Part of my services as Mentor Coach is to listen to coach mentees recorded coaching conversations. The International Coach Federation ICF calls this Mentoring Supervision.
One piece of the puzzle in creating an attractive business or life coaching practice is to deliver high quality coaching. Your clients must experience sustainable results so they’ll feed your referral funnel and tell their sphere of influence about your great coaching!
The only way to know if you’re delivering high quality coaching is to have several, that’s right several, experienced mentor coaches listen to a multiple number of your coach recordings.
Sometimes while listening to a coaches recorded conversation. I sense the coach getting in the way. Working too hard. Trying to do too much.
Instead of giving the client plenty of safe space to do the work, verbalize, contemplate their endgame and the best paths to take to arrive there, the coach will tend to talk too much, nervously feeling the obligation to fill every nook and cranny of the conversational space with what they think is an intelligent remark, too many reflections, and/or space fillers like uh, um, oh, no, yeah, really, what? right, ah, ya, etc.
When I listen to this type of coaching conversation, I feel like I’m suffocating. Gasping for air because the conversation is as crowded as Grand Central Station during rush hour.
Why does the coach show up in this way?
In my opinion, one of the major reasons is the coach is getting paid a fee and feels tea kettle pot like pressure to perform.
Besides the fact the coach is getting bank to work with a client, pressure to perform results from a number of other factors including:
- Lack of trust that the client will find their own way.
- Lack of coaching presence whereby the coach tends to anticipate and/or assume the best path for the client.
- Lack of not owning their value as a coach resulting in the coach thinking they need to do all the heavy lifting for the client.
- Lack of the coach having a solid personal foundation where everything in their life is in beautiful shape.
To name a few.
The best coaching I’ve delivered or witnessed is when the coach is almost invisible and there’s lots of space for the client to do the work.
“It’s very simple. Very simple instrumentation. Very simple arrangement. There’s a lot of air in it. That’s why it works.” – Timothy B. Schmit on the writing of The Eagles hit song, I CAN’T TELL YOU WHY.
In coach training, they teach us the optimum ratio for client vs. coach speaking is 80/20. I’ve done my best coaching when it’s been 90/10.
Coaches, practice putting more -air- in your coaching conversations. Your clients will receive uber amounts of value in the process and hopefully they’ll become raving fans.
♫ Nothing’s wrong as far as I can see
We make it harder than it has to be
And I can’t tell you why ♪♫