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Sustaining the Journey Archive
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July 26, 2010
Problem-Resolving Set-Asides
For the last three weeks, "Sustaining the Journey" has been focusing on the set-asides of autobiography, inquisitiveness, and solution-finding. These techniques help a coach to focus on the thinker and to mediate the speaker's thinking. During the second part of a Cognitive Coaching Foundation Seminar®, three more set-asides are offered to the coach. These three metacognitive skills are liberating for the coach who is navigating emotional issues in a problem-resolving map. Cognitive Coaches need to set aside their need for closure, comfort, and comprehension.
- People do not like "cliffhangers" or open-ended stories. With a problem-resolving map, a coach leads the colleague to internal resources that will help to resolve the issue. The conversation does not end with a resolution or an end to the story. There may be no closure during the conversation, and that ambiguity brings about disquietude for the coach.
- The nature of the problem-resolving map is very different from the planning or reflecting maps. A coach is watching for subtle clues from the colleague to plan what to say next. That element of uncertainty can be disconcerting to the coach but having a coach who is fully present and listening with intentionality is important for the colleague. Costa and Garmston suggest that paraphrasing can "help a coach focus emotional attention on the colleague."1 However, coaches need to set aside the need for their own comfort during the problem-resolving conversation.
- The coach hopes to identify goals and locate and amplify resources for the colleague during a problem-resolving conversation. Knowing the history and all of the minute details of the problem is not necessary to support the colleague. Remember we need to set aside our need to comprehend fully our colleagues' situations. What coaches do need is to focus on the colleague's goals and the resources to achieve those goals.
Perhaps an additional set-aside might be "rehearsing." When a listener is "rehearsing," he or she is planning the next paraphrase or crafting the next question instead of listening with intentionality. If a coach's mind is creating and revising the whole time a thinker is speaking, the coach has lost focus and cannot be in the moment with the colleague. Therefore, a "gift" to avoid rehearsing is the "pause."
This week think about how you can fully support a colleague and set aside your need for closure, comfort, and comprehension. How might you remind yourself to do that? When you are coaching a colleague in a problem-resolving situation, ask yourself: "What are my intentions?" What signals might you look for in a problem-resolving conversation that let you know that your work is finished? What are some ways you can utilize the pause and the paraphrase to be more "in the moment" with a colleague who is experiencing emotional distress?
1Costa, A., & Garmston, R. (2002) Cognitive Coaching:
A Foundation for Renaissance Schools. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, p. 214.
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