The Power of Acknowledgment (Part 1)

You work so hard for your clients. You generously share yourself with them. You deeply and genuinely care for them. And you courageously and exhaustively work on developing yourself so you can be better for them.

That was an acknowledgment. It’s powerful stuff, right? It feels amazing. And it feels amazing because it feels true. Acknowledgment is a potent ally in coaching.

What is an Acknowledgment?

An acknowledgment is an affirming statement of who the client is being and/or what they are doing in that moment. It notices, mirrors and anchors the best in the client, reinforcing who and how the client wants to be. The acknowledgment feels true both to the giver and to the receiver.  And it’s delivered as a statement of fact.

An acknowledgment isn’t the same as positive feedback. Positive feedback is an evaluation of one’s performance, with an agenda to improve it. And while that has a place in the working world, acknowledgment is a better coaching tool because it takes the coach’s judgment out of it. The coach isn’t evaluating who or how the client is being.  They are simply seeing the client being their best and saying what they see.

For a coach, an acknowledgment is a way of saying to the client “I see you.  I see you being who you want to be. You are doing it now!  Look at you!”  (In the Zulu tribe, this is the way they greet each other – “Sawubona” – translated, “we see you”.  It’s a form of deep witnessing and presence.)

What Makes Acknowledgement Important?

Acknowledgment of the client is every bit as important (maybe more so) as asking powerful questions, active listening or planning and goal setting. Acknowledgment is a foundational element of the coach/client relationship that builds the trust and intimacy needed to do the rest of the work.

• We don’t acknowledge ourselves enough.
OK, here we go again, it’s back to us. Yes, it is. We can’t give to our clients what we don’t give to ourselves. (A lesson I just keep learning!)

• We consider it unimportant or that they know already.
This is actually just another way of saying we don’t consider it important for ourselves and we already know (clearly a theme here).

• Our wants/action orientation.
At Learning in Action, our deep experience with the EQ Profile has helped us understand how everyone has a preferred method of self-soothing.  And we coaches can, if we are not fully conscious and aware of our internal experience, project our own self- soothing onto our clients.  Those of us who self- soothe by acting, doing something, fixing the problem, can insert that bias into our coaching and we can tend to miss the opportunity to simply observe, witness and be present with our clients. And we can coach right past the opportunity for acknowledgment.

• Our thoughts orientation or being too much in our heads.
Some of us self-soothe by thinking more and turning our focus inward as we coach, searching for that next, awesome, powerful question that will lead to a breakthrough for the client.  When we are turned inward, focusing on our thoughts, looking for that next question, figuring the way forward, we can overlook the opportunity for acknowledgment of our client.

• Can’t figure out what to say or how to say it.
This was definitely me for a very long time and sometimes is even now.  I can recognize the opportunity for acknowledgment and somehow just can’t figure out what to say to acknowledge the client in a way that feels natural and authentic.  It has taken lots of practice and I’ve gotten better.   That said, even now, when I feel like I’m stumbling over an acknowledgment of my client, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who notices.  My client almost always, beams afterward, even if it felt awkward to me.

Overcoming the Obstacles to Acknowledgement

We can all get better at acknowledging our clients if we want to.  And it’s definitely worth the effort as it’s one thing that can change everything about the quality of our coaching.  

Here’s where to start:

1. Acknowledge yourself 
Take time every day to acknowledge yourself. Who were you or what did you do for your clients, your friends, your family, that was of service to them? Acknowledge that.  (I use the Five Minute Journal for acknowledging myself).

2. Learn your biases
We have a responsibility to our clients to be aware of our biases. When we don’t (and sometimes even when we do), they can show up in our coaching in ways that don’t serve us or the client. We, of course, recommend the EQ Profile for helping us to understand our biases.  There are many, many ways we can deepen our understanding of our own biases, including developing an understanding of biases that affect coaching in general.

3. Develop your skill for acknowledgment 
Acknowledgment is a coaching skill, like any other, than gets better with time and practice. 

In part 2 of this blog (stay tuned), I’ll be sharing a coaching tool for developing acknowledgment.  And it’ll do double duty for you. It can help you to develop your own ability to acknowledge your client.  You can use it as a tool for your clients who are not so good at acknowledging their co-workers or team.

What about you? What’s been your experience of acknowledging your clients? What works for you?  What’s the impact it has on your coaching?  We look forward to hearing about it!

Posted in: Coaching|Relational Intelligence (RQ)

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