Can We Please Keep the Video Off?

“Can we please keep the video off?” he asked. I immediately felt intense curiosity shooting up my spine.

A number of years ago, I was coach supervising a very experienced executive coach (also a psychologist) virtually, and this is how he started one of our sessions. Something told me not to explore his request further at that moment, so I just said, “Yeah, sure.”

About 10 minutes later, he brought it up himself: ”I feel compelled to explain my earlier request. I’ve decided that I prefer not to have the video on during our sessions. Already when I can see you, I find myself looking for your reactions, and this distracts my thinking process. And seeing myself on the screen, as well, makes for double distraction!”

We both found this fascinating and discussed how – with video, as opposed to face-to-face – we tend to watch not only the other person’s reactions, but also to manage our own body language and facial expressions. Indeed, the screen functions as a mirror! In other words, ‘we observe the other AND try to behave’, whereas in person, we are not getting real-time visual feedback on our own body language. This was a great take-away for us both as coaches.

With all this virtual visual activity going on, imagine how many aural clues we probably miss, such as silence, wording, breathing, sighs, hesitation, and changes in tone/speed/volume.

During our supervision session, I found myself not only appreciating the absence of the visual data (almost a relief!) but also noticing things such as silence and tone of exasperation, that I might well have missed had we had the video on. As a result, I was able to dig further into a couple of discussion points, which resulted in important discoveries for my coach supervisee. And I found myself managing my own silences, intonation, and wording more attentively.

So how can we, as coaches and human beings, sharpen our nonvisual skills and become more alert to these clues when the video is on, and even when we are meeting face-to-face?  We can:

• Before the session, mentally commit to staying aware of what we hear.
• During the session, make a physical or mental note of things we hear, such as ‘long sigh’, or ‘uncomfortable silence’.
• During the session, put what we hear on the table: “I just heard a deep sigh. What’s that about?”
• After the session, reflect on which aural clues we noticed and what they might have meant,

The next time you are conversing with video or face-to-face, remember to consciously pay close attention to the non-visuals. Otherwise, you might render yourself deaf to a rich source of information.