Coaching & Sourdough

The sourdough apple bread dough is “proofing” in a Philadelphia kitchen. Soon, from the oven, it will sweetly cinnamony fragrance the whole home.

During the early weeks of the first COVID-19 “stay-at-home” period in North America, 10 or so of us were invited and came together on Faceook and Zoom in the group “Let’s make bread together.” We got to know one another a bit, listened carefully to the instructions, explored new territory, followed the lead of a skillful guide, and courageously experimented in ways only one of us had before – into the land of sourdough!

Because two of us, Johanna and Viv, had met in an Integral Coaching Canada certification program, we got together, after the period during which we grew our starter and baked our bread, to explore how sourdough is like coaching. Here’s what we played with.

For some of us, it was a whole new adventure while others were simply brushing up our baking skills. But, regardless, we all had “beginner’s mind” – being open to the present experience, as we learned something new and settled into this stretch goal. Whether you’ve engaged a coach before or are brand new to coaching, you’ll likely discover something new.

And, with integral coaching’s emphasis on development, you’re probably pressing up against at least one pressure point where you encounter resistance and/ or frustration. In those places, an incremental practice can helps us achieve our goals. With sourdough, some of those inflection points took the forms of a big enough bowl, using metric or imperial measures, and having a thermometer to test the doneness of the bread. With coaching, equivalents might include the magnitude of one’s coaching topic, the time you dedicate to field work, the strength of one’s support system, and the coachee’s assessment of when they’ve accomplished their hopes from the coaching engagement.

Some of us were in this sourdough cohort because our grocery stores were out of yeast and, in some cases, good bread was in short supply, too. The shortages required us to glean what we could. One part of the sourdough process, growing the starter, involves actively catching wild yeast from the environment. We joked about the yeasts differing in the beer drinker’s and the wine lover’s homes. Integral coaching takes stock of the coachee’s whole self in relation to the coaching topic and, then, works with the unique strengths and areas for growth in service to the coachee’s goals.

The starter is fed into the dough as leaven (or levain) for rise, flavor, and texture. A parallel is cultivating our associations from the community available to us. Our sourdough cohort could have each learned to make sourdough on our own without joining together. But, with people who inspire, encourage, and empower us to change in the ways we wish to be or do, we gain focus, discipline, guidance, encouragment, new and fresh ideas, different perspectives, etc.  In a similar way, we can embark on self-development on our own. But coaching provides all those mutual blessings along with a companion who hears our deep longings and walks with us into realizing them. A coach is not only one such supportive associate but also one who can help us grow a rich, yeasty self capable of cultivating a community of support.

In both breadmaking and coaching, any invitation can be altered so that it fits well or as well as possible. With grocery shelves empty of most flour, one of us worked with pastry flour, which has far less protein and would offer less rise; meanwhile, others had premier bread flour. Water was to be 85-95 degrees Fahrenheit, I think, “the temperature of the warm sun.” But is that sun in Ottawa in March or Mumbai in April? With integral coaching, the coach and coachee co-create the coaching program comprised of the ingredients of a coaching topic, developmental objectives, self-observation exercise, and developmental practices. Depending on the coachee’s desired outcomes, resources, and involvement with the coaching program, the characteristics of the ingredients are flexible. But those components remain the  as common to integral coaching as do flour, water, and seasoning in bread.

Two experiences remain so viscerally real to this day: the first feel of starter mixed with flour for dough and the first offer to a coachee as an integral coach. What utterly surprising, luscious, and silky warmth was common to both! While I’ve made bread before, the young sourdough enfolded and kissed my fingers and palms in a way I’ve not known. The first coaching offer was a courageous leap for both of us, which the coachee embraced enthusiastically. The joy and welcome of both was tangible. Subtle textures are common to both sourdough and coaching, too, as is a fuller use of all our senses. Pinching in salt feels a bit like tenderly feeling for the edge of a coachee’s current understanding. Seeking to give words to the aroma of the bread is as nuanced as hearing with the body-mind-heart in coaching. A larger knowing than simple cognition is required in both: sensory, spiritual, emotional, interpersonal.

Those criteria and others result in both breadmaking and coaching taking their own paces, moving in their own time. The strength of the starter and the heat of the environment impact the rise of the dough. In the same way, the ability of the coach to meet the coachee, right where the coachee needs to be now and hopes to soon be, can either speed or slow growth. Coach and coachee co-create a coaching program custom-tailored to those needs. One of our ovens leaks heat so the baking time needed to adjust accordingly. In the same way, a coachee may need to make more time in their daily life to optimize the coaching relationship depending on other aspects of their life. Both partners require patience, care, and respect, as the coach adjusts to the coachee’s pace and rhythm.

Schedules were a critical element in our sourdough experiments. Most people were feeding our starters in the morning but some switched to evening feedings. These differences were partly due to our environments and others in our households; our time zones or daily preferences; and the likelihood of success based on those and various other factors. At what time of the day is the coachee most fresh to attend to that which matters deeply to them? How does that fit with the time zone of the coach? Where can a coachee make private, confidential space? Those criteria come into play in a coaching relationship and program. And more!

And the “more” includes having fun! After all, sourdough is not just about flour, water, and salt and coaching is not all work. We’ve added in chocolate, apples, assorted nuts – to the sourdough, that is. And laughter, dance, spaciousness, and story to the coaching. In fact, integral coaching works with two narratives which can be flavored with ingredients. They may come from the coachee’s daily life or be, until now, foreign. A metaphor of one’s current way of being, with its gifts and limitations, is helped to progress into a another metaphor for a new way of being – one with a larger, more complex, fuller range of choices.

With sourdough as with a coaching exercise, if it doesn’t work, that’s OK! You tried and experimented and that is better than nothing, especially when we savor the learning from that exercise and from the full coaching program. The number of us who were nervous the day we baked our bread was astonishing. Is the starter viable? How do I cut the top to allow for expansion? What do I do if I don’t have a dutch overn in which to bake the loaf? But, voila’! Every single loaf tasted delicious! Every single one!

And, from those tentative beginnings, we’ve branched out into sourdough cookies, biscuits, muffins, brioches, foccacia, pizza, calzone, chappatis, english muffins…

Maybe, you want to branch out through coaching?