The Sounding Board

A sounding board reflects sound and voices, and is popularly used to denote people who serve as testers for others’ ideas. It is a filter, or feedback device, or litmus test, depending on the importance and severity.

I’ve found that a preponderance—and I use that word advisedly—of my executive coaching and entrepreneurial coaching has been in the role of a sounding board. Oh, you might gloriously say I’m a “trusted advisor” or “expert coach,” fair enough. But I like to keep things simple.

Great Conversationalist

A woman at a social event told my wife upon our departure that I was a “great conversationalist.” My wife was dumbfounded, because I despise small talk and “mingling.” But what had happened was that I asked this woman two questions about herself and then merely listened for 30 minutes while she talked and I drank Macallan.

More than anything else, people want to be heard, even without their issues being “solved” or their conditions improved, they want their story to be public. A sympathetic ear is a finely-tuned instrument.

Most of my executive clients merely seek validation. They want a trusted other to listen to their plans and schemes and provide honest feedback. Because I deal with bright people, 90% of the time they’re in the right place. “Tweaking” what they propose doesn’t make any difference. The other 10% of the time I have to intervene and point them in a new direction.

Real Value

I was considering, at one point in my career, if the people I mentored and coached were really better off when I found I was merely listening and approving what they were intent on doing. Sometimes I could listen for almost all of our call or meeting without saying a word. Yet they were perfectly content.

It struck me that their goals were being met quite well, “thinking out loud” (I call this “articulating their cognitive processes”) and mutually exploring the validity of their thinking. I can’t tell you how many times someone, paying me handsomely, has said to me in mid-exegesis, “You know, I just answered my own question, never mind.”

The Sultan

I heard a story once about a British visitor to the Middle East two centuries ago. On a Saturday morning he saw a serpentine line moving slowly toward the sultan’s palace. When he questioned this, his guide explained that these were petitioners who were permitted to speak directly to the Sultan during this time every week.

“And the sultan decides on every request?” asked the stunned visitor.

“No,” said the guide, “they merely want their story heard.”

Don’t neglect this important aspect of your value: To hear your clients’ stories.

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