Coaching conversations – The intention to give attention

| March 25, 2014

In our busy lives it is rare that we take the time to engage meaningfully with each other at the workplace and at home. Organisational coach Clive Leach says that being present and suspending our own agenda and needs for a few minutes is an act of kindness that has benefits for both giver and receiver.

When was the last time you felt really listened to?  When was the last time you were really present with someone and gave them your full attention?

In the workplace, school and home we are often so busy juggling our own agendas, getting our own needs met, having one eye on the social media and the other on the phone or email that it’s hardly surprising that we rarely get to meaningfully engage with each other any more.

This can have a detrimental effect on our ability to build PERMA – Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment, and ultimately this impacts on the well-being, resilience and capacity to flourish of ourselves and those around us.

We see the impact everywhere in both adults and young people – those trying to be their best but finding it hard to sustain high performance or those languishing and disengaged – either way unsure of where to turn or who to turn to for support.

I am regularly in workplaces and learning environments where people are not really engaging, and even when they are the focus is often on what is going wrong rather than right, the problems rather than solutions, the barriers rather than opportunities, the deficits as opposed to the strengths and advising or telling people what to do rather than giving them space to reach their own conclusions.

But as an organisational coach I get to introduce leaders, executives, managers, employees, teachers, students and parents to the idea of ‘coaching conversations’. It’s not about training people to become ‘coaches’ as such. It’s more about raising awareness of the enormous benefits to ourselves and others when we can learn to be more present with people, to suspend our own agenda and needs for a few minutes and make a shift from telling to asking. Creating a space where we can help the other person to explore ‘what’s working well’, encourage imagination of preferred futures, help gain a more realistic sense of perspective on what is going on at the moment and build their hope through generating goals, self-belief and pathways thinking.

Using a simple model called GROW developed by Sir John Whitmore, people can be helped to support others by structuring solution-focused conversations that help to set Goals (G), evaluate the current Reality (R), explore Options to think, feel or behave differently (O) and commit to action for a Way Forward (W).

Numerous coaching studies provide testimony to the efficacy of the GROW model in enhancing goal striving, well-being, workplace well-being, resilience and hope in adults and young people with resulting benefits for organisational performance and academic success. Coaching Conversations can potentially prevent people from slipping into distress and can assist those who are doing well to keep it up and do even better.

But what’s in it for the ‘coach’ or the person providing the space, actively listening, encouraging and asking the questions?

Two things – firstly offering to be present with someone by providing a coaching conversation is like an act of kindness in itself and we know that acts of kindness have benefits for both the giver and receiver in terms of positivity, engagement, strengthening relationships and building meaning in life.

Also I would argue that facilitating a coaching conversation is an example of being mindful and in the moment. Research tells us that mindfulness activity has enormous benefits for our own mental and physical health and well-being.

So acting upon the intention to give our attention through coaching conversations really is a win-win way to build PERMA in others and ourselves.

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0 Comments

  1. chrisan

    November 6, 2014 at 12:26 pm

    Positive Emotion

    For correct decision making, you must cultivate discipline for ‘mind stilling’ concentration for perfection. Life is neither a midsummer night’s dream nor a comedy of errors greet it with smile live with grace. Believe in yourself! If don’t, who else. Columbus discovered new world had no map or charts. Einstein developed theory of relatively had no computers. Uncanny ability to consciously access parts of your brain that you haven’t been able to all your life.