As a practising occupational psychologist for over 20 years Dr Jill Walker has a view of coaching which goes against her background of seeking evidence and research. She believes that as well as using proven methodologies, experienced coaches often also rely on their intuition and the combination of the two leads to really powerful, transformative coaching.
Transformative coaching helps clients grow and learn so they can handle future challenges or decisions rather than just deal with immediate issues. Coaches who have this deeper, longer term effect are usually well qualified and highly experienced but also go beyond this and trust their own intuitive sense of what is needed to make the coaching as valuable as possible.
At the heart of coaching is a unique relationship between coach and client which needs really effective ‘in the moment’ decisions about what will best serve the diem and the coaching agenda. An experienced coach knows that those momentary decisions involve not just logic but instinct. It’s like good doctors will often say to trust a parent’s instinct about their child – sometimes they just ‘know’ something isn’t right even if the symptoms aren’t there and invariably they are right. The development of the intuitive side of coaching is about moving from your head (your coach training, books, theory, what is the ‘right’ thing to do etc) to also paying attention to the messages from your gut. For example, all coaches have clients who talk a lot and who may be somewhat stuck in their thinking about an issue. In one situation I may interrupt their flow and ask them questions to open up new areas of thinking, and in another I might wait until they have fully told their story even if it takes a long time. On the face of it these two situations may appear similar, but in one my gut will be telling me what they need is to move out of their stuck pattern of thinking and in the other I may feel they are not ready to move forward until they feel fully ‘heard’.
Listening to your intuition sounds straightforward but with all that we need to focus on in coaching at the same time – paying attention to what the client is saying, how they are saying it, how this fits with previous themes etc – if we are not careful we can miss the important messages that our intuitive side is giving us. Some people, including myself, access their intuition in a very physical way e.g. in their stomach, in their chest, hairs standing up on the back of their neck etc. Some access it more visually – an image or a flash of something comes to mind. Others find that a word might come into their head or a metaphor e.g. a feeling that the client is “wading through treacle” or has just “taken a very heavy coat off”. Others just get a sense or a feeling about something. One way to increase our level of intuition is to notice how we experience it. Once we know this it is like turning up the volume on our intuition channel so it’s not drowned out by all the many competing messages and voices we are constantly bombarded with.
One of the biggest barriers to really hearing our intuition is our inner chatter “Is the client making enough progress?”, “What should I do next to move them forward?” etc. This kind of self talk stems from our desire to be a ‘good coach’ and provide value to our client however it tends to drown out the more subtle and important messages from our intuition. When we look at our self talk more closely it is often more about us, and how we are performing as a coach, rather than about the client. Once we can throw out our ego, be completely present with the client and tune in to what serves them best, it is much more likely that we will be able to hear the subtle but important frequency that our intuition works on.
Often an intuitive coach will pick up a sense of something but it may be nebulous and hard to explain exactly to the client. Just because we may not be clear exactly what it means does not mean though that we should fail to act on it. I had been working with a CEO for quite a while and the coaching had been progressing well. In the sixth session I got a gut feeling I was missing something and decided to use a tool I had used previously with the client to ‘take stock’. All seemed fine – as per our previous conversations – but I stayed with the feeling and remained silent for a few moments after he was finished. Suddenly he started talking about one area of his life that was an attempt to compensate for another and it became clear that this was significantly affecting the issues we were working on in the coaching. I could not have told you when I started down that road where this was going to lead, but acting on my intuition was exactly the client needed to unlock a key driver for his life choices. When listening to our gut we therefore have to remain curious and open and not wedded to our interpretation of what our intuition is telling us. Co-Active coaching describes intuition as “neither right or wrong. It’s more like a nudge we receive”.
Acting on our intuition is not always easy. Your gut might be telling you “I’m not sure I’m the right person to coach this per son’” or “I don’t think working today” etc. The more difficult it is to surface, the more likely it is to be significantly affecting the coaching in some way. What helps me act in these cases is remembering Dr Jim Loughrey phrase – “what is the truth that needs to be spoken“. When that truth, whatever it may be, is surfaced it often has a truly profound effect on the coaching. For instance, I had an unsettling feeling that I wasn’t managing to conned with a particular client one day. I said that I felt something wasn’t working quite right in the coaching that day and what did she think. This ended up leading to a disclosure of a very serious long term mental health issue which was particularly bad at the time and, resulted during the following discussion in the client deciding to seek professional help with it – something she had not done for 20 years.
Relying more on your intuition can be very liberating as a coach. I have observed that when a coach is really following their intuition the coaching often has a natural ‘flow ‘ or ‘ lightness’ to it, rather than the coach trying too hard to make it work. While it can be liberating, to make sure this is in the best service of your client, it should be done with a liberal helping of reflection, preferably by keeping a reflective journal and being in supervision. Kolb talks about learning being most effective when we complete all four stages of the learning cycle – experiencing, reflecting on this experience, concluding from this experience and applying this to the real world. Taking the time, even with a busy coaching practice, to build in reflection time is a critical part of our continuous improvement as coaches and ultimately our service to our clients.
Increasing your level of intuition can be invaluable, whether you are a practising coach or not. So perhaps try this exercise sometime over the next week. Think of an issue you are finding challenging at the moment. Then close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Focus on nothing but your breath in and out of your abdomen for a little while. When you feel calm and present, allow this issue to come to mind in a relaxed way. Without trying to ‘make’ anything happen just see what comes up. It may be an image, a feeling or a sensation in your body. Stay with this and listen to what it’s telling you. If nothing comes up, that’s fine too. Just stay open and curious. Our intuition is like a timid little mouse. The more we chase it, the more it hides from us. When we are relaxed open, it is more likely to reveal itself to us.
To me, this is a skill worth nurturing because at the heart of powerful coaching you normally find a confident, experienced coach who also knows the value that intuition can bring. Using it effectively is one of the keys that helps unlock truly transformative coaching which in turn makes a real difference to people’s lives.
By Dr Jill Walker
