Inside a Coaching Conversation: Responding as an Adult

One of my clients came into a session wanting to talk about a difficult interaction at work.

She had a meeting a few days before with a new client, and it didn’t go well. What was meant to be a productive conversation became tense and uncomfortable. At some point, the focus shifted from the work to their working relationship.

Afterwards, she received feedback that confirmed this. The meeting hadn’t been effective. Something in the dynamic wasn’t working. They had another meeting scheduled, and she wanted to use the coaching space to help her reflect on what had actually happened so that she could prepare for their next meeting.

Where do you want to start? I asked her. And she began to walk through the meeting: going back and forth between moments, recalling details, pausing often. There were a lot of silences which was a valuable space for her to think, to process, and to notice what stood out.

At some point, something began to emerge. She realised that part of what was happening wasn’t just about the conversation itself, but about how she was perceiving the other person and how she imagined she was being perceived in return. They were different in terms of gender and race, and she noticed that she was carrying assumptions into the interaction. Not always consciously, but in a way that shaped how she reacted (instead of responding). We took a look at how this reactive reaction, would be described in transactional analysis as the "child ego state". At other times, there was a more critical or protective response, which in transactional analysis is closer to a "parent ego state".

What would it look like, your ideal respond, that is from an "adult ego state"? I asked. Not reacting, but responding. Not assuming, but checking. Not defending, but staying present with what is actually happening.

While that question didn’t give her a script for what she should say in her next meeting, it gave her a different way of seeing the interaction, and she further reflect on how her responses might be affecting the other person as well. From there, she decided how she wanted to show up in the next meeting.

If you’ve had a conversation that didn’t go the way you wanted, it’s easy to focus on what went wrong or what to do differently next time. But sometimes, it’s more useful to slow down and look at what was happening beneath the surface: What were you noticing? What were you assuming? How were you responding, and where was that response coming from?

Clarity would come by understanding the dynamic you’re part of, and choosing how you want to show up within it.