The Coaching Skill No Checklist Teaches: How to Hear What Your Client Isn't Saying Out Loud

The best coaches aren't hearing better words. They're hearing what the words are covering for, and they’re less burned out because of it.

This article draws on our series, Conversations We Don’t Usually Name.

The Short Answer: Attunement isn't a technique you add. It's what's left when you stop running the client through your method and actually listen. Most coaches were trained to hear content. The signal is in everything around it.

Like every coach, there was a time when we thought the method was the cure for the madness. Whether it was GROW, or SMART, or some other acronym about how to create a plan to solve a problem, in our coaching infancy we thought we could solve everything by being transactional.

After all, weren’t our clients just looking for the answer to their problem? Then life would be fantastic.

Ultimately, we learned the truth was elsewhere. Clients were committing to goals and actions, but then not following through or sabotaging their progress. We started to notice their hesitancy to the new ideas they created.

We started to hear what they weren’t saying out loud that was really the truth underneath it all.

Why do skilled coaches notice what clients don't say out loud?

Skilled coaches hear what clients don't say because they've stopped following the model and started tracking the pattern underneath it.

Noobie coaches (no judgement, we’ve all been one) tend to be too attached to format, structure, and models. They’re the shiny new objects that broke our minds open in training, that worked so well with our fellow students in practice sessions, and the framework is comfortable.

Like following a Betty Crocker cake recipe…out of the box, add some eggs and milk, and you have a ‘home-made’ dessert. It’s a place to start, but if you’ve ever tasted a true from-scratch cake, you know the difference.

Artistry of craft will always beat prefab.

That comes with practice. It comes with making mistakes and learning from them. It comes from being willing to experiment beyond the pre-mix of the box and bring your own creative flair.

Skilled coaches, by taking risks, begin to notice patterns underneath their client’s words; they listen with all of their senses, like a chef paying attention to the look, smell, texture, and taste at every stage of cooking.

Most importantly, it comes with learning to trust ourselves to move beyond what we were taught and bring our own flair to the game.

How does tone carry more than the words?

Tone carries the meaning the words leave out.

“I’m fine” is different than “I’m fine” and “I’M FINE!” Even reading those subtle changes in the font, we’re betting you heard each differently in your head; from recognition to soft dismissal to shouting rejection. (The italic is intentional here as a visual depiction of tonal shift)

Same words. Vastly different tones and meanings.

If you were with a client, how would you address each, or would you only notice the words used?

Inflection carries so much more meaning than words. Inflection is personal, it’s situation-specific, and it’s an opportunity to go deeper with your client. What drove them to use that tone? What emotion arose? What are they realizing as you are asking about it?

Hear it for yourself: Why Tone Matters More Than What's Said

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Why do clients over-explain, and what is it telling you?

Clients over-explain to protect the version of themselves they want you to see. The story is important to them. The details matter to them. They want you to understand the context.

But really, a lot of that detail may be noise to the true signal they’re trying to broadcast.

Maybe it’s a detail to justify why they were late. Maybe it’s reasoning for their emotions. Maybe it’s an elaborate deflection to avoid really looking at what’s truly happening.

We’ve all heard it. If we’re honest, we’ve probably all done it.

Sometimes over-explaining is less about helping someone understand and more about making sure they understand us in exactly the way we want to be seen.

Watch this play out: Why People Over-Explain

Somehow, in our human experience, it’s become common to write ourselves as the heroes of our tales through over-exposition.

When we fill the page with distraction, there’s little room left for reflection.

Can listening be taught, or only developed?

Both. But not in the way most coaches think.

Learning skills can put us in our heads, over-thinking, but at the same time those teachings do provide new awareness for us to embody.

There is a tension here. The harder we work to demonstrate a skill, the further away we can move from the moment itself.

At some point, what we know has to become something we no longer need to consciously perform. The learning moves from our heads into how we listen, notice, and respond.

Embodiment is where this level of mastery develops. In practice, both in session and in-between sessions. Bringing the learning from our heads down to our hearts and guts, where it lives in instinct and intuition.

Perhaps the shift begins when we stop asking whether we are following the method correctly and start noticing what is actually happening in the room.

Coaching Skill Was Never in the Checklist. It Was in You.

If you’re a coach dedicated to transformation, listening to just the words, and facilitating to a script is exhausting. For your client, and for you.

Attunement to the room comes from allowing ourselves to fully be present: noticing the subtleties in your client’s expressions and tone, listening beyond words, and noticing energy.

Until you practice that tuning, you’ll find yourself frustrated by transactional conversations, and clients who commit from session to session, but backslide in between. Those feelings can weigh heavily on your confidence in your skills and your service.

The truth is, the magic is never in the tools, it’s in the magician and their belief in themselves.

Take this into your next coaching conversation

Notice the moment you want to move to the next question. Stay there a little longer.

There may be more in the pause than in the answer.

MCXI Institute | Daniel Olexa and Monselete Bowden