7-Azaindoline amides are particularly useful in direct enolization chemistry due to their facilitated enolization in soft Lewis acid/Brønsted base cooperative catalysis. The Cu(I) complex of (R,R)-Ph-BPE, a bis(tetrahydrophosphole)-type chiral bisphosphine ligand, exhibits consistently high catalytic performance and stereoselectivity irrespective of the nature of the α-substituent of the amides. Unexpectedly, however, alkyl-substituted bis(tetrahydrophosphole)-type ligands have substantially inferior catalytic performance. Evaluation of the optimized structures of Cu(I)/amide and Cu(I)/enolate complexes provided clues to dissecting the diverted reaction outcomes.