The Co-Active Cornerstones Series – 3 of 4
This article series, authored by CTI faculty members, is a review of four major themes of the Co-active Model.
The Coach Dances in the Moment with the Client
By Tony Parry
Dancing in the moment. Ah yes I remember it well. The Abbey School of Dancing in the mid-60s. Mirrors and velvet cushions and the smell of face powder and the chance to hold a warm and willing member of the opposite sex in my arms. At first glance a teenage nightmare of the uncool and the unfashionable. But in the event a place of great fun and learning, just like coaching.
That's where I had my first taste of Dancing in the Moment, one of the four cornerstones that support and define co-active coaching. As the coaching manual puts it, every response from a client provides information about where to go next with the coaching. Awareness of shifting currents and themes becomes second nature to the coach who senses what is most important and then chooses a question or skill based on what just showed up.
It's an apt and powerful metaphor. Coaching is just like dancing. For one thing, coaching like dancing requires a shared centre of gravity. It takes two to tango because the partners are always falling into the space created by the other.
One partner leads, one partner follows, but it is always a joint enterprise, an exchange of power and permission to the other in service of the relationship. The individual client can enjoy the full power of the dance only when he or she is held in a sensitive and strong embrace. And the coach, as with the dancer, needs to know what rhythm and what tempo to follow. There's no room for that frightening ballroom moment when you've asked a pretty girl to dance only to discover that you can't quite recognize what sort of dance this is. That was the time to glance sidewards at the more experienced dancers to tell whether it might be a quickstep or a foxtrot. Or with true grace and humility you could always ask your partner what dance she thought it was.
That's where the paradox of dancing in the moment comes in. Yes, the coach needs to dance with whatever shows up, to be flexible and strong and willing to listen and to feel what is going on from moment to moment. And yet the coach also needs to be experienced and skilled enough to know what sort of dance is being played and what rhythm and pace and passion is showing up. No point starting off on a jolly polka when the client's mood and music is calling for a slow waltz. Coaches just starting out with co-active skills may need to concentrate on the more obvious elements of the client's dance. Is this an opportunity to work with values, or to point out where the client might be stuck and to move towards action?
Has anger, or sadness, or a burst of laughter just shown up at that very moment in the coaching? Is this a place to be gentle and compassionate, or to challenge? Has a client fallen back in to an old pattern of hopelessness or self-doubt? Time to notice the change of tempo and dance in the moment.
More-experienced coaches can move beyond simple awareness of the type and pace of the dance to the more subtle emotions and changes of pace that take place from moment in moment. That way the dance becomes more powerful, more expressive, more elegant, and more fully in service of that most wonderful dancer—the client.
Those of you using coaching skills in everyday life can simply pay attention to the constant shifts of energy that occur when we make requests, or ask for information or exchange views. Each shift and change in the dance of human interaction is a chance to be aware of the constant need to Dance In The Moment.
About Antony Parry, CPCC, PCC
Tony worked for more than three decades as a news reporter, editor and a trainer of journalists on four continents. Under the moniker Coachwords, he now coaches individuals, teams and relationships, and specializes in writers, consultants and financial experts—or anyone else who turns up with a sense of fun and adventure. Tony still turns his hand to writing and can be found dancing Morris on the streets of England—complete with bells, stick and hankies.
Co-active Cornerstones, Part 4: The Agenda Comes from the Client
Co-active Cornerstones, Part 2: Co-Active Coaching Addresses the Client's Whole Life
Co-active Cornerstones, Part 1: The Client is Naturally Creative, Resourceful, and Whole
