Meet, Reveal, and Align and Act: Embodied Action and Generative Change
A couple of weeks ago, I was in Barcelona for the first of a two-part training in embodied leadership. The training was also a good excuse to catch-up with a longtime friend, Dino Zafirakos and to meet his wife and two other coaching colleagues there in Spain. Dino is also a coach, and we co-lead, co-teach, bounce ideas off one another, and talk through scenarios and viewpoints. I’d recently been asked to think about the three iterative phases of relationship systems—Meet-Reveal-Align and Act—and a rainy day with forced sofa time was perfect to do just that. When I said, “Dino–help me think of a metaphor for “Meet, Reveal, Align, and Act,” he pushed it back to me and said, “What is a physical action you could do to embody that concept.” (So yes, he is a bit of an eye roll, but that is a story for another day.)
The thing is, Dino’s pushback was remarkably helpful, and it helped my thinking to move in new directions. “Meet,” “reveal,” and “align and act” are all verbs, and our verbal sparring reminded me to treat them as such. Thinking this concept through helped me to ask these questions:
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How can we embody the iterative phases and wisdom of Meet-Reveal-Align and Act?
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How can we share that learned, physical wisdom with the systems we serve?
What Is in a Voice, or How Systems Sing
A few weeks back, I caught a repeat airing of Krista Tippett’s “On Being” interview with acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. Hempton travels the world, recording soundscapes like desert thunderstorms, the sound of wind in the grass, birdsong in deep forest. I remember first hearing this interview back in 2017 or so, and even then I was so struck with what Hempton was trying to do that I attempted to use his work with one of my teams. (Note: it didn’t go so well. The team called that experiment “log jam” and were kind of weirded out that I was asking them to listen to the sounds of the ocean inside a hollowed cedar log. But I digress.)
The repeated Hempton interview jogged another memory for me, this one of a choir of British military wives. Their husbands had been deployed, and to combat loneliness and to help them find home and connection, they gathered to sing. I don’t remember any of them being trained singers or even having much interest in singing, but coming together to raise their voices in loneliness, in longing provided an outlet that they didn’t even know they needed.
The combination of Hempton’s work with acoustic ecology and a choir of untrained voices made me stop and think about the concept of voice from a coaching perspective. What are the voices in a system? How do we listen to those voices? How do we lift those voices up? And lastly, how can we help people learn to “sing?”
The Solace of Open Spaces, or Building Relationships of Trust
I like to use questions to challenge people and organizations, but questions can also be used as intentions to guide attention. When we use questions as intentions, we all look more closely, more deeply, finding solace in those open spaces.
The Softer Side of Psychological Safety
And me? I am a product of a very different time and way of working. I’ve done (and still do) my time in a therapist’s chair, I read studies and self-help books and practice practice practice, I let my clients and teams see my emotions. I’m an open book. Part of my strength as a coach is my willingness to be soft with those I serve. My willingness to be open started us off on equal footing. Because I had also stepped into vulnerability, it made it easier for them to wade into those troubled waters.