Kati Lechner 9/7/25 Kati Lechner 9/7/25

How I Build Relationships

Connection is not a tactic. It’s a posture of curiosity, trust, and resonance.

We don’t build trust by showing how much we know — we build trust by being deeply, genuinely curious.

As a coach, I don’t enter a conversation with a toolkit of pre-baked solutions. I enter with questions — the kind that draw out wisdom already within my client, rather than impose expertise from outside. This isn’t a performance. It’s a partnership.

Connection is not a tactic. It’s a posture of curiosity, trust, and resonance.

We don’t build trust by showing how much we know — we build trust by being deeply, genuinely curious.

My approach is rooted in the philosophy of humble inquiry (Schein, 2013) — the disciplined practice of asking questions you don’t already know the answer to. It’s about listening not to fix, but to understand. Not to analyze, but to accompany.

When done well, this approach invites clients to say things like:

“I’ve never said that out loud before.”
“That’s a great question. I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“That’s actually the thing I’ve been circling around.”

And that’s the moment when the real work begins.

Why It Matters

In organizational life — and honestly, in most of adulthood — we’re often rewarded for having the answer, not for asking better questions. Many clients come to coaching expecting performance reviews in disguise: a plan, a checklist, and maybe a critique.

But what they often need more urgently is a safe space to think, feel, and reflect — with someone who won’t hijack their insight with well-meaning advice.

When I coach someone through a transition or identity shift — a promotion, a change in role, or the quiet suspicion that they want something different — our relationship becomes the container that makes that change possible. That container is built on:

Deep listening
Respectful challenge
Space to not have it all figured out

That’s where humble inquiry becomes my primary tool — and one of the most relational moves I can make.

What I Do (and How I Use It in Coaching)

Here’s how I put this philosophy into practice:

I practice attunement

My background in music and theatre taught me that powerful relationships don’t begin with speaking — they begin with listening. With tuning your attention to the other person’s rhythm, energy, and meaning-making style.

In coaching, this means:

Letting silence breathe
Noticing what’s said and what’s avoided
Matching the emotional cadence before introducing new frames

It’s not about mirroring — it’s about resonance. And it’s through that resonance that trust emerges.

I ask questions that don’t rush toward clarity

In an era of optimization and efficiency, I intentionally slow things down.

Questions like:

“What’s feeling sticky here?”
“What are you not saying yet?”
“What does your gut know that your head is still arguing with?”

These aren’t performance questions — they’re relationship-builders. They tell the client: You don’t have to be polished to be valuable here.

I offer reflection, not redirection

Instead of steering a conversation toward outcomes too soon, I reflect back what I’m hearing:

“You lit up when you talked about that moment. What was happening there?”
“I noticed your voice dropped when you mentioned that colleague. What’s the story behind that?”

This mirrors their inner landscape — and helps them navigate it with more clarity and agency.

Boundaries of Usefulness

This approach works especially well when:

You are navigating ambiguity or identity change
You are open to reflective, insight-driven dialogue
The coaching engagement is developmental, not purely performance-based

It’s less effective when:

There are urgent, high-stakes deliverables or specific behavior targets
You are seeking direct advice or expertise transfer
There’s low psychological safety and high fear of being “wrong”

In those cases, I adapt by layering in more structure — but even then, I bring inquiry forward as a relationship move first, not just a technique.

Impact & Invitation

Relationships aren’t built on having the right answers. They’re built on shared meaning — created one question, one pause, one breath at a time.

When clients feel seen and not judged…

When they feel accompanied and not evaluated…

When they feel invited, not interrogated…

That’s when transformation happens.

And if you’re standing at a threshold — a role change, a reinvention, or just the quiet whisper of “I want something more” — let’s start not with a plan, but with a question:

What are you ready to grow into?

Want to Go Deeper?

Humble Inquiry: Schein, E. (2013). Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling

Kati Lechner 6/15/25 Kati Lechner 6/15/25

How I Accelerate Learning

Helping individuals move from potential to performance — by creating space for reflection, safety, and forward motion.

Growth doesn’t happen because we push harder. It happens when we’re ready, supported, and safe enough to try.

In coaching, I don’t define learning as the accumulation of knowledge — I define it as the expansion of agency. Accelerating learning isn’t about speeding up how fast someone can absorb new information. It’s about helping them move more confidently, skillfully, and meaningfully in their world.

Helping individuals move from potential to performance — by creating space for reflection, safety, and forward motion.

Growth doesn’t happen because we push harder. It happens when we’re ready, supported, and safe enough to try.

To do that, I rely on two foundational pillars:

Growth Mindset (Dweck, 2006): The belief that ability is not fixed, but can be developed.
Psychological Safety (Edmondson, 1999): The belief that you can speak up, take risks, and try something new without fear of judgment.

Together, these two concepts work like ignition and fuel — one makes learning possible, the other makes it safe to act.

Why It Matters:

When I coach people — especially those navigating a transition or facing self-doubt — I often hear things like:

“I should already know how to do this.”
“What if I’m not cut out for this role?”
“Everyone else seems to be figuring it out faster than I am.”

These aren’t learning problems — they’re identity problems. And learning can’t accelerate until we unhook worth from performance.

Growth mindset helps us reframe what struggle means: It’s not a sign of incompetence — it’s evidence of the stretch.

Psychological safety makes it possible to risk failure in pursuit of growth: Without it, even the best strategy stays theoretical.

What I Do (and How I Use It in Coaching):

We normalize the messy middle

Accelerated learning doesn’t mean constant forward motion. It means tolerating the ambiguity that comes with unlearning old habits and trying new ones.

That’s why we spend time talking about identity transitions — not just skill acquisition.

We anchor wins not just in outcomes, but in behavior shifts, perspective changes, and moments of courage.

We define success in terms of resonance

As the name of my practice suggests — Resonant Growth — learning only sticks when it resonates. So we ask:

What did that experience teach you about how you operate?
What felt aligned, and what felt off?
Where did you feel like yourself — and where didn’t you?

The learning accelerates not because we’re moving fast, but because we’re moving true.

Boundaries of Usefulness

This approach works beautifully when:

You are facing something new or unknown
You feel safe enough to self-reflect honestly
You’re motivated by meaning, not just metrics

It’s less effective when:

You need urgent skill remediation under high pressure
Organizational culture punishes failure or vulnerability
Our coaching engagement is framed purely around performance improvement plans

In those cases, I might still integrate growth mindset principles — but I’ll scaffold them with more concrete tools, like capability mapping or behavioral modeling.

Impact & Invitation

When we design learning experiences that are psychologically safe and rooted in a belief in change, something subtle but powerful happens:

Clients start trying things before they feel ready.
They stop chasing certainty and start building capacity.
They begin to believe — not just think — that they are capable of becoming more.
That’s when the learning accelerates.