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One skill in a coaching session is a challenge for many beginner coaches – giving feedback.
Beginner coaches often lack feedback skills, dare not respond, and do not know how to respond. At times like these, there is no power to be a coach.
"Giving feedback", as the ability to directly feedback the real state of the customer, is the most reflective of the role of the coach as a "mirror".
We often say that coaching is like a mirror. One of the most important ways for coaches to be mirrors is to dare to give the students their current true state, and the purpose of this process is to:
- Let students see their own blind spots;
- Reflect the current situation and make the trainees clear about their current position;
- To enable students to identify areas for learning and improvement.
Therefore, giving feedback is a must-have ability for a qualified coach.
Candid feedback is essential to build professional coaching relationships, increase trust between coaches and clients, and support clients. Here are 5 suggestions on how to do it well.
01Set up an "emotional bank account"
"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. ”
People will only want to know how much knowledge you have about this matter if they understand how much you care about it. For example, when applying for a job, the boss first pays attention not to how rich your knowledge of the position is, but whether you love the job.
Effective feedback starts with trust and care. According to emotion management coach John Gottman, humans have an "emotional bank account."
In a work environment, when you help others, express gratitude, and give praise, you accumulate an emotional bank of money. When you ask for help and criticize others, the amount of money in your emotional bank account decreases.
Effective feedback starts with a positive emotional bank account. One way to add balance is to provide authentic, strengths-based feedback. You don't need to be positive in every interaction. Instead, make sure your feedback account is balanced overall.
02Set clear intentions
Another way to increase the effectiveness of feedback is to clarify your intentions.
You need to be very clear about why you're giving feedback and state the intent of that feedback in advance.
(Hint: Feedback aimed at solving a problem or repairing a relationship tends to be more receptive than feedback intended to express emotion or correct.) )
- "You have a lot of potential. I'd like to share some of my observations on how you interact in this coaching session, as well as some thoughts on how you can get better at this. ”
- "I want to talk to you about our coaching program. My goal is to improve our communication and improve coaching results. ”
03Grasp the focus of the coach
The key to whether the coach can give effective feedback to the students is whether the coach can grasp the focus of the coach at any time, and the root cause of most beginners' obstacles when using the coach's feedback is almost not to grasp the focus of the coach.
Right focus: Focus on the learner – feedback on the learner I heard, saw, or understood;
Wrong Focus: Focus on yourself – prove that I'm right and the student is wrong.
Because of this, many times when we think that we are not giving "feedback", we need to immediately examine ourselves to see if our focus is wrong, and the following are common mistakes when focusing on ourselves:
- strike (hostile attitude);
- flattering (deferential attitude);
- venting (hostile attitude);
- Sarcasm (hostile attitude).
Therefore, in order to give good feedback, we should first pay attention to whether our own starting point is the mindset of contribution!
Whether or not the student receives the coach's contribution is the key to the effectiveness of your response, so a genuine attitude is crucial, and a direct and candid attitude is also a sign that you are truly focused on the student.
04 Feedback semantics
The coach summarizes the client's words and then tells them in short sentences to verify that he understands what the client meant.
It is important to note that the feedback should be concise and not wordy.
When people start using this technique, they tend to be too wordy, even longer than the message of the speaker. If the language of the feedback is not concise enough, the speaker's train of thought may be interrupted. Effective listeners learn to condense their responses.
Second, the feedback should be semantic, that is, focus only on the core of the problem.
An experienced coach understands the heart of the speaker's message and then reflects it. Feedback semantics are meant to reflect facts, not the emotions of the speaker. Although the obvious difference between content and feeling is artificial, the feedback semantics focus on the content of the message.
Finally, feedback semantics is comprehension, not imitation.
Mechanical imitation (repeating the speaker's words to the letter) and feedback are very different. Mechanical imitation often hinders conversation, and feedback semantics, when used correctly, can greatly enhance communication between people.
05 Feedback feelings
Tell the other person what they are saying in another way to check that you are hearing the other person's feelings.
There are many emotional aspects of conversation that are often overlooked by beginner coaches. They tend to focus their attention on the content. If feedback is given, the focus is also on the facts (not feelings).
Or, the listener asks questions that seek factual answers:
- "How do you do that?"
- "When did it happen?"
Although we rarely give feedback on our feelings in conversation, we have learned to "read" other people's emotions more or less as we grow up.
In life, maybe you are sometimes speaking to an individual or a group, and then quickly realize that the listener is tired of it.
They don't say they're annoyed or deserted, but you can understand how they're feeling.
If someone is angry with you, you can often feel it even if he doesn't say anything.
There are also people who like you so much that they never say it, but you can be sure that you are not self-inflicted.
Skills that the coach feedback feels can be practiced from these 4 points:
- Listen to sentences that describe emotions;
- Infer feelings from the overall content;
- Observe body language;
- Positional thinking.
Feedback allows the coachee to visualize the situation they are in, the role they play in the conflict, their mindset and behaviour.
The "classic" part of many coaches happens after a sharp feedback is given, and the direct and accurate feedback will reach people's hearts, creating a larger space for awareness, allowing people to generate motivation from the bottom of their hearts, and directly lead to follow-up actions and changes.