1. Coaching with Presence
Jeff McKenna
Roger Brown
Agile Camp Silicon Valley 9/21/13
© 2013 Roger Brown and Jeff McKenna

2. What is Coaching?
Coaching is a relationship in which one person is primarily
dedicated to serving the long term development of effectiveness
and self-generation in the other.
- Doug Silsbee
Service
Learn
Change
Grow

3. What Tools Does a Coach Have?
Mechanics Soft Skills Leadership
Tools Questions Advice
Models Listening Guidance
Frameworks Facilitation Discovery

4. How are These Tools Applied?
Observation Choice Action

5. What Do We Observe?
Individuals
Situations
Systems
Places
Teams
Ourself

6. How Do We Observe?
In the beginning….
by paying attention
As we grow….
by cultivating the skill of Mindfulness
to access the state of Presence

7. What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is the rigorous attention to observing ourselves in
action to become fluid, intuitive, aware and exquisitely
responsive.
- Doug Silsbee
3 Levels
• Sensation (physical)
• Emotion (feelings)
• Mental (meaning, rationalization, use of language)
Active mind plus observing mind

8. What is Presence?
Presence is the underlying state we access through mindfulness
that allows us to be the best person we can be.
- Doug Silsbee
Experienced as
- In the moment
- Present Tense
- Timelessness
- Witnessing
- Beside yourself
- Self-awareness
Presence is
always accessible

9. Contact with Presence:
For ourselves
– To manage attachments and aversions
– To learn, change and grow ourselves
– To be a coach, not just do coaching
– To be aware of choices
For our clients
– To make appropriate choices
– To influence their state of being
– To nurture mindfulness in them

10. A Place to Start: Posture
Posture sends a subconscious message of
energy.
When standing, put your right foot
forward and feel your toes.
When sitting, sit up straight and feel your
toes. Try leaning a bit forward as well.

11. Exercise: Physical Awareness
• Choose a partner.
• One partner is going to relate a challenging experience from
work for which coaching could have been useful.
• The other partner is going to use their listening skills to learn
about the challenge.
• When you hear a chime, we will ask you about a particular
physical aspect of the encounter – both coach and client.
• Both of you will note things about that aspect that they
noticed, felt or wondered about.

12. Presence is Essential to Coaching
Tools
Choice
Observation
Mindfulness
Presence

13. Approaching Mindfulness
• Mindfulness is a practice that takes practice
• Mindfulness is essential for successful coaching
• Presence is here. Experience it.
• Being mindful will enhance our lives and skills,
improving our
– Agility
– Accountability
– Resourcefulness
– Resilience
– Authenticity
– Vitality

14. Resources
• The Mindful Coach and Presence-Based Coaching by Doug Silsbee
• The Leadership Dojo by Richard Strozzi-Heckler
• Coaching with NLP: How to be a Master Coach
• by Joseph O'Connor
• The Human Side of Agile by Gil Broza

15. Presenters
Jeff McKenna, CSC and CST
agile.action@gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/pub/jeff-mckenna/0/29/71b
Roger Brown, CSC and CST
roger.brown@agilecrossing.com
www.linkedin.com/in/rogerwbrown