ABSTRACT
Discovering what someone else means by what they say is a key task, and an important skill, of the good listener. However, in coaching, the primary goal is to enable the speaker’s awareness and understanding, not the coach’s. This chapter begins by exploring how speakers use words to express their thoughts, feelings and experiences, and how listeners then make sense of what they hear. It then draws out two implications of that process. First, coaches need to shed their own assumptions or meaning-making habits. Secondly, they need to listen to the speaker’s words and to what lies beneath the words; and listen to the speaker’s story and what lies beneath the story. This chapter argues that the coach then uses the art of the question to respond to, and inquire into, what they hear. It concludes by exploring what lies beyond the art of the question.
