Curiosity is my ‘in the moment’ progress and success measure for coaching by Yvonne Thackray: Part 2
Understanding that curiosity is one of the basic traits needed for survival has been a paradigm shift for me, my coaching practice, and my education because it addresses how I have intuitively applied curiosity in my coaching practice with my clients to enable their potential. In Part one, I describe why curiosity is important in my practice. In Part two, I explain how curiosity unfolds and emerges though my work as a coach.
Curiosity in practice
Hopefully, if you’ve had the opportunity to read my various blogs over time, there is a common pattern to how I coach.
The only time that I have, what you may call ‘control’ over my coaching sessions, is typically right at the start of the session, possibly the first minute or two before my client drives the session. This ‘control’ includes how I turn up for coaching, the moment my client arrives to begin the session, and the first one or two questions to initiate that our session has begun.
Thereafter the coaching unfolds and flows organically to an outcome directed by my client that requires me to maintain my presence, focus and agileness that continuously sustains the right conditions for the coaching conversation whilst holding the coaching process for the remaining 60/90/180 minute session.
Observing <> Curiosity
For example, as I sit and wait for my clients to turn up to our meeting, whether in person or on the screen, I spend at least 5 mins readying myself for the coaching conversation that is to come. Sometimes I think about what the conversation might be about following my recollections of the last session, sometimes I wonder what my client’s presence will be like today compared to our last session, sometimes I wonder if they have achieved the goals they stated for themselves from previous sessions, most of the time though I just wait patiently and calmly and just be in the moment as I often unable to predict how my client intends to turn up for their coaching session.
Then, after I hear the knock on the door or the sudden ping and flashing of a screen that my client is here, I’m observing their behaviours and expressions as I meet their eyes, until we are both ready to initiate the discussion. More-often than not I will ask them how they are doing, or ask them about a personal event that they shared previous to gently start our session. Starting our session in this way often helps me to gauge how my client is feeling and what they are open to sharing in that moment. This is all useful information, as it provides me with references and clues of what state my client is in, their readiness to engage, and how they want to make the best use of the session. In my decade of coaching, I have had clients who have turned up to our coaching session in a highly emotive state, whether it’s a result of a bad meeting, or receiving bad or pending bad news, or feeling ‘lost’, or sharing their excitement of winning an important pitch, or solving a complex problem that can solve their challenge; other times, my clients will turn up prepared, calm and focused on the challenges they want to focus on the session, and for a few of my clients, whom I believe were required to attend the session it often starts with a polite conversation to try and establish whether the client can receive some value from coaching.
This is probably why I choose to not prepare anything past the first few minutes of our session because what I have realized that I am doing is immediately activating my curiosity around how my client will turn up and pose a few hypothesis to test as soon as our session begins. I’m curious about what has happened between our sessions that is important for me to be aware of and note. I’m curious about why they have turned up and what it is they want to gain from our time together, I’m curious about what successes and failures they have had since we last spoke. I’m curious about why they are feeling the way they do. I package my curiosity in one or two questions or statements without judgement, and while not all my ‘curious’ questions will have answers to them, they give me some useful information to get a sense of what the coaching session might be about and check at the right time, if needed, if this is indeed what they want to focus on in our time together. It also gives my client mutual control over the space and timing of when they want to introduce as their question/challenge so that they can direct the session and decide how they want to begin.
Time <> Curiosity
The amount of time I allocate for my clients in this initial stage of the coaching will vary from client to client, and is perhaps more than some peers might expect. I use this time to process what has been shared and why they shared what they have said even when I have no clue at all what their situation really is except what I might imagine it to be from other clients’ experiences or case studies that have talked about similar situations as a reference. My ‘curiosity’ is working hard, alongside my skills of listening and empathy, through a number of verbal and non-verbal signals including tone, paraverbals, ways of phrasing a question, humour, posture, and selecting seemingly key words or phrases or behavioural reactions to explore further after sharing what I heard them say. There is a lot of uncertainty in these moments as my clients may switch from one topic to another as they share what’s important to them and pressing for their attention. For some, they may simply need to have their feelings normalized in the moment to then refocus on why they are here for, or they may just need that space to understand what is happening to simply get through that day, or they simply state what they want to focus on and share their reasons for wanting to work on this particular challenge.
During these exploratory phases, I tend to naturally focus on the client’s strengths and positive attributes I notice and further explain how I reached that awareness based on the various information that I have gathered from our time together to better know whether the conversation will proceed to a coaching conversation, or something else, and importantly if it’s within my remit and capabilities as a coach. I would say that in most of my coaching conversations with clients, at one time or another, my clients need a safe space to express their highly charged feelings and once they have allowed themselves to say what it is they need to say, especially in my presence, they often want to find a solution to their situation or the session itself is the solution to getting them back on track for the rest of their day. I trust my clients in these situations that they know what it is they need in the moment, and are not misusing or abusing our sessions for other reasons. And importantly, I’m confident that our session connects to their coaching goal in some way, or it's just a detour that will eventually get them to the desired outcome.
Being curious and incorporating the right measure into my coaching practice means that I need to use and express it in the appropriate manner, so that it doesn’t overpower, detract or lead to any form of perceived judgment by the client. When I use it well, whether through an observation, a thought, a description, a short explanation, a poignant question, it tends to open up the next layer of exploration that I imagine encourages the clients to instinctively connect to their curiosity. It can take many tries before they want to do something with it, however, consistent and genuine feedback on their positive strengths, capabilities and attitudes eventually leads to my clients being curious about themselves and reconnecting to those strengths, skills and capabilities that they can relate to being the most useful to them in their current situation.
As our conversation unfolds and evolves, a useful indicator that we’re moving into the enabling phase of the coaching conversation is when there are micro transition points that begin with a shift in their choice of pronoun from ‘me’ to ‘I’ and a change in their posture and facial expressions that shows signs of interest, curiosity and a ‘can-I-do-it’ attitude. This signals to me that they are now ready to explore aspects of and/or the whole challenge as they themselves become curious about what it is they can do to find their solution to their situation. From that moment my role has shifted from being curious to becoming the enabler and partner who works alongside them to think through their possible options to land on the one that has the most merit to apply or adopt when the situation arises. If I was to playfully express what is happening, I would say that the infectiousness of curiosity was positively transferred to my clients and that helped them to reconnect to theirs and once again make use of it as they see fit as one of their available resources. Frequently, once my clients are able to fill in that missing link and figure out their ‘aha’ moment, in whatever form that it emerges for them as part of their thinking process, then our session is complete. In some situations, particularly when it is my client’s first time in applying their solution, they may feel anxious and uncomfortable, we may use a session to play out some scenarios beforehand to make sure they become comfortable with themselves, the process, and the outcome they want to achieve.
More often than not, my clients are very confident in knowing what they need to do when they need to get things done, however they are often pressed for time to think strategically about the bigger picture in their current professional role and manage their own personal development and growth. I think this is the reason why most of my clients value their coaching time and space with me.
What this means for my practice?
Similar to my clients, discovering that curiosity could be considered as one of our fundamental drives as determined from neurobiology and neuroscience acts alongside our basic needs of security and physiology as described in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, deepened my understanding of how I bring my self into my work as a coach. Ever since I was little to where I am today, family, friends, peers, have always told me that I always liked to ask people the why question, especially about who they were, what did they do, why do they like doing it, how they did it. These types of questions have always been fascinating to me, and it got to a point where my postgraduate peers eventually gave me an associated nickname, which I still enjoy using today. Without realizing and recognizing that I was using my curiosity in coaching, I simply used it without full recognition or awareness because I often thought that ‘courage’, one of my VIA signature values, was the cause of my coaching. Now, I see it more of as an effect that was mobilized from my curiosity.
This awareness is particularly pertinent to me, because, since I started my first coach training program in 2009 and where I am today in 2022, I continue to reflect on, and periodically write about, my experiences of how I coach so that I can continue building on my strengths and capabilities in order to further optimize my strengths, skills and knowledge which draws upon considered experience and knowledge that contains intellectual humility and wisdom. In developing my particular approach to coaching, I learnt to adopt and adapt what I have been taught with my ‘internal model’ of coaching that includes my strengths, skills, thinking style, sense-making and values/philosophy, that fitted in best with how I observed my clients preferring to engage with me in coaching. I reached this conclusion not long after working with my first ‘paid’ client.
When I first started out as a coach, I felt more comfortable and confident following a more structured process that fits with how I was taught to coach and needed to stay true to it with little deviation and often independent to the client's needs. Luckily, I intuitively had that capacity to self-reflect and consider what actually was happening in coaching and if that was what my client wanted, and this was back before coaching supervision even existed. When I was able to put myself in the ‘shoes’ of my first client, and after a short break by them to choose to come back for more coaching after my first few sessions of wanting to put them through a cookie cutter approach, I became more flexible and organic in my style and this had much better results. How did I know this at the time? Firstly by the comments and remarks they provided during and at the end of the session, and secondly, their dedication to take a three hour trip for a ninety minute session. When I realized that this was my style and approach, I needed to develop a different coaching curriculum for myself that required on my part patience, persistence and pragmatism, and fortuitously meeting other coaches who traveled their pathless route to coaching.
What I’ve also shared above is my attempt of offering an autoethnographical account of my practice, that follows an academic methodology for reflexive research and practice that “describe[s] and systematically analyze[s] my personal experience in order to understand a cultural experience” (Ellis et al, 2010) which in my case is coaching. This also builds upon the ethnological method I used during my masters degree in anthropology. I wanted to share this snippet of information, for those who might be curious interested in doing their own practitioner research in a form of a blog. Regardless of the methodological basis stated here, the point I am wanting to make here, and hopefully through the various descriptions and explanations, is that I truly believe we play an active role as a coach by providing a tailored learning space that results in active engagement with our clients that makes the best use of our experiences, reflection of experiences, and the various information and knowledge we have curated and digested as part of our life-long journey of learning (our internal curriculum or personal knowledge management base). In my case, curiosity plays an integral role in how I bring myself to coaching and deliver coaching. How about you?
What’s your fundamental driver that gives you meaning and makes your coaching shine brightly?
Read other blog-articles by Yvonne Thackray via tgc The Bloggers
Acknowledgements: To Andrew and JT for their time and discussions as I explored my ideas.
References: Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589
