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Transcript of Training Call
 (from which transcript was
crafted)
Coaching Proficiencies
Proficiency #9 - Communicates Cleanly
March 27, 2002 - 9:00 p.m. EST
Thomas Leonard, Session Leader
TJL: Welcome to the call; this is Thomas Leonard with Susan Austin.
We're leading the proficiencies call; let's get started. I'll begin by reading the blurb
(Thomas reads the blurb). We're talking about an absence of stuff in your communication
style. A couple categories Susan and I talked about. One of the categories of clean
communication is called the 'buffer'. It seems like it's good thing to do, but it blocks
the relating between the client. Part of the reason the client has hired the coach is for
their opinions and the free communication.
Susan: I'd like to ask a question. I've just realized that I'm a
judgmental person - are you telling me I should give that up?
TJL: You want to clean it up so you aren't being vicious or critical or
hypersensitive, but we're humans - we're going to have opinions.
Susan: Thank you.
TJL: It sounds so evolved; I've never met one person who's trying to be
non-judgmental and can have a casual conversation.
Gail: I have a way of explaining this that might be helpful - what
separates us from the other species is our ability to evaluate things. If we try to be
non-judgmental, we lose that ability.
TJL: Again, there's a place you can come from that's totally clean. If
you try to be non-judgmental, it actually forms a buffer between you and the client. They
try to be something they're not and it consumes them.
Susan: What else gets in the way of communication?
TJL: I think being self-referencing - whenever the client says something
and the coach has to be self-referencing; it's actually a need to be the center of
attention.
Susan: And what about coaches who have the need for their client to be
successful?
TJL: We all have that need for the first few years. As you become more
successful as a person or as you re-define your success, you actually can relax - you
don't have to make them successful in the first 90 days. Some coaches get a high from
having clients who are successful.
Marie: You touched on something in the beginning - do you mean that
being intentional is being fully present and very focused?
TJL: People that talk about being present generally aren't. there's a
certain type of person that's so committed to being present, and that almost interrupts
the client's ability to communicate. Some folks are so intense, they listen so hard that
it actually interrupts the client's way of thinking. People that tend to use that word
'intend' a lot are using it as a tool, rather than a choice.
Susan: So all this affects your ability to coach well?
TJL: In my opinion, yes. I think it's appropriate to communicate the
normal range of emotions, rather than the 'clean room' type of communication that most
coaching schools tend to advocate. There are a couple coaches I know are quote machines.
What happens is that they're taking packaged pieces of wisdom and plopping them in front
of the client to show how wise they are. It actually interrupts and intrudes on the
client's energy.
Some other things coaches do is what I call the 'half duplex' communication. It's when
really only one person can talk at a time. For some coaches, they can't recognize how much
you've heard - they'll keep talking far beyond the point at which the client actually got
it. Another example is when a coach is listening and grab onto something the client says
and automatically begin preparing their response and missed the rest of what the client
says.
XXX: Wow - that's hitting me. It's like if I don't hold onto it, I'm
afraid I'll miss it.
TJL: That's why God made pencils. I try to make notes while I'm still
listening to the client. There's also another one called 'pushing' - when we're right,
we're right. Unfortunately, the 15th coaching proficiency is about respecting the client's
humanity. I know we've all done this at some time - the level of correctness was more
important than the client's humanity.
Valerie: This is like when medical students go to school, and get the
encyclopedia of all those pathologies, and they say, 'Oh my gosh, I have tuberculosis.'
XXX: What's left to do in a coaching call, now that we can't do all of
those? (laugh)
XXX: Can we breathe at least? (laugh)
TJL: There's a point at which you do communicate your bias or your
preference if you want the coaching to be clean. Actually, we have a coach and a client -
I'd be the host of this, and we'll just see how many things we can pick apart. We can all
be Susan Austin, if you want. Do we have a coach and a client that wants to play?
Rob: I'll be the coach for whatever we're doing.
TJL: Okay, I'll be your client, how about that?
Susan: I'll be the client, how about that?
TJL: Okay, Susan pick anything - a problem, a goal, whatever - and we
want to see the communication.
Susan: Okay, I work for this guy - -
TJL: Don't go there! (laugh)
Susan: I have been in coach training for a long time - actually, I've
been a coach for about a year, but I'm not coaching anyone.
Rob: Is doubting something you do when you're about to do something?
TJL: Rob, you're actually interrogating her, so you'll want to back off
and let her talk for a while and she'll actually work on the direction.
Susan: I was really interested in this at first, but then I got scared,
and dropped all my classes. I thought it was a scam and haven't been able to get back on
the horse.
Rob: So Susan, how can I help here?
Susan: I just want someone to tell me that what I'm experiencing is okay
and normal.
Rob: Can you tell me more about what you're experiencing?
Susan: I was very confident when I first started, but then started
losing confidence in my ability to coach, and pulled back from it. I have guilt and am
eating myself up with that.
Rob: I can certainly relate to starting something and then losing my
confidence. So Susan, where would you like to go now?
Susan: I think what I want - the tendency for me is to want to get back
on the horse, and I want to really not get back on the horse.
TJL: Rob, I want to point out a couple of things in just a second. When
Susan said she needs to feel it's okay to not get back on the horse, where did you go in
your head?
Rob: I didn't understand where she was, but I wanted to be able to say
that it was okay.
TJL: Was it okay in your opinion that she stay off the horse?
Rob: I think so.
TJL: Wouldn't that be a form of self-referencing?
Rob: Yes it would.
TJL: It may be accurate, but not very useful. In terms of how to serve
her, what was she looking for?
Rob: Permission to not get back on the horse.
TJL: It's okay to encourage the client to do nothing.
Rob: Can you give me a concrete example on that?
TJL: Sure; Susan, just repeat what you said to Rob.
Susan: I have a tendency to get back on the horse, and I don't want to
do that, I want to be on the ground.
TJL: Is it okay to be on the ground?
Susan: That's a good question; I'd like to say yes, but there's a part
of me that thinks I should be on the horse.
TJL: I'd just say I'm on vacation, if I were you.
Susan: Okay; I can do that, but it feels like the easy out.
TJL: Easy is bad then?
Susan: That's a good point. If I'm not struggling and working for it,
it's bad then. When I first found coaching, I could've sworn that's the horse I was meant
to ride.
TJL: Some people get excited about coaching, but are never meant to have
clients, but maybe would be perfect to work in the industry, work for a coaching company.
Let's debrief; Susan and Rob, you're off the hook - it's too hard to concentrate! What
might get in the way of your communicating, based on what we've talked about so far?
Bob: I liked the way you used silence as part of your communication.
Yes, people don't need as much prompting as one might think. I was always afraid if there
was silence, they would tell me I was fired, so I used to keep talking. It really puts the
pressure on her to do the work. Who else?
Gail: when you were talking about trying to identify with the client, I
really saw myself in that one.
TJL: It's hard not to say that, but when the person is in the middle of
their stuff, it's an interruption; it's competitive. Maybe after she's communicated more
out of her system, then you can share more. You're then not competing with her, you're
reinforcing the fact. I think what's most important is not to use it to artificially bond
with the client; in the meantime, it's just an interruption.
Gail: I really liked what you had to say about intentions being used as
a tool, rather than coming from a source of joy.
TJL: It kind of gets in the way of the client because there's a wall
there.
Gail: What I'm getting from this is that if we just communicate
authentically, we communicate pretty cleanly.
TJL: That's another problem word, the word 'authentic'. You is who you
is, but to talk about authenticity is another buffer.
Gail: It's like 'being present'.
TJL: If you've got to be that, then maybe you're not being yourself. To
focus on authenticity, to me, ends up being a performance. I often suggest folks lose the
word from the lexicon and just go be themselves.
Gail: Okay, I can handle that. It takes a lot of pressure off of us if
we can just be ourselves.
TJL: 'Who you are' is another one of the jargon terms; if you use the
term 'be yourself', that's clean. I'm not trying to be a jerk here.
Gail: I know you're not.
Rob: I'm not understanding the distinction between 'be yourself' and 'be
who you are'. Be yourself is just kind of relaxing?
TJL: Yes. Be yourself is who you are at this very moment, where 'be who
you are' assumes pressure.
Valerie: I'm getting an image of having a window, and it's the way for
the window to show up more transparently.
TJL: I think we should use the words to describe that as a byproduct.
One of my goals in life is to be transparent, so that what ever comes through me doesn't
affect me. There's no reaction, there's no nothing; I'm just empty. The whole 'absence of'
course is about that - transparency is the absence of anything. I think so much of life
can be a byproduct - being nonjudgmental is a byproduct, for example, but people are using
them as a tool rather than just having them occur.
Marie: To make an observation, one thing I noticed was that the
communication felt very clean although you were pretty straight forward; it felt neutral.
TJL: And that may be what people who are trying to be non-judgmental are
going after?
Marie: Clearly, you have something to share, but how did you get to the
place of not have a judgment about that?
TJL: I actively enjoy getting rid of parts of myself that aren't nice. I
have no need whatsoever that you believe any shred of what I say; there's no pressure to
accept.
Susan: How did you create that muscle?
TJL: Are you saying that you have a need for clients to accept what you
say?
Susan: No, I can hear it in your voice - what is it that you're doing
that has you come across so cleanly?
TJL: What are you doing that has it not coming across that way? I am
only eager to help; they are much more important than the accuracy or the goodness of my
coaching.
XXX: Is it a detachment?
TJL: Uh oh, another word! I am so 'detached', therefore I am dead. I
think they're much more important on their worst day than I ever am on my very, very best
day.
Susan: How do you recommend people figure out what's holding them back
as a coach?
TJL: Wow - and we've got 2 minutes for the top of the hour! Seriously,
it's a great question.
XXX: What's coming out for me is that I've been given permission to be
me, but I am enough the way I am. That'll be the ideal coach for whoever I am.
TJL: Again, I think if you think you've got to be in some coaching role,
at some point you're going to realize that you're two folks having a conversation.
XXX: And if it's not good for them, they'll stop using you as a coach.
TJL: Any final comments?
Freda: I really got a lot out of this - the fact that the client on his
worst day is so much more important than my coaching is something to really think about.
TJL: Thank you all; have a good night!
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