The secret is direct communication
Nothing seems to trip up coaches like how to share an observation with their client. How do I know I’m not judging or leading the client? What if my client reacts negatively to what I shared?
What if the client is offended or drops me as their coach?
These are all understandable concerns. After all we learn that coaching is not judging, advising or sharing your opinions. We rely on listening and asking the powerful question that will give the client that sought-after ah ha moment.
And while questioning is indeed an effective core competency, so is direct communication.
And before you even say it here, direct communication is not being blunt, rude, directive or parental.
What Direct Communication is
According to the International Coach Federation, Direct Communication is described as the “ability to communicate effectively during coaching sessions, and to use language that has the greatest positive impact on the client.”
But what does this look like?
Direct communication skills are everything other than asking questions. It’s central to that conversational flow that every coach strives for while adding value to the client.
According to Carly Andersen, MCC, direct communication includes “reframing and articulating in a way that helps the client to understand from another perspective what they want or are uncertain about.” This includes sharing your intuitions, observations, feedback and wonderings.
It is an opportunity for us to share what we are seeing or noticing without judgment, or opinion, without driving the agenda or being attached to being right.
We share what we are noticing for one reason only – to help our client to see their situation from another perspective, to cause awareness and new possibilities.
This requires the coach to check in with him or herself to ensure they are do not have an agenda other than moving the client forward. There is no attachment to what we think is happening, to being right, or to have the client agreeing with us. Our role as the coach is to be an impartial sounding board, an objective observer. We remain neutral (not emotionally invested) with no agenda other than supporting the client’s agenda.
Our fears about using direct communication
We often think direct communication is ‘telling’ the client something they don’t want to hear or being too blunt we risk harming the relationship. Instead, we often avoid or skirt around what see and could be exactly the client needs to consider.
No matter how your client responds to your observation, you will learn more about your client as a person and more about how to coach them. Even if your observation does not ring true for your client, you will likely be creating awareness in some way and moving the conversation forward.
As Marion Franklin, MCC and author of The Heart of Laser-focused Coaching says, “The MOST important thing to remember is to soften our delivery of an observation not the message. The message remains the same. It’s all in how the coach delivers what they are sensing, seeing or hearing.”
This requires learning new language that is neutral and least likely to provoke defensiveness.
First you want to take the word ‘you’ out of your observation and share it in a more general sense. And always end your observation with a wide-open question – leaving your client with the sense that this is only an idea to consider not advice or direction.
Here’s an example:
Client: “I’m have a problem with taking money for my coaching. I just started and don’t have much training. Since I don’t really know what I’m doing, I feel like it would be wrong to charge a fee.”
Coach: It seems there is a feeling of not being genuine, perhaps somewhat like an imposter, what do you think of that?
As you can see from the above example, this observation is provocative, that is, its intention is to provoke new insight or understanding. As Thomas Leonard, the founder of professional coaching wrote in the first of his The 15 Certified Coach Proficiencies:
- Engages in provocative conversations.
Coaching sessions are generally short. By hearing what the client is saying and not saying, by questioning what you hear, by asking the right questions, pressing for clarity, and by sharing what you know and how you feel, provocative conversations can occur within minutes, not months.
But coaches have a tendency to fear being too provocative and ‘dilute the message instead of softening the delivery’ and instead say something like:
- What do you need to feel better? (if they knew they wouldn’t find this a problem.)
- How does that make you feel? (Clients likely already expressed this).
- So, I hear you are not feeling entitled to charge for your coaching, how can you change that? (Too soon to go to strategies as there’s no perspective shift yet.)
- Asking for money doesn’t feel right since you don’t have a lot of experience. (Agreeing with the client).
- So, I hear that you are worried about being a new coach since you just finished training and don’t have experience and you aren’t feeling like you have a right to ask for money and … (too wordy – dilutes the message).
- What do you want to get from coaching today? (This is ok but remember this might change during the course of the session).
(Examples adapted from, The Heart of Laser-focused Coaching).
Asking permission to share an observation
The answer to this is ‘it depends’. By entering into a coaching relationship, the client expects the coach to share their thinking with them. To share an observation is a generous use of the coach’s role as an outside observer. If the coach senses there is something going on that’s not being expressed (hesitation, resistance, rapid speech, or disengagement) it is important to share this observation. However, there are times when asking for permission to share a bold or challenging can soften the delivery and not the message. It is important for the coach to ‘own their observation’ offered as a supposition.
Direct communication supports the coach in avoiding leading (trying to get the client to see what you are seeing) which tends to involve leading questions or unintentionally manipulating the conversation with the hope that the client discovers on his own what you are already seeing.
Take the risk. Get accustomed to trusting your gut and the coaching process. It will turn a good coach into a great coach.
Resources
Why direct communication is an essential coaching competency
Carly Anderson, MCC
https://carlyanderson.com/why-direct-communication-is-an-essential-coaching-competency
Direct Communication
Marion Franklin, MCC
https://certifiedcoachblog.typepad.com/blog/2011/03/direct-communication.html
ICF Core Competency: Direct Communication.
Marilyn O’Hearne, MCC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1PoN4aeWac
Direct Communication: Chapter 7 of the Decoding The Coaching Genome by Rafael Boker
https://www.amazon.com/Direct-Communication-Chapter-Decoding-Coaching-ebook/dp/B0762BP69V/ref=sr_1_3
