Feedback Dilemmas: Maintaining Healthy Client Relations

Angie: 00:00:16

Hey everybody.

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Angie here from the Coaching Clinic.

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I am going to be solo today.

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I do not have my counterpart, John with

me, but as you know, sometimes we do these

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little solo recordings, so I'm excited.

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I really was trying to think about

what I would want to talk about that

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would be beneficial for all of you

as listeners to the podcast and.

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Something came up for me and it's

something that I have experienced, I'm

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sure John has as well, but guess what?

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He's not here.

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So we have to continue and forge,

forge board along without him,

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but is, you know, when clients.

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Ask you to give them feedback.

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I have had so many occasions and I

still do to this day, and this is

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not something that is about my growth

necessarily, depending on what the

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response is, but I feel like it will,

it is now and probably will always be

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a challenge that I face as a coach.

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And that is to what level or degree

a client is asking for feedback.

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So.

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Baseline foundation, of course, I

always provide notes to the client.

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I, I encourage them to take their

own notes because when you're

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working for a long period of time,

I don't care if it's 12 sessions

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or 15 or you know, three years.

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The information just starts to, it starts

to, you know, accumulate and compound and

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sometimes the small things are forgotten.

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And I always like to have a reference

point for my clients, for them to

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go back to and review their journey.

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So there's that.

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But I say to them, I'm providing

notes, but those notes are not

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meant to take the place of your

own because what I value or I.

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Observe in a session is not

necessarily what they're going

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to value or observe in a session.

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So it's really, you know,

their own observations.

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They have that to reference and

then they have my reference.

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But, so that to me is just baseline 1 0 1.

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What you should be doing, I

think, as a coach to, to add value

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to the work that you're doing.

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I'd love to hear if you don't

agree with that, by the way.

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Um, if there's anybody out there

that does not at all provide

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notes, how is that going for you?

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How do you utilize, um, if you

don't keep any notes, do you keep

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notes and not send notes or do you

not keep notes and not send notes?

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I'd be curious.

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So get back to me on that,

angie@angiespeaks.com.

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So love to hear from you.

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But anyway, but also too,

um, so here's the thing.

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So many times, and again, still to

this day, I have had clients come

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back and say to me, well, what

are your thoughts on something?

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What do you think of that?

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Can you give me feedback?

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Did I say something wrong?

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And the thing that I am always

super cautious about is creating

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a relationship where the client

becomes reliant on my validation of

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whatever situation that they're in.

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It's not healthy.

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They should not.

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And if they are looking for

it, how do you dissuade them?

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How do you redirect them away from that?

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Because.

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What I think doesn't really matter, right?

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So that doesn't mean, by the

way, that does not mean that I

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don't give them feedback, right?

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I might share a perspective or there

may be times where I might ask like,

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Hey, might I share an alternative

perspective to that thought?

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And again, being very careful not to

interject or even give them the answers.

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And go, oh, see, yeah,

Angie, you know, coach Angie.

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She, she knows she gets it.

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I really respect her.

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Therefore she's my new, um,

moral or my new compass.

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No, that is, to me a very dangerous

place to be with a client because you're

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not really helping them learn anything.

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Right.

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Self-evaluation is, I think, very

important throughout the entire process.

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So what, okay, so what

do you do about that?

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And generally I will, if it happens,

say one time or two times during a

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co uh, a coaching relationship, the

first and or second time I might

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say, well, let me ask you this.

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I will follow it up with a question that

basically volleys the question back to

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them and redirects them away from my

thoughts back to their own, however.

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This is what I'm really talking about.

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It's the habitual person that's

looking for validation, that's

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looking for somebody to give them

the stamp of approval on something

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or just approval in general.

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Very cautious of that.

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Let me tell you about a time where I

didn't even realize I was doing it.

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So now I'm even more cautious

with how what, what wording I use.

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But I was working with

somebody and I said.

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And then in response to something they

shared, I said, oh my gosh, like that is

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so great of you, et cetera, et cetera.

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And I felt like it was relatively,

you know, benign, the comment.

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And when I asked, which I always

do at the end of a session, you

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know, for value, what did you value?

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What worked, what didn't work?

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And again, not because I need

the accolades, I need to know

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what's resonating with the client.

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But anyway.

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The person said to me, you know what?

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When you told me that this was great,

I felt judged, and I honestly, it was

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like somebody splashed cold water on me.

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I thought, what judged, because I didn't

mean it as a judgment, because why?

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Because my perspective on

judgment was negative, right?

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That negative judging is just negative.

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It's usually bad feedback

or a negative feedback.

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But that person was right,

even though what the feedback

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was positive, it was still.

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Being received by them as a judgment

of you are a good person or a good

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boy, or a good girl, or, or, you

know, so if I didn't do it great, does

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that mean that I'm bad in some way?

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So even though it was layers deep,

it was very enlightening for me to

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have a better perspective of a this

person's, uh, reception of words and

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how I use them, what I say, you know?

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Um.

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I don't ever wanna say to a client,

I'm so proud of you for that.

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Ooh, right.

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That just sounds very like parental in

some way, or authoritative in some way.

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So I am really careful about what

words I use and how they could

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potentially be received as good

judgment or negative judgment, but.

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Back to the original.

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If somebody is asking me,

well, what are your thoughts?

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Or, oh, Angie, why did you make that face?

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Or like, the feedback that

I give isn't always verbal.

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Sometimes if I'm doing a Zoom call, right,

a session that is done on Zoom and my

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facial expression changes in some way.

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That also can be received as a

judgment or you don't approve.

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I've, these are actual things

that I've had people say to me,

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and I feel like it's the coach.

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It's my responsibility

to take that person.

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The bigger issue.

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Right.

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The bigger issue is that they're looking

for me to validate and guide them

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and tell them how they should feel.

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And I do feel like as a coach,

it's my responsibility to.

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As best I can help them

navigate out of that.

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So when somebody incessantly, you

know, comp, uh, continuously asks for

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feedback or what do you think of that?

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I do not answer the question.

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And if it does happen more than twice,

which is just my number, I don't know why.

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I think that to me then.

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Just illustrates a little

bit of a, um, dependency.

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So I don't want that, right?

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I don't want that.

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So what do I do?

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I literally will take the time in either

that session where I pause everything

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or in the following session depending

on at what point they ask me, you know,

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well, what are your thoughts, Angie?

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Like, what did you value

in our session today?

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I've had people say that to me.

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What did you value?

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And I will overarching

theme that, that answer.

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I appreciate you've showed up

with vulnerability and create

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and you know, whatever that is.

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I'm making this up in the moment,

but I definitely always put it back.

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But back to the pause.

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I generally will pause this session or

address it in the next session and say,

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Hey, there's something that I think we

need to discuss here, and are you open to

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receiving this kind of feedback from me?

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I do ask the permission because

what I'm going to say isn't

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necessarily warm, fuzzy feel good.

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I am going to address that there

is some kind of underlying need or

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a pattern of them looking for my

approval, which I will not give.

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And are they okay with that?

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Are you okay with not

knowing what my position is?

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Because this isn't about me.

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When you're telling me something, I'm not

saying, well, I wouldn't do it that way.

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I am literally.

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I'm a master coach.

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I am, I have, I have honed the skill

of receiving people where they are

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at now, obviously that's, somebody

tells me they did something immoral

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or against my own ethical brain.

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I don't know, like they

kicked a dog or something.

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Yeah.

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I'm probably gonna have

some feelings about that.

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In terms of personal growth and

development, I'm not their mama.

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It's not my job to tell them what is or

isn't the right way to look at things.

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It's to.

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Encourage them to trust themselves so that

they don't need any external validations.

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I am so curious to hear how you

receive this, how you treat this

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even in your daily life, not even

just as a coach or a potential coach.

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And did you hear something

today that resonated with you?

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I am looking for that feedback.

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We've been getting more and

more of it, so keep it coming.

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We're loving it, and we will,

I think John will be back next

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week, so we'll talk to you soon.

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Bye for now.