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If, as science suggests, much of what we communicate to people doesn’t come in the form of spoken words, then what does that mean for telephone coaching?
Are coaches whose clients are mere voices on a telephone somehow limited by only working with what a client says?
“We’ve all heard the research that says that our words alone produce only ten percent of our communication’s impact, and the real power to move others is with what we are saying nonverbally as we speak,” says Dr. Stuart Heller, who has studied non-verbal expression, presence, influence, and suggestion for over thirty years.
He also does most of his work over the phone. And he’s not alone.
According to the ICF’s 2008 Global Coaching Study, more than 40-percent of coaches worldwide work with their clients by phone, rather than face-to-face. In North America, more than half of all coaches work primarily over the phone.
Without a face to look at and body language to consider, can a coach working by phone be as effective as a coach working directly with a client in the same room? Heller says absolutely—and he trains coaches to turn up the volume on the nonverbal in their work. Heller calls it “coaching intuition.”
In working over the phone, Heller will bring a client’s attention to their body in a grounding exercise that engages those nonverbal elements often lost in a telephone conversation. “In many ways, coaches already are (doing this). They’re always asking their clients to inventory themselves, or think about what’s going on. All we added was a certain sensory phenomenon…the muscle sense that lets you know where you are.”
Reminding a client of their physical body—and its relation to the world, wherever in the world they may be—can serve as a momentary “reset” that allows a client to bring more to what they say. “All of a sudden the conversation is different,” says Heller.
“When I’m doing this with someone, I feel like I’m there, we’re all together. There’s no wall separating us,” says Heller. “It makes it easier for me to share with you, it makes it easier for you to be with me.”
Heller teaches a class in nonverbal communication for coaches through the Newfield Network, and describes his methods as simple, but powerful—turning a key that opens up a far different kind of coaching conversation between coach and client.
“Whole persons are meeting whole people. A door opens. It doesn’t matter that the contact is happening through our voices. Your whole being meets my whole being and we’re connected.”
Heller, who calls himself “Dr. Move,” says accessing the nonverbal is tied directly into the study of movement—“that by including the physical dimension, you can change how you, or your clients, can shift their results, how they show up, or act in everyday life.”
Heller notes that working in this way has to be in both directions: a coach can’t fully communicate with a client if the coach isn’t open to bringing their full, physical self to the conversation also. “My first thing is to be open myself,” he says. “With practice, it becomes a matter of remembering ‘oh, I’m here.’ It’s absurdly simple.”
How do you bring nonverbal power to your telephone coaching?
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There are 4 Responses so far...
To me, it all depends whether the coachee’s preferential or default is towards more ‘auditory acuity’ or more towards other sensory acuity.
It always has to what works best for the coachee. Calibrating becomes a higher level coaching skill in tele-coaching compared to face-to-face coaching.
I am wondering what would be the effectiveness of web-cam coaching as compared to tele-coaching?
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
Good concise piece, would be valuable for a lot of coaches and therapists to review, thanks.
I can really relate to Heller’s phrase ‘oh, I’m here’ when showing up with clients on the phone. There is a palpable difference in state that makes for a strong connection that the client can also feel thousands of miles away! I’ve tried adding Skype video to these interactions and found it only distracting.
And lately I’ve been pondering some discoveries made by Bill Dueease of The Coach Connection in terms of the comparative effectiveness of telephone vs in-person coaching. He claims that statistics in his business showed clearly that telephone coaching is more effective than in-person coaching in helping clients reach their goals. He writes about it in his book: http://www.gotoplayeveryday.com. Although this is counter-intuitive, I can understand how this could be true. On the phone, the spotlight is more completely on the client. They are not distracted by the image of the coach and they have more privacy to explore subtle thoughts and feelings. Plus, it saves so much time and clients are likely to engage with the coach more frequently.
Can someone please do some more research into the relatively effectiveness of telephone vs in-person coaching?
I want to be properly informed so that I can offer my clients the best service!
I have done all the forms of coaching mediums, all in the name of flexibility (as my professor always used to say: flexibility is a coaching skill!). I believe it works- but it is influenced by different things- the nature of the coaching subject/issue, the articulation levels of coach and coachee (including native languages of both coach and coachee), the time of the day, the length of the conversation, the coaching style of the coach, the processing style of the coachee (visual, kinesthetic, auditory,etc), cost factor etc.
I believe it is up to the coach to do a level of due diligence on these factors and how they would/could impact the coaching conversation.
Working with more complex systems-psychodynamic issues that affect executives maybe a little challenging to deal with on the phone, but working on a performance coaching element where a link has been made between the ABC’s is easier in my experience.
An NLP-trained coach may possibly want to work face to face with a client as opposed to say, a solutions-focused coach.
My experience in coaching people with differing language proficiencies presented more challenge than people with a similar language background (I have clients in Angola, Australia and Nigeria whom I coach telephonically- and the Angolan lady, not being a native english speaker, struggles to articulate herself in english on the telephone but finds it easier when we are face to face, when she can use her face and body to fill in the gaps where the words fail us).
These are of course not absolutes- but i feel it’s about the coach knowing what works for them and for the coachee and working within those constraints.
Great article!