Sometimes as coaches we get stuck with our client. Our client is stuck and we get stuck. At that stage the temptation is for the client to ask for a solution 'what do you think?' or for the coach to offer a solution.

But pause..resist temptation, what is being brought into the room at that place and time? How can we use the 'stuckness' as an opportunity? How far is the 'stuckness' representative of the sort of issues and dilemmas faced by the client? There is nothing wrong with the coach bringing the fact into the room that both of you are stuck. Indeed it can be powerful. What is the pattern that has created the impasse?

The next stage is to interrupt the pattern. Try going 'second' order - but at the same time do something symbolically different that interrupts the pattern of the coaching but might also interrupt the pattern of being and doing that the client has been inhabited to get them to the point of stuckness.

Consider changing the physical environment and activity levels - go for a walk, shift into a different environment that provides very different cues and context. Moving from an office to a hotel might not cut it. Use exercises such as drawing how being stuck really feels; imaging how someone else they respect and whose opinion they value was in the room and observing the stuckness. Or just choose someone else - Obama, Beckham, Mandela.

The aim is to interrupt the pattern and use the disruption not just to help unstick and move on but also to reflect on what the process and outcome has to say about the nature of the old pattern and the potential for the new pattern.

This train of thought was prompted by an excellent presentation by Lindsay Wittenberg at the EMCC Uk annual conference. It made me realise that I was not unsticking difficult moments as well as I should or could. Thanks Lindsay