A young pastor just out of seminary was chatting with an older pastor just about to retire after many decades in the church. “What would you say is the key to your success?” the young pastor asked. “Two words,” the aged pastor replied, “good decisions!”
“Yes,” the youngster asked, taken aback by the terseness of the reply. “But how does one go about making good decisions?”
“One word: experience!” came the abrupt answer.
“That’s very helpful also,” she tried again, “but how does one gain the experience that will lead to making good decisions?”
“Two words: bad decisions!”
I first heard that story 40 years ago. I’ve remembered it because the following decades have reinforced its truth over and over to me. While we can all benefit from the experience of others, the life lessons that stick with us are usually those we discover ourselves.
What does this truth mean for those of us who seek to coach others—whether more formal coaching in our workplaces or more informal coaching with family members, friends or fellow volunteers in our community or church?
A DELICATE BALANCE
To begin, we must recognize the delicate balance between coaching and mentoring. Sometimes someone seeking to be mentored really wants a coach, or vice versa. What is the difference?
A mentor freely shares advice which arises from their professional background or expertise. Mentors enjoy telling stories that share wisdom from their hard-won personal experience. These stories might take the form of guidance, direction, or encouragement: “Here’s what I did in that situation.” Mentees are often sitting at their feet soaking it all in.
On the other hand, in coaching the one being coached does most of the talking. The coach is the one who soaks it all in, occasionally asking clarifying or stimulating questions to go deeper. In mentoring, the mentee learns from the mentor’s journey. In coaching, the coach assists a coachee to make progress in his/her own journey.
Thus, while mentors share their experience, coaches help others gain experience firsthand. Coaches rarely share much advice because, as helpful as it might be in providing answers in the short-term, advice-giving short-circuits the coachee’s longer-term learning process.
To sum up: while a deep well of experience is valuable for both mentors and coaches, a mentor usually serves those who share similar experiences (e.g. a teacher might mentor another teacher but have nothing to offer a brain surgeon). On the other hand, a coach can serve literally anyone (even without any shared experience), since coaching is built around asking questions that stimulate growth, not shared experience.
Within these distinctions, however, a delicate balance exists. Mentoring and coaching are at different places on the same spectrum. All good mentors are hopefully excellent listeners who also ask questions rather than simply rattling on about themselves. All good coaches will, at opportune moments, inject their own suggestions or opinions into the conversation.
When I began my professional coaching ministry, I determined to never push (or even nudge) a coachee in a certain direction, especially by asking “leading” questions. Instead, I focused on asking open-ended questions and let the conversation unfold wherever my client took it.
Fairly often, however, a client would ask me, “Based on your experience, what do you think?” Since I started out coaching mostly ministry leaders and had 38 years’ experience as a pastor myself, I often did have an opinion! However, I usually deflected the question and remained silent.
Now I am more comfortable occasionally interjecting my own experience into coaching conversations. I have John the Baptist to thank for giving me a model.
JOHN THE BAPTIST’S COACHING MODEL
John the Baptist offers a great example of how to share a personal experience to kick start a client’s journey into his or her own experience. Although it comes from the Bible, it’s a model that works in any coaching situation. We can follow it as a brief drama with two acts.
Setting the Stage
John the Baptist came preaching repentance to the Jewish people, with water baptism as an outward sign of a changed heart (hence his moniker). The first three gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) each have stories of John actually baptizing Jesus. In the fourth and later gospel (John), we hear the baptism story from John’s point of view. We hear John’s personal experience of what happened as he baptized Jesus:
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”
Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ (John 1:29-33)
John obviously is deeply moved by his experience. Whether audibly or in his thoughts, he hears God’s voice. But notice how John now uses this experience with two of his followers.
Act I. Point the Way
Only a day later, John has the opportunity to share his experience regarding Jesus with two men who have become John’s followers or disciples:
“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.” When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:35-36)
Here’s what I find interesting. John does not wax eloquently about his experience. If I had just heard the voice of God, I’d be eager to share all the details, especially with two men who already were in a close, respectful relationship wishing to learn from me (i.e. disciples).
But amazing as it was, John does not focus on what he experienced. If anything, he tersely, even cryptically, captures their attention by pointing away from himself: “Look, the Lamb of God.”
John does share his experience, but in a way that directs all the attention away from himself. Instead, he points to how his followers can have the same experience he had. Instead of telling in great detail about how he learned who Jesus is, he invites them to discover it for themselves.
Act II. Let Them Go
When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” (John 1:37-39)
Coaching is not about people attaching themselves to me and my experience (“He’s my mentor!”). It is about helping people move beyond me and my experience. This can be difficult; we all enjoy the attention and respect of others. Later on, John the Baptist will strike a perfect note in referring to Jesus: “He must increase, I must decrease.” Yes, that’s the definition of a good coach.
John the Baptist points his two friends in the right direction. Then he lets them go.
Notice that John does not say, “Now when you go up to Jesus, first do this and this…then God will perhaps speak to you exactly the way he spoke to me.” No, John gives no directions, no formulas, no 1-2-3 step plans. When headed in the right direction, John trusts that they will discover what he did for themselves.
And, as the story unfolds, they do. These two men do have their own experience with Jesus, in greater ways than John could have expected. Jesus invites them to “come and see.” As they do, the baton of amazing experiences with Jesus quickly gets passed on to others:
- Andrew, one of the two unnamed men, goes to his brother Peter and declares, “We have found the Messiah!”
- Philip, a friend of Andrew and Peter, says Jesus is “The Fulfiller of the Law and Prophets.”
- Nathanael, introduced to Jesus by his friend Philip, exclaims that Jesus is “the Son of God and King of Israel.”
John the Baptist’s pointing to Jesus (based on his experience) leads to a variety of experiences in others. And not only for his followers (like Andrew), but even for people he has never met (like Philip and Nathanael).
LESS IS MORE
How might we follow John the Baptist’s “less is more” coaching model? When it comes to sharing our own experiences with others, we can:
- Spend 90% of the conversation deeply listening and asking helpful questions.
- Be aware of opportune moments when injecting a personal insight might be helpful.
- When such moments arrive, resist the temptation to go on and on about our own experience; instead, succinctly suggest how they might enter into it themselves.
- Don’t give formulas or advice that seeks to duplicate our experience. Let them find their own way.
- Trust that “He must increase, I must decrease” really works.
Rich, this is such a good article. I intend to use it as a personal guide in helping to encourage new leaders in our congregation.
The image of John the Baptist is especially instructive, and a good reminder that “less can be more.”
Thank you!