When is less, more? Inspired by a stunning experience earlier this year at Six Seconds’ Emotional Intelligence Master Coach Certification, here’s how to “Marie Kondo” coaching to distill down to the essence.
What’s the most powerful coaching you’ve ever witnessed? For me, it was immersed in a week with Six Seconds’ Emotional Intelligence Master Coach Certification, with coaches from many countries together.
What made these sessions stunning was the level of heart-to-heart connection. The ‘magic’ wasn’t in the steps or tactics, it was felt. Even as an observer, I could feel the catalytic power of emotion as a force for growth; I was changed by the experience.
I jokingly thought that we could apply the Marie Kondo method to coaching. Then I went to her website and this line popped out: “Keep only those things that speak to the heart.”
→ What if we actually did that in coaching? I think that’s actually what I saw in the EQ Master Coach sessions.
In the EQMC, our group members were mostly coaching in English, and for many of our international group, that meant coaching in their second, third or even fourth language. Pre-course, many of the participants told me they were worried about this language barrier… but witnessing the coaching, I came to see it differently:
Working across languages, these coaches were world-class because they were:
- paying extra-careful attention to meaning.
- leaning heavily into nonverbal, emotional communication (and intuition).
- using super-simple questions.
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3 Steps to Simplify Coaching
Let’s break these down into actionable tips we can all use to improve our coaching.
Extra-Careful Attention to Meaning
Working across languages and cultures, in my own coaching, I’ve come to frequently ask a strangely-obvious question: “I heard you say, ____, would you like to talk more about what that word (or phrase) means?”
What’s intrigued me is that doing so, I’ve frequently found that even clients with a very similar cultural background have very different meanings. There are so many words and phrases where I assume I know the meaning… but when I ask, I see a new view. And in in talking about the meaning, I find clients often come to a deeper understanding.
Typically, I listen for words and phrases that have some emotional energy, and ask about those, which comes to the second tip:
Nonverbal, Emotional Communication (and Intuition)
Words often get in the way of understanding.
I’ve done quite a bit of coaching-in-translation and I see it so clearly in those sessions. After a little while, I start to understand the client BEFORE the translator tells me the words. I don’t think this is any particular gift of mine, I think it’s just that when we super-focus on expressions and emotions, we can pick up a ton of meaningful data.
I suspect that’s what most people understand when they say, “intuition” – it’s our brain (and whole body) making meaning from millions of tiny clues above, around, behind the words.
In your next coaching session, or manager-as-coach-conversation, experiment with putting more attention on the WAY words are said than on the actual content of the words. I’d love to hear what you discover.
Super-Simple Questions
I started coaching before it was “a thing,” but when we decided to create the Emotional Intelligence Coach Certification with the International Coaching Federation (ICF), I went back to study ICF coaching in a serious way (and eventually earned my Master Coach Certification). At first, I had a TON of post-its around my office with questions to test out.
I even made a set of EQ Coach Cards with profound questions. While I still love these cards, my questions have changed.
These days, my questions are often not even fully questions, they’re just “hmm” “ohh” “mmmm.” Linguists call these “Phatic expressions” – used to acknowledge, affirm, validate and to show engagement. Equally often, I’m just in engaged silence – the question asks itself.
In the Emotional Intelligence Master Coach Certification, I heard a lot of our coaches using phatics and silence, and beautifully simplifying questions to just a few words: “What else?” “What’s that like?” “How is that?” “What’s next?” “How do you see it?” “Want to say more?”
Like silence, I suspect that these distilled questions and phatic expressions leave space for insight to bloom.
As you try out these strategies, I’d love to hear what you discover. Please share a comment below!
And, if you have questions you’d like me to explore in a future 🌱 EQ Coaching newsletter and/or video, please reach out to me via our contact form.
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Whether you’re a professional coach, or contemplating earning certification as a professional emotional intelligence coach*, or you’re someone who uses coaching techniques to support others: of course these questions apply to us first.
* Did you know? In addition to top-level accreditation from the International Coaching Federation, the EQ Coach Certification is one of a handful of coaching certifications in North America that also provides master’s level credit? You’ll earn almost ⅓ of your MBA or MA in this program.
For more on EQ and Coaching 🌱, I recommend:
Coaching People in Challenges
A wonderful article, insightful vision, development and a rising construction project. Thank you, appreciation and respect for this valuable, useful and abundant information.