ABSTRACT
I think of coaching as a creative process. Hokusai’s statement therefore leads me to wonder if, as coaches, we are paying enough close attention to the ‘dots’ of our conversations with clients – those pivotal micro-moments of the change process that are intrinsic to each client encounter? Coaching is a relational process that spans time – client conversations continue for hours, and extend over weeks, months and sometimes years: and as coaching professionals we can become so concerned with the bigger-picture issues of
crafting better questions, so interested in opening up options, so absorbed in forming actionable outcomes, that perhaps we fail to notice that there are particular, fleeting moments in the dance of dialogue that matter more than others… This chapter explores my interest in these ‘dots’ – these experiential ‘living moments’ (Shotter, 1999) in the art of coaching.