Intuition, Insight and Experience in Coaching
Posted on September 24, 2019 by Pushpendra Singh, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
Coaching cannot alone be done by formal tools. Needs to supplemented by developing intuitive ability, insight skills and past experience.
Attended a talk l in which speaker talked about the role of experience, intuition and insights while doing the coaching. He narrated a beautiful story about a monk who could diagnose illnesses by just holding hands and connecting deeply with the patient. This brought out that logic and scientific tests are not the only basis for diagnosing the patient but the role of deeply connecting with the patient and reaching a stage of complete oneness can help to understand the patient and diagnosis.Thereby also preparing the patient for healing and enabling patient’s body to support in the recovery process. This process of deeply connecting with the patient also created the faith in the doctor in the patient’s mind.
In Coaching the insights happen when the Coachee reaches his epiphany moment. Insight has two sides one for the Coachee that he has reached a stage of self-awareness about his beliefs and causes of his actions and behaviours. For the Coach it could be an insight into the mind of the Coachee as at that time he sees an authentic self going deeper inside and connecting with itself. Here the experience would be more related to the skills a Coach acquires and how skillfully he enables self-awareness. To help in reaching insights Coachee should be able to name his emotions and the more precisely he does helps in deeper connection with self and is the birthplace of authenticity. To help Coachee to do this comfortably and willingly expose his vulnerability, a Vessel of Psychological Safety has to be created which enables it. It is like handling a snail or a tortoise which goes into a shell at first sign of threat and comes out when it feels safe. It happens in children too. In animals and some adults it could result in fight or flight syndrome. We may say it is the instinct for survival. To overcome protective boundary of self defense an extended safe zone has to be created which encompasses both coach and the coachee. When you are able to create this there are good chances new insights will emerge.
