Where might ‘good intentions’ be getting in the way of real attention?

Photo by Serge Le Strat on Unsplash

We might assume that being a good coach begins with good intentions. However, many of us struggle to ‘listen with an empty mind’ as Tony Latimer teaches us. I have been grappling with this challenge for a while, therefore, I find Simone Weil’s thought “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity” helpful to bring Tony’s ideas into context for myself. (Although, I have to admit, I grappled with her sentence for a long time, as well.) Anyway, she wrote in a letter to Joë Bousquet: “L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité.” We think, “I mean well”, or “I want to be helpful”, or “I’m trying to do the right thing here”. And yet most of us have experienced what it is like to be on the receiving end of someone’s excellent intentions and still feel unseen or misunderstood. This is where Simone Weil’s distinction between intention and attention is worth looking at more closely. Risking an oversimplification of Weil’s thinking, I understand her to mean that attention is not about trying harder or focusing more intensely, but is an ethical discipline rather than an inner aim. Intention often is future-oriented. It is about what I want to do, how I hope to help, and the difference I would like to make. Attention, as I understand Weil, asks for something different. It is a practice of restraint, of staying with what is actually present without rushing to interpret, fix or improve it. It involves a willingness to wait, to tolerate uncertainty, and to allow another person or situation to reveal itself in its own time, rather than being shaped by our need to be useful or competent.

This is why Weil describes attention as ethical. To ‘attend well’ is to do justice to the reality of the person we are talking to, or to our own reality. It requires humility, patience and a quiet decentering of the self. It asks us to resist the impulse to fill the silence, to offer solutions or to demonstrate insight. In that sense, attention is demanding. It is uncomfortable to remain present without performing, and sometimes quite unsettling to allow ‘not knowing’ to be the place where we remain.

In coaching, this distinction can be especially visible. It is easy to give in to strong intentions, wanting the session to be helpful, transformative or productive. And yet this is often what holds us back as coaches. Ethical attention takes a different position. It asks us to trust and allow what is emerging, even when it feels slow or messy, and to stay with the client’s experience rather than steering it towards an outcome that reassures the coach because we think we ‘know’. As I understand Weil, it is not about doing something impressive, but about holding the space with care and fidelity.

Weil’s idea leaves me with a gentle but challenging question. Where might my ‘good intentions’ be getting in the way of real attention?

I feel that this even extends to teaching, leading and everyday relationships. This question invites me to notice when I am trying to help rather than truly attend. Attention does not announce itself, and it does not shine or look ‘impressive’, but it changes the quality of an encounter. Of course, attention alone is not a solution to every challenge we have as coaches, and there are moments when action, guidance or intention are also necessary, but recognising its ethical value changes the quality of how we show up.