Claire writes: “Last week was upcycling week when I was de-oranging some of our wooden furniture.  It took hours of prep. And the painting itself was quick! Then yesterday, people came to talk about landscaping the grass rectangle that is currently our garden.  It’s turf on builders rubble so the prep is much more important than the planting. As they said – ‘it’s all in the preparation’

We prep for all sorts of things like talks, and meetings… but in coaching, I think, the prep is in the years of learning the art of partnership in conversations.

I’ve just come off the phone with someone who I will start working with in a couple of weeks. If I prepare for our first conversation based on what I heard today, I’ll take him backwards – because he will have moved on in his thinking by the time we have our first conversation.  And if I prepare for session 2 by thinking about session 1, either intentionally or unconsciously I’m likely to steer the conversation a bit towards my preparation.  Then I’ll be leading and he will be deferring to me. That’s a valid form of conversation – and it’s not coaching. After all, people leap in their thinking! That’s why we need to work out what we need to do together in coaching, I think. That’s what it means to be fully present and working in partnership.”

You can now listen to this blog through our podcast The Coaching Inn Become a regular by signing up on iTunes, Spotify or podbean.  Coming soon on the podcast: an interview with Tünde Erdös, author of Coaching Presence

Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2021

May be distributed freely.  Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!