Brian and Chad dig into the ICF competency of Designing Actions and geek out on its focus on learning.

Brian interviews Rev Debbie Foster, who is a pastor to pastors, and takes a coach approach to EVERYTHING in her ministry.

She makes this bold statement early in the podcast: "I wouldn't still be in ministry today if it weren't for the coach approach to my work."

Here are a few bullet points to the interview:

• Centering in Trust - establishing intimacy - safe space
• Transition from technical work to adaptive work - more questions, less answers, physically move out of the spaces we are in. Metaphors, painting pictures, allow failure to inform
• Holding up the mirror - saying what I hear - asking tough questions
• Making space for the Holy Spirit

• Get comfortable with not knowing
• Ask questions that are wide open at the beginning
• Create a "frame" for the client to design actions 
• Let the Client assign the meaning and action to the issue (and yet keep them in a maybe capacity)

Brian interviews Ken Kessler about his role in creating a coaching culture in his denomination.

Ken is the Director of the Coaching Network for the Baptist General Association of Virginia (bgav.org)

They discuss the dynamics of creating a coaching culture. 

Brian and Chad discuss the easy trap of turning a coaching conversation into an interrogation. Too many questions!

They explore other ways to create a conversation without the overuse of Powerful Questioning.

Merlin Switzer is the Founder and CEO of Switzer Associates (switzeronleadership.com). He is certified as a PCC coach with the International Coach Federation, and he is our guest today on the Coach Approach Ministries Podcast.

His calling is to coach leaders, especially senior leaders and business owners. He believes that if he can impact a leader, there is a rippling effect throughout the organization. The higher the leader is in an organization, the greater the impact.

Three types of coaching models are described in this episode, along with clues that might indicate the need for a different model. Also, Chad gives one thing he doesn't like about Abraham Lincoln.

Brian and Chad talk about coaching change, transition, and transformation.

• S - Situation
• B -Behavior
• I  - Impact
• N - Next Steps (Moving forward)

Brian and Chad discuss four types of coaching practices.

1. Life

2. Leadership

3. Ministry

4. Missional

Michael Cheuk, editor of Christian Coaching Magazine, christiancoachingmag.com, interviews Scott Eblin about his 3rd edition of The Next Level and the benefits of his Life GPS worksheet. 

You can gain full access to Christian Coaching Magazine by paying $15 per year. Your subscription helps with the cost of the production of the magazine and supporting Michael as he creates a great interview each month.

While standards and boundaries sound boring, this podcast is anything but that!

Standards are personal expectations you have for yourself. Everyone has standards about such things as appearance, mates, vehicles, organization, and so on. Standards can be too high or too low. This can cause conflict.

Boundaries are what we allow other people to do to us or around us. Boundaries have to be expressed and enforced. Not everyone is going to like your boundaries.

Chad and Brian break these down and discuss how they interact.

Travis Guse is a certified strength coach. Travis talks about how his journey came through strengths and how he uses strengths in his coaching. You can find out more about Travis at www.strengthssolutions.org.

Chad and Brian take a break from talking about coaching to talking about something they both have in common -- growing up rural and how that shaped their perspective.

Bob is the Director of Equipping and Spiritual Formation for Ecclesia.

bobhyatt.info or bob.hyatt@ecclesianet.org

“Content-rich” coaching is when you know how to do/have done what the client is doing.

• For younger leaders suffering from all clarity, no perspective. They aren't aware of what they shouldn't be doing and ought to be doing. 
• For older leaders with no clarity and all perspective. They see all the trees and it becomes incapacitating. They can't bring it to a focus. 
• For those with specific questions about ministry. Protect the boundaries of the coaching relationship and step into that place of "tell me what to do." 

Without diving deep into the sport of professional basketball, Brian and Chad take a look at the lessons we can learn from Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, who have won three championships in five years. Kerr doesn't yell or pace the sidelines. He listens and observes much more than he speaks. He creates an open and trusting atmosphere among some of the highest paid and talented athletes in the world. There is much we can learn from Steve Kerr and apply to our coaching and leadership.

1. Coach partners with the client by supporting the client to choose what happens in the session.
2. Coach partners with the client by inviting the client to respond in any way to the coach’s contributions and accepts the client’s response.
3. Coach partners with the client by playing back the client’s expressed possibilities for the client to choose from.
4. Coach partners with the client by encouraging the client to formulate his or her own learning.

Triple Loop Learning was discovered by Chris Argyris, a Harvard Professor. We discovered it in Robert Hargrove's book, Masterful Coaching.

The three loops are often called by different names, but one set of names are:

1. Action

2. Strategy

3. Identity

Terry Gurno is the CEO of Terry Gurno and Influence. He is an Executive Coach, Trainer, Author, and Leadership Artist. Terry shares his journey from the pastorate to being CEO of a company to starting his own coaching business. There are lots of learnings along the way.

www.terrygurno.com

Lots of people like podcasts about questions, but there is one skill that is more important - listening. In this podcast, Brian and Chad discuss how to be better listeners.

• Able
• Believable
• Connected
• Dependable

Brian and Chad approach the issue of questions from a different angle. What are some questions you should NEVER ask?

• Looking to the past - What have you got so far? What have you tried so far?
• Prescriptive - Have you ever thought about...
• Judged - Why did you do that? How stupid are you? Really? 
• Collecting information already discovered - Have you thought about anything that you could do about that?
• Bad timing - What could you do about that? (at the beginning) What about this is really important? (at the end)