21 Coaching techniques 02 ow we move on to the nuts and bolts of coaching: the specific skills required for transforming people and organizations. Starting with an activity that most people think they have been doing all their lives, but some may never have done, we look how to listen in a way that helps others to hear themselves. Then we move on to the precision tools of the coach's toolkit, and explore the questions that can unlock new insights and clear the way forward. Clarifying and reflecting are the means by which coaches prompt their coachees and keep things moving, and I cannot place too much emphasis on how important it is for coaches to use their intuition at all times. The section on asking permission highlights something we take for granted and often see no necessity for, yet it is the key to creating rapport and trust between people. Finally, all these skills are brought together in an example of how to give constructive feedback the coaching way. n Listening It is not hard to guess that to be a good coach is going to require a lot of listening. However, it is not as tedious as you might think: the coach is not there as a sponge to absorb the coachee's misery or self-obsession. We call the type of listening coaches practise `active' listening. The five levels of listening Figure 2.1 shows the categories into which most of our listening falls. In normal conversation we mostly tune in somewhere between Levels 1 and 3. Coaches, however, learn to pay attention at a much higher level, and the value of being properly listened to is one of the reasons that coachees are prepared to pay for the experience.