Good Coaching Practices on Display

I was at the doctor’s office for my annual physical and was asked if there was anything bothering me. I decided to tell her about the soreness I feel in my wrist when I do push-ups. And, how it aches sometimes after I work at the stream in my yard. Or how I don’t feel quite as capable as I used to when opening a jar with a tight lid. I figured it is arthritis and there’s probably nothing much that can be done, but I also thought, why not check it out?

Through a series of questions and observation, my doctor determined it wasn’t really my wrist but rather my thumb. And when she touched very specific spots on my thumb I could tell she was right. Her conclusion was that I likely have inflammation in a tendon that runs up my thumb. She suggested some ways to reduce the inflammation and told me to let her know if it doesn’t improve.

When I left her office, I was thinking how that interaction had elements of good coaching in it. First of all, I felt like there might be some value in sharing a little more information about something I’d been thinking about and that was getting in my way. I was motivated to engage an additional perspective and I trusted her to listen to me.

Secondly, with her questions and her observations, she helped me begin to see that what I had thought was one thing was actually something else. And maybe it could be addressed a little differently than I had imagined before.

Isn’t that what good coaching is? Through her skillful questions and observations and her knowledge, she helped me get a clearer picture of what I was really dealing with.

Through reflective listening, a core tool in coaching, coaches can help their clients gain new perspectives. Good reflective listening often results in a response of “yes, that’s true, and…..” because the respondent is suddenly seeing and understanding more of their situation. Or, it may invoke a response of “that’s what I said, but now that I’m hearing it, I guess that’s not really what’s going on. Instead I think it might be….”

Good coaches also observe. They wonder if there is anything that seems inconsistent in what the client is saying. Is the client’s sense reinforced by outside data? If not, might their perspective be colored by some other concern or situation? A coach can share their observations with the client who then makes the ultimate decision of whether the observations are relevant or not. And, if they are, the client then can decide how this new information informs their thinking or actions.

The doctor’s office is quite a different experience from spending time in a coaching session. And yet today, I did see some elements of good coaching lifted up to me through my doctor. It reminded me of the value of good coaching.