[The articles I post on ChurchCentral are drawn from recent issues of Christian Coaching Magazine and represent a wide array of leaders and coaches as the authors. Thanks for reading! -Jerome]

Coaching Postmoderns, from ChristianCoachingMag.com
By Gary Collins

One of the greatest benefits of teaching is hanging out with students and learning from them. One morning, many years ago, a young graduate student stuck his head into my office and asked what I knew about deconstructionism and postmodernism. I had no idea what he was talking about, but the student coached me in finding things to read, and I soon learned. We talked about his generation, the non-traditional ways in which even seminary students were thinking, and the apparent irrelevance of much that he was learning from his professors. During his years as my student, I learned a lot from that guy.

And I’m still learning. I like hanging out with learners, innovators, young leaders, and people who are not like me. They keep me connected with what’s going on, and they challenge me to think about ways in which the world – including the world of coaching – is being pushed to change. I’ve learned how the postmodern way of thinking has penetrated our culture and moved us beyond the structured, fact-oriented, scientific approaches that characterize what some now call modernism. Condemned by some and ignored by others, postmodernism has taken hold most firmly in people who are younger. Many may know nothing about postmodernism per se, but they live out its philosophy every day.

Exhibit A

Consider my friend Rick. We go to the same fitness club and sometimes talk in the locker room. Rick is 23, a college graduate who works in a coffee shop and lives at home because it is cheaper. He works hard at his job, apparently pays his bills, and likes to party on the weekends. He enjoys hanging out with his friends, checks his text messages constantly, plays in a band, and describes himself as “living in a eco-friendly, save-the-environment, fight-for-Tibet, serve-people, recycle-everything type of culture.”

Rick says he’s interested in spirituality, but he doesn’t care for the church. Despite a degree in computer science, he has no vocational goals and assumes that “it will all work out whenever.” He finds it “interesting” that I am a coach and suggested that coaching might be good for him sometime. But right now, Rick says, “I’m just trying to find myself and figure out life.”

How do we coach with people like Rick who aren’t likely to connect with the getting-from-here-to-there linear models of coaching that have emerged from the results-oriented world of business?

Using coaching skills to meet the needs of the postmodern

 I’ve been wrestling with this question and am considering the following guidelines:
• Cross-culture. Recognize that for many of us, coaching postmoderns is like reaching across cultures. If we don’t understand the new culture, we will not be effective in working with the natives. 
• Trust. Commit to building trust and relationships before and during coaching. 
• Community. Respect their community and be open to interactive group coaching experiences among people who live and work in relationship with others. Many postmoderns prefer to find accountability in a community of mentors and friends with whom they share life.
• Authenticity. Be real (in no way phony), transparent, willing to learn, flexible, humble, never patronizing, consistently affirming, patient, available and comfortable talking about your own experiences, including your failures.
• Credibility. Understand that postmodern people may care little about our training or certification but care a lot about our authenticity and our willingness to connect and show respect.
• Narrative. Use stories frequently and encourage the people we coach to think of how they can develop new stories for their own lives.
• Caution. Move away from messages that emphasize success, vision casting, and steps toward goals – at least until we know how each person (don’t call them clients) views these things.   
• Meaning. Recognize the importance of values, self discovery, meaning, and reflections on careers, relationships, spirituality, and life.
• Innovation. Be open to finding creative ways to use technology, social networks, text messages, art, or imagery.
• Partnership. Engage more interactively with people in coaching rather than staying rigidly with the traditional approach that waits for them to come up with all the answers.
• Modeling. Rethink what it means to be a Christian coach. This might mean engaging postmoderns in discussions about spirituality before focusing more on Christianity. It also means letting them see a Christ-follower who has a faith that works and who demonstrates compassion for the poor or marginalized.
• Terminology. Be cautious about using the word “coach” because of its association with athletics. “Guide” might be a better word. I most often talk about “journeying” together.

Might it be that some of our methods need to be re-thought? New strategies might allows us to connect better with people who aren’t much interested in traditional views of success, don’t think in linear ways, and might not respond to accepted methods of coaching? Maybe we need to move away from corporate models of thinking and develop new approaches around postmodern values of experience, community, and authenticity.

Most often, postmoderns don’t buy the idea that coaching leads to greater productivity and then to success. They have seen the productivity model often lead to driven lifestyles, broken homes, greedy visioneering, insensitive leaders, and destroyed lives. This is a generation that is willing to replace power with fulfillment.

Rick, my work-out colleague, read what I have written above. He liked it, said it described him and his generation, and agreed with my conclusions. Then, ironically, I remembered a time last fall when Rick decided to run a marathon. Mr. “non-linear-thinking” set a goal, mapped out a training plan, stuck to it, and completed the race.

My conclusion: Rigid linear approaches do not work with people shaped by postmodernism. They think differently. But rigid non-linear approaches don’t work either, especially when there are races to be run, things to be planned, and (later) mortgages to be paid. The business client is more linear. The young postmodern is less linear. They need different coaching approaches. But coaching never lives entirely at one end of the continuum or the other.

What does this say to you about the way you want to coach in a world being shaped by postmodern thinking?

Gary Collins, author of Christian Coaching, holds academic positions at two graduate universities where he teaches coaching. He has led coach training workshops in more than a dozen countries. www.garyrcollins.com

©2009 ChristianCoachingMag.com, Used by permission.