Self-direction, agility and sustainable employability demand a lot from people in organizations. Not only from employees, but also from those who guide them. Listening plays an important role in this. Not only to what is said, but also to what remains unspoken. The Co-Active® coaching model consciously makes room for that. What makes this silence so valuable and how can you work with it in a focused way?
The Co-Active® method states that people are perfectly capable of finding their own answers and solutions. People are naturally creative, resourceful and whole. That is the starting point. They are not helpless and do not need to be helped, but can handle any challenge. The coach is merely there to support the client, tap into their creativity and encourage them.
Characteristically, the coaching model balances between “being” and "doing. Between taking control yourself and the relationship with the people around you. The ‘Co’ in Co-Active® does not stand for relationships, connection and cooperation for nothing. Here silence plays an important role: the coach is a curious listener who picks up nuance through his intuition and reflects this information back to the other person.
‘Active,’ on the other hand, stands for power, direction and action. This is about being convinced of your own choices and daring to act on them. When you do this, you are intrinsically more motivated in your solutions than when you don't know the reason for your choice - or base it on the advice of others. The beauty of this model is that it focuses on the whole person and their potential, not the obstacles.
The Co- Active® method is also an excellent fit with positive psychology. Learning curves have been shown to rise steeply when you focus on a person's positive strengths, values or ambition. This has a major positive effect on self-confidence and the ability to make new choices: self-direction. So as a coach, you are constantly “harvesting” with the client. That makes this model incredibly nice to work with.
But what specifically do you need to be able to do this? The basis is an open, curious attitude, combined with the ability to listen actively. You must be able to catch what is being said in silence. Your intuition plays a big role in this.
Listening: pretty obvious for a coach, right? Absolutely true. But it is by no means always easy. The Co-Active® model distinguishes three different levels of listening, and not every coach listens in the “right” way.
1. I-focused listening
At this first level of listening, it's all about yourself. What does this mean to me? How do I feel about this? What question am I asking next? Clients often listen at this level, but even as a coach you are regularly doing this. Think of practical things like: what time is it, what is my next step? This is normal. But those who continue to listen only at this level are missing a lot. In Co-Active® coach training courses, we hear this regularly: “I always thought I was a good listener, but actually I'm mostly talking myself.” In fact, many coaches are guided by curiosity and mainly ask the client questions about what he is saying. But in doing so, you actually miss out on the silence, a goldmine of unspoken information.
2. You-focused listening
Here your attention is completely focused on the other person. What is he saying, what is he doing? You catch words, facial expressions and emotions. You listen for verbal and nonverbal cues. Your own thoughts and agenda are turned off. The connection, the “Co” from Co-Active® is evident here.
3. Global (world-oriented) listening
This level is very similar to the previous one, but goes a little deeper. You listen not only with your senses, but also with your intuition. You also hear that which is not said, but is present. At this level, your intuition simply provides you with information that you reflect back to the client. This creates a conversation in which the unspoken is also given space.
With a simple experiment, you can train listening at these three levels. In particular, listening to what people are saying between the lines. This comes in handy not only in individual coaching sessions, but also in training sessions. Besides the fact that every coach should be able to do this himself, it is a wonderful skill to teach others. To do this, do the following exercise with two people. What you may notice is that listening at this last level is not so easy.
In practice, coaches often operate at the first and second levels. But in Co-Active® listening, the real “magic” takes place at the third level. For some, this is second nature. You see it in DJs, musicians and stand-up comedians: they have a faultless sense of what the audience wants and respond to it perfectly. This also comes naturally to some coaches. But many of us have to learn this actively.
The trainer stimulates this by regularly asking “what is in the room”. Is it tension, anger, energy? Where I catch something as tension, another experiences it as expectation. A nuance to the outsider, but a world of difference in our perception.
If you can “listen to the silence,” it gives an awful lot of space. When you reflect the information from your intuition back to the client, you actually give a piece of information as a gift. Even when the client indicates that he does not experience the situation in the same way, this can provide beautiful insights.
Co-Active® listening is therefore not only useful in coaching, but also in training, meetings, or heated discussions on the shop floor. In fact, in all situations in which we are dealing with others. That makes it a particularly valuable tool for anyone who wants to take communication and (self)development to the next level.
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