21 March 2025
Coaching thrives on trust and safety. Yet, even the most experienced coaches can unintentionally undermine this by steering their clients into certain reflective paths, unaware that they’re doing so.
ICF Core Competency 4.2 reminds us to respect the client’s identity, perceptions, style, and language, and this includes adapting our questioning to them. But if you listen in on any group mentoring session, you’ll hear ACCs to MCCs defaulting to their own preferred way of reflecting and communicating, resulting in a subtle kind of directing rather than truly partnering.
Visual reflectors often ask what their clients see. Somatic reflectors typically ask what their clients feel. Logical reflectors tend to ask their clients what they think. Each of these approaches can unintentionally narrow the client’s options, forcing them to reflect through a channel that is not natural for them, rather than inviting them into an expansive reflective space that serves them best — an open channel.
For a second year running, ReciproCoach, together with MCC Melanie Parish, is offering a group mentoring session dedicated to developing the awareness and skill of Open Channel Questioning. In this interactive, small-group session, you’ll gain hands-on experience, live coaching, and stop-and-start guidance from Melanie to sharpen your open-channel questioning skills, ensuring you expand your clients’ reflection rather than limit it.
- Live session with MCC Melanie Parish (observer-only session also available if you can’t attend live)
- Limited to 10 participants for hands-on learning
- Qualifies for 1.5 MCC (or lower) group mentoring hours or ICF CCEUs
Register for round here.
This is your chance to disrupt your default questioning patterns and deepen client trust by truly respecting your client’s perceptions, style, and language. What’s more, you’ll laugh while you learn, because with Melanie, you always do!
Looking forward to learning and laughing together,
Kerryn Griffiths, PhD, PCC
Global ReciproCoach Coordinator
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