Using Zoom-Out in a Coaching Session

The Zoom-Out cards, tools and questions are free to use with your clients. This is a short, practical guide to using them in a session: ways to bring in a card, a simple session shape, working on a video call, what to do when a card lands hard, and something for your client to take away.

Three decks, eight Dimensions

• Coaching Cards: a picture, a short insight and a question, in a colour for each Zoom-Out Dimension. The deck most coaches reach for first.
• Book Companion Cards: each one a Zoom-In Trap (the unhelpful thought) and the Zoom-Out to counteract it.
• Teamwork Cards: 26 aspects of teamwork, for team sessions.

The eight Zoom-Out Dimensions (Time, Space, Odds, Universe, Self, Social, Life and Death) are eight different ways to widen a view, and each has its own questions. You don’t need to know them all before you start: a card carries its Dimension in its colour and its corner icon.

Three ways to bring in a card

1. Let your client draw. Use “Random card” on the Coaching Cards page, or a printed deck face down. A random card is a way in that neither of you chose, and that is often the point. Rather than asking whether it fits, ask what it brings to mind about the situation.

2. Choose by Dimension. When you can hear where your client is stuck, pick the Dimension that steps back from it: Time when they are caught in the moment, Social when they can only see someone from their own side, Odds when they are sure how it will turn out. Show a few cards from that Dimension and let your client choose one.

3. The trap, then the Zoom-Out. Start with a Book Companion card. Your client reads the Zoom-In Trap and often says “that’s me”, which names the trap without you having to. Then a Coaching Card opens it up with a question. For example:

“My crystal ball is never wrong; it will come to pass.”

The Zoom-In Trap on the Fortune Teller card

“What other futures could this lead to, and how do you know which will happen?”

The question on the Fortune Teller Coaching Card

Whichever way you use, the card’s question is a starting point, not a script. Let your client answer in their own words and follow where it goes.

A simple session shape

1. Name the situation. Ask your client to put it in a sentence or two.
2. Step back. Draw a card, or spin the Compass Spinner and ask the question for the Dimension it lands on.
3. Notice what changes. How does it look from there? What can you see now that you couldn’t before?
4. Find one next step. Next Positive Action turns what came up into one thing to do next.

Not every session needs all four. Sometimes one good question is the whole session. For a fuller shape built on the GROW model, see GRRROW: A Zoom-Out Coaching Model.

On a video call

• Share your screen on the Coaching Cards page, or send your client the link so they can draw a card themselves.
• The tools work the same way on screen. The What If? Trio, Then Why Worry? and Focus Near, Focus Far each take a few minutes. Nothing your client types into a tool is sent anywhere.
• For a group, Zoom-Out Reveal makes a quick warm-up: name a picture from an extreme close-up as it zooms out.

When a card lands hard

Some cards touch tender ground, especially in the Self and Death Dimensions: endings, loss, regret, self-worth.

• Slow down. You don’t have to finish the card or the exercise.
• Let your client choose. Ask whether they would like to stay with it or try another card.
• Choose the deck for the person. In a first session, or with someone going through a hard time, you may want to leave the Death cards out of a draw.
• Remember what this is. Zoom-Out is a practical way of seeing things, a form of coaching rather than counselling or therapy. If a client is struggling or finding it hard to cope, encourage them to speak to their GP or a local health provider.

Between sessions

• Send a card. Every card has its own link, for example zoom-out.co/coaching-cards.html#fortune-teller.
• Zoom-Out Catchphrases: your client builds a short catchphrase that zooms them out and saves it as an image.
• A short video: the videos include one-minute shorts such as the Golden-eyed Monster (worry) and the Bolted Horse (good luck, bad luck, who knows?).
• Something to read: The Zoom-Out Mindset, Summarised is a short introduction for a new client.

With a team

There is more on all of these in Using Zoom-Out with a Team.

• Teamwork Cards in a retrospective: clarify what makes teamwork work, check the team through each card, then cultivate the one or two aspects that need it.
• Conflict Source Mapping and the Zoom-Out Conflict Model for a disagreement.
• Mindful Meetings: eight tools for facilitators.
• Half the Story shows a group how quickly we jump to conclusions; the Agile-ometer is for agile teams.

Using the cards with clients

The web cards, tools and questions are free to use in your sessions, in the room or on screen, with credit to Zoom-Out (zoom-out.co). Please don’t resell or reprint them. For printed decks, message Rob on LinkedIn.

This guide is new. If you use Zoom-Out with a client, I would like to hear what worked and what didn’t: message me on LinkedIn. More for coaches is on Zoom-Out for Coaches.