Welcome to this edition of Monday Magic. One of the core coaching skills that all coaches cultivate is heart-centered listening. We can divide our “aural” activities into:
- Hearing (recognition of sounds)
- Listening (recognition of word and sentence meaning)
- Understanding (recognition of the intention behind everything).
The most satisfying and effective listening is what the DSWA calls heart-centered listening. It is the listening that allows us to create an unconditional space within which both the coach and the person being coached are heard with body and spirit. Grace Keohohou talks about this in the second edition of Principle Centered Coaching and offers some great ideas to help us maintain this space.
This week’s Monday Magic post offers some additional insights found around the web to help understand heart-centered listening.
Nine Questions about Caring. How do you know if your caring shows? Rajesh Setty offers a nine question self-assessment to help you evaluate your listening habits.
The Greatest Gift. This post comes from the Coaching Commons just before Christmas. We don’t often think about listening as a gift. Patricia Burgin offers three simple steps that allow you to give this one daily.
Fundamental Coaching Skill. This past week, the DSWA Coach Excellence program kicked off 2010 with a three day session to get everyone working in the same direction. One item we discussed was Lisa Gates definition of coaching which has listening as one of the three core skills (the other two are curiosity and open-ended questions). Talking Story has a great take on this definition by talking about our responsibility to be interesting.
On behalf of the authors of the DSWA Coaching Center, we urge you to subscribe to the blogs that you find worthwhile. If you are a blog neophyte, the process isn’t painful. Most blogs, like this one, offer you an opportunity to subscribe by email. If you are just starting, choose that option and when something new is posted, it will show up in your inbox. If the article isn’t working for you, hit delete and wait for the next one. Not every post will touch your head, heart or hands, but none ever will without your initial click.
We’d love to hear your reactions to these references. Pick one, read it, and offer a comment. Are your listening skills important? How do you stretch your skills? Share it in a comment or even a guest post. Get Free Updates to the DSWA Coaching Center by Email here or via an RSS reader in the top right sidebar. We would love to have you on board.
About the Author: Neil Phillips is Director of the DSWA Coach Excellence program and founding partner of Team Connections. Get more from Neil on his Direct Selling Notebook and Twitter.
