[One of the elements of conducting a conversation with a client is] refraining from making judgments about what our conversational partner says and, instead, expressing respectful curiosity for whatever is brought up.

The next time you’re in a conversation for action that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, be it with a family member or work team, please consider whether enough depth of relationship is in place and enough possibilities have been explored to give a foundation for the current conversation to go forward.

Dealing with the hindrances so forthrightly may call into question what the outcomes of the program should be, and it’s perfectly fine to go back and change the outcomes in light of what is discussed around hindrances.

The most abstract way to answer the question is to respond that you say to your client something that will allow him to make a new observation. A more everyday way of answering is that you will speak with your client so that he will be able to see something or understand something or appreciate something that he couldn’t before.

So another part of the answer is that the coach speaks in a way that frees the client to take action.