HAVE YOU EVER REALLY LISTENED TO SOMEONE?

I know we’ve only just met, and this may seem a little forward, but I’d like to ask you to try something for me. Don’t worry, its easy and won’t hurt a bit.  As you are reading this, I am assuming you are not driving or operating heavy machinery? Good. Now, just close your eyes and listen for about 30 secs. What did you hear? Hmm interesting – now do it one more time and listen, really listen. What about this time? It’s amazing what you can hear when you really try. For example, I am writing this on a train. At first the sound of the train drowns out all noise but as I get into it, I can hear the man near me put down his phone, the rustle of crisps opening, people talking, the clink of the drinks trolley as it rolls away.

Now think about the last conversation you had with someone. Were you listening? Come now don’t be shy, its ok if you were really looking at your phone as your nearest and dearest were telling you about their day – but what did you miss I wonder? 

As a coach one of the first things, you are taught is how important really listening to someone is. In fact, a wise man once told me that really listening to someone is the greatest gift you can give them.  

My journey into coaching began after I graduated from a Leadership programme. At the time I was a senior manager in a fast-paced operational role. The programme really piqued my interest in psychology and understanding my own behaviour and how that behaviour impacted on others. I enjoyed the time and space to think and get clear on what I wanted and needed in that moment, and this paid dividends back at work – I obtained the promotion I wanted and secured two new direct reports as a result of this time to think. The opportunity arose to train to be a coach and be part of an internal coaching team in my organisation and I jumped at the chance.  

I embarked on a year-long professional coach training course with Oasis. 

I remember the first time we were sent off in small groups to practice the golden coaching skills of active listening and asking open questions – feeling unsure that I would be any help whatsoever to the person sitting across from me, I took a deep breath and just…listened.  Once I had relaxed into it, I realised that when you truly listen to someone, without judgement, suspending your own agenda and desire to ‘fix them’ something magical happens. The power of creating a space where someone can get out what is going on in their head and help them explore how to make sense of it is truly something special. 

So, have you ever really listened to someone? Not just with your ears but your eyes? Your gut? Yes, they are saying things out loud – but what is their body saying? Their eyes? Does it match, or does it tell a story? What did you notice? What did you learn? 

Chances are if you answered yes to that question, you too have an interest in people and what makes them tick. You may have seen people who are coaches and thought – ‘I could do that’.  

I’ve been asked to write this because I am a coach. You know how I said I trained to be a coach? Well, as soon as I left the first module of my course, I knew I loved it. How creating that space, listening and asking those killer questions could literally unlock the answers that people were desperately seeking and were actually holding within themselves, they just needed a little time and space to work it out for themselves. How as the relationship deepens, so does the depth at which you can work together – to really unlock what is stopping someone from taking action, the stuff that is often hidden beneath the surface – and if, as a coach, you create that safe space to talk about it without judgement, real insights and real change can happen for the client if they want it to. 

I am also a self-confessed theories and tools junkie, and I love a new shiny theory to get my teeth into. My current obsession is with Positive Psychology – the applied science of happiness, wellbeing, resilience, achievement, strengths, optimism and positive emotions and I am currently learning how to incorporate this into my practice, how to share the knowledge I have gained. 

And of course, I benefit from my skills and working with other talented coaches too. For example, I worked with my own coach to work out what I wanted to do with my new skills and eventually left my Organisation to set up my own business. In what was a challenging period of change, moving from being employed to self-employed, I called on both my own coaching skills and those of my colleagues to understand what was going on for me and what I needed to do to move forward. 

Now, like all roles, there are times when coaching and working with others is a challenge. The single biggest determiner of whether a coaching relationship is successful relies on your ability to connect with the other, to build rapport, to frankly, be interested enough in them to explore their map of the world together. And as we are all different, this doesn’t always work out, and that’s ok.   

The client you are working with also has to be 100% committed to the process – at the end of the day, they truly are doing all the work, and if they are not into it, well chances are the results will reflect this. 

I always have a wobble at around session 2 or 3 where I think – hmm is this working? I am doing too much, too little? And then I relax into it and let it all go – and this is often when the process starts to gel, to click, and revelations start to surface for the client.  

Now I have over 7 years coaching practice under my belt, I really understand what my coaching Yoda said at the start of my journey – that you have to know and believe that you are enough, to trust the process, to trust that in the moment you will know what the right thing is to offer, and if that doesn’t work, you can try something different. Part of the art of coaching is learning when to hold back and leave space for the client. And if you can do this, trust me, the impact on the other will be truly worth it. 

Sarah Bryson