Week 9 - Coachee

I did both options this week - one intentionally and one by accident. First, I made an effort to sit down and have a serious conversation with the bane of my existence. This woman is a workplace bully. She is irresponsible and petty and…well, clearly I tend to pass judgment on her. Not this week though! I sat with her at lunch, which I usually don’t do, and just asked her how she’s been. She talked about the stress of applying for new jobs, about how sad she was for a student who is in crisis, about Trader Joe’s, about her romantic life, and pretty much everything. The topics ranged and at the time seemed to connect. Now, however, it seems like we covered so many random issues that it’s hard to imagine anything substantive coming out the experience.

What went through my head at the time though is the focus of the assignment. When I sat down, I told myself “She is a person too.” I often forget that she goes through her own sadness, stress, and drama just like everyone else and has a right to empathy. I also made a conscious effort to leave myself completely out of the conversation. When a question arose about the conversation, I asked it and tried to emphasize questions that allowed her to express more about what she was feeling regarding each issue.

To be honest, I think the conversation was really helpful for me in a lot of ways. I feel calmer around her now and don’t feel angry when she’s around. I can have a conversation with her as long as I remember to think of her as a person and not to focus on me. Beyond that though, like I said, nothing substantive came out of the conversation itself. She didn’t break down and admit that she’s a bully for these reasons, nor did she express why x, y, and z about working with me frustrate her. I don’t think that we broke a lot of new ground, but what we did create was trust. I feel much more comfortable talking to her now that we’ve had a calm and cordial conversation. I would bet that she feels the same way, so that’s progress!

Option two was really enjoyable also. I talked to my friend about stress that she is coping with right now. She is having IRS problems that are digging up some old, sad memories. Additionally her husband is sick. There’s a lot going on. So I went for a walk with her on Thursday and I just asked her how she’s coping. As she went through the whole long story I noticed that she wasn’t giving herself very much credit for all the hard work she has been putting in regarding all these issues. I asked her to list some of the things she’s done that she should be proud of, and it was tough for her at first. She didn’t want to take credit for anything good, so I prompted her. I said, “If I were you, I’d be really proud that I’d…” and I finished the sentence. She laughed, because it was corny, but eventually she conceded and talked about the good things she’s accomplished. Then, I asked her to think about what she could do now that she’d be proud of down the road. This allowed her to strategize a bit about her ideal resolutions to these problems and to come up with a plan.

I felt really good about walking her through this, and next week will reveal if my conversation was helpful.

Week 9 - Coach Take 2

Well, my coachee did not disappoint. He took this assignment as an opportunity to improve and work on his relationship with his fiancée. He described a conversation that was bordering on a fight as both involved parties were pretty committed to their ideas. He also admitted that he was “talking over her” and he wasn’t really letting his fiancée express her ideas because he was so sure that his ideas were right. But then, like the angel on his shoulder, Olen’s lecture popped into his head and my coachee decided to just shut up and listen to his fiancée.

He described the physical energy in the room in some detail and the physical connection – specifically he described intense and unbreakable eye contact even as she continued to talk. He said that maintaining this eye contact and really attending to what she was saying and expressing had a drastic impact on both parties. He was able to hear her better, and she was able to relax. His own calm was contagious and maybe gave her enough comfort to suspend a bit herself.

One topic my coachee touched on that I think is crucial to this course is the idea of validation. Looking at someone while they are talking and nodding as they speak validates what they are saying. Confidence is what allows you to open up and to say more and get more personal. Validation is crucial and I think it is a matter of justice to an extent. People are often told their feelings are invalid and that is a way of silencing them, so validating someone else is actually a bold political act if you ask me.

Another thing we discussed was the difference between empathy and sympathy. For my coachee, this week’s assignment was really about distinguishing between those two. He found value in his fiancée’s feelings not because of how they related to or were similar to his own. Instead he valued them as feelings that were unique to her and that she had complete ownership of. I talked about how much I hate it when a friend is letting you vent and all he can do is tell you about the time that the same thing happened to him and boy was it frustrating. If I’m sharing my feelings, let those feelings belong to me. Don’t take them over.

Finally, I asked my coachee about “planning ahead.” What about trying to think of those things that are most awkward to talk about? What are the topics that make it really difficult to be a good empathetic listener? If someone is confessing something you deem immoral? What about when a person is misquoting or misrepresenting you or someone you know? By thinking now about those challenging situations, maybe we can prepare for the future and strategize ways to cope down the line. In his situation in particular, what are the fights with his fiancée that he most fears? I think that brainstorming those topics and maybe even running through a model fight in his head will help my coachee be empathetic when the time comes.

Week 9 - Pre Coaching

My regularly scheduled coaching call had to be postponed this week due to the holiday, but I did have some thoughts I wanted to process before speaking to my coachee anyway. The big question is, “Can listening be learned?” Obviously some people are better listeners than others. Some people are better at pretending to be good listeners. Other people are rhetorically gifted or are merely open and honest individuals who have an easier time speaking candidly. Where do these abilities come from?

My thought is that for some people they are (more or less) natural. I think that I am naturally a very good listener. There are elements that can be taught though. While I was never “taught” to listen per se, I was trained as a sexual assault counselor and learned new skills and information about different kinds of listening through that.

I will be curious to see in this week’s posts if some people had a harder time with this assignment. I am assuming that it was a cake walk for my coachee because he is the epitome of empathy, but we’ll just have to wait and see…