What’s the hot topic in coaching right now?

I’m not sure who decides what becomes a hot topic but here are my thoughts in case it’s my turn! Managing the impact of our daily interactions with people around us comes up in 100% of my sessions with clients as it’s relevant for both the coach and the person they’re working with.

Our day-to-day interactions generate emotions – some we want and like to feel, and some we don’t. Part of being human is that we remember emotions and unfortunately don’t want to feel emotions stick in our memory longer than those we do want to feel. And as our emotions impact our behaviour and therefore how effectively we interact with people both now and crucially in the future, being able to manage day-to-day emotions is very important.

With this in mind I thought I would share a process you can play around with to see if it might be useful. This involves getting good at….

1. Being aware – ask yourself, what has this/is this interaction making me feel?
2. Committing to action – rather than try and ignore that feeling, take the opportunity to either reframe how you think about what just happened (“they’re probably having a tough day” instead of, “maybe they don’t like me anymore”) or have a clarifying conversation with the person concerned to find out if what you feel is a symptom of something you need to address with them (“can we have a quick chat about the email you just sent…”)
3. Assessing impact – be honest and ask, have I really dealt with what has happened (and not just pushed it aside for future use!) and will I continue to interact with this person as I normally would?

Managing the impact and volume of our daily interactions – say, a snippy remark in a meeting from a colleague you see as a friend quickly followed by feeling another colleague blanked you as they walked past your desk – is important and helps us avoid storing emotions that can be triggered in future making effective interactions with those around you less likely. I’m not sure about you but this feels like it will always be a hot topic for me!

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