Café Crème, s’il vous plaît?

No, I am not sitting on the terrace of a Paris café sipping a café crème, watching the world go by between taps on my computer. But I am writing this blog post in a train on my way home from a glorious weekend in Paris. And what I am contemplating is how often I applied an important life (and coaching) lesson the French taught me years ago, when I was living in France: If you want good service, you need to create a pleasant exchange with the person serving you that goes beyond simply ordering something. And that exchange should ideally include truly connecting one-to-one by looking the person directly in the eyes.

I enjoyed putting this lesson in practice this past weekend because of the good and warm service I received everywhere I went! An essential component involved initiating some chit chat and maintaining eye contact – especially for a while just after the exchange. The person serving me would inevitably be looking at me as if wondering: Was this sincere? Did she really enjoy our interchange? Does she really respect me and who I am? Had I looked away too soon, perhaps even before the exchange was over, I might have sent the message that my comments and smile were not authentic and that I was thinking, for example: “Just serve me and be gone.”

What does this have to do with coaching? Well, I’ve repeatedly observed (and directly experienced) that when a coachee decides to self-disclose something – especially a thought or behavior that could make them feel vulnerable – they often continue to observe the coach, post-disclosure.

What the coach is doing during those lingering post-disclosure moments can be crucial. If the coach quickly looks away (perhaps even before the coachee has finished), and in addition, doesn’t manage their facial expression and body language well, the coachee could interpret this in a number of (negative) ways, such as:

• “The coach is not interested.”
• “The coach disapproves of what I said.”
• “The coach thinks what I said is really stupid.”
• “The coach does not want me to elaborate (so I won’t).”
• “The coach is impatient and wants to skip this and move on.”
• “The coach didn’t understand me.”

We coaches spend a lot of time in training learning how to notice and respond to a coachee’s body language and facial expressions. In fact, the ability to be fully present for the other is a coaching competence that distinguishes coaching from many other conversations. Yet that doesn’t mean that our coachees are unable to do the same! In sensitive moments, coachees are acutely observing us, watching for our reactions.

The looking-glass self, first described by Charles Cooley in 1902, refers to the process by which people evaluate themselves based on how others see them. We need to make sure that we show our support and interest to the person in front of us – whether a Parisian waiter serving us a café crème or our own coachee.

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