Nancy Kline and the discipline of not interrupting

A client pauses while talking about a decision at work. The coach has a question ready and asks it. The client answers, but may have been about to say something else. Even a useful question can interrupt someone who has not finished thinking.

Nancy Kline created the Thinking Environment, an approach to helping people think for themselves. Her organisation, Time To Think, began in 1984, growing out of her consulting and teaching near Washington, DC. Her work asks listeners to pay attention to the person speaking rather than prepare their own response.

For a life coach, holding back a question can feel uncomfortable. The client has paid for the session, and asking questions is part of the job. But the client may need time to finish explaining something before a question will help.

Nancy Kline’s definition of attention

On the Time To Think website, Attention has a precise definition: “Listening without interruption and with interest in where the person will go next in their thinking”. The second half matters as much as the first. A listener can stop speaking without becoming interested. They can keep a question ready, waiting for permission to deliver it.

In her essay Interest, Not Patience, Kline distinguishes waiting to speak from wanting to hear the person’s next thought. Both listeners may be quiet, but only one is still interested in what the speaker has to say.

A coach can notice this in themselves. Are they listening to the sentence being said, or rehearsing the question they want to ask? If they are rehearsing, they may miss something the client is trying to explain.

Nancy Kline’s promise to the thinker

Kline introduced her approach in Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind, first published in 1999. Her 2020 book, The Promise That Changes Everything: I Won’t Interrupt You, focuses on the listener’s promise to let the other person finish.

Imagine that the client from the opening has been explaining why they should accept a promotion. After a pause, they start to describe what they would lose by taking it. Asking about career goals during that pause could mean the coach never hears those concerns.

Waiting does not guarantee a new insight. It gives the client a chance to say more before the coach asks them to answer a particular question.

Nancy Kline’s approach includes questions

The Thinking Environment contains ten components, including Attention, Equality, Ease, Information and Incisive Questions. Questions are part of Kline’s approach. The issue is whether the listener needs to ask one yet.

Time To Think defines Equality as regarding each other as thinking peers, and Ease as discarding internal urgency. For a coach, this means resisting the urge to hurry the client towards a conclusion because the hour is ending.

These are principles of Kline’s model, not guarantees for every conversation. A client may want clarification, help or a dialogue. Listening includes responding to those requests and respecting the agreed end of the session.

Listening in a life coaching session

To try this in a session, agree to give the client uninterrupted time to think aloud about one subject. Tell them that pauses are welcome and they can ask for a response whenever they want. This suggestion is inspired by Kline, rather than a description of her formal training.

When a question occurs to you, keep listening rather than asking it immediately. Once the client says they have finished, ask what would help next: more time, a question or an observation. Afterwards, consider whether your first question would have changed the subject too soon.

Reading Nancy Kline

Time to Think introduces Kline’s wider approach. The Promise That Changes Everything focuses on interruption.

In the next session, notice the pause before you ask a question. The client may be finished, or may be finding the words for something they have not said yet. You can wait a little longer to find out.