coaching


perhaps the most important skill that we should develop. There are many approaches to listening more deeply.


The first is to put initial judgement on what you hear to one side and contemplate what has been said. To demonstrate empathetic listening, you might open your response with a summary of what you have just heard. This can be particularly helpful in calming colleagues who are experiencing intense emotions, and in encouraging clients seeking counsel to share more of their thoughts and concerns.


Listening in a coaching culture goes beyond listening to hear. It requires listening to understand what is said, and curiosity about how appropriate ideas can be further developed by team collaboration.


Acknowledging and summarising


Acknowledging and summarising team members’ contributions can be extremely valuable in building team effectiveness. As well as recognising the intrinsic value of participation, acknowledgement encourages others to suggest enhancements and make their own contribution. Summarising what has been heard confirms the accuracy of the teams’ understanding of what has been said. A summary also acts as a further trigger to related thinking and development of new thoughts.


Asking team members to take it in turns to act as summariser (eg in 20-minute shifts), provides different perspectives on listening and of what is being said.


Questioning


Coaching practice places strong emphasis on being inquisitive about what is going on and the skilled use of questions to increase awareness. Questioning can be used to confirm, modify or deny assumptions, to improve understanding. These confirmations are valuable in avoiding inappropriate responses to uncertainty.


Questioning also encourages the development of broader solutions by offering the chance to explore different perspectives on potential solutions to shared uncertainty. For teams the balanced use of questions is important. Open questions can be used to examine a proposition in depth. Closed questions (those that be answered either ‘yes’ or ‘no’) are used to confirm accuracy of understanding as in a summary.


Reflecting


Taking time to reflect, acts as a counterbalance to panic and heightened stress at times of uncertainty. When we reflect, we use more of our brain’s capacity to generate potential solutions, as demonstrated by new thinking that emerges after a night’s sleep. Reflection also offers us greater calm by reducing stress hormones including cortisol, and increasing the production of beneficial chemicals such as oxytocin, which has been shown to reduce anxiety and build trust, and dopamine which can increase motivation.


Ignoring a process that offers these benefits appears counter-productive, particularly at times of heightened


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – MAY/JUNE 2020 Steve Couch


uncertainty. Neuroscience suggests that this happens as brains that are orientated more to task completion are less alert to reflective process. It is becoming increasingly common for individuals and teams to make more conscious effort to incorporate the benefits of reflection in their work.


Conclusion


A coaching culture champions openness and psychological safety. It has benefits for successfully navigating periods of uncertainty and change. It also helps to foster high-performing teams in the long-run.


Working with a team coach, who can offer observations on how the team is working and greater awareness of group dynamics, can increase the potential of the team to collaborate and address uncertainty. Team coaches can also develop the capacity of each team member and the team as a whole to work with the powerful elements of a coaching culture.


There are also steps that you can implement that will help. Think about how the coaching culture of your organisation looks and feels. Perhaps you could review this article and score your firm against the different elements of coaching culture that we have set out. What is the area that you need to work on most? Where are you doing well? How might having a coaching culture help you with the uncertainty of the coming months?


Claire Rason is the founder of Client Talk. She is a qualified lawyer, having trained and practised at Herbert Smith Freehills. She is also an accredited coach and holds a postgraduate certificate in coaching and behaviour change.


Steve Couch coaches leadership teams, including those in professional services firms, individual partners and senior executives. His practice draws on his experience as a PwC partner, 25 years’ design and delivery of bespoke development training, and recent completion of a three- year Masters in Coaching and Behavioural change.


To find out more: clienttalk.co.uk


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