Chapter10: Generative Moments

OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
o	Define generative moments and their value
o	Discuss the source of generative moments and how to leverage these moments for significant progress
o	Discuss how to use the transtheoretical model (TTM), nonviolent communication (NVC), appreciative inquiry (AI), and motivational interviewing (MI) in generative moments
o	Name the skills necessary for creating and facilitating generative moments
o	List the five steps in the process of creating a generative moment
Defining the Generative Moment
Generative moments can be thought of as the peak of a coaching session. A generative moment can be filled with the high energy that comes from being ready to do something new or the peaceful calm that comes with a new way of thinking. Generative moments occur when clients are aroused along the path of change and growth. They are the heart of coaching sessions that happen along the path to reaching or getting closer to the client’s vision. In these pivotal moments, client feelings, needs, and desires are investigated around the “topic du jour.”
During generative moments, coaches and clients explore the nature of the agreed topic, clarify desired outcomes, brainstorm strategies, and identify next steps. In these moments, coaches and clients co-generate new perspectives and co-construct engaging designs for moving forward. Coaches often describe this collaboration as an intuitive dance. We call these “generative” because they inspire clients to generate new ideas, perspectives, or insights. They may also uncover capacities, which can lead to bold actions that can positively alter a client’s future (Bushe, 2007). Generative moments are mini transformations that energize both coach and client and catalyze the next stage of the client’s progress.
As a client’s emotions intensify—ranging from excited to ambivalent to fearful—coaches and clients have a unique opportunity to take risks, expand perspectives, and challenge assumptions. The more clients can discover new perspectives, capacities, and actions that will meet their needs, the more progress they will make in moving toward their visions. It’s important to allow time for the generative moment in most coaching sessions in order to focus on one topic that recharges the client’s batteries; this facilitates both the desire to change and the confidence to get there.
Working with a client to establish and revisit a vision can facilitate generative moments at the outset of a coaching program and whenever a session lags. It is good to revisit the vision in detail at least annually, even quarterly or monthly. Although clients commit to change and grow through building visions, lots of old and new topics emerge for consideration in coaching sessions. Many things may ignite a client’s interest in a topic that calls for a generative moment—whether clients are experiencing negative or positive energy. The energy and its underlying needs make a client ripe for exploring new ways to meet those needs.
One way to think about generative moments is that they emerge as things that clients want less of (aversive indicators), things that clients want more of (attractive indicators), or some combination of the two. The former are generally accompanied by increased resistance, whereas the latter by increased readiness to pursue transformational change. Table 10.1 provides a partial list of emotional indicators that may suggest that the client is presenting a topic for a generative moment.
Sometimes, generative moments emerge when clients are still considering change—for example, when they are in the precontemplation or contemplation stages around a particular behavior. This often happens in response to external events. Pain and bad news get people’s attention, such as the message of “change or die” from a doctor. Hope and good news also have a way of getting people’s attention. For example, many women stop smoking the instant they learn they are pregnant. The desire for a healthy baby eclipses the craving to smoke. At times such as these, coaches and clients have a unique opportunity to shake things up and move things forward.
When Do Generative Moments Occur Within Coaching Sessions?
Coaching sessions tend to have a distinct beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is the warm-up phase, which is about establishing connection, exploring and appreciating recent events and experience around client goals, and clarifying the topic on which the client would like to focus. The end is about identifying goals and developing innovative strategies that will carry the client forward until the next coaching session (and beyond). The end can be considered a cool-down phase after some more energetic work in the middle. In between lies the space for the generative moment—the energetic epicenter or workout of the session. One caveat: Although there is a specific place and time in the process of a coaching session for the “generative moment,” generativity is not limited to this time and place. Ideally, generativity is woven throughout the entire coaching session.
A good interpersonal connection and understanding of client experiences are crucial to setting in motion the first steps of the generative moment. Understanding a client’s experience with his or her weekly goals, whatever the progress or lack thereof, can reveal topics around which clients have aroused energy. Reviewing three-month goals can reconnect clients with their values, motivators, and inspiration. In the absence of judgment and in the presence of support for growth, these moments reveal what is alive in and important to clients. Encouraging clients to share stories can shed light on their feelings, their met and unmet needs, and their hopes and desires. Such is the stuff that makes for generative moments.
What Generates Generative Moments?
Each time a client participates in a coaching session, what is important to him or her shows up for the session as well, although a warmup phase may be required to uncover what that is. To use the language of NVC, clients show up for coaching with something that is “alive” or stirring within them at that moment. It’s the coach’s job to listen mindfully for that life force, reflect it back to the client, and inquire about where the client wants to go with that energy (Rosenberg, 2005).
Client-driven generative moments represent a shift from traditional health education and the expert approach to change. It is not up to the coach to generate the moment. It is up to the client to show up with the energy to explore and the desire to learn. The client has that responsibility in every coaching session.
Coaches enable clients to move forward positively by following the client’s lead, paying careful attention to the client’s feelings, needs, and desires through the use of empathy, AI, and reflections. Like a midwife supporting a mother through the transitional stages to delivery, it is not the coach’s job to have “the moment” but rather to support clients through the flow of the generative moment.
Once a generative moment has run its course, coaching sessions flow easily into design and planning through the use of behavioral goals and action plans. Clients often require assistance to frame such plans as starting points for experimentation, discovery, and learning rather than as blueprints for execution. Static planning models (i.e., make the plan, implement the plan) do not reflect the dynamic of human development. Innovative planning models that include client-centered empathetic design empower clients to make real-time adjustments and improvisations, thus better supporting the client’s confidence in being successful.
Generative Moments Engage Every Coaching Skill
In order to leverage the full potential of generative moments, a coach needs to use every coaching skill and tool dynamically in the moment. At their best, generative moments spark the intuitive dance of coaching. Handled poorly, generative moments are not only squandered but also can set clients back in both motivation and action. The following coaching skills, introduced in previous chapters, all need to be fully engaged to effectively move clients through generative moments.
Radiating Compassion
Generative moments require a judgment-free environment, characterized by trust and the “willingness to be vulnerable to another based on the confidence that the other is benevolent, honest, open, reliable, and competent” (Tschannen-Moran, 2004). Safety and a strong sense of support are preconditions for success in all coaching sessions. This creates optimal conditions for generative moments in which clients are challenged to stretch to the edge of their abilities. Establishing such a compassionate environment enables clients to be open and authentic so that the important stuff can get said and considered.
Expressing Empathy
Defined as the “respectful understanding of another person’s experience,” empathy uses both emotional and cognitive awareness to connect with and give voice to what clients are feeling, needing, and desiring. Without receiving empathy, clients will often fail to move through and derive full benefits from generative moments. Empathy differs from pity and sympathy in that it is a coach’s reflection of the client’s perceived experience rather than a sharing in it. Clients are aware of empathy and presence not just consciously but also unconsciously, perhaps through the influence of mirror neurons. When a coach—especially one who has developed a place of importance to the client—expresses discontent, it can send the client into a physical frenzy, increasing heart rates and spreading negative energy all around (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2008).
Mindful Listening
Defined as the “nonjudgmental awareness of what is happening in the present moment,” mindfulness is a way to break free from being on autopilot. There’s no way to identify generative moments apart from mindful listening. By paying attention without judgment to what’s happening in oneself and in the client, coaches can help clients gain awareness of needs and choices. This is an essential component of the coaching presence required to maintain a trust-building and growth-promoting relationship.
Evocative Inquiry
If coaches ask too many leading questions with implied “right” answers, the generative moment can be lost. True inquiry comes from the framework of “not assuming,” “not knowing” the answers, and having a beginner’s mind. The more coaches navigate with open-minded curiosity, especially with regard to clients’ capacities and strengths, the more clients will discover about themselves and where they want to go. When coaches linger in the discovery phase of AI, with engaging questions that connect clients to their own best selves, clients are better able to put their strengths to work. “Without curiosity, we are unable to sustain our attention, we avoid risks, we abort challenging tasks, we compromise our intellectual development, we fail to achieve competencies and strengths, we limit our ability to form relationships with other people, and essentially stagnate” (Kashdan, 2009).
Open-Ended Inquiry
When it comes to generative moments, inquiry that evokes stories and images has far more power to generate an upward spiral than does inquiry that leads to short or analytic answers. Open-ended inquiries that start with “what” or “how” are the keys to evoking such responses. Too many close-ended questions that require short “yes” or "no" answers tend to shut down this dynamic. “Why” questions can feel judgmental or can lead to analysis paralysis. Full engagement follows most directly by encouraging clients to remember and fully verbalize the stories and images of their own best selves.
Perceptive Reflections
Asking the client too many questions in a row, even great questions, can feel like interrogation to the client and can then compromise a generative moment. Such inquiry often has more to do with the coach’s desire to propel clients forward than with clients’ desire to figure things out for themselves. The five forms of reflections used in MI that are especially useful in the context of generative moments are simple, amplified, double-sided, shifted-focus, and empathy reflections. They communicate the full engagement of the coach and connect the client with the motivation to change.
Honoring Silence
In response to empathy, inquiry, and reflections, clients need to pause to think, feel, or connect with their truths. This especially happens during generative moments. It is essential for coaches to honor this silence, be comfortable with pauses, and not intrude prematurely. Once the ball is in the client’s court, it is usually best to wait until the client hits it back. Intervening too quickly prevents clients from maximizing their discoveries. Silence affirms the coach’s desire to hear what the client has to say and, even better, implies “I trust in your thoughts and ideas.” It is a special gift to be with clients in silence, especially those who are introverted, because silence gives them time to organize their thoughts, feelings, and desires before translating them into words.
Creative Brainstorming
Brainstorming is an essential skill of coaching, especially when it comes to generative moments. With increased motivation to change comes increased interest in specific change strategies. Such strategies are not handed to clients by coaches; rather, they are co-constructed with clients through the creative brainstorming of ideas, questions, approaches, and frameworks. Coaches and clients can generate an enormous number of possibilities without evaluating the relative merits until later. The mood can be alternately playful, insightful, courageous, and realistic. Taking turns in coming up with possibilities is a good way to build and maintain momentum through the brainstorming process.
Unfailing Affirmation
Unfailing affirmation is about steadfastly acknowledging the client’s capacities, characteristics, and strengths for change. In this way, coaches positively impact both client efficacy and self-compassion. “My certainty is greater than your doubt” expresses the framework that coaches come from in working with generative moments. When clients know that coaches believe in their capacities to change and achieve desired outcomes, they are more likely to get out of their own ways and try new strategies. Such an endorsement enables clients not only to get excited about the possibilities generated through brainstorming but also to move forward with one or more of them.
Generative moments grow out of the connection that coaches make with clients at the beginning of each coaching conversation. By establishing a “no-fault zone” where clients can blamelessly and shamelessly open up and share, coaches make it possible for clients to learn from their experiences and to move forward. Early and effective use of empathy, inquiry, and reflections in reviewing client goals (both weekly and three-month goals) helps to uncover the topics clients want to explore in greater depth.
Facilitating Generative Moments
When creating a specific placeholder for the generative moment within the coaching session, the process includes eight primary stages:
1.	Collaborate with the client to identify the topic on which to work, where he or she has aroused emotional energy and interest.
2.	Ask for permission to explore and work on the topic now.
3.	Encourage the client to describe what he or she really wants now in relation to the topic.
4.	Explore the strengths or values the client can leverage to move forward.
5.	Explore the environments the client can leverage to move forward.
6.	Explore decisional balance and develop discrepancy (when the client demonstrates ambivalence).
7.	Engage the client in creative brainstorming of pathways forward.
8.	Express and facilitate confidence in the client’s ability to move forward.
Collaborate with the Client to Identify the Topic on Which to Work Where He or She Has Aroused Emotional Energy and Interest
To identify the topic on which the client would like to focus, pay attention to the emotions, needs, desires, and values that the client has expressed throughout the session. Listen for:
o	What the client is feeling
o	What the client is attracted to
o	What the client wants less of
o	What the client is celebrating
o	What needs are alive in the client
o	What the client is resisting
o	How ready the client is to change
o	What gives the client energy
o	What moves the client to action
o	What the client highlights and remembers from previous sessions
Sometimes, several topics emerge that are intertwined or are ambiguously defined. Inquiry in advance of coaching sessions (e.g., through e-mail) and the use of reflections—particularly simple reflections—are necessary to drill down to a topic underlying others or clarify a clear topic definition. Ideally, the topic of a generative moment will be self-evident to the client and coach alike. It will shine, like a light in the darkness. When that happens, it will be easy to name the topic and move to the next step.
More often, coaches and clients will float different topics for consideration until one clearly rises to the surface. Coaches may name a topic and ask if it is an area the client would like to explore. When clients agree, it may be useful to use a motivational interviewing style ruler to measure how much energy they have around that topic. If energy is low, there may be another topic worth pursuing. Or, it may be possible to invigorate a client’s energy by discussing his or her energy rating.
Another approach is to engage the client’s body in the search for topics. Encourage clients to pay attention to physical sensations in the moment by having them move around, strike poses, change body positions, walk, or use finger labyrinths (Rehm, 2000). Stretching, breath work, and guided meditations are also ways to invigorate the moment. Richard Strozzi Heckler (2002) refers to this as somatic coaching. The body is a resource for learning and for creating sustainable change for clients as they identify what is most important in the moment.
Alternating between open-ended inquiries and reflections is a way to clarify the topic. For example:
1.	From our discussion, it sounds as though there are three potential topics which we could explore today. Here is what I have heard so far . . . (describe them succinctly).
2.	We have time to work through one topic. On which one would you like to work?
3.	What makes this topic the most important for our coaching today?
4.	What outcome would you like at the end of today’s session?
The point is not to be “right” about the best topic to pursue but rather to invite clients to look more deeply at what is alive in them. Regardless of whether the coach or client first names the topic, the key is to hold that topic as an opportunity for deeper connection and learning. The generative moment is the heart of the coaching session, and the client’s heart determines the focus of the generative moment.
COACHING CASE
Coach Carl: “I’ve watched you make such tremendous progress in the last several weeks. It’s been exciting to be a part of that process, and I admire your tenacity through this. I’m excited to see you continue to take the next steps toward your three-month goals. Congratulations!”
Wendy Well: “Thanks. I feel good about the progress.”
Coach Carl: “And you should savor that moment. Now, before we set goals for next week, we have a few minutes to really dive into any topic that you feel would be helpful to learn more about and understand more clearly, as you’re thinking about moving toward your vision. Has anything related to your vision been on your mind that would be helpful to talk through with another ear to listen?”
Wendy Well: “I’d like to focus on ideas for ensuring that I eat healthier. I notice that as the week goes on and I’m trying to come home from work and exercise and then I’ve got to get dinner, my goals kind of slide away from me, especially around eating. And my walking goal, too. At the beginning of the week, I just get on the treadmill and do it, but it seems to get harder toward the end of the week.”
Ask for Permission to Explore and Work on the Topic Now
Once a topic has been identified and clarified, the coach and client agree on the appropriateness of working on it now. Coaching always protects the freedom and choice of clients, which increases both the motivation for change and the probability of success. The client’s stage of change significantly impacts both his/her readiness to address the topic as well as the approach that should be taken. If clients are in the earliest stages of change regarding a particular topic, it may be difficult for them to mount the energy necessary for a generative moment that would move them forward to action. However, in these stages, clients can do valuable thinking and feeling about possibilities, working the decisional balance for change, and exploring new supportive relationships or environments. A generative moment which builds hope can be a catalyst for increasing readiness that will eventually lead to transformational action.
COACHING CASE
Coach Carl: “I’m hearing that you want to find some ways to be consistent and to be as connected to your health goals at the end of the week as you are at the beginning of the week.”
Wendy Well: “Yes, that’s it.”
Coach Carl: “Would you like to talk about that for a few minutes?”
Wendy Well: “Yes, that would be helpful.”
Encourage the Client to Describe What He or She Really Wants Now in Relation to the Topic
The work of the generative moment starts with drilling down to the heart of the matter. It is a dance of self-discovery for clients, which challenges them to view and think differently about the topic and themselves. “Ah-ha!” experiences are common. Begin by tapping into or creating hope and optimism by inquiring about the client’s ideal vision or optimal outcome related to the topic at hand. Next, AI and MI models offer different paths to getting to the heart of the matter. In general, it’s valuable to first start with AI to build and harvest as much positive energy and emotion as can be elicited at a given moment. Reconnection to a client’s strengths and capacities may be sufficient to move forward into brainstorming and planning. MI also offers many tools to understand the roots of ambivalence, to play with ambivalence, and, even better, to resolve it. Often, coaches find themselves using a mix of both models.
COACHING CASE Continued
Coach Carl: “Great! Tell me, if you could wave your magic wand, what would a week look like with consistent eating if everything just really fell in place as you wished it could.”
Wendy Well: “It would be automatic. It would be such a routine that I just know what I’m going to bring for lunch. I would have it on hand. It would be easy to put together and I would consistently take in a lunch to work so that it would be almost every day. And, I’d feel great after lunch about what I ate. No, not just lunch—I’d feel great at the end of the day every day. No regrets.”
Coach Carl: “And what’s important about that?”
Wendy Well: “One, to have more energy at work and also to eat healthier so that I can do some of these things that I want to do with my life. I’d also have more time if I packed my lunch. I wouldn’t have to go to the cafeteria; I could just be at my desk to eat and have quiet time. Or maybe when the weather gets nicer to go outside and sit. I think that’s a nice mental break in the middle of the day. In the cafeteria, you always sit with someone, you ultimately end up talking about work again, and so you never feel like you had that break.”
Coach Carl: “So there appear to be a number of motivators here. One is to have more energy. Another is to feel better about your choices in general. An appealing outcome of healthy eating would be having a greater sense of calm and peacefulness. Another motivator is reclaiming some downtime.”
Explore the Strengths or Values the Client Can Leverage to Move Forward
It is important to approach each topic as a possibility to be explored rather than as a problem to be solved. Working from a deficit-based framework, focusing on what is wrong and what needs to be “fixed,” can negatively influence how coaches view client potential and can compromise client self-efficacy. Instead, masterful coaches explore a topic from a strengths-based perspective, even when clients are experiencing resistance to change. Strengths-based inquiries focus on what is meaningful and compelling to clients more than on what they do not want. In addition, they invite clients to recall and reconnect with past successful experiences.
The benefits of using strength-based inquiries are plentiful. They include generating hope, optimism, and other kinds of positivity; reminding clients of their capabilities; and encouraging more of the behaviors that generated previous success. Remember the AI principle: that which we appreciate appreciates. Using the AI interview protocol, the following represent a sample of questions that can generate positive shifts in thoughts and behaviors:
o	Tell me about a time when you experienced a similar challenge and navigated your way through it.
o	What did success feel like?
o	What are the values reflected in and how you have handled this situation?
o	How does this connect with your vision?
o	What are the needs that would be met if this vision were realized for you?
o	What are the structures (people, places, things, tools, routines) that would enable you to be successful with this goal?
o	What are your hopes for how you would like to handle this issue in the future?
o	Name your main wish.
The primary objective of using the AI approach first is to engage clients in conversations that reconnect to their vitality—that place of deep longing that brought them to coaching in the first place. Such questions and requests shine a light on the hope and enthusiasm clients have for their visions and realign the situations with their visions.
Explore the Environments the Client Can Leverage to Move Forward
As Peterson and Seligman (2004) found in studying the prevalence of universal strengths and values, self-regulation is one of the least valued and used strengths. Self-regulation is vital in the change process. It manifests in diligently planning, preparing, and executing behavioral experiments; unpacking learning; followed by adjusting the what, how, and when of practicing new behaviors, over and over again. Given that clients make behavioral decisions and choices all day long under strong influences of their environments, how then can clients adjust their environments to bolster their success, including boosting of much-needed self-regulation?
First, of course, the coaching process provides a valuable support to enhancing self-regulation in and of itself. Coaches can then help clients appreciate how their environments affect their self-regulation and encourage clients to consider “what might happen, when it might happen, and how it might affect” their progress. “Coaching the environment” is a proactive strategy that supports goal achievement (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). Clients can design environments that enable them to be more competent, a key psychological need and resource as we learned in exploring self-determination theory. The coach and client can together find the environments that enhance completion of new experiments, and they can design structures (people, places, things) that increase the likelihood of mastery experiences.
Explore Decisional Balance and Develop Discrepancy (When the Client Demonstrates Ambivalence)
When the principles of AI do not uncover the heart of the matter and elevate clients’ readiness to move in the directions of their desires, MI tools can be useful to help them understand and dislodge their “stuckness,” resolve ambivalence, and move forward. Expressing empathy, developing discrepancy, rolling with resistance, and supporting self-efficacy are all designed to create a safe space for clients to explore their thoughts, feelings, needs, and intentions. When the space is right, clients can leave behind their uncertainty to change and open themselves to new possibilities. This is often a critical part of successfully coaching clients through their generative moments.
Inviting clients to describe their authentic reasons for changing (change talk), instead of telling and selling clients on why they “should” change, is a challenging shift for a new coach. “Get into fishing and out of sales,” says motivational interviewing trainer and psychologist Robert Rhode. Keep in mind that clients are more likely to move in the direction of positive change when they have figured out and described in their own words what outcomes they really want and clarified what challenges may be getting in the way and what it will take to reach their goals (change talk). After clients have been “sitting in the muck” for a while, struggling with the discrepancy or conflict between the needs to not change and the needs to change, they will gain motivational energy by a desire to resolve the discrepancy and get readier to take action to move forward.
Coaching tools will not work unless the coach starts with the intention of understanding the client’s experience. The more coaches try to manipulate behavior or force an outcome, the more these tools will increase rather than decrease resistance. When that happens, coaches are working against rather than supporting generativity. Self-determination theory makes it clear that the human propensity for growth only happens when change is freely or autonomously chosen in the moment and supported by competence and relatedness (Markland, Ryan, Tobin, & Rollnick, 2005).
Engage the Client in Creative Brainstorming of Pathways Forward
Once change talk has begun and client energy is higher, it’s helpful to engage clients in the light-hearted generation or brainstorming of ideas and approaches for moving forward. In brainstorming, possibilities are generated but not critiqued or evaluated. A good rule is the more the better when it comes to idea generation. Coaches and clients can take turns in the generation of ideas and experiments. It can be challenging for coaches and clients to generate possibilities in the moment, but it is well worth the effort. Sometimes, coaches come up with possibilities that clients would never have thought of on their own. When coaches take a turn, clients are given the space to think more deeply about or jump off from a possibility in a whole new direction suggested by the coach. Such brainstorming is valuable and usually fun during generative moments.
It is helpful to designate a particular time during the generative moment for brainstorming ideas, questions, or approaches. Brainstorming too early can overwhelm clients and provoke resistance. However, failing to brainstorm at all can squander the potential of the moment, either because no possibilities are generated or because one possibility takes over before others are considered. Running with the first idea that comes up is not only limiting but also may be dangerous. As French philosopher Emile Chartier (1959) writes, “Nothing is as dangerous as an idea when it is the only one you have.”
Basic protocols for successful brainstorming include the following:
o	Setting a time limit
o	Withholding judgment or evaluation of ideas
o	Encouraging wild, fun, and exaggerated ideas
o	Letting no idea go unsaid
o	Setting a minimum number of ideas or questions to generate
o	Building on the possibilities put forth by the other
o	Combining and expanding ideas
o	Asking permission to contribute ideas
With many compelling and relevant ideas in mind, the client will eagerly move with confidence and energy to designing action plans, the next step of the coaching session. With high self-efficacy, clients will be ready, willing, and able to commit to specific behaviors that will contribute to realizing their visions.
COACHING CASE Continued
Coach Carl: “I’m wondering if we might take some time to generate some new ideas to make this easier for you. How can we make this goal be more consistently achievable, keeping in mind some of the things that you learned on Sunday, some of those environmental factors that really supported you in being successful? Maybe we could just generate five to seven things you might put in place throughout the week to be more successful here. Anything goes when we are brainstorming; there are no bad ideas. How does that sound?”
Wendy Well: “Sure, that would be helpful!”
Coach Carl: “OK, perhaps we can go back and forth with ideas. Do you want to throw out an idea?”
Wendy Well: “I guess one idea came to mind when I said I knew what I had on hand. Maybe it would be helpful to keep more of a list or something on my refrigerator. If I checked them off as I took them so I could see what was left, that might be more of a reminder of what I had.”
Coach Carl: “OK, keeping a list on the fridge. Great. I have an idea around making a meal list on Sunday; you could plan out what your lunches will be for the rest of the week.”
Wendy Well: “Yes, that could work.”
Coach Carl: “What else?”
Wendy Well: “Maybe buying fruit at the beginning of the week and taking it to work with me.”
Coach Carl: “OK, taking in some of the supplies, perhaps on Monday, so you have them on hand.”
Wendy Well: “Yes. I could pack them in Monday mornings.”
Coach Carl: “Here’s another idea; every night from 6:30–6:40 a.m. can be your lunch packing time.”
Wendy Well: “That could be, except that’s my exercise time too. I guess if I could pack my lunch on the treadmill, I’d be all set.”
Coach Carl: “Now that would be quite a feat! OK, well we’ll play with how these ideas might look in the real world. Let’s get one more.”
Wendy Well: “One more. I could bring a lunch that is premade, that I don’t even have to fix, like maybe salads in containers or something like that.”
Coach Carl: “Pre-prepared lunches. OK, that would be less effort. Let’s shift gears and revisit and reignite your motivation. Wendy, how important is it to you to eat healthy on a more consistent basis? And perhaps we can use that familiar ruler from 0 to 10, 10 being most important.”
Wendy Well: “This one is an 8 or a 9. I think it is kind of a cornerstone for the other things that I want to do to be healthy and energetic. I was doing well with breakfast and dinner, but lunchtime has been getting away from me and dragging down my confidence in other areas.”
Coach Carl: “It feels kind of like a foundation for success in other areas.”
Wendy Well: “Yes, and I think eating a healthy lunch will improve my energy for work in the afternoon. Sometimes eating less healthy cafeteria food makes me sleepy and wanting a nap.”
Coach Carl: “You notice that there are good consequences when you eat a healthy lunch both for the afternoon, the whole day, and beyond.”
Express and Facilitate Confidence in the Client’s Ability to Move Forward
The transition to designing action plans at the end of the generative moment is made compelling when the coach champions and supports the client’s ability to move forward with one or more of the new ideas or approaches. Forward movement is more appealing when clients believe they have the ability to turn the new ideas into action. Hence, coaches not only support self-efficacy throughout the entire coaching session; this is especially important as the generative moment comes to a close.
By acknowledging what clients brought to the generative moment, the good work they have done in brainstorming, and their capacity to see their dreams through to fruition, coaches enable clients to commit themselves and to take actions that will generate success.
W. H. Murray (1951) of the Scottish Himalayan expedition famously addressed this dynamic when he wrote:
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no one could have dreamth would have come his or her way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. (pp. 6–7)
Championing the client at the close of the generative moment is an essential part of masterful coaching.
Relational Flow in Generative Moments
The earlier process provides a framework for handling generative moments. Yet, in many respects, these moments are not “handled”; rather, they have a playful, surprising, improvisational, flowing quality that cannot be scripted. The best generative moments move seamlessly and organically in flow—they feel like a dance—sometimes slow, sometimes quick, or more like a salsa dance.
Given their impact, new coaches can feel pressure to demonstrate great skill, wisdom, or technique. The most important thing to remember is that generative moments are about the client’s needs and desires. By following the client’s lead, coaches can ease their way into collaborative, co-creative conversations. Coaches remember that they are in partnership rather than in charge, and they remain attentive to the client’s energy and insights rather than distracted by their own thoughts and inspired rather than inspirational. At their best, generative moments feel intense, exciting, deep, powerful, and moving, but not hard. Generative moments flow.
What Is Relational Flow?
Relational flow, another way to define generative moments, happens when coaches and clients perceive themselves as being in sync and engaged in generative, interdependent, collaborative dialogue. In reflecting on peak coaching experiences, coaches and clients often describe their best moments as like being in an intuitive dance: “a relational dynamic between coaches and clients when they enter a zone where they are fully challenged at a high level of skill and awareness. This dynamic, conceptualized as ‘relational flow,’ may underpin how and when both coaches and clients make large steps forward in their work” (Moore, Drake, Tschannen-Moran, Campone, & Kauffman, 2005).
It is a challenge to create relational flow, let alone capture or measure it. That’s because it is an intuitive and synergistic dynamic that is created by the coach, the client, and the field between the two. Like learning to dance, the fundamental steps must be mastered before style, fluidity, and flow can be demonstrated. In flow, coaches aren’t married to a plan that determines what happens next or attached to a particular outcome. Instead, they are able to use what is happening in the moment to determine what will happen in the next moment, improvising with agility based on what is most important to the client in the present moment.
What Supports Relational Flow?
Although research into the dynamic continues, several bodies of knowledge illuminate and support the intuitive dance of coaching. These include the following:
o	Flow studies: As defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2000), flow exists when one is engaged in a challenging situation that requires fully engaging and stretching one’s skills at a high level in response. In flow, one becomes immersed in an activity with greater attention, less effort, and an altered sense of time.
o	Reflective practitioner: The ability to dance effortlessly also comes from practice. A coach with experience is “less tied to explicit rules, processes, and contextual clues in order to know how to act effectively—and yet does so with less effort” (Moore et al., 2005). Experienced coaches rely more on intuitive thoughts and perceptions. They draw on previously successful experience—lots of it. The intuition of a master is powerful, whereas for novices, it’s limited.
o	Readiness to change: A client’s ability to engage in flow depends on his or her stage of change. The coach must be cognizant of the client’s readiness to change and adjust the approach accordingly. Masterful coaches do not push clients through the stages of change; rather, they draw clients out by honoring the needs of the moment.
o	Emotional intelligence: As defined by Daniel Goleman (1998), emotional intelligence is the ability to “recognize our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” In the coaching conversation, the competencies that contribute to emotional intelligence are necessary for intuition and use it for positive outcomes; this is an essential part of the empathy that contributes to relational flow.
o	Relational competence: In the generative moment, the dance is a collaboration between two connected people. From relational cultural theory (Jordan, Walker, & Hartling, 2004; Walker & Rosen, 2004), we know that growth through connection, rather than separation, leads to healthy functioning. In deep connection with their coaches, clients feel more vital, empowered, clear, worthy, and driven toward more connection with others (Moore et al., 2005).
Hall and Duvall (2005) conclude:
The coach dances with a client to facilitate the unleashing of potentials and the experience of change. The dialogue dance creates motivation and energy in the player or the client. The dance creates readiness for change, the power to change, and the leverage for change. In this dance, new frames of mind are co-created for facilitating that change. The dialogue is a dance around support, celebration, accountability, fun, and actualizing potential. It’s a dance for enabling dreams to come true. Do you want to dance? (p. 6)
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