Playing Back the Pivotal Pieces for Review
An experience makes its appearance only when it is being said.
—HANNAH ARENDT
WHEN WE USE reflective statements, we act as a dynamic mirror where clients can more objectively view their behavioral motivations and limiting beliefs. The recognition of these can be jarring. Using reflective statements is also the best way to prompt clients to think about what they are willing to do now that they better understand what needs to be resolved.
My first job after earning my master’s degree in broadcast communication arts was as the audio visual coordinator for a psychiatric hospital corporation. I was in charge of setting up the television sets, video players, and film projectors. I also operated the video recording equipment if there was a medical need to record a patient.
I was disappointed with the menial work I was doing after completing an advanced degree. While looking for a more fulfilling job, I was given an assignment that turned out to be one of the most fascinating experiences of my life.
My master’s thesis explored the effects video feedback had on a person’s self-esteem. First, I videotaped individuals talking about a topic. After I watched the replay with each person and we talked about what they would do differently to improve their presentation skills, they were given a few days to rehearse before I taped them again. We repeated this routine one more time, for a total of adding up to three recording and replay sessions per person.
I used an assessment to measure people’s self-esteem before and after the three sessions. My subjects were drug addicts and prison inmates as well as randomly selected graduate students to balance out the measures. After the third recording, the average measures spiked upward, demonstrating improvement, especially in self-awareness and confidence.
I shared my research with a psychiatric nurse who was looking for educational programs to show to her anorexic patients. She told me when her patients looked in a mirror, they only saw themselves as fat. She didn’t think the use of video would make a difference, but she said it would be interesting to try. She asked her attending psychiatrist if he felt there would be any harm in trying my process with the patients. He encouraged the experiment if he could to be present at the recordings.
The results in one session were amazing. The patients gasped as they viewed themselves on video. For the first time, they saw how ghostly thin they had become. They noticed physical disfiguration and skin problems they couldn’t see before.
Although they couldn’t see the truth in a static mirror, the patients saw the decimation of their bodies when they watched themselves on video replay. This active replay process opened the door to more treatment options.
What is commonly referred to as mirroring skills in coaching replicates the effect of video replay. Playing back your clients’ words and expressions and then asking a question that arises from your curiosity effectively provokes self-reflection. Yet unlike a mirror, you aren’t providing static replications. Your reflective statements and questions provide an active replay of not just their behaviors but also the beliefs, fears, disappointments, betrayals, conflicts of values, and desires prompting their actions.
Two skills are important in the practice of active replay: (1) summarizing key points the client said and (2) noticing emotional shifts without interpreting the meaning. Summarizing and sharing the emotions you notice include the subskills described in this chapter. Pairing these practices with clarifying and exploratory questions creates inquiry. Your exploration goes deeper into the sources of clients’ thought formation. The insights clients gain move them forward.
Although summarizing may seem simplistic, the effects are powerful. When people hear their own words spoken, their ideas and beliefs are laid out in front of them to examine. They then go inward to reflect. From this vantage point, they glimpse what was a blind spot or see the inaccuracies in a belief. They are likely to pause, and possibly gasp, as the brain reorders, rewires, and formulates a new perspective to make meaning of what they now perceive.
The intent of summarizing is not to memorize and then parrot back what clients say. The aim is to help them objectively observe their stories and how they are telling them. When they hear themselves think, they can see their limited appraisal of actions, events, and options.
The practice of summarizing includes three skills: (1) recapping, (2) paraphrasing, and (3) encapsulating. You will often follow up summarizing statements with a question to confirm the accuracy of your words or the impact on the direction of the conversation, such as “How is this conflict affecting your ability to achieve your goal?” A good use of reflective inquiry is to summarize so clients hear their thoughts and then provoke examination with a question.
One of my favorite phrases in coaching is, “So, you are telling me . . .” Then I restate the issue, problem, or outcome expressed and the key factors the client says is making it difficult to take action. The client will either agree or correct my perception without my asking a question.
Although you are highlighting, don’t leave out a jarring detail. Often a side comment expressed with a shift in emotion reveals the big belief that is creating the client’s block.
When recapping, use the words clients give you. Receive what they say so you can play it back to them. Include the emotions they use to stress their desires and irritations. Don’t analyze the meaning. You miss key points when you start to think about what they are saying. Thinking is the enemy of the coach.
Recapping helps you stay focused on sorting out the client’s perception of the situation beyond the initial story. Too often, coaches hear the story and think they have the full picture. When you say, “Let me see if I understand your position” and then share the dilemma the client posed, you clarify the starting point for both you and the client. Usually, clients will add important details after they hear your summary. They also feel you are listening and present.
As you clarify, your questions should help reveal how clients feel about extenuating factors. Stay curious to discover what is most important to them, how long they have been ruminating on the situation without taking action, if something is driving a sense of urgency to act now, and what actions they have already taken that have helped or hindered their progress. Short summaries followed by questions lay out the narrative for clients cleanly and comprehensively in a way they can’t do for themselves.
Be sure to note any statements they make starting with “I want” or “I need.” Explore the importance of their wants and needs and the cost of not realizing them. You also want to know if they believe their desires are achievable. Then, are they willing to do what it takes to get what they want and need?
Be patient when recapping and clarifying. When you help clients crystallize the picture of what they really want to happen, what follows in the coaching will be both easier and beneficial.
Clients are often stuck when what they want conflicts with what they should or are expected to do. They might show increasing frustration or anxiety as you clarify the two positions.
Notice whenever your clients use the word but when you point out an apparent conflict, especially if their emotions demonstrate a preference for one option over another. Don’t push them to choose. Help them see that they might have more options or actions to take than just the two they are considering right now.
Be careful not to judge which is your clients’ best option. Accept whatever your clients decide is right for them in this moment.
In the case study of the client who wanted to leave her job but felt others were judging her decision as wrong, I used the words wrong and bad to clarify her conflict. She used the word wrong; I added the word bad to check on the depth of her fear. It is easier to live with wrong decisions than ones that hurt others. I offered her the words wrong and bad based on her emotions. Although she expressed disdain when describing the stupid conflicts she had to deal with at work, her guilt seeped out when talking about how people would judge her decision to leave. She wasn’t just considering a right or wrong decision; she felt she would be judged as good or bad based on what she chose to do.
Paraphrasing helps clients assess the meaning of their words and emotions. We restate what we hear in a slightly different form to help them surface and explore their beliefs.
Paraphrasing is an offer; clients can accept your words or not. If they don’t agree, it’s likely they will offer an alternative clarifier.
You will be interjecting an interpretation of their words when paraphrasing. Be careful to base your version on what they said. If you are guessing what they are facing based on your own experiences, you have stepped into judgment instead of reflection.
Knowing if you are paraphrasing or judging can be difficult to discern in real time. If you are working on this skill, a good practice is to get permission from your clients to record your sessions to review and then erase. When you hear yourself paraphrase, ask what statements your client made that led to your choice of words. Did your words lead to clarity, or did you lead your client to accept a definition of the situation based on your own experiences? As best you can, make sure your paraphrase is an alternative statement of what was said, not your opinion about what the client shared.
Another form of paraphrasing is to use a metaphor. You use a metaphor to paint a picture of what the client is telling you in a different context connected by meaning. For example, when a leader is describing why she doesn’t trust her employees enough to delegate responsibility to them, you might say, “Sounds like you keep pruning your plants instead of trusting the teenager next door to do the job.”
If the client agrees with the representation, you can then explore what beliefs underlie the picture. In the delegation example, you would explore the comparison between the leader’s beliefs about the inadequacies of her employees and the teenager next door. You might find out her team is new and she has no experience to draw from. In this case, delegation needs to start with training. Or you might find your client’s judgments of the inadequacies of others are too harsh. This may lead to the fears that stop the leader from delegating. Metaphor is a great clarifier.
Sometimes you can capture the major elements of a client story in just a few words. You use a phrase or even one word to name the client’s experience. This practice includes labeling, bottom lining, and drawing distinctions.
When labeling clients’ experience, you are offering a title for their story. You can grab a few words they used when telling their story, such as “It’s a huge unknown” or “No trust.” You can also use a short metaphor, such as “Sounds like you are drowning” or “Sounds like you are pushing a huge rock up a hill” or “Sounds like you’ve lost sight of the finish line.” If clients simply agree with no explanation, you can follow up by asking, “What does this picture mean to your achieving what you said you wanted from this session?”
Bottom lining helps clients isolate what needs to be resolved to achieve their desired outcome. They often agree on what they want but then declare all the reasons why they can’t move forward. When you summarize their reasons, they add to the list. The conversation then runs in circles.
Listen for the word but. The word but signals that their brain is conjuring up excuses for not acting. Bring the conversation back to the statement made before the but to see if, bottom line, that action is what they want to take if it is worth the risk.
Bottom lining is also used to discern likely from not-so-likely consequences of taking a risk. For example, after clients list all the bad things that could happen, you might say, “Bottom line, you want to find a new job, but three things could make this move difficult at this time.” From this perspective, they can better examine what is keeping them from acting now.
Bottom lining can also be used to summarize beliefs and insights.
The doubt that keeps people from moving forward is often steeped in fears of feeling humiliated and embarrassed. They don’t want to look stupid, be judged as incompetent in a role such as a leader or parent, or be rejected for making a change. They spend more time defending inaction than planning actions to take.
Concisely summarizing the points clients make helps them assess the likelihood of the loss they fear. They rise above their defenses. They can also see what they would do next if what they fear comes to pass.
I often follow up the bottom-line statement with the question, “What would you do if you had nothing to worry about, if no buts existed?” The question helps not only clarify what they truly want to do but also to weaken the impact of their fears.
One of my favorite practices is drawing distinctions to help clarify what a person wants or what needs to be resolved. For example, I had a client who wanted to be more resilient but feared her brain was getting stale with age. She wasn’t taking action as quickly as she did when she started her career. To clarify what she thought she was losing, I said, “I hear two things. You don’t take action quickly and you don’t see options quickly. Which is the bigger problem: you aren’t as bold as you were when you were younger, or you aren’t as clever as you once were when seeking solutions?” She said she wasn’t as clever, which led us to explore how she faces issues differently today than years ago.
She finally said, “I’m just tired.”
I asked, “Are you tired of the work you are doing, or is it that you have so much to do, you are physically drained?” She chose the latter definition. This led her to talk about her lack of self-care, which led to a new outcome to work on for our coaching session.
Other common distinctions include comparing clients’ passion to their level of joy for their current commitments, exploring their self-imposed standards of excellence versus their need for perfection, and how quality versus quantity factor into their measures of success. You can also help clients process the meaning of their words, such as when they say, “I’m fed up with their behavior” and you ask, “What does fed up mean: you are out of options to solve the problem or you are angry with their behavior?” The clarification shifts clients to consider what they really want to resolve.
When you hear a conflict of desires or values, you can better frame the options by asking, “Are your two options in conflict with each other, or could you achieve a little more of both?” Some examples include
Drawing distinctions is a great way to clarify where clients are stuck in their thinking. Distinctions clarify what clients think and feel. They crystalize what needs to be resolved to move forward. They can pinpoint conflicts of values to better explore options. Use distinctions to help clients cut through confusion. The conversation will move forward more quickly.
Once you summarize by recapping, paraphrasing, and encapsulating what clients offer in the conversation, you can follow up your statement with a question. The question will come from your curiosity about how they see the situation from the perspective you offered. Even closed questions that follow your summaries—such as “Is this correct?” or “Is this what bothers you most?”—can be powerful clarifiers. You don’t have to spend time remembering coaching questions that have worked before. The questions will emerge from the reflection you share.
When your clients are stuck seeing no resolution to their predicaments, they get lost trying to explain their perspective. Summarizing is a way to help them break through the fog to see the path they are on. With increased clarity, they are better able to recognize their blocks and options. Use the following tips to succinctly reflect your clients’ experience to help them objectively observe their situation:
People don’t always tell the truth.
That does not mean they are intentionally lying or withholding information. They often don’t know how to articulate what they are feeling and why. They might be uncomfortable sharing a strong opinion if they don’t know how you will react. They may avoid disclosing an embarrassing thought or action.
Yet emotions, hesitations, and exaggerations can reveal what your clients need to resolve before they can decide what to do next. You can help them bring what is difficult to articulate to the surface by offering your observation of emotional shifts in their expressions.
When I summarize what people tell me and ask if what I said best describes what is going on, or I list the different problems they told me they want to address and ask which one is most important, they stop and think about their thinking. When I notice and share a shift in their emotions, they stop and think about their feelings. Exploring emotions can be more powerful than exploring thoughts when seeking to identify beliefs, conflicts, or fears that are deterring forward movement.
When you actively replay an expressed emotion, you open the door to discuss dilemmas in a way your clients would or could not do in conversations outside of coaching. For example, you might notice when they do the following:
You recognize and share the emotional reactions you notice without attempting to fix or soothe clients’ experience. Then, coming from a place of not knowing, you use compassionate curiosity to explore what might be the beliefs, fears, doubts, or conflicts that triggered the expression.
When you have compassionate curiosity, you accept what your clients feel without judgment. You don’t use questions to change their feelings. You question the source of their reactions to understand the relationship of an emotion to their desired outcome.
After you share the shift you notice, you might ask what the expression means to them to see if the reflection triggers an insight. If they are blankly silent, you might pause as they process the reflection. If they hesitate to talk, ask if they wouldn’t mind sharing their thoughts. As they attempt to explain what their reaction meant, use your summarizing skills to connect their emotions to the story they shared when defining their dilemma.
Noticing emotional shifts is a powerful yet underused coaching skill. I wrote The Discomfort Zone as a result of watching coaches miss or refuse to comment on what appeared to be negative emotions. They were adept at sharing when clients expressed enthusiasm, passion, or relief but not the darker emotions such as anger, cynicism, or guilt. Or coaches jumped in with a suggestion to ease the pain they noticed. Their sympathy overrode their empathy. Unfortunately, their attempts to make their clients feel better didn’t allow their clients to work through their emotions to a better understanding. Some clients felt bad for reacting.
Most of us were brought up to believe some emotions are negative and bad.
I like feeling happy as much as anyone. I’m more productive when my mood is bright. I’m easier to be with when I’m hopeful about tomorrow.
I have also made big changes in my life through the power of my anger, realized the depth of my courage when feeling my fear, and learned what is important in life from sorrow.
You need to give your clients a safe space to shed their tears, allow them to feel angry and hurt, and accept when they don’t trust anyone, including you, in the moment. You need to affirm the doubtful critic and the disappointed visionary without giving them false hope. Even when you have lived your clients’ story, you can show you care without holding their hand.
Trying to make them feel better, even running to get a tissue for a crier, will negatively affect the coaching no matter the value of your intention. They might feel less understood or enfeebled when you interrupt to save them. The response you believe is “being supportive” could damage their willingness to fully express themselves to you.
Clients don’t need you to cheer them up. They want you to acknowledge they are okay no matter what they feel. This total acceptance encourages them to talk about their feelings so they can better understand them. Understanding the source of their emotions weakens the impact on their thinking. They are better able to recognize what is now possible or what they know they must do. They can use what they learn from their emotional reactions to make their delayed decisions.
When with others, you are picking up emotional signals that you then interpret through the lens of your experiences. Your life experiences give you the capacity for empathy where you might understand the source of their emotional reactions. However, recognizing an emotional shift and understanding why others feel the way they do are not the same.
Empathy is subjective. When you interpret why people feel the way they do, your opinion might be correct or not. The visceral reaction you have when sensing the emotions of others is real. Your understanding of the source may or may not be accurate.
Share the emotional shifts you notice in your clients. Wait for a response or ask what they think the expression means. Does their excitement represent something of value to them? Do they know where their doubt is coming from? If you have an inkling about what caused the shift, offer an idea or a distraction with no attachment to being right. Is their frustration based on their current work assignments or the lack of a path forward in the future? Are they angry about a decision that was made without them, or are they angry they haven’t spoken up? Let your clients determine the interpretation of their reaction. Your options will help them think more deeply about their thoughts and feelings, even if their interpretation is different from yours. If they correct you, they clarify the source of their feelings for themselves.
If their experience reminds you of one of your own, keep your story to yourself. When you tell them you have felt the same way in the past, you jump out of coaching and into fixing.
If you want your clients to feel comfortable being vulnerable with you, you need to let your reactions to their emotions fade away. You create a safe space for the conversation to unfold by caring and feeling compassionately curious. Then you can identify and understand what they feel, not feel it with them.
Even at work, most people long for others to understand how they feel, the foundation of empathy. Clients want you to sense their discomfort or distress, especially when they struggle with articulating the emotions they are experiencing. They also might hope you have a compassionate response to their revelation. Ask them how their emotions are impacting their desired outcome. Seek to discover if they want to work through their emotions or they just need a safe place to talk.
In my emotional intelligence and coaching skills classes, I am often asked if too much empathy can be bad. If you embody the emotions you pick up from others, the answer could be yes. If you instead notice and release the emotions in your body so you can hold the space for others to safely express themselves, the answer is no.
Your capacity to experience empathy is not the same as emotional contagion, where you take on the emotions of another. Most people long to feel seen, heard, and valued no matter what they express. They want to feel safe enough to express themselves without feeling judged. They don’t need you to feel sad, stressed, angry, or anxious with them.
If you take on their emotions beyond your initial sense of their reactions, they might feel they have to take care of you. They might feel guilty or sorry for upsetting you. Noticing clients’ emotional reactions is an instantaneous response you share and then release in a noncritical way.1 If you felt their emotion, you relax your body and let the emotion subside as you return to being fully present with your clients. If you let these emotions sit in your body, your body and mind will be emotionally hijacked.
Unbridled emotional contagion can lead to concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol, which makes it difficult to release the emotions.2 Taking on other people’s feelings in coaching can break the bond of trust you were hoping to strengthen. You may feel responsible for relieving their pain. You quit coaching as you jump in to fix their problems to make them feel better. You do this to make yourself feel better too.
Noticing emotional expressions and shifts without letting your own emotions get in the way encourages clients’ exploration. The intensity of their emotions subsides. They can think more clearly about their thinking. The coaching can more smoothly move forward.
Reflecting emotional shifts can be powerful as well as intimidating for both coach and client. Coaches need to manage their discomfort when noticing their clients’ emotional reactions to objectively share their observations. Then, although sharing emotional shifts can provoke a new awareness, clients often react with a strong emotion before the insight emerges. Use the following tips to effectively reflect your clients’ emotional expressions: