Practice Makes Perfect

As the saying goes: Practice makes perfect. Collaborative coaching, discussed and practiced in our last LPG meeting requires the coach to ask questions that are open, probing and non-judgmental and to be listening actively to what is being said and not said. It is a skill that requires practice to get good at.

The temptation and tendency is for the coach to jump in and cut short the exploration and suggests their opinion and become the "sage" and offers a "perfect solution". A solution that on paper may be perfect does not necessarily sing to the coachee because it did not come from their inner self. At best, it is another good idea that they might attempt to take up half-heatedly. At worse it causes them to react negatively: "Don't give me advice when I want you to listen to me."

As a facilitator for Diversity Council, I know the power of guiding a dialog and let the conversation flow and trust that the process itself will yield the insight. But knowing the value does not always mean I have the skill to do it. I was facilitating a Rochester neighborhood dialog last Tuesday, on a few occasions I found myself drifting from being a guide-on-the-side to a sage-on-the-stage to start voicing my own solutions. As soon as the words came out of my mouth I could sense that they had a stoppage effect on the group. They sucked the air out of the room. And it would take some effort to regain the conversation flow.

That's why we need more practices.

Next LPG meeting, Ji-Yun will take us through more exercises on how to ask the right questions, control our inner thoughts and pay attention to the other person.