It’s all about the questions

In Essential Coaching Skills for Mangers #3, I shared the first of seven core coaching questions that should be in every manager’s back pocket: What’s the real challenge here for you?

Here’s the second of the seven core coaching questions, and it’s short and sweet. In fact, I’d go as far as to say this might be my MOST favourite of the core coaching questions for managers and leaders.

Core Coaching Question for Managers #2: And what else?

So small. So cute. Yet so powerful.

“And what else?” works helps managers get to the real issue at hand for three reasons:

1. Because the first thing a person has to say is never the only thing and often not the best thing

2. Because it stops you as the manager from leaping in with opinions, advice, commentary and whatever. It keeps the focus on the person you’re coaching

3. And because, should you need it, this powerful three-word question buys you time to find the next great question.

(Of course, it comes it a wide range of varieties: Anything else? Yes, and… ? Is there more?)

Your coaching action

Start building your “and what else?” muscle. It’s going to transform your both your peer-to-peer conversations as well as manager-employee conversations.

Additional reading

Making Questions Work by Dorothy Strachan. A fantastic resource for facilitators, coaches and the rest of us. [Amazon affiliate link]

The Essential Coaching Skills series is first posted on the excellent Make Work Meaningful blog.
The Essential Coaching Skills series continues here every Wednesday.

Hear that?

As managers, we’ve all been taught the importance of active listening. I don’t mean to come across as cynical, but it often boils down to this:

• Look as though you care

• Nod your head a lot

• Make small grunting noises indicating encouragement

But you know the problem. At least some of the time, the wheel is spinning but the hamster is out to lunch.

What’s really going on is that you’re not listening to the person you’re coaching at all. This isn’t active listening. Rather, you’ve got a whole mini drama running along in your head, drowning out anything the other person is saying.

Any of this inner monologue sound familiar?

• I know what they should do .I just need to find the right moment to interrupt

• Why are we having this conversation? I don’t know what I should be saying.

• This is great. I really look like I’m listening to them.

• How do I stop this so I can get on with my own work?

• Ooh – I know what question I should ask. Hurry up, so I can ask my question.

Don’t be ready with your coaching question

Part of the pressure comes from feeling like we need to have a question (or advice) ready to go as soon as the person stops speaking.

Actually, you’re allowed to have a pause before you ask a question. And in fact, you’ll find that if you take a moment or two to find the best question to ask after they’ve stopped speaking and then ask it, you’ll sound smarter and wiser that if you just blurted out something right away.

Your coaching action

Notice how your inner voice is getting in the way of you really listening to the person talking. Abandon the need to have a question ready right away, and you’ll find that you can really pay attention to what they’re saying. When they’ve stopped – and only then – take a breath and then ask the question.

Additional reading

Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott [aff link]. An excellent, thoughtful book on what it takes to have genuine and courageous conversations in the workplace. It’s not all about listening of course, although Tom Peters does say (often) that listening is the greatest act of leadership and respect one can embody.

The Essential Coaching Skills series is first posted on the excellent Make Work Meaningful blog.
The Essential Coaching Skills series continues here every Wednesday.

The seven questions that count

In this Essential Coaching Skills tip, we are going to look at the first of seven key coaching questions

But before we do, a bit of background. When I started my own coach training, I watched my instructors to try and understand what they did so well that made their coaching get to the point so efficiently.

Pretty quickly I understood this key coaching “secret sauce” – great coaches have some core questions that they rely on time and time and time (and time) again.

I think there are seven coaching questions that managers, supervisors and executives should have in their back pocket. These are the questions you want to start memorizing, having my computer, written on the back of your hand.

Here is the first one, and it’s a beauty.

Core Coaching Question #1: What’s the real challenge for you?

Managers spend so much of their time in organizations and beyond, directing time and energy and passion and emotion and anxiety and effort to solving the wrong problems.

Because so many of us are geared up to give advice and provide solutions – the training ground of the typical manager – that we often skip this first vital question, which is probing to find out what the real challenge is.

The “for you” bit in the end is important too. If you leave it off, you run the danger of your coachee talking about the general challenge, or the high-level challenge or the theoretical challenge – without ever getting to what the challenge is for them.

Your coaching action

Start noticing your strong tendency to lead to problem-solving. That’s not all bad – sometimes it’s exactly the right thing to do. But as often, you’re better of spending time figuring out what the real challenge is first.

Almost certainly, the initial challenge the person you’re coaching isn’t actually the real challenge. (Sometimes it is. But rarely.) Stay hungry. Stay curious. Ask them, “What’s the real challenge here for you?” and see what happens.

Additional reading

Making Questions Work by Dorothy Strachan [aff link0. A fantastic resource for facilitators, coaches and the rest of us. Not just a long list of questions, but a thoughtfully structured book that takes you through key elements of any coaching or facilitation engagement.

The Essential Coaching Skills series is first posted on the excellent Make Work Meaningful blog.
The Essential Coaching Skills series continues here every Wednesday.

Turn off your finely-tuned advice-giving machine

Here’s the deal. As a manager wanting to do more coaching, you’ve got a big challenge.

For years, you’ve been trained, encouraged, nurtured and rewarded to give advice. You’re a font of knowledge, a walking resource, the person to turn to when there’s a question to be answered.

Which is not a bad thing. Because there’s a place for giving on-the-job advice as a manager.

But, sadly, it’s a much smaller place than the advice-giving mansion in which you currently hang out.

Here’s one way to think about things, which I first heard from David Rock, a leader in embedding internal coaching capacity within organizations.

Think of all the times you get advice on a daily, weekly and yearly basis.

Notice how much of that advice isn’t much good, or not quite right – polite words for “kind of sucks”. And then notice that, of the advice you do take, how much of it is not as useful as you’d hoped it turns out to be.

Well – that’s how employees feel about your advice as their manager as well.

Your coaching action

Spend the next week paying attention to how much advice you give (and you get). Notice the rush you’re in to come up with a soution.

See if you can hold back the advice just a bit. Ask three good questions before you give your next piece of advice. See what difference those questions make.

Additional reading

Quiet Leadership by David Rock [aff. link]. Rock’s first book on coaching and with interesting things to say about neuroscience and coaching.

The Answer to How Is Yes by Peter Block [aff. link]. Block is a hero to me, really brilliant at helping people assume responsibility for their own lives at work. In this typically lucid and grounded book, he talks about the importance of finding your own way and the danger of relying on “best practice”.

The Essential Coaching Skills series is first posted on the excellent Make Work Meaningful blog.
The Essential Coaching Skills series continues here every Wednesday.

Got coaching?

As a manager and a leader you might be feeling just a little daunted or overwhelmed by having “coach” added to your already long list of skills and responsibilities.

Coaching’s a hot topic these days, and many of us have had “… and coaching” suddenly become part of our job description. And while that’s good in theory that we should all be coaching and mentoring our employees to higher productivity and on-the-job morale, it can trigger something of a defensive response:

• I don’t know what coaching is! Is it just the latest name for being a manager?

• I haven’t had much (or any) coaching skills training!

• Where do I start?

Here’s what you know about on-the-job coaching

The bad news is that there are many, many definitions of coaching, most of which are some of the truth but none of which are all of the truth.

The good news is that rather than trying to pin those definitions down, you can look to your own experience for much of the wisdom you need.

Think of a time when you were well coached, perhaps by one of your own managers, maybe by a friend or colleague. Some time in the past, someone coached you in a way that made a difference and had an impact.

Write down five things that person did, that made it such an effective “intervention” or helped you gain the skills you needed to succeed.

(That’s OK, I can wait. Really – it’s worth doing this.)

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that the five things you’ve written might include some of the following:

• Gave me time;

• Asked me questions;

• Didn’t just tell me what to do;

• Took an interest in me;

• Encouraged me to go further, be bolder, be braver;

• Gave me some honest feedback;

• Was interested in my welfare;

• Helped me see other options…

Now, here’s what you need to notice about this list and your list.

Just how non-technical it is.

The key to honing coaching skills as a manager

Sure, people like me have spent years and thousands of dollars honing our coaching skills. But, as a manager, you don’t have to.

To be a perfectly good-enough coach for most of the people most of the time, you need to show up, be curious and interested in the other person, ask more questions than give advice. These are the very root of profound coaching skills.

In other words, don’t sweat it so much. Coaching is simple. You have the skills you need to make a difference.

(Now, it’s something of an art not to complicate something that’s simple. But we’ll get to that…)

Your coaching action

Really do that “best coaching moment” exercise above. No, really. See what comes up for you. And whatever does, do more of that.