How to be a Curious Coach

Sita And Sarita (Also Known As Young Woman With Cat) by Cecilia Beaux

"Curiosity is a willing, a proud, and eager confession of ignorance." ~S. Leonard Rubinstein

If, as coaches, we are truly curious and eager to know more about our client's experience or perception or belief, we must come from a place of non-judgement and non-attachment.

When you come from a place of curiosity, you open up the dialogue in untold directions. When you come from a place of curiosity, you are striving to connect with the other. When you come from a place of curiosity, you are striving to understand, striving to know something that matters.

As coaches, we need to step back, maintain an energetic connection with the client, listen, and be curious.

When we come from a place of curiosity its as if we are observing the situation as an anthropologist might. We are circling round the issue, trying to understand it, having enough respect for the issue and the client to realize that we can never have direct knowledge of his or her experience. Thus, we must observe. And we must inquire.

We must be objectively curious. We must ask questions from a non-attached place.

We must consider ourselves in some moments as clinical observers, naming what we are seeing and hearing: getting confirmation from our subject that we are indeed correct in our observations.

Much of what goes into allowing ourselves to truly be curious as coaches involves slowing down. As a coaching skill, cultivating curiosity means letting go of our agenda for the client, sometimes holding the client's agenda in waiting, and eagerly exploring nuance with the client so that we arrive at real understanding.

Never assume to know the answer. Cultivate the skill of curious questioning. In the Authentic Wholeness Coach Training Certification Program, I teach specific languaging and inquiry skills and techniques that help you become even more masterful at eliciting real meaning from clients and thus helping them shift into their next space.