March 3, 2008

Next Conversation

I’ve been ‘revealing’ coaching in these essays. Coaches are a strange breed. We spend our time learning what we do that works, because that’s one thing we don’t fully understand. Not all the time, because we do coach and the rest is marketing.

One of the things we see is that every client is different. One of my clients, like my wife, just needs to know that I’m present as a coach. Then she does everything that she needs a coach for – my presence is her coaching. Others keep wanting answers and have to be encouraged that they can do it. Others need suggestions that they may or may not take. Others need me to be a wall, holding them ongoingly accountable.

But there is one thing that they all need and respond to, something that they don’t get anywhere else. And that is listening. Not hearing. Hearing is a sense; listening is an art. Listening establishes partnership, being together, team… It’s magic

In order to listen, you have to simultaneously get out of the way and be totally alert. The only way to practice listening is to be constantly aware of when you’re not.

The easiest way to practice is repetition, saying back what you heard. This isn’t as easy as it sounds and sometimes produces astounding results…Because we rarely are aware of what we say, so hearing our words coming back can be astounding.

Useful Quotes

Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don't have to do anything else. We don't have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.
Margaret J. Wheatley

To learn through listening, practice it naively and actively. Naively means that you listen openly, ready to learn something, as opposed to listening defensively, ready to rebut. Listening actively means you acknowledge what you heard and act accordingly.
Betsy Sanders

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.
Andre Gide

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
Ernest Hemingway

Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.
Sue Patton Thoele

Creative Corner

Michael Lipp

I wasn’t listening

Sure I heard your words
How could you think I didn’t?
But I wasn’t listening
I did not hear who you were being
when you spoke.
I did not hear your history,
I only heard your words

I mostly only hear your words

I think I know you

So I heard my memory of you

Or someone who spoke like you

I did not listen

I only heard my past

 I have five blogs:

Creating Today - A daily journal on creativity
Contributing Coaching - Creating New Futures
Blogging for the Reading - Making a Difference in how we Create
Michael's Articles - articles that don't fit anywhere else.
Michaels Poetry - Words From My Fingers

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