Face the Dragon. Stay in the Room.
Ethical Magic, by Philip H. Henderson

I tell my clients “Face the Dragon . . . Stay in the Room.”

Our coaching clients come to us because they want to change something about themselves to be more successful in their everyday lives at home and at work.  They understand that to learn a new skill or ability they have to start with baby steps until they become proficient.  Clients imagine that using our services will help them get where they want to go more quickly and more assuredly than going by themselves.  The problem is they sometimes ask us for a magic pill.  Clients want the change to happen immediately and painlessly.  We tell them the truth.  Change is hard work. 

Change for clients involves replacing a habit that no longer works with a new habit that will work.  Such change requires clients to take actions they have avoided before they engaged our services.  Such change requires courage and perseverance.  The most confusing part for our clients is that it takes time to develop a new habit.  They want success right away. 

Eliminating old dysfunctional habits is hard work.  Getting our clients to take novel actions is resisted because the old habit feels comfortable and the new action is scary.  The known that does not work is more familiar then the lesser known, even when clients have enjoyed success using the new behavior.

I coach clients to become outstanding empathic listeners.  I encourage clients to listen to their loved ones without judgment.  This is new behavior.  Their usual behavior is to listen to loved ones only when their loved ones are telling them good news.  When a loved one chooses to tell them something they do not want to be true, they ignore those unwelcome words. 

One of my client’s dysfunctional habits was to walk slowly, but deliberately, out of the room when his son was telling him something he did not want to hear.  When he was completely out of hearing, he did not remember a word his son had said.  He only learned that was his habit when he stopped himself while he was practicing empathic listening using my methods.  His son told him that he had been doing this for years.  He told him everyone in the family knew that was his habit.  My client was the only person who did not know.

I tell my clients that listening with empathy requires them to “stay in the room.”  Listening with empathy requires them to hear words said by their loved ones that they never want them to say, and certainly never want these words to be true.  For example, a son might say to his parent that, “I don’t want to attend college because it is a waste of time.  I want to go to work and make some money now!”  Few parents will be happy to hear their son speak such words.  Parents think this is dragon talk.

To become an outstanding empathic listener my clients practice listening to their children, their spouse, and their parents or siblings.  I coach them that they have not become empathic listeners until their son or daughter, husband or wife, or mother or father has begun to tell them something they do not want to hear.  (Dragon talk.)  When that kind of conversation begins, I coach my client to ask their child (spouse, or parent) to tell them more.  The more uncomfortable the conversation, the more likely my client is finally hearing the truth about the way his or her loved one feels.  The client has faced the dragon and remained in the room.

Many of our clients want to take the easy way out.  Whether it is empathic listening or some other skill or behavior you are coaching, there comes a time when as a coach, we must insist that our client take the harder road.  Usually our clients do not succeed on the first few attempts.  This is natural and this is why we are hired to show our client how to do the work more successfully on subsequent occasions. 

We “encourage” our clients to move into difficult paths.  Encourage means to give them “courage” to break their boundaries and grow.  This is the best feeling a coach will experience, observing our clients finding the courage to master risky new behavior.  Our clients will grow when we use this kind of “tough love” to break their inertia. 

Successful coaches produce coaching conditions that allow clients to find the courage for those actions they are most frightened to take.  Our clients learn to “face their dragons and to stay in the room.”  These courageous actions allow our clients to develop into more successful and happy people.