What's your spouse's name?

I feel uncomfortable and don't know where to look. On the last evening of a leadership program, we are sitting  around a wooden table in a steakhouse in Inzell, Germany. While waiting for our food, Mark, facilitator and organizer of these days, asks all seven participants what were the most impactful thirty minutes for them. Most of them refer to a coaching by me and look at me during telling this. 'Hello I think, it's Mark's program and he's my teacher, he deserves all the credits.' I take a sip of my white beer and am glad the food is coming so the attention shifts to that. 

The next day Mark waves away my discomfort 'It is logical that the one to one coaching sessions are the most powerful and that is your role here, I don't coach during these days.' I look at him. 'Okay, if you're happy so am I.'

'That sounds like it doesn't matter who would be there as a coach?" asks Miloe my writing coach when I tell her this a few days later during a brainstorm about a suitable blog topic. I'm full of wonderful personal stories of breakthroughs during the coaching sessions, but writing about them is complicated because of the privacy of the participants. 'What do you do as a coach to achieve this impact? she continues.' I could write about that,' I answer. 

These three things are very obvious to me, but perhaps not to every coach. 

1. 'What is your partner's name? What's your manager's name? What is the name of that colleague? I ask my coachees this because when they pronounce that name, the feeling also comes along. In this way I am no longer a listener, but together we step into the story, so that I can better see and understand what the other person needs. The face of the business CFO softens when he affectionately pronounces his wife's name, followed by a desire to undertake more activities together with her now that the children have their own lives. The country manager gets a rigid look in his eyes and there is irritation in his voice when he mentions the name of the colleague who always involves him in hassles, followed by a wish that this colleague learns to solve this problems himself. 
    
2.  I listen with all my senses, being keen on words and body language. When I am sparring with a tall, proud and hyper-intelligent finance director about her next career step, I see it happening. As she explains that she is originally a lawyer and therefor her manager naturally sees limited promotion opportunities for her, she unconsciously curves her neck and shoulders to appear smaller.  She starts talking about herself more softly and with diminutives. I mention what I see and say: 'if you don't take yourself seriously, how can you expect your manager to do so?' I hit her with this, not to hurt her, but to help her further.
    
3. I work with the whole person, who is so much more than the manager, for example, and you always take a part of this with you, consciously or unconsciously, to your work. So I ask a sales manager how he wants his eight-year-old daughter to remember him in ten years' time.  And follow up with "what are you going to do right now that is different from what you did? He swallows, a few silent tears find their way down his cheek and softly but resolutely he expresses what he has to do, his demanding job no longer holds him back. And believe me, this makes him not only a better father but also a more successful manager.

The managers who would like to learn to coach better themselves asked me in Inzell at dessert for the golden coaching tip. ‘Try very hard not to understand and ask questions. That helps the other person to get a much sharper and more complete picture for themselves. And oh yes, my favorite question as a coach is probably familiar to you all: What does it look like, what does it feel like when you have achieved what you now desire and are living it out?'

What question or comment from your coach touched you and helped you to move forward?