How Much Should A Coach be Speaking?
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- Calling all coaches! I have a question for you. When assessing a coaching call, what percentage of time should a coach talk compared to the client? I'm curious to know your thoughts on this. Share your insights in the comments!
Let's look at 3 key items: ratio, usefulness, and the WAIT method.
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Lyssa deHart, LICSW, MCC, BCC, is the author of StoryJacking: Change Your Dialogue, Transform Your Life; the Reflective Coach, and Light Up: The Science of Coaching with Metaphors. She hosts the Coaching Studio podcast and is a Confidence Coach, Certified Mentor Coach, Coaching SuperVision Partner, ICF PCC Assessor, and coaching educator. Using her understanding of the ICF Core Competencies and her knowledge of Neuroscience, Lyssa works with Professional Coaches to expand their capacity to partner with their clients through how they show up and hold the space for those with whom they work.
Happy Coaching, Lyssa deHart, LICSW, MCC, BCC
00:00 How long?
00:35 You Talk Too Much!
01:57 Review of Time
03:19 The Consensus
05:38 Time Ratio
08:53 Usefulness
14:17 WAIT
Dear Lyssa, thank you for offering such a comprehensive and organic insight on this commonly talked about topic! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
It's fascinating how we can drill it a conversation down to only time when it, like life, is often far more nuanced. Thank you for the comment! :)
Thank you for this conversation. I appreciate the part about being in partnership and offering a question without attachment, but with a PURPOSE!
Exactly!!! It's easy to ask concise open-ended questions, "What is your favorite color?" But, from a coaching perspective, is the question useful for the client to explore their relationship to their situation? Questions matter most, especially with purpose :)
We could all practice asking simple, clear, open-ended questions and succinct communication in general. However, I don't understand why people get hung up on percentages. What is "too much" talking? I would never have that impression of you. Coaching is a conversation, after all, a back-and-forth conversation. And while we don't want to dominate the conversation, we are not just asking questions. We are making observations, creating trust, acknowledging, and reflecting, we are using stories or metaphors to evoke awareness, etc. Ultimately, it's the client who decides if the conversation was valuable to them and even if the coach talked "too much" or so much that it took away from their learning and insight. That's the feedback I'd welcome from my clients. I believe it's important to use our judgment as coaches and not get too hung up on the percentage of talking. I think you've summed it up beautifully in your statement here, "knowing how much time a coach spoke and how much a client spoke does NOT tell you whether or not the coach is holding space for silence, pause, or reflection..." Thank you for this, Lyssa!
Honestly based on the percentages, which, knowing me, you know I am not concerned with, I do hover between 25%-35% of the talking. And, yes, we don't want to dominate the conversation as you say, it's far more important that we are doing all the things you mention, creating a trusted space, acknowledging, etc. That said, I am on my own journey to ask simple, clean/concise questions and make sure I leave ample room for the client to have insights and self-awareness. It's a data point, that's all. :) Thanks for the comment, Nancy!
This was a great discussion, thank you.
Thank you, @michaelburke8248, for the comment, and I am so glad you found the video helpful! :)
You've brought forth an important perspective that one or two data points won't identify the effectiveness of the coaching conversation: a clear and succinct open-ended question may not evoke awareness while a higher percentage of a coach speaking may allow for client insight. The one thing that I try to do when in coaching conversation is for my contribution not to disrupt the client's thinking and processing. Am I always successful? Nope. But it's something I strive for.
That is a great thing to strive for. The more we can flow with the client's insight and awareness process, the more we support their agency and empowerment for change. :)
Really appreciate this conversation Lyssa. Tying the amount of time the coach speaks into the competencies was great learning. And I agree with your perspective, we can't boil it down to just what is the percentage of time the coach and or the client is speaking. The coaching itself is so much more than this. Yes be succinct in your questions but the reflection and noticing of the coach holds so much value for the client. I believe this is part of the human experience/connection of coach client. Otherwise you may as well just use an AI coach.
I agree. I think we all have moments we wish we said less, but I recently listened to a coaching demo and the coach didn't say anything, and therefore wasn't in partnership either. Yes, work on being concise, but also ask useful questions. :)
Dear Lyssa, thank you for the video. Thank you for your courage and honesty in going around this subject and putting vulnerability on the table. I personally totally agree with what you said, it often depends on the client how much I talk during a coaching session. It depends on the clients' self awareness, from how much they want to work on themselves , how tired they are, how much they can connect with their inner selves...etc. Just this morning I had a client to whom I asked very good open-ended questions. She worked on her own, but being an introverted personality, her answers were concise and simple. I also kept quiet and WAIT. Still, roughly 35-65 ratio could come out in this case. Would this have been a bad coaching session? I do not think so. My client left the session with her solution. I join to Nancy's comment: we are making observations, creating trust, acknowledging. I wish you all my best from Hungary, with warm regards. Timea
I could not have said it better! Yep, it depends on so many factors, the first of which is the trusted relationship you are holding space for. Thanks for the comment and happy coaching! :)
This is a well-explained video. I completely understand why for some clients the most succinct questions may not be the most effective. I agree that reflecting back (succinctly) before asking the new question, just right after the client talks a lot, helps the client 'hear' themselves better before asking the next question.
It's a dance, for sure. :)
Grateful for the nuances you bring forward here, Lyssa. A question: if you personally took on the challenge of moving towards keeping under 15% of the talking, what specifically would you do to achieve that?
Hi @CorrinaGordonBarnes, Thanks for asking the question! What specifically would I do to achieve by keeping my contribution to under 15%? The short answer is I would literally talk less. While I may aim for 15%, truthfully, I probably will still speak more than that. I seem to love to say words :). For me, it's more of an aspiration to be more concise and clear in asking questions. I think sometimes I can confuse the client and myself when my questions get wordy and/or redundant. How do you work towards keeping it under 15%?
@@LyssadeHart for me, it's an internal come-from: this client would benefit more from hearing their own wisdom than hearing any suggestions from me. Trusting they're figuring it all out in the silence/pauses. Trusting they'll do what they will with a concise question, even if goes in a completely different direction than I would imagine. Trusting that the contents of my mind are not necessary for their growth! ;-)
@@CorrinaGordonBarnes That's a very useful strategy! I like the reframing to benefit the client to hear from themselves.