The cooperative coaching client: Clients’ responding activities to wh-questions for solution generation in coaching

While solution generation and question-answer sequences are key to change in coaching, little is known about the role of questions with a solution-oriented agenda. Even less research exists on clients’ (cooperative) responding activities. To breach this gap, we used Conversation Analysis to investigate responses to wh-questions for solution generation with a special focus on the continuum of (dis-)aligning and (dis-)affiliating responses and the degrees of clients’ (un-)cooperativeness. The sequential analysis yielded five response categories: “no(n) answer,” “repair initiation,” “not answering and refocusing,” “answering” and “extended answering.” While the response possibility space includes a range of (un-)cooperative reactions, clients display an overall willingness to answer questions with a solution-generating function: “answering” and “extended answering” make up 68.9% of responses. Additionally, in-depth analyses revealed further cooperative behaviors. Apart from their interactional cooperativeness, this suggests an interaction-type specific readiness of coaching clients to participate in their own change process, that is, an institutional cooperativeness.