Interaction Drives Development: Our Coaching Philosophy

NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula, NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Many people think that coaching and development should happen in a safe, protected space.

I disagree.

To illustrate this, consider a recent conversation I had with a friend:

I explained that Third Order Change offers executive and team coaching. My friend responded: “so it’s like therapy?”

This comment took me by surprise, and I said, “tell me more about what you mean.”

“You help people look at where problems are, what’s causing them, and then talk through a plan. You do this in a controlled, safe space. That’s like therapy.”

I’ve been turning this around in my head, because it has many grains of truth to it, but as I’ve sat with this comparison I realized what’s missing.

Interaction and Impact.

Third Order Change’s coaching work does NOT happen in a sterilized environment separate from leadership pressures and implementation. The work we do is directly connected to what’s happening on the ground. The interplay of leaders, their teams, and the actions taken by their organization to create value for those they serve.

These interactions drive development.

🌱Of the leader.

🌱Of the team.

🌱Of the organization.

This point is crucial because true development doesn't happen in a vacuum. It emerges from the messy, complex interactions leaders have within their organizations, as illustrated by the following example.

Rural Reading

A district leader I coach recently shared some challenges they have been facing around mobilizing a group of their people into action. For more than a year this group has been debating and turning over a decision that will affect how children in their community learn to read.

This leader is trying to find a pathway forward that maintains integrity with their leadership values and the values of the community they serve.

Navigating a tension between safety and purpose.

This specific decision around how to teach reading is emblematic of the broader leadership challenge this leader carries. How will the leader guide his people through a time of rapid change and volatility, adapt, and still retain what is core to who they are as a community? Will they recognize who they are on the other side?

The leader sees steep costs and losses with any course of action.

When facing these challenges in coaching. I help the leader step onto the balcony and think about what’s on the line for their community. I help them diagnose the situation and what is being called on from their leadership.

In this rural community, teachers have often created curriculum from a variety of trusted sources. They have masterfully woven together customized curricula for their students. Recently, however, the student population has shifted and greater needs have emerged–often coded in student behavior. Many veteran teachers aren’t sure how to respond.

Teachers wonder, “Is there something else that this young person needs? Is there a defect in the curriculum? Am I doing something wrong as a teacher? This always seemed to work before.”

What’s on this line in this rural community?

🎯How experienced educators see themselves

🚌The role of school in the community

🏘️The growth and development of this community’s young people

🌱This leader’s integrity and credibility

Layered on top of this challenge are changes to the leadership of the district and how the state structures its relationship with districts. The complexity piles on.

What’s a leader to do? As a coach, I help my leader see the different kinds of interactions at play: leader-team, team-team, leader-community, organization-environment. In our coaching sessions I help the leader analyze the quality of those interactions and what levers might improve them.

The leader considers his next actions, and how he will mobilize his people to move this important work forward.

His developmental edge is to

⚖️hold the complexity of this adaptive challenge.

⚖️hold his own development.

⚖️help his people clarify their values and adapt to new realities.

⚖️ create a holding environment for his people to grapple with these challenges.

What will this leader do next? I’ll keep you posted in a future update.

Interactions Drive Development

🔥It is the interaction between the leader’s actions and their leadership challenges that drive development.

👀It is observable data from these interactions that can confirm or disprove a leader’s operating assumptions about their leadership world.

🌱Disproved assumption allow for a new leadership operating system to emerge. (Thank you Bob Kegan).

📐A new leadership operating system creates previously unconsidered courses of action.

New possibilities become visible:

💫adults may support each other’s growth at a level previously unseen.

💫a community may choose to support its young people beyond the traditional scope of school.

💫a community may re-ground in deeply held values, while formulating new dimensions of its identity.

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This is the promise of creative leadership, of expanding our ability to courageously hold challenges that are more complex, more tricky, more intertwined.

🔮Solidarity to face these challenges collectively.

🔮Curiosity to learn what challenges are telling us.

🔮Courage to let some things go and hold fast to others.

🔮Discernment to create strategic action.

What leadership challenge are you facing where a focus on the interactions at play could unlock new possibilities? Contact us and learn more about how we can help you harvest leadership challenges and achieve what matters most.