Coaching: Three Levels of Listening
Posted by Laura on July 30, 2008
I’ve posted earlier on some listening frameworks (here and here). The Coaches Training Institute (CTI) training added another framework, three parts this time.
Level one: Listening within your own head
Similar to the level one listening from Scharmer, this listening is all about you. As a coach, if you’re listening from within your own head, you aren’t really hearing what’s being said. You’re hearing your own inner voice wondering what question you’ll ask next, if you’re adding any value for this client, that you’ve heard all this before, that you need to pick up vegetables on the way home…
Level two: “Hard focus”
CTI calls this “hard focus” listening; it means focusing completely on the other person (i.e. the client). The other person is taking up all of your listening to the extent that it’s almost as if there is a bubble around you. We saw a few demonstrations of this type of listening from the expert coaches teaching our course – where they coached someone in front of the rest of us, but were so intent in their listening that it was as if the rest of us weren’t there.
Level three: “global listening”
Level three listening is also known as a “softer focus”, and there’s a place for it in coaching as well. With the level three listening, the coach listens to the edges around and the atmosphere within the bubble – so to speak – of the coach and client. At this level you listen for the emotion and energetic sense of the person, but also are aware of what’s going on in the room, the environment. For example, if there’s a fire truck going by, alarms blaring, during a particularly intense part of the coaching conversation, listening at level three means you’ll acknowledge it rather than pretending it’s not going on and intruding on the conversation.
I think the level three listening is a good one for group facilitators to think about in terms of distractions – I’ve often seen facilitators try (and have tried myself) to ignore distractions and proceed as if they’re not happening, forging on ahead in a loud voice and extra energy while half the group is distracted watching the facility staff arrive and set up a new flipchart (or some other interruption). Better to acknowledge, “Okay, we’re getting a new flipchart. Let’s get that set up.” It probably only requires ten seconds of acknowledged attention, but without that ten seconds of acknowledgement you’ve lost the group’s attention for a full minute or two. With that ten seconds acknowledgement, you can draw the group’s attention back and then carry forward.
