We have just been noticing the way 3D Juggling has developed in the last 12 years beginning as a weekly email about work life balance and moving into thoughts about work, career change and one to ones and particularly using some of the core skills from coaching.

Claire writes: “For me, a coaching approach is about helping another person think new things about a situation.  The books say that curiosity is an important skill of listening and yet we are listening to help the OTHER person understand.  Which means that we won’t necessarily leave having heard all the data that would be really interesting to know!  And some of their thinking will happen silently inside their head.

Interrupting someone’s story can be useful.  Interrupting their thinking is not.  Useful questions might be:

• Assume I know everything, so what do we need to think about today?
• I don’t need to know that – unless it’s helpful for you to say it
• What’s your most important question about that?

All of these help the person we are listening to do some thinking on the inside.  It’s faster and can be more effective that speaking everything out loud.  Although we’d love to know more information, we probably don’t need to know!

And at the end of a conversation,

• Do you know how you’re going to take that forward? is the kind of question that will help them clarify for themselves if they know.  And if they don’t know, we can work it out together

Some people are particularly grateful when we stop expecting them to tell us everything.  Often they are the people who go quiet and write things after we have asked a question.”

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