In this month’s article from Julie, she offers us a beautiful example of how we can help a client grow and overcome a challenge—using simple feedback and their strengths as a lever.

Background and the purpose of our coaching session:

Some time ago, I was heading into a two-hour virtual coaching session with someone new, and I remember feeling quite tired. Warning bells went off, and I prepared to manage my energy.

The moment we met, however, it all changed. I encountered such an energetic and positive person that I felt the fatigue leave my body, replaced by oodles of energy! I thanked her for her contagious enthusiasm, and we dove into the discussion.

Our job in this coaching session was to to debrief the results of a rich and complex personality assessment that the coachee had recently completed. We were to collect a list of strengths and development areas as they related to a challenging position she had just taken on. My role was to help her interpret her scores, and in particular to make the less-than-obvious connections.

Like many assessment debriefs, I had to do a fair amount of talking. And we discovered that the coachee’s strengths included enthusiasm (indeed!), speaking her mind, positivity, curiosity, proactively taking the lead, and interpersonal relationship management.

And a pattern soon emerged…

Each time when we started to speak simultaneously (and that happened a lot), she would keep speaking over me.

I found myself backing down each time, even though I believed I had something of value to offer. I also tried several times (unsuccessfully) to keep talking until she would ‘back down’.

Curious about this repeated behavior, I started to make mental notes of how it was making me feel: impressed yet annoyed, not valued, and frustrated because part of my job was to share my analysis and interpretation.

As we combed through her assessment results, we eventually uncovered a potential development area around pushing one’s own views over others.

My light bulb went on, and I realized that this behavior had played out right in front of me, over and over!

Here’s the coaching conversation:

• “May I share something with you?”
• “Sure!”
• “I’ve been noticing that each time we start speaking at the same moment, you continue speaking, and I back down. I’ve been experimenting with continuing to speak longer (which is not my nature), and you continue talking, with a somewhat louder voice.”
• [pause]
• “If I check in with myself, I realize that I stop listening and start turning my thoughts toward how to manage time, vacillating between, ‘Do I push, or just give in?’ “
• Both of us digested the moment.
• I continued, “I’m sharing this with you because I’m wondering whether it happens elsewhere. And if so, whether others stop listening, as well.”
• She replied, “I’m not sure if I recognize this.”
• I was on rocky ground. I sat there in silence to give it some time.
• Finally, she said, “Well, it could be happening, when I am particularly enthusiastic about something, as I have been enthusiastic in this exchange. I’ll keep this in mind.”
• “Perhaps you’ve just identified your ‘alarm bell’—when you are feeling really enthusiastic.”
• “Yes, that makes perfect sense. Actually, that’s quite helpful.”
• “How might your strength of curiosity fit in here?”
• “Oh, that’s a good one. I don’t think I’m making use of it when I behave like this. If I could get myself curious about what others are trying to say (especially in those enthusiastic moments), I might be able to mitigate this.”

A few days later, I received an email from her thanking me for the session and this discovery in particular.

Here are my 3 takeaways from this coaching session:

1. When we stay in touch with how we’re feeling and what we experience during our encounters with our coachees, we place ourselves in a position to offer valuable feedback. However, when offering your feelings and/or experience, be sure to share it without judgement—and stay away from adding your own interpretation.
2. Strengths, when overused or used unintentionally, can be counter-productive. In this case, my coachee’s enthusiasm without boundaries or awareness led to her overriding others—a less than ideal behaviour.
3. When discussing a development area, it can be really helpful to remind coachees of the strengths they already have that can help them improve. In this case, my coachee’s strength of curiosity became a powerful addition to how she interacts with others—and a helpful counterbalance to her rampant enthusiasm.

Now it’s your turn:

• What did you notice or learn from this coaching conversation?
• What takeaways do you have from this?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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