Everyone's a Great Coach from the Audience

I've watched a lot of coaching demonstrations over the years.

I've trained coaches, modelled skills, offered feedback, and spent countless hours helping people develop their coaching practice. I've also sat in multiple conferences and virtual sessions watching some very accomplished coaches demonstrate their craft. I've observed, taken notes, learned a few things and, occasionally, silently judged.

Interesting question. I wonder why they asked that?

I'd have gone somewhere else with that response.

They missed an opportunity there.

All from the comfort of my chair, of course. Because it's remarkably easy to critique someone else's coaching when you're not the one doing the coaching.

A few days ago, that changed.

For the first time, I found myself doing a live coaching demonstration in front of an audience. In fact, I did two demonstrations, on consecutive days, and I discovered a few things I'd previously overlooked.

There's a lot going on in that chair

The task sounded straightforward enough. Demonstrate a coaching conversation using the GROW model.

Goal. Reality. Options. Way Forward.

Four stages. A familiar framework. One I've used and taught many times. What could possibly be so hard? Well, quite a lot, as it turns out.

First, there's the preparation. Getting yourself into the right frame of mind. Settling down, becoming present, remembering what you're there to do.

Then there's the room.

How are the chairs set up? Where's the audience? Can everyone hear? Are people watching? Or are they talking amongst themselves? And, perhaps most importantly, can I resist the temptation to look at them? Because while I was there to demonstrate coaching, I wasn't there to perform for the audience. My attention needed to be on the person sitting opposite me.

Which sounds obvious until you're the one sitting there.

Then there's inner narrative telling me to, "relax, look calm, remember the stages. Ask questions that help the client explore their goal. Understand their current reality. Discover possibilities. Identify a way forward, remeber to listen"

and a 4 step model which is simple enough when you're describing it on a slide becomes rather more demanding when you're trying to do it in real time for 150 people.

Because you're not just following a model, you're coaching a human being, and human beings have this rather inconvenient habit of not following the script.

A little more respect for the demonstration chair

One of the many things I took away from the experience was a renewed appreciation for the people I've watched over the years.

It's easy to observe a coaching demonstration and notice what might have been done differently. It's much harder to appreciate everything the coach is managing while they're doing it. The room. The audience. The model. Their own internal dialogue. And, somewhere amongst all that, a client who deserves their full attention.

I also realised how little of that internal experience is visible to an observer. Someone watching my second demonstration might have seen a fairly ordinary coaching conversation moving from Goal through Reality and Options towards a Way Forward. They wouldn't necessarily have known that, for a brief moment, I was wondering how we'd gone from Reality to Options with out my noticing!

And perhaps that's worth remembering the next time I find myself watching someone else demonstrate their coaching skills. A little less silent judgment. A little more curiosity about what's happening in the chair.