Your best Voco conversations will be of the coaching variety. The trickiest bit is to make sure that you both have equal airtime in the conversation. We call this approach peer coaching, and it’s different from traditional coaching because both parties will have the chance to play the role of ‘coach’ and ‘coachee’.

The best way to turn a typical conversation into a coaching conversation is to shift your mindset; away from waiting to speak towards genuine curiosity.

We approach most of our conversations with the expectation that we will be asked to share our opinion. This is distracting because it means that we are always thinking about our response rather than the information we are hearing. 

Don’t be fooled into thinking that you can fake good listening - even the subtlest bit of body language will give you away. Stay in the moment and start by doing two things differently:

1. Let go of the need to control the conversation or find solutions.
2. Assume that the person you are in conversation with has the solution to their own issue. 

With your Voco partner, you can create structure to your conversation that will make this easier to do, in a practical sense. But, you can (and should) use coaching skills in ‘normal’ conversations. It will almost certainly feel a bit uncomfortable at first, but with practice, you will have richer, deeper and more meaningful conversations.

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NEXT >> The do's and don'ts of a coaching conversation