Supporting Clients to Come Out of Story into Transformational Learning

As a coach do you find yourself and your client getting caught up in the details of their stories? Does this prevent you from achieving the breakthrough or transformation the client is seeking? Are you unsure - perhaps fearful - about how to stop your client when they are in the details of their story?

Allowing clients space to share and process what they are experiencing can be an important part of a coaching session if the client is sharing it for the first time. It can be very healing for the client to get what's going on inside their head out in the open if they have not spoken about it to others before. The challenge arises for coaches - and ultimately the coachee - when we stay with the client's story in all of the unnecessary details. This is because we are potentially not supporting them to move forward and create new awareness.

When our clients are caught up in stories, particularly those which they have lived with for a long time, they are potentially caught up in limiting beliefs about themselves and others, as well as old, unsupportive ways of thinking. When a client is telling their story many times, you will hear them speak easily without hesitation, repeating what they have been telling themselves and others for a long time. And this is where the skill of what is known as 'bottom lining' can be utilised powerfully to stop the client in the flow of their story, which is possibly holding them back from making positive change.

Bottom lining or proactively pausing our client's story is a key tool for coaches because it is designed to interrupt the client's thought patterns and perspectives by asking permission for them to stop so the coach can ask a question such as 'what's really going underneath the story here?' Or alternatively reflect back and get curious about a keyword or sentence, or noting a change in physiology or sharing intuition and asking what is coming up for the client.

Powerful new awareness can be created by a client when they are bottom lined by a coach who trusts their intuition the coachee is stuck in their story and it's time to create new awareness about the deeper truth beneath the details. This leads to slowing down of the conversation and creates space for reflection and new understanding. As coaches, we aim to support our clients to create new conscious awareness about their deeper, empowering truth where coachees come out of their disempowering stories into the transformation they seek.

Exploring what is going on below the surface details allows clients to perhaps understand what might have been holding them back from the life they want. But most importantly, they learn what is it they truly desire moving forward, and the beliefs they want to hold and the actions they want to take to live the life they choose.

So, how do you bottom line effectively? Some coaches are worried or even fearful about coming across as rude, or not perceived as supporting the client to feel like they are heard. Here are some things you can do as a coach to effectively and successfully implement bottom lining as key skill in your 'toolkit':

• Include it in your Ways of Working or your Coaching Agreement. 

Let your client know from the beginning you will be doing this during the coaching sessions to support them to create the transformation they seek. You could say “I might bottom line you or pause you when I hear we can go deeper beyond the surface story, because the details aren't so important: it's actually what's underneath the story. Would that work for you?” This way the client knows occasionally you will be interrupting them with purpose to assist them as well as recognise this is where powerful new awareness will be created.  

• Understand and accept it's not rude to bottom line. 

When we realise and recognise when we support a client explore what is going on beneath the surface story - that is when we are really serving and supporting our client to create powerful change. If we don't, our client's will potentially keep repeating old disempowering behaviours.

• Take charge of the coaching session. 

Taking charge is not about leading the conversation. It is a powerful and critical skill a coach uses to support the client to go deeper within, rather than talking about the details. Taking charge involves hearing what is being said by the client and exploring what is the truth behind what is initially being shared. In a coaching conversation the client will always be the one who does most of the talking, but as a coach you can slow down the conversation by bottom lining or pausing the client (with permission as agreed in the ways of working together) to allow space to explore what is presented in the session.

Bottom lining can be one of the most challenging skills for many coaches to embrace, but when we do, our clients will be supported to create the life-changing transformation they seek. And if you are finding it challenging, we encourage you to embrace the uncomfortableness of bottom lining - out of your comfort zone - and let the power of it unfold.

Be empowered.

When you bottom line your client you are serving them to create the transformational shift they are looking for. Listen to Jeanine and Marie discuss bottom lining and how it is vital in a coaching session in the Empower World Coaching and Leadership Podcast, Episode 121 here

Episode-121 can be found here: 
Direct Link: http://bit.ly/2IqAFOz
‪#stitcher: http://bit.ly/podcast-episode-121
#itunes: http://bit.ly/EW-Podcast-iTune