I tried something new last week. Given all that I had written here about the positives of the lack of eye contact in virtual and walking coaching, I made an in-the-moment decision to stand next to my coachee when we were face to face. So once again, no eye contact.
The results were amazing. Jane, my coachee, had a breakthrough on a subject that had been giving her weeks of sleepless nights.
She credits the fact that she could get right into her own space to think, without needing to be “polite” and look me in the eyes, and without wondering how her coach might be judging her (not that I would, but if that is in our coachee’s minds, it’s hard for them to be completely honest with themselves). She disappeared into her own world to solve her issue.
Yes I was still there, as her sounding board, but to her, it was as though I was hardly there. She did all the hard work – I just needed to provide a little nudge every now and again.
Those nudges took a few different forms:
- paraphrasing what she had said, so that she could decide whether that was really what she meant
- asking her where she was and where she needed to go next
- and, most powerfully, stepping backwards away from the problem, and then forwards towards the problem as a metaphor of what she had actually said.
It helped that we were standing to do our coaching. Sitting side by side might have been a little awkward, but standing side by side enabled us to look at the issue together as though it were in front of us. And it allowed us to use that movement backwards and forwards with ease. Most importantly though, it allowed Jane to look into a space that broke her out of her stuck-ness.
Listen to Jane’s perspective in her own words.
So next time I coach face-to-face, I shall stand side by side with my coachee, to replicate the lack of eye contact that appears to be so powerful for deep thinking.
I’d love to hear your experiences.
I love reading your blogs, Clare! They are always so insightful. In my experiences as a supervisor and career counselor, I have also found that standing side be side with a direct report or counselee puts you on equal footing, so they don’t feel that you are talking down to them.
Thanks Keith. One of my colleagues even stands close to a wall – facing it side by side. She notices that it creates a feeling of confidentiality. Interesting.