Claire writes: “I’ve talked a lot in previous blogs about how we can’t make meaning for someone else – they can only make meaning for themselves. In the last few months, I’ve noticed that in most coaching conversations, there is one significant question that unlocks the thinker. What happens before that is building up to it – and what happens after is influenced by that insight.  Not of course that we are in control of what emerges and when. Often the significant question is very simple – a silence, or ‘and…?’. Sometimes it can be more. And it is often is tiny and will surprise you.  

At the point of insight, the best thing I can do is take a small step away and let the thinker sit with and then make their own meaning from the insight. And coaches are human. And humans are competitive.  Every day I hear coaches notice the unlocking coming and then they tell the thinker what it is.  But it’s not meaning if we make it for someone else!  We need to stop trying to win the race, and start releasing the potential in the people we work with – by backing off and letting them run over the finish line.”

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