When I embarked my journey as a learner coach, I also started a parallel journey: as a coachee or a client in peer coaching. To me it seems like a story of two co travelers, while one was driving the car, the other was setting the destination….
As the journey progressed, the driver and the passenger experienced something different…
At first, the driver and passenger within me started the internal dialogue….
The driver thought, “I need to drive and I will ensure that the destination is reached in time”
The passenger thought, “I will tell the driver the destination and my job will be over after that…. It is the
driver’s responsibility to take me to my destination”
And here the learning started.
After we covered some distance, the driver within me started seeing the value of the passenger and vice
versa. It was a matter of time to understand that just agreeing to set the destination was not good
enough, there was a need for both to see from each other’s point to make the journey meaningful.
Thus came the first learning: perspective. I realized that just the direction was not enough. The
passenger within me started realizing that the driver going merely towards the destination would not
bring the desired outcome. It has to be a journey shared between both…. understanding the route and
the surroundings was as important as the destination. The passenger has the desire to achieve
something, overcome something and explore something. These need to be addressed and the driver
needs to go towards the destination while resolving these. I started seeing things from a new angle.
As the passenger and driver started exploring more and started sharing their perspectives, came the
second learning: clarity. This clarity worked as fog lenses for me. With these new fog lenses the road
became much clearer and I started seeing new awareness – both about the destination as well as the
journey.
This new awareness made the road less bumpy. The passenger in me started seeing value and the driver
leveraged this to avoid obstacles. The journey started feeling like something different and they
acknowledged the value each one brought. This brought my next learning: empathy. As the passenger
became more aware, the driver became more proficient.
With this perspective, clarity and empathy, the surroundings started feeling better and the journey
much smoother…. Reaching the destination was no more under pressure. The driver understood the
passenger… the wants and needs, the words said and unsaid, the emotions and expressions. They no
longer felt as two different people travelling in the vehicle, it seemed like a new unity and much better collaboration.
Moving back to the roles of a coach I started feeling the questions getting better… as I would have probably liked to receive as a client.
The sessions eased into conversations… it became easier to slide into these dialogues.
Exploration started feeling natural, probably I started seeing more from the client’s angle.
And the familiar feeling of the “click” when things fall in place….
I still have a long way to go in my coaching journey and a lot of learning yet to come. However, I have
made up my mind… I will continue this journey together as a coach and a client to evolve as a good
coach as I continue to evolve as a good coachee….
