A Year of MPD Coaching...

Hello, friends!

There's an old adage that those who can, do, and those who can't, coach. Apparently, I'm not very good at doing much because for as long as I can remember, I've been a coach.

Coaching is one of those things that comes naturally to me. I'm sure it's a combination of my personality, my passions, and maybe even a gifting or two. I was talking with my small group at church a few weeks back and we were talking about our purposes in life. Our purpose is who God made us to be, regardless of our vocation. For me, what really jumped out is that I think I'm here to coach. What I love, more than anything else, is helping you get to where you want to go. I'd like to think that my personality lends itself well to coaching; I don't get too high or two low and am always looking for ways of improvement. I love thinking through game plans and I love empowerment. This year, as part of my new role, I've had the pleasure of coaching somewhere around a dozen staff in various MPD ventures and it has been a joy seeing folk grow in their MPD.

Empowerment is a big part of my coaching style. What I want more than anything else is to help YOU get to where YOU want to go. Of course, I have my preferences and I'd like to think that I have some knowledge and skill, especially in MPD. But for me, it's more important that you own where you're going than me telling you the best place to go. I don't know if that makes me a good coach or not, but it seems like folk appreciate the sense of agency.

As I'm finishing up a year of coaching, I'm so thankful for the staff who I've had the pleasure of coaching and the strides that they've made in their MPD. One of the things that I ask staff to do in each our weekly calls is for them to rate their MPD work over the past week on a scale from 1-10. At the beginning of the year, staff consistently putting their work in the 4-6 range. Staff were doing some work but weren't particularly proud of it and they knew there weren't doing as much as they could. These past few weeks, all scores have consistently been in the 8-10 range. I even had one staff give himself a "6" and I made him change it to a "9" because he was selling himself short.

Honestly, I have no idea if I'm a good MPD coach or not. Staff seem to be responding well and I think I'm helping but it's mostly anecdotal, but I'd like to think that I'm making an impact. After next week, I'll take a few weeks off of coaching specifically to get ready for the next year of MPD coaching. Then, I'll get a chance to re-evaluate and hope that I can make things just a little bit better. After all, what kind of coach would I be if I couldn't coach myself?

Have an excellent day!

~Adam