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The Business of Coaching Communication

Written by: Di Holliday

Article Overview: Communication is often overlooked as something one can learn. Everyone thinks that they know 'how to communicate'but not everyone can. This article gives some tips for Coaches and Clients.

The Business of Coaching Communication

The Business of Coaching Communication


Any business and management coach will tell you that nobody listens to them! If they don’t listen to their Coach, how can they expect to be able to communicate with their peers and staff?

Communication is still an under discussed subject in management training and it is THE most important in business and in any part of a business.

Communication is all about listening and talking. Chatter and banter have taken over deliberated and constructed discussions. Email has taken over letter writing; where a letter would be deliberated over until perfect, email is quite often sent, complete with spelling mistakes, poor grammar and misjudged or ambiguous text.

The art of listening and it is an art, is under valued. The art of being understood is the other side of the coin and a skill that is vastly underestimated in the workplace.
If you fail to communicate, you fail in business; our coaching clients need to understand that many of us business coaches have been in business ourselves for years and know the problems that they face, have made the mistakes and learnt from them.

Let’s see some listening skills relevant for a client to take on board.

There are, believe it or not, eleven distinct levels of listening and the common response to each of the main six I summarise below:

1) Sympathetic “Oh dear… that is a rotten thing to happen to you”
2) Active “OK then, let’s see what we can do for you”
3) Biased “Don’t be silly, you know that can’t happen”
4) Disregarding “Yes. I know….yes…..”
5) Subliminal “What, yes, OK, yes, I’m sure you are right”
6) Affirmative. “Wow, what a result, well done!”


These are the simple ones; Number 6 is used constantly in coaching to show confidence, number 1 to show empathy and number 2 to encourage action.

As coaches we use these listening skills all the time, if we can show our clients how to use only three, we are winning this battle. In order to motivate staff and stimulate colleagues, listening and finding the correct response is more important than people think.

With each of your team members you will already have set out boundaries, you have shown understanding and compassion and thrown out coercion. You will have shown them the ‘carrot’ and not the ’stick’. You will have a fair idea of how they all react in the workplace by watching their body language and ‘over hearing’ conversations.

So, when you are having a dialogue with a person in your team, say very little, use the listening skills. Make sure that what has gone before has not been corrupted by other ‘well meaning staff’. Listen to them……

Next is talking to be understood. You mean you thought everyone knew what you meant when you gave the ‘team briefing’ last week? Think again.

Let’s say that your ‘team’ consists of six people. Two are quite senior and have been with you a while, two are fairly new and are still learning the job and the other two are new to your team but not new to the job. Each of these people will ‘hear’ what they want to hear, what is relevant to them and them alone.

The two who know the job but are new to you will listen with critical ears, they may wish you to make mistakes and even fail.

The two who are still learning will only pick on the bits that they understand and the two senior staff will be actively looking for flaws in your management structure and style in order to depose and replace you.

Now do you think they all get the same message?

If you were to analyse your speech before you deliver it by considering your audience, you will be able to pitch certain parts to each ‘type’ of person in the group.

For instance, you would acknowledge the fact the certain people in the group already know what you are trying to say. You would say to those who may not be too sure, that you would follow up with details later. You would, in effect put yourself in each person’s shoes and listen to yourself.

Anything you ever say that is, ‘off the cuff’, not prepared or thought through will endanger your leadership role and maybe even jeopardise your job.

If you are in habit of drinking alcohol with your team after work, just watch how much you take on board. Being friendly is OK, being silly is not. You are still ‘The Boss’ and when you let your guard down you lose control and inevitably your authority.

No one wants to work hard when there is little appreciation or respect; that goes both ways.

Communication therefore needs to learned, like any other management tool, make sure you take care to listen and learn before you speak.

Diane Holliday
WHO2 Business Coach and Mentor
October 2006

Email coach@who2.co.uk

Web site www.who2.co.uk

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Article Tags: coaching, communication, listening, results, teams



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