The Power of Not Knowing

I recall a marketing session I had attended as a part of the orientation at my first job and the discussion veered to who is more creative, a small child or an adult? Being overly enthusiastic I took up the challenge of arguing that the adult would be a lot more creative while the trainer maintained it would be the child.

We decided upon an exercise of how many people could find more than 10 uses for an iron nail, while most of the class got to only 6 or 7, I proudly rattled off 12 uses in the given time, (I must confess I was quite proud of my creativity). But alas, the trainer said the child would have easily crossed 20 because there were no limitations of logic in a child's world. The iron nail as an object could have been anything from an Extra-Terrestrial to a Bulldozer, or a stool or a magic wand……. The list the trainer rattled off was longer.  

It's been almost thirty years since this incident, yet it’s one of those things that I have never forgotten. I often wondered why it remained significant, in one of the first couple of sessions of the ACC program we discussed, that we should not try to offer suggestions or advice to the client because their world is different, and we shouldn’t presume to know what is going on there. And the dots just connected in a flash. Just like a child can make anything happen in his world, the client can find the way forward in their world, and adding our logic and ideas can only impede their potential.

Even though in many situations, the path or the solution seems so obvious to us as a Coach, it may not be what the client needs or wants. What could be worse, is that by introducing our ideas, we may hinder their opportunity to explore a better solution.

I am quite certain that controlling the urge to advise the client, is a challenge that any entrant to the world of coaching faces. As humans, we are born advisors, and if a client is openly discussing an issue, the urge to solve the problem is obvious.  Yet to step back and just to be present and facilitate a client’s journey to figuring out what they want, and what they can do with “that want”, to make their world a better place, is the best thing that we can offer. And that can only happen if we acknowledge that we don’t presume to know what is right for the client. Having been through some sessions now, the story of the children’s creativity makes a lot more sense as I discover the Power of Not Knowing. Not Knowing allows me to remain curious and open to possibilities of all that can be.

Author - Shabnam Mehra