In a recent post cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken emphasizes the importance of noticing:
Notice everything and pay attention to things that puzzle. Pay attention to things that demand your attention and then refuse your understanding. Pay attention to the failure of attention.
He's writing as an ethnographic researcher, but it's a message that resonates deeply with me as an executive coach.
Everything I do professionally starts with noticing, and that's why I try to notice as much as possible about the people around me. Even--especially--when I don't understand what's happening or why, I need to note that something is happening. In the coaching process, the act of noticing what's happening in the moment is more important than the act of interpreting what happened afterwards.
My interpretations are filtered through my meanings and subject to my biases; they're inherently limited. My observations are constrained by my cognitive abilities, but if I can notice something and communicate it effectively to a client or colleague, we can work to interpret it together, broadening the frame of reference and diminishing the risk of misunderstanding.
It's easy for coaches and consultants to fall into the trap of imagining that we're valued most as interpreters. It makes us seem more important, and it relieves our clients of a burden they're often glad to relinquish. I'd like to believe that I do add value as an interpreter, helping others understand by making meaning, but that role is secondary to my role as observer, as noticer, helping others see what they may have missed.
Photo by Jimmie Quick.
