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Transcript of Training Call
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crafted)
Coaching Proficiencies
Proficiency #6 - Navigates via Curiosity
March 2, 2002 - 5:00 p.m. EST
Thomas Leonard, Session Leader
TJL: Welcome to the call; who's joined us? (participants check in) .
This is Thomas Leonard, with our gracious host, Susan Austin. Today, we're talking about
the 6th proficiency. We're going to do a number of role plays. If you come on
with an
interrogation style, it just changes the tone f your voice, and folks resist that somehow.
You want to be interested in that client, rather than just being interesting. The official
title is 'navigates via curiosity'. I'll read the introduction we have on this. (Thomas
reads the paragraph). I think maybe a lot of us aren't really curious at all; Dave Buck
mentioned a few weeks ago that he really wasn't a curious person, but
I'd actually like to do a couple of demos. I'd like 2 people to volunteer - one to be the
coach, one to be the client. If you're going to be the client, I want you t share
something intriguing, and if you're the coach, I want you to come from that place of
curiosity. I'll manage the process.
Rob: I'll be the client.
Susan R: I'll be the coach.
Rob: Something I'm just starting is that I've acquired a website for
career coaches. I want it to be part of servicing the unknowns - there are a lot of
missing pieces in that field. I want to be a part of solutions to that. Now that I've
acquired it, I'm not sure about how to go on, but I'm really interested in moving forward.
Susan R: I'm curious, what are the pieces you think needed to be expanded?
Rob: How to have the kind of life that would be great for the person who
has the energy around the work itself, for example.
Susan R: So you want to connect people with their passion?
Rob: That's a large part of it, absolutely. And I think the questions
for doing that may be missing.
Susan R: I wonder, what about this topic attracted you or intrigued you?
Rob: There are a couple of things - it's something I've been intrigued
with for some time. In terms of my own interest, I think the universe was leading me to
this path. I think a new step for me is to try something without knowing where it's going.
Susan R: I hear a lot of excitement in your voice. Is it a revealing
journey for you as well?
Rob: Yes, I think so.
TJL: Let's take a break here for a second. I'd like to hear from the
group first, and I'll be weaving in points along the way. Who wants to start? How about if
I start - Susan, what part of that was curious for you, and what was information
gathering?
Susan R: The beginning. I really wondered about what pieces he thought
was missing.
TJL: Why was that curious for you?
Susan R: I do career coaching, and I think it's interesting that he wants
to provide for people the pieces that are missing from career coaching. I was curious
about what he thought those might be.
TJL: Okay; let's take that piece and look at it for a second. There's a
difference between asking questions for information; the other approach is just to be
curious where there's no need for the information or no real agenda for the information.
Susan R: This is helpful for me; I didn't want to just use the 'curious'
theme.
TJL: There's a lightness, though, that comes with curiosity; you were on
a bit of a hunt. Again, some of us want to be curious to gather more information and be a
better coach, but then there's just being curious with no need or plans for the
information. A couple clues that I heard - I didn't hear any passion in his voice, but you
did. I would've asked, 'So, why the career thing?' rather than jumping into the situation
too quickly.
Susan R: Yeah, that makes a big difference.
TJL: Anybody else want to chip in here?
XXX: I'm finding your remarks fascinating; I'm learning new nuances
about curiosity.
TJL: Some of them are so subtle, it's hard to put words around the
differences.
Judy: I know curiosity comes with no judgment.
TJL: You're asking, how do you keep the judgment out of your questions?
Judy: No.
TJL: I think there's something between you and this client - this other
plane; I can't figure out quite what it is.
Susan A: It's almost like you're coming from a place of innocent
curiosity. When you're curious with a bit of an agenda, it's there.
TJL: Like a child doesn't have enough knowledge to be intentional.
Whenever someone's intentional, it can act as a barrier between the coach and the client.
Curt: I'm really trying to get this distinction here. What happens when
you know the answer inside yourself?
TJL: If you notice a boat in the waves and how it can skip from wave to
wave, it's a bit like that. I don't have to understand what they're saying, (the trough)
to understand what they're saying in general.
Curt: But it makes you feel something when you're getting the answer?
TJL: For me, I don't have a feeling, but maybe there is, though. If I'm
going to be feeling something, it's what they're feeling.
Curt: So you're not feeling anything, you're just accepting the
response.
TJL: Sort of. I'm just the person who wants information, rather than
just wanting information to compile it.
Cut: It's that piece where you said they're just with them; you feel
like you're saying something that they've been trying to say to themselves.
TJL: Good point.
Curt: Good curiosity helps feed inklings and intuition somehow.
TJL: Yes - it's that level of pre-language, if you will, and there's no
use for it yet, so it's clean and pristine at this point.
Susan A: And I think, as coaches, we tend to ask a lot more questions
than any other profession, and sometimes we get confused between being curious and asking
questions. There's a level that's greater than we realized.
Valerie: I was able to hear - I was listening to the coach, and then I
started to listen to the client. When Rob started, I could hear curiosity in his voice,
too, and then it kind of closed down. I just thought that was a really good barometer. If
they're saying something that's too pat, that hits me.
TJL: Okay, let me try it with Rob, so we can see if there's a
difference.
Rob: I thought this was the way I should go and was
fascinated.
TJL: You don't know why people actually do what they do and don't do?
Rob: I think there are people on either end and in the middle, and I
want to figure out to distinguish one from the other.
TJL: Where do you fit in that path?
Rob: I don't know - sometimes I feel right on, and sometimes I feel like
a lost sheep.
TJL: You mentioned that it's calling to you - what's that about?
Rob: It's a feeling on an intuitive level that I might be able to
compile the pieces in a cluster, or add some additional language to the missing pieces
because I've struggled with this myself. It's about service to others and maybe making it
an easier or more satisfying thing than what I experienced.
TJL: I'm not quite sure about your motivation - say it again.
Rob: Bear with me a moment. I feel like there's something in me that I
have to contribute and that would be a vehicle. More importantly, it would be a way for me
to be a part of a new or different community, something about being in relation to a
community or focus.
TJL: Is it like people that find this topic interesting and you want to
distinguish it with them, or people who already know this, you want to hang out with them?
Rob: I want to have more people living and working in their passion.
TJL: I know it's hard to find words. I'll stop on my part - Rob, thanks
for that. A couple of notes - if you notice, I had Rob do most of the work. We didn't get
very far, but he knows the feeling is clear, but just isn't able to articulate it at the
moment. I would then structure the coaching to continually articulate over the next few
sessions before we go much further. My curiosity wasn't satisfied.
Susan A: Are you saying your curiosity needs to be satisfied?
TJL: Good question; I see you got me! (laugh)
Rob: Just to match your feeling, Thomas, I'm very unsatisfied with my
feeling too. I just don't know where this wants to go.
TJL: Yeah Susan, did you hear that? (laugh) Again, there's a certain
resonance of calibration. I'm curious until the truth pops out - not to ferret or dig for
it.
XXX: I hear that you're saying it's not so much about satisfying your
curiosity, but you probably wouldn't put a lot of coaching effort into this until he's
more lined up with this.
TJL: That's correct. I could say, 'how committed
to your project are you?" I could've navigated this project to death, but it isn't
even on the table yet.
Rob: From the receiving end, the questions Thomas and Susan were asking
were very on track - I'm still exploring what this is for me. For me, Thomas' questions
felt like there was no next step in mind. Susan's questions felt like she was building for
the next step. I felt almost a bit of performance anxiety with Susan's questions.
TJL: And yet, what we're trained to do is to move the client forward.
With curiosity, it just goes nowhere for a while.
XXX: I think that's where we've been trained as a coach. I think proving
the value can stop the whole process.
XXX: When you exhibit real curiosity, it relaxes the
clients and allows them to
dig to the deeper truth.
TJL: You may be pointing where the digger should go, but they're doing
the hard work.
XXX: I think it felt like there was more of a partnership in the search,
and I felt like there was some shift in energy from 'Rob has to have answers' to something
more relaxed.
Rob: In most coaching arenas, the coaching Susan and I did was the norm.
Anne: I'm a totally new coach and don't have the toolkit. The tool I do
have is curiosity; when I look at what I do is asking questions in a totally curious
nature. I follow my inklings, even though they may seem daft, but it does elicit the
"what's going on here?" thing.
TJL: I'm wondering how people feel about the whole understanding thing.
Maybe it's about satisfying my curiosity.
Bob: If I heard you correctly earlier, curiosity is judgment free,
correct? I thought I heard in this conversation you were being curious, and the client was
being curious. It's hard to not use question as a substitute for being curious.
TJL: Why do you think that is, Bob?
Bob: I think that's one of those things that comes with our being a
child, but we move it aside as adults. As we grow, we look for results or value.
Travis: One of the distinctions for me is that curiosity isn't a black
or white thing, but being curios about a different set of things.
TJL: Good point; rather than being curious about the obvious set of
things. Is getting my curiosity satisfied the same as understanding?
XXX: If you think of a child, if they get their curiosity satisfied,
they still may not understand things, but it's that their curiosity has been satisfied.
Susan A: Now some of us are going to have an agenda to be curious!
(laugh)
Bob: This is a little like practicing to be spontaneous! (laugh)
Susan R: This whole hour has been a revelation for me about what the term
curious means.
Rob: Is that good?
Susan R: I'll withhold judgment! (laugh)
TJL: Let's talk about some of the benefits. The client gets to look at
different things because the client may wind up looking at areas other than
what they even
thought about.
XXX: Maybe it allows the coach to be a better listener.
XXX: Less pressure for both.
Gail: It's very freeing for anybody involved. It's like a little
exploration with no end in sight.
TJL: Anybody else?
XXX: A little like the difference between pure Science and
Engineering.
The pure Science is really pure curiosity-driven.
XXX: If you're writing, you're creating, and then there's editing. If we
just use the curiosity to generate the stuff, it all gets on the table. I think that might
be part of the satisfaction - its all out there. Then later, you do something - the
building, or whatever.
TJL: Beautifully said.
Travis: I think coaching goes a long way to quickly establishing a
relationship with a client.
TJL: And it's a bonding they almost get nowhere else. It's such an
unusual thing for someone to experience; they don't know what it is, but they love it. I'm
curious now what everybody's relationship is to curiosity.
Rob: I moved from the logistics mindset to being more curious about my
project.
Bob: At this curious stage, perhaps it's where we can get the clearest
and cleanest idea of what our passions are.
TJL: My shift in this whole thing is that for me, curiosity is enough.
If I'm just curious, and that was all I did with the client, that would be enough. Anyone
else?
Anne: I feel clearer about what curiosity is; there's no right answer,
it's just curiosity. It's less manipulative.
Curt: It just feels like a whole area that's been shut out of my life
has been opened up to me. It's play, and we can get money for it! (laugh)
Bob: It feels like an old friend has come back to me.
TJL: Anybody else? Okay. Great call; thank you all very much.
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