A deeper way of being with your client (video)

’Talking together’ is a series of video conversations between Edna Murdoch and me. It’s our regular dialogue space, where we discuss ideas, tap into trends we’re noticing or books we’re reading, and share themes from our client work and the wider field.

In this third conversation, we share our thoughts about developing a way of working, and a way of being with your client, that is different, deeper and more exploratory, and thus more developmental both for you as a coach and for your client as a leader.

We also talk about what coaching supervision is, how it can be powerful for the life and practice of coaching, and how it can be joyous, ‘because a conversation about learning is joyous’.

I’ve recently been asking myself: How can we invite our clients to go deeper if we’re only skimming the surface ourselves? Rushing to get from A to B to C, in 60 minutes, in a coffee shop, before we go on to the next session? There’s some really healthy pushback against all that busyness happening at the moment, because I’m finding more and more that people are talking about ‘executive reflection’, as opposed to coaching. There’s a different flavour and emphasis to it, and there’s a rejuvenation here that we need.

In the video, Edna observes that in supervision, ‘we’re really grounding and slowing people down, inviting them into a process that’s waiting to happen, and giving them time to think about what is happening. The supervisor and the supervisee together bring the big lights to look at what’s really going on, and what needs to be supported.’