Feedbacks about the 3rd coaching cession - Grichka

Hello all,

First of all I really want to emphasize that this coaching meeting was the most advanced one!! I can feel we are getting better at this exercise and, more interesting, I can feel that the whole team can feel that. This is very encouraging and significant to see that, and that helps creating a virtuous circle which makes us involving ourselves deeper in the exercise.

This coaching cession was enjoyable and productive because we could feel that we were listening to each other carefully. After each coachee told his/her experience the coach had relevant questions about it, and those questions came pretty easily. I could feel that the level of the questions we were asking had increased compared to the previous coaching meeting. Moreover, in that meeting, the coach wasn’t the only person asking questions. Indeed, each of us during our “observer role” asked questions. The interest was palpable. For the first time we went further than just asking questions and commenting on them: we joined and compared our experiences! For instance Abhinav, when he was my coach, told me he had an experience which was comparable to mine and we started to build on that in order to learn from each other. Another interesting thing: we gave pieces of advice to each other when it was relevant. For instance, while I was coaching Ingrid about her neighbor problem, it immediately rang a bell when she said “it wasn’t my neighbor who was noisy but her sister on Skype because of the bad internet wifi service”. I suggested her to give her neighbor earphones, which could be a solution to get everybody happy. Ingrid appreciated it and said she would consider that if things weren’t getting better. That coaching cession was good also because we didn’t say “you should/shouldn’t do that”, we were not judging each other but pointing out interesting points inviting to reflection. For instance, I asked Abhinav if he was still thinking that his way of constantly assessing risk was the optimum one after he talked to his successful cousin who has the opposite behavior. In the opposite direction Abhinav relevantly made me realize that my team member and I had different methods: I was more pragmatic and she was more focused on doing everything well.

That coaching cession also helped me to open my mind and learn more about the suspension process and more particularly about the first step of it. Indeed, on my reflective entry I only described and considered internal feelings and explained that I suspended them. Ingrid was more focused on the expression of those feeling through her body. For instance she could feel her heart beating faster or her hands getting wet. As we discussed in class, I realized that she was considering her body as “an instrument of knowing”. Abhinav was more focused on the fact that he didn’t want to judge, he wanted his mind to be all cleared and open in order to fully enjoy his conversation. Those two different angles of vision helped me to complement my vision of the first step of the suspension process. It helped me to learn more about it and will help me to use it more successfully because I am going to integrate their angle of vision and pay attention to my body signals for instance.