3rd Coaching call

Another great conversation with Jo Ann. This time I attempted to present as more of a coach and ask those questions that would require Jo Ann to reflect more. I am lucky that Jo Ann already deeply reflects in the assignment so she provides me with a lot of the information without me even having to ask questions.

I began the session with simply asking what had happened in her conversation where she attempted to suspend. What I enjoy about Jo Ann is that when she does something she really goes for it. She actually attempted to have two conversations. She mentions how she “overshot” and “undershot” in who she attempted to interact with, which I found a funny description and quite accurate as she explained. She overshot by choosing to have a conversation with someone whom she has only ever had “hostile”, “one sided” (being theirs) and “cold” interactions with and undershot by choosing someone whom she never had spoken with, except maybe an exchange of hello. The conversation with the person she “overshot” began in field 1 (politeness), at least on her part, him being not so polite, and ended in field II, very briefly. The second conversation with a person who she wished to have a deeper interaction with began and never moved on from field I (politeness)

She described both conversation being a let down and went into explaining what happened in each. At first you would think anything was accomplished. Then I ask her what, if anything, could she find to take away from the conversations focusing on what and why they never amounted to what she wished they would. She mentioned how sometimes its good to know who you can communicate with and who you cant. She says now she can point out those people who will only stay polite or those who aren’t comfortable going past the talking touch stage. She mentioned that she can now acknowledge those people, especially those “hostile” people and by doing so achieve a level of acceptance of “who” they were and an understanding that she didn’t cause them to act that way and, in the same note, cannot change their behavior, but only her own.

Sadly she said how, in regards to the talking tough co-worker, she felt happy just being able to simply maintain neutrality in the conversation. He sounds not like the kindest man and we both laughed how in fact she did overshoot this one. ;]

I asked her what, if anything, would she have changed about the conversations. She mentions something that I addressed in a personal e-mail to Olen. She felt that if she would have, prior to the conversation, shared with them what she was trying to do, then maybe, they would have been prepared to come into and interact in a deeper way, with shared expectations. Instead she felt she simply bombarded them and felt how should/could they have known something more/different would/could have come out of the interaction then what usually has occurred in the past. I understood this completely thinking back to a few weeks ago when we began coaching. I couldn’t help thinking how, when I attempted to coach my staff through our weekly meetings, that it may help more if I shared with them, what I was learning in the course, so that a) they were too equipped with tools that would help them understand why certain meetings get no where and b) would be part of what I was trying to do and not my subjects that I was keeping this from. I think Jo Ann was correct in that she should have shared this with her co-workers and allowed them in on what she was attempting to do.

I wanted to challenge Jo Ann more in this session and found that outward suspension was where she was having trouble. We tried to figure out why and came to one conclusion, as Olen does as well, that the thought of being that vulnerable is scary.

We then ended the conversation discussion what she could do to better understand and be better at suspending. Jo Ann came up with a couple things. One is that she felt writing about your inward suspension thoughts. Another is that possibly silence could be a way of her outwardly suspending, where she doesn’t have to say anything per say. This silence would be a way of showing another that you are acknowledging their opinion. I thought these were awesome ways to grow in suspending.