I’ve just returned from a coaching workshop given by Nancy Kline, who is one of my coaching heroes, particularly influential for her Time to Think approach. What Nancy writes about – and, based on tonight’s experience – also exemplifies, is a full coaching presence in the service of the client: not so much clever questions, or insightful feedback, or focusing on goal attainment and the steps towards it… but pure unadulterated listening!
Or, as Nancy terms it, attention: not listening to retort and analyse, but listening to ignite: ignite the person’s own mind and resourcefulness, listening as a point of pure interest not just in what is being said, but also in what is just about to be said, listening as an act of witnessing someone else’s thought creation.
And, of course, it’s the hardest thing to do… or rather, it feels the most unnatural thing to do, to start with, and then one sort of settles into it and starts by giving full attention to another human being, and then something beautiful happens… we bear witness to another person’s full living potential.
This is one of the concepts that first attracted me to coaching, and made it my life’s calling, and I feel truly privileged to have seen Nancy embody it so much in her workshop. Here was a woman of slight stature and rather quiet voice who held the rapt attention of a room full of coaches for an unblinking (on my part, at least) two hours!
By being present and in rapt attention of someone else’s journey, we make sure they take that journey as seriously and thoughtfully as they possibly can, safe in the knowledge that they won’t be interrupted, or fobbed away with glib responses. And we can do that not just in a coaching relationship, but in all other human – and I guess non-human – relationships as well.
It reminded me of a definition of marriage I once heard in a film: bearing witness to someone else’s life journey. Which is, I guess, the greatest compliment and expression of love we can give to another human being.
