The Power of Listening

It happened again. The other day, towards the end of a coaching session, my coachee said: ‘Thanks, what a great idea!’  I had to say: ‘I think it was your idea, actually…’ as indeed it had been.

But it was an idea she had never had before, about a topic that she has been thinking about for some time.

It reminded me of a comment by Andrew Derrington some time ago, to the effect that he often found that he had great ideas either during or after our coaching sessions.

And it all hinges on the power of listening; of providing the space, time, attention and questions that help someone to take her thinking further than she had ever taken it before. 

Last week, I got a lot of academics to do this for each other as part of a time management workshop: to listen to each other thinking out loud about their time management issues and what they might do about them, without interrupting, for thirty minutes. As one reported: I thought I’d said all I had to say after five minutes; but then, being listened to for another twenty-five meant that I said more things - and some of them were valuable, new thoughts I had not had before.

As Nancy Kline would put it, all it takes is giving people time (and the right environment) to think.

So simple, so powerful… and so rare.