Could We Be the Reason Our Clients Are Stuck?
We are committed to our clients' growth and forward movement. So we help them explore possibilities, consider different perspectives, and identify what they might do next. And sometimes, without realizing it, our eagerness to help them move forward may be keeping them from discovering what they need to grow.
Consider this: A client tells you about a meeting that didn't go well. They were interrupted. Their idea was dismissed. They left feeling frustrated, embarrassed, and questioning whether they belonged in the room.
You listen. You acknowledge what happened. And then, wanting to help them move forward, you ask:
“What would you like to do differently next time?”
It's a fair coaching question. It invites choice, possibility, and action. But what if it's also the question that takes you away from the very thing the client came to explore? What may we have just moved past?
The client didn't simply describe a difficult meeting. They described a moment that left them questioning whether they belonged. Something happened in that room that may have challenged more than their ability to communicate effectively.
· Perhaps being interrupted confirmed an old belief that their voice doesn't carry much weight. Perhaps being dismissed threatened an identity they've worked hard to establish. Perhaps their reaction surprised them because they believed they'd moved beyond needing others' approval.
· Or perhaps none of those things are true.
We don't know yet. And when we move too quickly toward what the client can do differently, we may begin coaching the situation before we've understood what made the situation matter to the person experiencing it.
When forward movement takes us away from the client
Coaches are trained to evoke awareness, explore possibilities, and support client growth. And those are important commitments. But sometimes our eagerness to help clients move forward can quietly influence where the conversation goes.
A client brings us a moment filled with emotion, uncertainty, or contradiction. We recognize an opportunity to help them reframe the experience, identify a choice, or consider a different response. Before long, we're exploring what they could do next. The conversation may even feel productive.
But productive toward what?
· The client may leave with a strategy for handling interruptions without ever discovering what made being interrupted so unsettling.
· They may develop a plan for speaking up without examining what speaking up threatens.
· They may learn how to respond differently while continuing to carry the same understanding of themselves into the next room.
We've helped them prepare for another moment without fully exploring the one they brought us.
And maybe the client isn't the only one who needs to become curious about what's happening.
What if our own understanding of effective coaching is influencing the direction of the conversation?
If we associate progress with action, are we more likely to ask questions that produce a next step?
If we believe a shift in perspective is valuable, might we begin looking for opportunities to create one before understanding the perspective the client already holds?
Our intentions might be aligned with the client's growth. But our intentions don't necessarily tell us what influence we're having.
What changes when we stay with the moment?
Imagine the client says:
"The minute they interrupted me, I thought, here we go again. Nobody takes me seriously.”
We could explore how they might respond to interruptions, advocate for themselves, or approach the next meeting with greater confidence.
But notice what the client has already offered.
· They've described what happened: They were interrupted.
· And they've shared the explanation that immediately accompanied it: Nobody takes me seriously.
Those aren't the same thing.
· The interruption is something that happened in the meeting.
· The explanation is how the client began making sense of what happened.
Rather than immediately exploring what they might do differently, the coach asks:
“What story came along to help you make sense of that moment?”
The question doesn't dispute the client's experience or suggest that their interpretation is wrong. It invites them to become curious about something that may have felt so immediate and familiar that they hadn't recognized it as an interpretation.
· Possibly the client begins to notice how often the explanation “Nobody takes me seriously” appears in situations where they feel overlooked.
· Perhaps they recognize that the story developed through experiences where speaking up carried consequences.
· Or maybe they discover that the story fits what is happening in their current workplace.
We don't know.
The coach's role isn't to identify the story for the client, challenge its accuracy, or replace it with a more useful one. It's to create room for the client to recognize and explore it for themselves.
The story may have come along to help
We don't necessarily develop our stories to hold ourselves back. We develop them as we attempt to understand our experiences, navigate relationships, protect what matters, and find our place in the world.
· A story like “Nobody takes me seriously” may have helped someone recognize patterns, anticipate disappointment, or decide when it was worth speaking up.
· It may have offered an explanation when something felt confusing or unfair.
· And over time, that explanation may have become so familiar that it no longer feels like a story.
It feels true.
Paradoxically, the story that helped us make sense of what happened may also be shaping what we believe can happen next. The story may still be accurate in some situations. It’s probably incomplete in others. It could have served an important purpose and now be influencing choices in ways the client hasn't noticed.
We don’t need nor should we decide whether the story is good or bad. Instead, we can help the client by having them discover the relationship between the meaning they've made and the possibilities they can currently see.
Consider what might happen when the client enters the next meeting already expecting not to be taken seriously. What do they notice? What do they anticipate? How might that expectation influence when they speak, what they share, or how they interpret someone else's response?
These aren't conclusions for the coach to draw. They're possibilities for the client to explore, if their discovery takes them there. And what they uncover may be far more valuable than another strategy for managing interruptions.
Before we ask what's next...
There's nothing inherently wrong with helping clients consider what comes next. The question is whether we're following the client's exploration or getting ahead of it.
· Sometimes the next step really is to prepare for another meeting.
· Sometimes it's to recognize that the meeting has become evidence in a much older story.
· And sometimes the most valuable thing we can do as coaches is resist the temptation to turn a meaningful moment into a problem that needs an immediate solution.
So perhaps there are two questions worth considering the next time a client brings us a difficult moment:
What might my client still be discovering about what made this moment matter?
Am I following their exploration, or am I moving us toward what I've already decided would be helpful?
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