279: Seven Strategies for Accelerating Aha Moments When Coaching

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Someone will drop little clues throughout a conversation, and sometimes they will seem irrelevant or unrelated to what you're talking about. So they might say something like, yeah. And then the other day I took this coding class and it was so random and so fun and blah blah blah. And then they go back to what they're doing. Okay, well, when you notice, their body language will brighten about the coding class, it's almost like they've dropped a balloon, but there's no air in the balloon. So with your questions and attention, you can breathe life into it. Trust that even if it seems unrelated, that information and insight will take you to a really new place by the time you close out the conversation. What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

When I first started coaching almost 15 years ago, I used to get sick to my stomach before going into a little phone booth. This was while I was working at Google to conduct a coaching session. I remember walking down the hallway one day just feeling absolutely nauseous, wondering if maybe I shouldn't be a coach after all. Even though I had gone through a year of training through CTI and I had started weaving this into my role within Google, I had Pivoted onto the career development team where I started out in training. I just started having serious doubts. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe this pit in my stomach is telling me that I should not be doing this at all. What does this mean? I turned to one of my very first coaches and mentors at the time, Adrian Clapack. He's still a great friend to this day, and Adrian gave me the wisest advice. He said, if you are getting nervous before coaching others, you're probably taking on too much responsibility for the outcome of the session. You're doing too much work. Relax, breathe, be present and trust the process. Trust that together with the other person you will co create something far better than if you own that session yourself. This advice has stayed with me to this day. In fact, Adrian is the COVID blurb of my first book, Life After College. We send many pivoters to his Career Pathfinder program. I'll put a link to that in the show notes if you yourself are going through a career change. And later, when I started co creating and launching the global drop in coaching program that is called Career Guru at Google, still in place to this day. This advice came in so handy when I was coaching managers and directors. I still do workshops within companies on teaching the Pivot method as a one on one career conversation tool. And one of the biggest pitfalls that many managers fall into, and coaches in general, is owning the outcome of the session. But also many people advance to that point of becoming a manager or mentor or a coach because they're good problem solvers, they're strategic, they get things done. But these very qualities might be getting in the way of your ability to facilitate and generate AHA moments for the other person. So today, having just given this workshop a few times recently, I wanted to share the portion of it specifically around seven strategies for accelerating AHA moments when you are coaching someone else. The meta strategy it doesn't even count as number one is don't own the session. This isn't on you to prove yourself as the best coach ever, the most brilliant person with the best advice and the most strategic ideas. Set all of that down and consider that what I call the 702010 rule spend 70% of the time deeply listening to the person in front of you. 20% of the time can be asking short, powerful questions and 10% of the time can be recapping what you're hearing and maybe offering fork in the road decisions about where your coachee wants to take the conversation. Let's get into strategy number one. The very first question I like to ask for any coaching conversation is not just what do you want to talk about today? But once you have a general sense of the topic, what is your ideal outcome from the time we have together? This is the very first coaching question. Because even if the person has a fuzzy sense of what they're hoping to achieve with you, whether you have 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, you can say, okay, great, so we're talking about career change within this topic. What would be most helpful for you to walk away with by the end of this 30 minutes that we have together, or let's say you're coaching somebody on burnout and they're just feeling totally spent. Okay, so I hear you. You're feeling really burnt out. What would be your ideal outcome from the hour that we have together today? And just by asking that question, you're already getting their gears turning about, hmm, why am I here? What would make this helpful? What do I want to walk away with, knowing that we have X amount of time? What is realistic? What is a slice of this topic that's most important to tackle together?

The second strategy for generating aha moments is what I call setting the brackets. So if you're familiar with the pivot method, you know that the first stage plant is about two things. Generally, where are you now, what's working? What are your strengths? And where would you like to end up? What is your vision or your ideal state? Whether it's three months, six months, a year from now, these set the brackets for any pivot, any next move. But even in a conversation, think about it like Google Maps. There's the little button that says current location. You are here and you put in your destination with generally where you want to end up before you start brainstorming how to get there. Another common pitfall is people jump way too soon into problem solving. I'm feeling really burnt out at work and I don't know, I was thinking I could go on a retreat or I could take a sabbatical. And it's really easy to trap the coach, manager or mentor into brainstorming right off the bat before you've set those brackets. So strategy number two is ask them to rate their current state or satisfaction with the topic that you're discussing on a scale of 1 to 10. Okay, so you're feeling really burnt out. If one is total burnout, you can't even show up to work tomorrow. And 10 is you feel really energized and recharged and ready and in the zone. Where would you put yourself? And then they'll give you a rating, let's say, oh, it's a four. Okay, why did you choose four? It's not a zero. So what is working? And then the follow up, the other side of this bracket is what does a 10 look like? You can spend 50% of the time that you have together solely on this one question. What does a 10 look like? And the most helpful follow up questions to keep building out that vision are what else? What else? What's important to you about that? Say more as you're doing that and building out the vision, building out the brackets. What's working? What does success look like? Strategy number three is to notice their body language, bulb brightness. And here's what I mean by that. I always preferred to do a lot of my coaching over the phone. When I was doing the majority of my coaching, zoom and video calling wasn't as assumed or even the default state the way that it sort of is today. I loved doing it over the phone because neither one of us had to have that screen fatigue, looking at the tiny pinhole in the computer, worry about what we were wearing, how we looked, nothing. It was just pure voice. And you're here listening to this podcast. There's so much that you can infer from voice alone. So when you're coaching, when somebody is responding to you and you're in that deep listening, one of the greatest gifts that you can give is to observe and call out their body language, bulb brightness. Here's what I mean by that. If somebody's talking and they start to say, oh, I don't know, I feel like I should work toward getting a promotion. And that just really is probably what's going to be best for me. Okay, well, as the coach, you could say, I'm hearing your voice drop as you're saying that, or that sounds like it's kind of draining or it's dragging you down, or I'm hearing some shoulds in there. What's that about? So you're noticing that their bulb has dimmed. On the other hand, let's say that they go, you know, the other weekend I took a Friday off and it was so refreshing. I just went away. I went on retreat or I took my dog hiking. And I can't believe what a difference it made. I was so refreshed by the time I came back in on Monday. Okay, and you could go, you know, your voice really lit up when you were saying, taking your dog hiking, or as you were talking about taking that Friday off. Say more. Because your whole energy shifted as you were describing that. So you, as the coach, can notice and observe. And sometimes the person, while they're talking, they don't notice their bulb brightening and dimming as much as you will. So without even having to have some genius question lined up, all you have to do is notice their energy and call out whether the bulb is dimming or it's brightening and ask them to tell you more about that. You can always say, I might be wrong, but that sounds like a should, you know, or correct me if I'm wrong. Call me crazy. But it sounds like you don't want to do that very much, you know? Or like, I heard you say that you want a promotion. Call me crazy, but you didn't sound very excited about that as you were talking. Is that true? You know, and so you can always make yourself willing to be wrong, but throw out these intuitive hits of what you're reading in their energy. Number four, on a related note, is breathe life into idea balloons. Here's what I mean. Someone will drop little clues throughout a conversation, and sometimes they will seem irrelevant or unrelated to what you're talking about. So they might say something like, yeah, and then the other day I took this coding class, and it was so random and so fun and blah, blah, blah. And then they go back to what they're doing. Okay, well, when you notice their body language bowl brighten about the coding class, it's almost like they've dropped a balloon. But there's no air in the balloon. So with your questions and attention, you can breathe life into it. Trust that even if it seems unrelated, that information and insight will take you to a really new place by the time you close out the conversation. So say, ooh, there was a real spark of energy there. When you were talking about that coding class. What did you enjoy about that? Take me to that day? What kinds of feelings were present? What were you doing? What made that day so memorable? And you, by shining the flashlight, if you will, of your attention. See, I love all these metaphors. We have a flashlight, but we're breathing air into that idea balloon. We are giving them the gift of seeing a clue that was dropped and actually kind of pausing what feels like the true topic of the day or the main track of the serious conversation of setting a career strategy. And we're breathing life into little idea balloons along the way, trusting that even if they're random, they will come back to make sense later on.

We'll be right back just after this.

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The fifth Strategy for Accelerating Aha Moments is one of my favorite coaching questions of all time. It works in any situation and I encourage you to try this as a homework from this podcast episode to ask even if you're not officially coaching. Maybe it's a friend, a family member, or you are in some kind of coaching or mentoring situation and somebody's spinning out and they sound kind of stuck. Pause and ask what does your gut say?

And don't step on the silence. Just ask them. Even if they go, well, I don't know my gut, I don't know. It's like I just can't hear it and I'm having so many thoughts already. You could hear that that person went right back into their mind what they should do or what they should want. Or that swirl, I call it the beehive in your brain. All those thoughts you don't know what to do with and say, I'm going to ask you one more time. Maybe close your eyes. Let's take a big deep breath.

What does your gut say?

And let them sit there. Don't step on the silence. As I said, just let that question breathe and you would be amazed at what wisdom and intelligence people have within them when you really ask, what does your gut say? Or another variation that I share in Pivot is the head heart gut exercise that our head is often what we should do, our heart is what we want, and our gut or instinct or intuition can act as a referee between the two. That comes from a fantastic book called M Braining, about the three intelligence centers that we have in our body. Another way to channel their own gut instincts is to ask, who is somebody you really admire? And then you do a little role play. Whoever it is that they choose, whether it's a celebrity, a leader, someone in their network, someone at the organization, you can say, okay, let's do a little role play. You be that person and I'm going to be you. I'm going to pick up the phone and call you and I'll actually go, ring, ring. Hi Oprah, it's Jenny calling or whatever the name of your coachee. So hi Oprah, it's Susie calling. I just have no clue what to do. I Get nervous before podcast interviews and I am awkward. And then as soon as I hang up, I sort of berate myself about what I could have done differently and how it could be better help. And I, as the coach, will sort of mirror back what I'm hearing the person say. And then they get a little uncomfortable at first. But you would be amazed at what gems of wisdom the other person might say. So if I'm channeling Oprah, I might say, oh, Jenny, I hear you. I know I had that in the early days too. And you know what? I still have that. So don't worry. That might not even go away. But if you are truly present and you focus on what you're grateful for, that you're grateful to be with that guest, that you're grateful to be in deep conversation, that you're grateful you can have a podcast at all. And you focus on what goes well, and you focus on the other person shining. Don't make it about you. You're going to have so much fun with it. And you know what? This podcast is going to end up wherever it is meant to. You don't need to worry about that. Trust that it's all unfolding at just the perfect pace. Wow, where'd that come from? That's me channeling Oprah, giving myself advice, and it's kind of cool. I don't know if I would have said that to myself. I probably would have just continued in my mode of being self critical about this particular topic. The sixth strategy for accelerating aha moments is dig to the roots of a topic tree. Here's what I mean. When coaches are first starting out, a lot of them think I need to have the most brilliant original questions in order to have a positive outcome for my coachee or to facilitate aha moments and so much self awareness. It's actually the opposite. You probably need a handful in your toolbox of five questions, the simpler the better, and then stick with it. So for example, that question right at the beginning of setting the brackets, if you say, what does success look like a year from now? What does a 10 look like? Don't move on as soon as they tell you one thing. So let's use my podcast example. Let's say I said now I'm coaching myself and I go, well, a 10 is that I have 10,000 listeners, 10,000 downloads for every episode a year from now. That would be amazing. Okay, well if I, the coach, then go, okay, great. So let's brainstorm how you can grow your podcast. I have just cut this conversation off at the knees. I have just ripped a little budding tree out of the root without ever really digging deeper. And this is a huge missed opportunity. But it's more common than you might think. Sometimes the coachee will even jump ahead. So I'll say, oh, well, a 10 would look like 10,000 downloads within the first week for a new episode. And, you know, I've been trying these different strategies of how to make that happen, and there's some that are working better than others. And look what I did as the coachee. I even derailed us accidentally because it's so much more comfortable to jump to problem solving than it is sometimes to stay in a big vision that's so resonant, it's almost intimidating of, is this possible? Can I actually make this happen Instead? To dig to the roots of the topic tree, you would say, what does a 10 look like? Say more about that. What else? What's important to you about that? What else does a 10 look like? Okay, I'm hearing you say X, Y and Z. Tell me more. What else? What else? What else? And what's important to you about that? These are two magical questions that, if you stick with one higher level question, will take you deeper and deeper and deeper to the roots of this topic, of their vision, of who this person is, of their values. And then at the very end, before you move on, you can go, okay, are we missing anything? Is there anything else you want to add to your vision of what success looks like before we move on? In my podcast example, maybe I would start by saying 10,000 downloads. Well, what's important to you about that? The show would start to be big enough that it could actually be profitable. Oh, what's important to you about that? Well, that would allow me to streamline my schedule and continue paying for the podcast production team. What's important to you about that? Well, they've been so wonderful to work with, and I just want to make sure I can sustain that with ease and abundance and even have overflow on top of that. What else? What else would a 10 look like? Well, I wouldn't love in a dream world that really all I needed to focus on business wise, was my two podcasts, sending the newsletters out and the BFF community. And that I wouldn't feel pressure that I had to land speaking gigs or training sessions or even licensing clients, that the podcast alone could pay my baseline bills. You can see how that took me to a different place. I started focusing on some stat. But what does the stat mean? What does it mean to have 10,000 downloads. It took me to themes of ease and abundance and more focus and simplicity and a streamlined business model and a vision of success. It may or may not be what will transpire, but you start to understand what's really important to this person and then that changes. If you do come in with advice or insight later in the conversation, it's going to be so much more relevant to who this person actually is. Whereas I can tell you right now, I've had some conversations with friends or acquaintances where I'll say, oh, my dream is that I just only have the podcast. They're a main source of income and I know it's only 3% of shows where the creator can really earn a living off of it. And they'll say something like, well, have you thought about TikTok? It's the last thing that's relevant to me. It's like they don't know anything about me or my mode of operating and it's just not relevant advice to how I want to get where I'm trying to go. That brings us to our final strategy for today. Number seven. And you're gonna laugh at this one because it's taking it a little bit meta. Before you start to wrap up the conversation, I always like to ask, and I ask this at the end of every training that I deliver as well, what is one insight or aha from today's conversation? So here, if you have not generated an aha moment yet up till this point in the conversation, you are going to help create one now, because maybe there wasn't this big Oprah aha moment and fanfare and fireworks launch in the middle of your conversation where you know for sure that they just had this powerful insider realization. But at the very end, when you take a minute and say, of everything we talked about, what's your biggest insight? Or aha from today, they will get quiet and actually think about what is my biggest insight. Sometimes when I'm facilitating a workshop, I'll even say, it might not be something I said, just something that sparked for you as it related to our conversation. So right in that moment, as you start to wrap up, you can generate naha just by asking what an insight or an aha would be if there was one from the conversation.

I also like to close by asking what next steps resonate most. So of everything we talked about, are there one or two next steps that would make the biggest impact or small steps you could take this week? That is where, as a coach, yes, I will let them choose first what's most resonant. And then I'll try to throw out suggestions too, because we all know sometimes we'll do things when we're challenged. I've had coaches if I'll say, okay, well I'll invite this guest I really admire to the show and they'll go, I'm going to challenge you. Can you invite five guests in the next week? And that's kind of exciting when somebody calls you forth in that way and just challenges you to double down or make it bigger or even stretchier of what's outside of your comfort zone. So as a coach, I like to chime in with a homework or two that are challenging and stretchy, but in a way that most connects to what they have shared is most meaningful. That wraps up this conversation on seven strategies for generating AHA Moments. I would love to know what's one insider aha from listening to this episode. I would also love to know what are your strategies for generating aha moments in conversations with others? Seriously, Share with me@pivotmethod.com ask. I would love to hear and be able to share back out If a couple of you, a handful, submit some of your best tools and tricks for generating aha Moments. We can all benefit from that. So leave me a voice memo@pivotmethod.com ask and if you're interested in running a session like this within your organization, you can learn more@pivotmethod.com companies. Thank you so much for listening everybody. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

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Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.