Interview with Gary Collins

From Christian Coaching Center, July 6, 2009

Editor’s Note: If you have been around the coaching scene for any length of time, Gary Collins needs little introduction. Gary is a prolific writer and speaker, with some 55 books to his name. Probably his best known work is Christian Coaching, which in many Christian circles put coaching on the map. Intrepid reporter (I’ve always wanted to say that) Jerome Daley caught up with Gary for a recent and enlightening perspective on the development of our profession.

JD: Well Gary, you have been such a pioneer in the people-helping profession…as you see it, how it how did life coaching get started?

GC: I picked up a book once called, How Coaching Works, written by some British people in Brazil. They were saying that the term really began in Hungary where they used to build stagecoaches to get people from where they were to where they wanted to be. And I have used that as the basis of my definition of coaching.

They have a whole chapter that talks about the foundations of life coaching through the years. Very interesting, because what they are saying is what I have picked up in my experience of being coached and learning. Sure, coaching as we know it now probably got started in the business world; but they argue that the foundation was laid the 1970’s when a guy named Tim Galloway wrote a book called The Inner Game of Tennis. He talked about how people act one way on the outside but are so impacted with the things on the inside.

They also suggest that much of coaching was shaped by some of the psychology movements in the sixties and seventies on the west coast. Consider the Esalen Institute with folks like Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, whose methods seem to form the basis of contemporary coaching. Many of these people were very much into the human potential movement, saying we’ve got the ability within us to solve our own problems, to shape our own destinies. Nothing Christian about this, of course, and some of that was influenced by Eastern philosophy.

JD: Contrasting some of these roots with our Christian values, how did coaching make the leap and become something that we began to embrace as Christians and find to be so powerful for people development?

GC: I have struggled with the same question in the counseling field. I think we began to see that even though we didn’t agree with all the foundations, there was something happening through coaching, methods that coaches were using, and the effectiveness of some of the tools..
You mentioned my psychology background. One the things that I struggled with as a student was, How do the things I am learning in Psychology apply to the church? I’m sure some people who came along asked, How does this coaching stuff that we are studying apply to the church and Christians? And then they started experiencing it or doing it.

You know Jane Creswell… Jane really believed that coaching could have a big influence on the company where she worked. Jane is a committed Christian, but she wasn’t doing anything Christian at IBM. She tells a phenomenal story about convincing her boss to let Jane coach. The boss gave the permission to be a coach at IBM, provided she didn’t tell the HR department…because they didn’t want anything new or radical coming out. So Jane started doing this coaching, her clients started to change and people started hearing about it. Then the productivity of their division went up, and they started earning more money. Soon they were able to add more coaching. When Jane left, I think she said they had about 300 full time coaches working for the company. And it came because of a Christian who saw the value of this.

Jane is now very much interested in how this works in churches. So some of this comes from quiet individuals tucked away who push the advancement of things and no one really knows about them, until suddenly people realize, Hey! We’ve got something valuable in front of us right now.

JD: So on a more personal level for you, Gary, how did you begin to recognize a potential in the realm of coaching while you were primarily a counselor? What did you see that attracted you?

GC: I was trained in psychology and counseling, but most of my passion and interest was in teaching. I was a professor and still am…so I found a lot of my fulfillment out of walking with students. I like the term “journeying” alongside them.

I used to meet with a young pastor from Willow Creek Church, not far from where I live. We used to get together for breakfast once a month. One day he said, “Gary,” (This is before anyone had heard about coaches.) “I don’t need a Father; I have a great dad. And I don’t need a counselor; if I need a counselor, I will pay for one. I need someone who has been on the journey longer—to just walk with me, to help me when I come to the choice points, to help me jump over the pot holes and keep me from falling in.”

He wasn’t looking for a mentor. How could I mentor him? He was a pastor, and I wasn’t a pastor. He wanted someone to walk with, and I found myself right from the beginning doing this. It was part of my DNA, I think, and I still do this. I spend a lot of my time walking with younger, emerging leaders. I tell people sometimes that my spiritual gift is “hanging out.” We just got together and talked about life, and I think it was from that, more than from counseling, that I got into coaching.

I got there in a bigger way when I turned an age I didn’t want to turn. I turned 60 and thought I was becoming decrepit and that I might not be able to connect with the younger generation anymore…which I found is ridiculous, of course.

A coach helped me recognize this: He was a former student who said, “For a birthday present let me do with you what I do with my business leaders.” He never mentioned coaching once. It wasn’t that long ago, but nobody was using the word coaching. He asked me about my gifts; he asked me what God had blessed in my life; he asked me about my aspirations, my hopes, my strengths, and all that sort of stuff. Asked me what I hoped to do with the years that are ahead. I began to see that whatever age you are, that is the best time in life. This guy really helped me get a perspective on where I was and where I could go..

It was only later, as I was reading about it, that I began to see he was coaching me…without ever using the word. I guess I felt a permission to move from counseling stuff into more of the coaching approach.

Short story: I was the co-founder of AACC (American Association of Christian Counselors), and it was time for me to move on. I gave my last talk about ten years ago. In the talk I drew a circle with three parts. I said, “Here is what we need to be thinking about as we come into a new century. We need to be looking at therapy that is very important; we also need to be looking at spiritual formation which is very important; and we need to be looking at something called coaching. I am sure that this was the first time they had ever heard about it at AACC.

After the talk I had lunch with a couple of friends who said “Gary, you have got to write a book on coaching.” I can’t remember my response but it probably was something like “That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard; I don’t know anything about it.”?So off I went and started reading about it. I started taking courses on it, and I started working with another coach. The more I got into it, the more enthusiastic I got about it.

JD: Do you still feel that same enthusiasm today?
GC: Yeah, I really do. But here again, I like the journeying better. I have a coaching practice, but one of the things I enjoy more is working with organizations. Here’s an example.

Campus Crusade for Christ in Canada contacted me several years ago, and said they wanted to develop leaders in the organization. They had read my coaching book, including the sections about coaching and leadership. They had concluded that one of the best ways for people to lead is to learn coaching principles and to lead through coaching. I was very interested in that, so I worked with them for a year and a half, and we developed a program for training leaders to be coaches. Our coach client/leaders started leading in entirely different ways. Now, I don’t want to sound like we revolutionized the whole organization because we didn’t. They had some leadership changes at the top; the new leader came in and was interested in coaching, but during the transition, it fell by the wayside. But they are still doing it, and now they have adapted coaching in Campus Crusade in the US.

JD: If there were one last nugget that you would like to leave with folks who are learning the skill of coaching, what would that be?
GC: To keep flexible, to keep learning. I know so many people who get in a rut. When you teach, you have to be aware of what is going on and stay fresh. Maybe you have a client who is in business, and you don’t know much about business…but you are flexible and willing to learn. You can connect with a 13-year-old in the same way you connect with a 21-year-old, by being flexible. We live in a radically changing world, and no one can keep up; but if we keep that openness, then God can teach us new lessons all the time. I think that God in his wisdom has put us in the world in one of the most exciting times in history. Because so much is changing, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I want to make the best of the journey while I am here.