Dancing makes for a good metaphor for coaching. In most dancing, someone leads throughout and the other person follows. But there are many sorts of dances, especially contemporary ones, where partners take turns leading and following. In some of these dances, the idea of leading and following gets blurred or even erased.
I’m told that there is something called “contact improvisation dance,” where there is no set leader or follower and where both dancers listen and respond to each other in the moment, co-creating the movement. Then there’s “fusion dance,” where dancers enjoy “switch dancing,” a style of dancing where partners seamlessly pass the lead back and forth without strict roles.
There’s also same sex ballroom and competitive dancing, where switching roles during the dance is encouraged and celebrated. In some modern tango communities, dancers explore “role-switching” and “dual leading,” allowing both partners to contribute ideas throughout the dance. And contemporary Lindy Hoppers experiment with “ambidancing,” where partners trade roles mid-dance and sometimes lead and sometimes follow.
Doesn’t this analogize beautifully to coaching?
In my experience, the client leads first. She runs with the first question we ask, for instance a question like “Care to catch me up a little?” She catches us up. Then, at some point, the coach interrupts, maybe to get a clarification, to express a wonder, or to make a suggestion. This is the coach taking the lead. Now the dance really begins!
Sometimes there is some jostling for position. The coach may want to stay somewhere, because he thinks he and his client have entered important territory, but his client may want to go elsewhere, maybe because he has a point to make, because he wants to avoid too much scrutiny of this issue, or for some other reason. More often than not, the coach defers; sometimes he doesn’t; and that is all part of the dance.
Picture a first session. Let’s take as an example a piano teacher who puts multiple issues on the table: that he and his wife are divorcing; that his teaching business seems to be drying up; that he would love to compose but never gets around to it; and several more. You’ve learned about this from the information he provided before your first session. Now the two of you jump in.
Maybe you say, “Where do you think you would like to start?” He taps his dwindling teaching business as the issue top of his mind. You listen. You hear something that feels worth investigating. You “take charge” by taking a moment and asking a quality question. Your client is struck by the fact that you want to stop there, that you find that important. The very fact that you stopped there makes him pause.
You pirouette together around that subject. As you pirouette, it strikes you that his impending divorce hasn’t come up yet. You find the time and place to wonder about that. He takes the lead by heading you in the direction of the “composing issue” rather than the “divorce issue.” You follow, and you spend the next several minutes exploring how he might find his way back to composing.
By the end of the session, you’re aware that the two of you have done a lovely job of dealing with the “dwindling teaching issue” and the “composing issue,” but haven’t much touched on the “divorce issue” or anything else. This provides you with a natural suggestion as to where the dance might continue: “Next week, maybe we can take a look at what’s going on in your relationship? We didn’t quite get to that today.”
A productive session is akin to a beautiful dance; and sessions over time continue the dance. Happy tangoing!
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