I held a recent course in Istanbul on coaching, and one of the subjects or components of the course was the communication between the coach and the person being coached.
Coaching course February 2008, Istanbul, Turkey.
Great teachers and philosophers of time were Socrates and his student and followers Plato and his student Aristotle, all knew the best way of teaching students, was to draw-out of them the knowledge, to understand that the knowledge is already there, the knowledge has to be accessed by the student or learner themselves.
Socrates devoted his life to talking to people of knowledge or claiming knowledge, then helping them to understand their ignorance as he understood his own, thus be able to increase their knowledge.
And thus it is with coaching someone. It is the function of a coach to guide, yes, but allow the coached person to find a solution themselves, which is believed is already available within, or that the person has the capabilities and resources to find the solution.
If a person has found a solution on their own accord, and they have committed to undertake that solution, they will be more likely to undertake and fulfill that solution, as against being told what to do.
To help the person being coached, we use chunking and the NLP Meta Model, to access the knowledge below the surface or within the deep structure of the mind or subconscious.
It is imperative that the coach keeps their understanding of the solution to themselves, to keep their cat off the mat, to understand that the map is not the territory.
The best way to keep the coaches way of understanding and thinking from that of the coached person, is for the coach to say nothing, but with style, and to give feedback as required that the coached person is learning and finding to right solution for them.
A great course. see web site www.c4coaching.com