts or feelings you may be having AND just let them go by as if you were watching clouds in the sky
- In addition to focusing on your breathing, see if you can actually feel your body. What sensations are you noticing. This pulls our attention inward and allows us to better embody presence.
- When sitting in your office, take a 3 minute break and focus on an aspect of nature just outside your office (a tree, a lake, a bird, the clouds or even the mountains, for those of near the Rocky Mountains). Keep awareness on your breath as you experience the beauty around you.
The more we pay attention to our inner world, the more likely we are to create meaningful results in the outer world.