Five Tips for Good Coaching Questions, Part 2

In my last blog, I talked about Tip #1 for asking a good coaching question. Let's look at Tip #2 today.

Five Tips for Good Coaching Questions

1. Keep them Open
2. Keep them Short and Stupid
3. Keep them Advice-Free
4. Keep them Forward-Focused
5. Keep them Thought Provoking

2. Keep them Short and Stupid
A new manager may want to impress an employee with a long-winded, well-crafted question. However, short questions (no more than 10 words) keep the conversation flowing and make a better impact on the coachee.

In addition, questions that may seem "stupid"are often the best because it shows that you, as the coach, don't have all the answers and trust that the coachee does. Since a manager's job is not to fix the problem, but to empower her employee to fix the problem, "stupid" questions allow the coach to ask questions that may prompt some new thinking about the problem.

Coachee:
We missed our sales target again and my team is feeling discouraged.

Typical manager reply:
Yes, I've been thinking about that for awhile. I also did some reading in some of my college books and think that the problem may be related to the model on page 37 of this book. What do you think?

Better coaching question:
What's the impact on you?
(This may seem stupid as the coachee already said that the team is feeling discouraged, but the team may also be feeling resentful, angry, ready to quit and other things that need to be considered.)

The typical manager reply sounds like the manager isn't truly listening to the coachee and has already solved the problem in his head. The coachee then feels that she has to use the manager's idea. So instead of empowering the coachee, the manager has just taken the problem on himself, instead of allowing the coachee to figure it out for herself. Consequently, the coachee will expect the manager to fix her problems in the future, which results in the manager often working on employee minutia instead of executing the organization strategy and vision. That's a lose-lose-lose for the coachee, coach and organization!

In my next blog, I'll go through the other three tips for good coaching questions. In the meantime, give it a try....when you're next talking to an employee or colleague, practice asking short and stupid questions and see what happens. You'll be surprised to see how the conversation opens up!

Five Tips for Good Coaching Questions

People always ask me, "What exactly is coaching and how is it different from any other conversation?"

A coaching conversation is different from other conversations due to the amount of questions asked, and the type of questions asked.

In general, a coach should be doing 80% listening and 20% talking. If a coach is doing more talking than listening, then the coach is training or lecturing. There's nothing wrong with training or lecturing, in certain situations. However, it's not coaching. But if a coach is asking some powerful questions and then listening most of the time, you have a situation where the coachee is finding the solutions herself, instead of being told what to do. This frees up the coach to work on other projects and empowers the coachee to move forward on her own.

So what makes a good coaching question? Here are five tips to keep in mind:

1. Keep them Open
2. Keep them Short and Stupid
3. Keep them Advice-Free
4. Keep them Forward-Focused
5. Keep them Thought Provoking

1. Keep them Open
A coach wants her coachee to determine the problem and solutions by himself. Asking open questions that start with what, who and how allows this to happen; using questions that start with did, will, have and why actually shut down a conversation. Here is an example:

Coachee:
I missed my deadline again.

Typical manager reply:
Yea, I know. Why did you do that?

Better coaching question:
What got in your way?

The typical manager reply puts the coachee on the defensive, making him defend himself. The coaching question opens up the situation, without judgment or blame. It allows the coachee to focus on what got in the way, and then eventually what he wants to be different in the future and then eventually what steps he'll take to get there.

In my next blog, I'll go through the other four tips for good coaching questions. In the meantime, give it a try....when you're next talking to an employee, student, child or colleague, practice asking questions that begin with what, who or how and see what happens. You'll be surprised to see how the conversation opens up!