building a leadership culture of coaching
TRANSCRIPT
Building a Leadership Culture of Coaching
The Los Rios Community College District’s Government Training Center www.LosRiosTraining.org
Melissa Fish 916.484.8061
California Department of Human Resources Statewide Trainingwww.calhr.ca.gov/Training
W O R K S H O P P R E S E N T E D BY
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Building a Leadership Culture of Coaching Agenda and Objectives ................................................................................................................... 2
What is Coaching? ........................................................................................................................... 3
Coaching Leadership ................................................................................................................... 5
Building A Coaching Culture ........................................................................................................ 7
Fundamentals of Coaching ........................................................................................................... 10
Overcoming Barriers to Coaching ............................................................................................. 12
The Power of Questions ............................................................................................................ 15
A Four step model for Coaching Inquiry ................................................................................... 15
Backtracking .............................................................................................................................. 16
Coaching Habit Questions ............................................................................................................. 17
The Kickstart Question .............................................................................................................. 18
The AWE Question .................................................................................................................... 19
The Focus Question ................................................................................................................... 20
The Foundation Question ......................................................................................................... 21
The Lazy Question ..................................................................................................................... 23
Bonus Question ......................................................................................................................... 24
The Strategic Question .............................................................................................................. 25
The Learning Question .............................................................................................................. 26
Question Sets ................................................................................................................................ 28
Action Plan for Continued Learning .............................................................................................. 29
Where, When, and With Whom to Practice: ............................................................................ 29
Addendum..................................................................................................................................... 30
Well Formed Outcomes ............................................................................................................ 30
Possibility Frame ....................................................................................................................... 32
Turning Complaints Into Requests ............................................................................................ 33
Flipping A Negative Frame to A Positive Frame........................................................................ 34
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Agenda and Objectives
Agenda
What is Coaching? Distinguishing coaching from similar approaches Coaching Leadership The Benefits of Creating A Coaching Culture
Fundamentals of Coaching The Power of Questions The 7 (+1) Questions of the Coaching Habit
Objectives
At end of class, students will be able to:
• Describe the benefits of coaching as a leadership tool• List 5 key benefits of coaching in the workplace• Have strategies for switching from giving advice to asking questions• Ask powerful questions to engage employees, co-workers, and colleagues• Use the 7 (+1) Coaching Habit Questions to conduct a brief coaching session
Opening—Start with the End in Mind
What do you hope to get or gain out of the class?
What would you like to think, feel, and believe at the end of the day What would you like to learn, get or gain from the class?
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What is Coaching? According to the International Coaching Federation (ICF):
ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership.
ICF -- https://coachingfederation.org/about
Coaching versus Consulting The main difference between coaching and consulting is that coaching pulls out answers from the client while consulting tells the client what to do. A consultant is usually hired to resolve a situational problem in the organization or addresses a large-scale strategic shift in the organization while a coach typically works with individual employees to help them set and achieve goals. Coaching versus Mentoring Mentoring is when someone with seniority offers informal advice to someone with less experience (Kram, 1985). Mentoring focuses more on long term career development while coaching focuses on achieving short term performance or personal goals. A mentor advises, teaches, and supports an employee on his or her career path while a coach uses skillful questions to help the employees clarify goals, stay on track toward goals, overcome interference and develop their own inner resources for success. For more info, go to: https://www.kent.edu/yourtrainingpartner/know-difference-between-coaching-and-mentoring. Coaching versus Counseling Counseling is typically past oriented and remedial, focusing on limitations and how to overcome them. Counselors operate in a medical model and treat a personal issue usually based on diagnostic categories. Coaching is future oriented and query based. Coaches ask powerful questions to help the client define goals, organize resources, and stay on track with commitments or consciously change them.
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Coaching versus Managing The difference really comes from focus. In managing an employee, the focus is on being directive: here's what needs to be done, here's how I'd like you to do it, here's when it needs to be completed. The challenge with being a directive manager is the burden is on you, as the manager, to drive the whole show. Coaching takes on a collaborative and empowering approach, pointing team members towards their own resourcefulness and insight. This allows you to “work less hard and have more impact” according to Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Caching Habit. The Bottom Line What makes coaching unique is the strong emphasis on asking questions to draw out the internal resources of the coachee. Th main goal of a coach is to help the client to find and develop their own resources and skills, and use those resources and skills to achieve desired results. Coaching begins by eliciting from the desired state, contrasting that with the present state and then helping the coachee make a roadmap to get from where they are now to where they want to be. In this sense, coaching empowers the coachee to develop self-leadership skills that serve in all aspects of life. Your thoughts and notes
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Coaching Leadership Organizational success depends on leadership and coaching has been proven to be an excellent tool for developing leadership skills. Coaching leadership is characterized by collaboration, support, and guidance, focused on bringing out the best in colleagues, co-workers, employees, and teams. According to executive coach Sophia Lee: the coaching leadership style is all about empowering individuals and teams to be their best selves. https://torch.io/blog/what-is-coaching-leadership/
According to Insala, a company specializing in web-based software for employee engagement, there are 5 key benefits to leadership coaching
1. Empowerment Coaching empowers leaders to do exceptional work. Coaches establish an advantageous relationship that uncovers hidden strengths and weaknesses within the leader. Goals will be created to enable leaders to pinpoint their weaknesses and track their progress. Reflective sessions with a coach empower a leader to fully recognize their improvements and appreciate the work they have done to meet those goals.
2. New Insight Leaders gain new perspective on everyday responsibilities from their coach. The coach pushes them to step back and reflect when a leader is having a bad day or week, often uncovering a deeper problem. Together, they discover new insights into the leader’s reaction by analyzing the problem and creating a plan for similar situations in the future.
3. Free Thinking Coaching reduces narrow-minded thinking in leaders. Coaches encourage the leader to open their thought patterns and consider other points of view by asking questions. This benefits the leader by provoking free thoughts and encouraging flexible leadership. The Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness calls flexible leadership a “business necessity” as it allows for quick, creative, and precise decision making under pressure. 4. Enhanced Performance Targeting coaching to a leader’s problem area makes a huge difference in attitude and abilities. Coaching allows the leader to learn and implement new leadership techniques tailored to the leader’s strengths and weaknesses. Techniques include the leader avoiding the terms “but,” “no,” or “however” as they accidentally discourage ideas or answering questions with questions as they tend to supply all the ideas for their team. Individuals that were difficult to reach before will respond better to their leader’s new approaches.
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5. Improved Communication Coaching enables leaders to realize that their communication isn’t always as clear as they think. Coaches will highlight areas of communication that need improvement and practice those areas with the leader. Coaches can also teach leaders how to communicate with individuals of different personality types, cultures, or ages using their past experiences as examples. Good communication skills allow people to connect with one another. A coach who can guide an individual to communicate effectively will improve their credibility and overall leadership abilities. From: https://www.insala.com/blog/why-is-leadership-coaching-important-the-5-key-benefits
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Building A Coaching Culture
Building a coaching culture focuses on shifting unwritten rules, values, norms, behaviors, and practices to spread a coaching mindset and coaching practices throughout the organization so that coaching becomes a key part of the company’s identity. A coaching culture improves not only the way employees interact with each other, but also the interactions they have with customers and potential clients. A coaching culture fundamentally changes the nature of conversations that individuals in an organization have with each other internally and with external constituents. Individuals come to conversations with genuine curiosity, ask powerful questions and elicit high quality information that improves results. Others generally feel more engaged and more likely to be committed to chosen actions and targeted goals. Two pillars of the conversational shift are articulated from the field of Appreciative inquiry in the book Conversations Worth Having by Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres. The two pillars are: Positive Framing According to Stavros and Torres, “Positive framing is not only about focusing on the positive. It is also about focusing attention and action on where we want to go or on what it is we want more of.” Positive framing is intended to drive conversations toward desired outcomes and desired states. It is not a Pollyanna denial of the negative. Instead, positive framing uses the negative to flip to the positive. In every negative comment, there are values and desires hidden in the complaint that can be teased out quickly through good questions and reframing. Two strategies to help with this are the three-step process of Naming, Flipping, and Framing offered by the authors and the process of turning complaints into requests (see addendum for details) Generative Questions This second practice invites you to adopt an attitude of curiosity. When we are curious, we naturally ask generative questions. Our colleague Gervase Bushe best describes generativity as “the creation of new images, metaphors, or physical representations that have two qualities: they change how people think so that new options for decisions and actions become available to them, and they stimulate compelling images people act on.”
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The Four Steps to Building a Coaching Culture By Bill Bennett, CEO, InsideOut Development Jun 13, 2019
https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2019/06/13/the-four-steps-to-building-a-coaching-culture/
At the heart of every organization is its culture—its personality and identity. Today, people are putting more importance on company culture than ever before. Deloitte recently found that 94% of executives and 88% of employees consider a distinct workplace culture important to organizational success. According to a study by the Human Capital Institute and the International Coach Federation sited in an ATD article, organizations with strong coaching cultures report revenue growth well above their industry peer group (51% compared with only 38%) and significantly higher engagement (62% compared with 50%). While companies are investing time and money in workplace coaching, hoping it will seep into their company culture and drive productivity and engagement, a lot of companies aren’t seeing the results they want. The disconnect? Culture. For workplace coaching to work and truly drive results for your business, it must echo throughout your entire company—at every level and in every conversation. One way that organizations can develop such a culture is through four steps we call RLAA (pronounced “relay”): relevance, learning, application, and accountability. Build Relevance from the Top Down Organizations with robust coaching cultures are over 60% more likely to have senior leaders involved in their coaching systems. Leaders, if you want coaching to become your company culture, start with yourself. Make it part of every meeting agenda, strategic discussion, and water cooler chat. Illustrate the benefits of coaching—to the organization and to each individual—by talking about it and, more importantly, by doing it. And if you’re not the right leader for the job, find the person who is. Make that individual the spokesperson, and have him or her share enthusiasm regularly. As senior leadership takes the reins, employees will naturally follow. However, to make workplace coaching fully relevant to them, pinpoint their motivation. Help managers, as well as employees, understand the value that coaching can provide them. Show managers how coaching can engage their people, increase team performance, augment their leadership skills, or add a credential/certification to their résumé.
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Foster Learning on a Regular Basis Every employee in the organization, regardless of role or level, should understand the basic principles of coaching and performance improvement. Organizations with successful coaching cultures were nearly 40% more likely to target every employee with coaching training than organizations with less pervasive coaching cultures. Make coaching, training, and development regular opportunities by using classroom or virtual lessons. Then, like anything we want to excel in, it takes hours of practice. The more you coach, the better you become. Help Employees Apply What They Learn The adage is simple but true: Where you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You can’t create a coaching culture without developing an action plan and providing support to make the transition easier on employees. Establish a personalized follow-up plan that will work with your organization’s business cadence and structure. We’ve seen companies develop a master coaching class with follow-up small group sessions. Other companies use reporting systems and even online coaching platforms or apps. The point is, create a system that helps everyone apply what he or she learns, and check in on it regularly. Develop Positive Accountability for Results When it comes to accountability, we frequently put that responsibility on managers, but when done correctly, it looks completely different. The beauty of coaching is developing a workforce of people who feel supported in their abilities to make decisions and own their choices. An accountability system encourages employees to take ownership of their performance and encourages managers to take ownership of how they coach others. What does this look like? First, make sure every employee at every level is experiencing coaching conversations on a regular basis. Second, establish transparency regarding coaching efforts in your organizations. Do you know who is coaching successfully? How many coaching conversations are occurring? Tapping into that knowledge will guide leadership on what needs to change and how to get there. If your organization is already investing the time and money in workplace coaching, why stop there? Dig deeper and change the identity of your company to one that coaches at every level and in every instance. As a result, you can expect better productivity, more engagement, and higher performance all around. Bill Bennett is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience, including 15 years in the training industry. As the former division president of FranklinCovey, Bennett was responsible for all FranklinCovey operations worldwide for the Organizational Solutions Business Unit. He began his career at IBM and spent 15 years with the company in a variety of management roles. He currently serves as CEO of InsideOut Development, a revolutionary coaching company that helps leaders hold the conversations that drive real results.
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Fundamentals of Coaching
Two Pillars of Coaching 1. A State of Curiosity The primary attitude behind all effective coaching is genuine curiosity. Curiosity is a natural trait in all children that, unfortunately, often gets drilled out through schooling and maturation. Curiosity:
• is innate • thrives when one is comfortable with ambiguity • provides a path from not knowing to knowing • is expressed through inquiry
Curiosity is associated with the development of many positive strengths in life, including:
• Happiness: Of the 24 possible ‘basic human strengths’ identified in a large study in 2004i, curiosity was one of the top five strengths most strongly linked to life fulfilment and happiness.
• Intelligence: Curiosity can be both a sign of intelligence and a tool that promotes growth. Nearly 2,000 ‘high novelty-seeking’ (very curious) 3-year-olds were studied. By the age of 11, they were found to have superior scholastic ability, more advanced reading skills and their average scores were 12 points higher on total IQ than peers with low levels of curiosity.
• Relationships: Healthily curious people tend to ask more questions of friends and take a genuine and fun interest in them. This supports the development of good relationships.
• Resilience: A child with high learning potential often feels anxiety around not knowing all the answers immediately. Helping them to develop their curiosity changes their mindset – it means that the answers are as yet unknown – and that is the fun of it!
• “Curiosity and honesty”: In the results, presented in 2016, of a survey targeting nearly 500 astronomers, earth scientists, biologists, chemists and physicists who had been honored in their fields, curiosity and honesty are the two leading core traits of exemplary scientists https://research.msu.edu/survey-shows-scientists-value-honesty-curiosity/ . Nurture these traits!
https://potentialplusuk.org/index.php/2020/05/28/curiouser-and-curiouser/
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2. A Belief in Human Potential A coach operates on a belief in individual dignity and the untapped potential in people. This means the coach believes:
• Each individual has a robust set of life experiences useful in navigating life • People have or can develop all the resources they need to succeed • Each person has a unique set of skills, resources, and abilities that are often untapped • Drawing out ideas and solutions from others increases engagement and commitment in
others and often inspires creative or novel solutions or possibilities
Bonus exercise: What do you believe about people in general and about their potential? What positive beliefs do you have about people (use the beliefs in bullet points above as examples and add your own)
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Overcoming Barriers to Coaching
Coaching is a relatively new approach to interactions with others in the workplace, Consequently, there are several barriers to implementing a Coaching Culture or adding coaching into conversations:
• Coaching requires a shift in attitude and orientation from being the one with answers and directives as a manager, or from one who follows directives as an employee, to genuine inquiry and collaboration in achieving goals. This means it may feel to the manager as a loss of control and status and it means more engagement and responsibility from the employee.
• Coaching typically requires changing well-established habits, such as giving advice.
• Coaching initially takes more time than directing and therefore feels inefficient.
However, the coaching model will save time in the long run because employees are more empowered, more engaged, and more committed. The coaching model also reduces the likelihood of solving the wrong problems because genuine inquiry gets at the heart of concerns.
• It requires the courage to ask questions that draw out others, the courage to be open to
surprising answers, and the courage to honest when exploring issues and establishing goals
What concerns do you have about coaching or being coached?
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The Biggest Barrier to Coaching: Giving Advice Michael Bungay Stanier, Author of the Coaching Habit says the biggest barrier to effective coaching is giving advice. We are trained to have answers and the higher up one rises in an organization, the more pressure to have solutions/answers and to tell others what to do rather than draw out solutions and answers from them and empower them to do their jobs. In other words, we create what Stanier calls an “advice monsters” in us that hijacks the conversations and defeats collaborative conversation. The advice monster is notorious for derailing input and disempowering others and it often results in solving the wrong problems. What to do instead of giving advice:
• Listen attentively • Ask open-ended question • Ask more questions • Be silent and give the others a chance to speak. • Praise/reward others for sharing
Even when we shift from directly telling to asking questions, we often turn questions into advice by inserting our advice into a yes/no question, such as:
• “Have you tried (insert advice)?” • “Would you consider (insert advice)?”
We may also use open ended questions, which are generally better in coaching, but can still be used to insert advice:
• “What would it be like if you (insert advice)?” Take a moment to consider the situations or interactions that trigger your advice monster. I tend to jump to advice when…
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Asking Versus Telling Exercise: Pairs in breakout room
Partners “A” and “B” (imagine you are co-workers); about 3 minutes each: 1. A: Adopt a mindset of “knowing” as if it is your job to know what to do and tell people what to do. B : Think of a problem or challenge and adopt the mindset that goes with that challenge (for instance, if the issue is a roadblock to finishing a task, adopt the mindset of frustration). 2. B tells A the challenge and A immediately gives advice--do not ask questions or gather any more input. Just start giving advice. A could use the start sentence: “Here’s what you should do…). Both A and B pause to take notes (B especially note how A’s approach impacted you)
Then switch roles 3. Switch roles, this time: A : Think of a problem or challenge and adopt the mindset that goes with that challenge. B: Adopt a mindset of “knowing” as if it is your job to know what to do and tell people what to do. 4. A tells B the challenge and B immediately gives advice and only advice using the start sentence: “Here’s what you should do…). Both B and A pause to take notes (A especially note how B’s approach impacted you) 5. Debrief what it was like only after both have had a turn.
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The Power of Questions Coaching is primarily based on asking powerful questions: questions designed to bring out the internal resources in others, to help them clarify their challenges, identify their goals, find their way, improve their thinking and, in the process, become better leaders!
A Four step model for Coaching Inquiry
1. Ask
Clarify 4-Step Model 2. Listen
3. Backtrack
Ask: This course will give you a variety of questions you can use to help bring coaching into the workplace Listen: Most of us do not practice good listening skills. The foundation underneath all coaching is to really listen to the other person. Backtrack: Many people have heard of active listening: paraphrasing back to the speaker what was said to check for understanding in important conversational contexts. Back track is active listening with a twist. The next page provides an explanation of backtracking. Confirm and Clarify: Backtracking allows the opportunity to confirm or clarify understanding.
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Backtracking
Purpose
• To increase the likelihood that the coach understands the client’s input • To keep the coaching process focused on the client’s input and needs
Backtracking is a simple communication tool that increases a listener’s understanding of the speaker’s input. Many people have heard about or learned the skill of “active listening.” This is the process of restating a speaker’s input by paraphrasing what the speaker said in your own words. Backtracking is an advanced form of “active listening.” As in “active listening,” the listener summarizes what the speaker has said. However, backtracking matches the key ingredients from the speaker presentation. Key ingredients include:
• Matching key words or phrases from the speaker’s content. • Matching key elements of the speaker’s “form” of presenting, such as tone, volume, or
tempo of the voice, and matching significant gestures. • Matching the sensory system(s) the person uses in their language.
What does it do?
• Summarizes content shared by the client • Allows for verification and clarification of the client’s input • Keeps the conversation focused and on track • Allows for smooth transitions between topics
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Coaching Habit Questions Michael Bungay Stanier has developed a series of 7 questions that can serve as a complete coaching session or can be used independently, depending on context. The questions are easy to learn and master, but do require repeated practice in order to overcome the tendency to jump in and give advice. 7 Questions from the Coaching Habit (+1 Bonus Question) 1. The Kickstart question What’s on your mind? 2. The AWE Question And What Else? 3. The Focus Question What is the real challenge? 4. The Foundation Question What do you want? 5. The Lazy Question How Can I help?
+1 Bonus Question: The Empowerment Question What is your part in bringing it about?
6. The Strategic Question If you are saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? 7. The Learning Question What was most useful to you?
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The Kickstart Question
What’s on your mind?
When to use it:
• When you want to focus the conversation on what matters to the other person • At the beginning of a coaching conversation • When a coworker/colleague/other has a concern or issue • When someone asks for a moment of your time (and you have a moment to give)
What it Does and How it works
• It initiates a coaching frame by getting the other person to share • It is broad enough to allow a wide latitude of possible responses • It is narrow enough to focus on immediate concerns and desires
Practice notes: Alternative Questions:
• What’s up for you? • Where would you like to begin? • Where is the best place for us to begin? • What is a useful place for us to start? • What is important to you right now?
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The AWE Question
And What Else? Note: It is worthwhile to ask this a least 2-3 times and more if it seems appropriate
When to use it:
• After asking the initial kickstart to make sure the initial response is a good start • To help keep your advice monster in check (instead of jumping on the first response
with your own brilliant solution, ask “and what else?”) • Whenever you want to get other examples of the current topic (other concerns, other
goals, other resources, other possibilities, other solutions, etc.) • After asking the Focus or foundation Questions (see below) • Whenever you want to broaden the range of considerations
What it Does and How it works
• Generates more example beyond the initial response. • It puts more choices on the table • It makes it less likely you will waste time solving the wrong problem or addressing a side
issue and • It makes it more likely that you will be focusing on the right problem or concern.
Practice Notes: Alternative questions
• And what else …could you do? …might be possible? Etc. • And what is another example? • And…? (especially if you have already asked the AWE questions just before asking it this
way)
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The Focus Question
What is the real challenge here?
Note: it is often useful to follow this up with a series of AWE questions When to use it
• When you want to get laser focused on the right issue or problem to address • When you want the respondent to get to the heart of the matter • When you want to filter through alternatives generated from the AWE question • Whenever someone interrupts with an urgent matter • Whenever someone pulls your advice chain by asking you what to do about a specific
concern or issue (especially by adding, for you? Example with softening frame: Before I tell you my thoughts, help me understand What the real challenge is here for you?)
What it Does and How it works
The Focus question does just that: it brings the “real” (deeper, underlying, more important, etc.) problem or challenge into focus. It is intended to make sure you address the right issue or problem. It gets the respondent to think more critically about what the concern really is or to choose what is the best avenue to proceed. It helps drill down from abstract generalizations to into specifics.
Practice Notes Alternative questions:
• What is the real challenge here for you? • What is the most important (or most critical) challenge about this to you? • What is really blocking the way for you about this?
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The Foundation Question
What do you want?
Note: to find your way on a directory or a map, you need to know where you are now and where you want to go.
When to use it
• Right after you have clarified the challenge or problem state • When you want to shift the focus to specific outcomes rather than current problems • When you want the respondent to personalize the goal • When you want to focus on in a way you like
What it Does and How it Works
• Directs attention toward the person’s wants and needs; • shifts from move away motivation (usually inherent in the challenge) to move toward
motivation (usually inherent in an outcome) • Articulates one of the two pillars for creating a roadmap (where you are now—the
challenge—and where you want to be—the desired state. Practice Notes Alternative questions
• Given the situation, what do you want? • What do you really want? • What do you want instead (of the challenge or problem)? • You can couch this question in a “possibility frame” (see appendix) (if you could wave a
magic wand and change it, what would it become? If you woke up tomorrow and the situation was resolved in a way you like…what would that be?)
You can also use the AWE question here to make sure the person refines the goal and help to get at what they really want.
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Additional Notes About Outcomes: There are additional questions useful in eliciting well-formed outcomes questions listed in the Addendum that fit beautifully in this space. They are designed for “advanced” outcome elicitation that will ensure the outcome meets criteria that will make it more likely the coach will commit to, and take action on, the defined goal. If time permits, we will cover those questions. Types of goals:
• Targeted Outcome: a specific, well defined condition you want to create, a place to arrive, or a target to hit (ex: to incorporate the 7 questions of the coaching habit into my 1-1 meetings with direct reports)
• Experiential or Journey goals: A ongoing quality, trait, or state of being you wish
experience (to be curious and playful while learning)
• Discovery goals: exploration/quest-usually driven be a question or by open-ended curiosity (How do successful leaders lead?)
Content Categories for goals in the workplace (From Michael Bungay Stanier):
• Projects or Situational Issues/goals (hit a sales target, earn a percentage of market share, complete a specific project completed, obtain a degree obtained, etc.)
• People goals Issues/Goals -- typically other people (goal for other people to behave in a certain way or complete a task; or interpersonal dynamics)
• Processes/pattern Issues/Goals (systems issues, supply chain gaps, manufacturing glitches, etc.) also could include the coachee’s habits and patterns—for instance, taming the advice monster
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The Lazy Question
How can I help?
When to use it
• Once you have clarified the real challenge and desired outcome • When you want to hear what they expect of you or from you • When you want to get a clear or direct request, which is made easier and more poignant
after the respondent has articulated the present state (the real challenge) and the desired state (the desired outcome)
• Before giving advice or jumping in with a solution or offering help on what you assume the person needs or wants
What it Does and How it works
• Allows for a direct request; • Clarifies what he person is seeking from you; • Puts you in a position to assess the request, • Allows a chance to determine if you truly can help;
Practice Notes Alternative questions
• What would you like from me? • What do you want from me? • What do you need?
Possible responses to direct request:
• Full Yes—agree as requested • Conditional Yes—agree to a part of the request, or with conditions, or with an exchange • Counterproposal—offer something else you might be willing to do that could help. • Delay Response—tell them you need time to think about it, to review your own
commitments, etc. • No—decline the request
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Bonus Question
The Empowerment Question This question is not included in the coaching habit and it works really well here! Instead of or before asking the Lazy Question, ask the Empowerment Question. If this line of inquiry is taken first, the “How can I help?” question may not be needed or will be naturally refined to a laser focused help request.
What is your part in bringing about the outcome?
Note: This can be followed by a series of “And what else?” to get a robust set of actions that the client can do to make progress and achieve the goal.
When to use it
• Once you have clarified the real challenge and desired outcome • When you want get the coachee to take responsibility for the outcome • When you want to identify action items and establish accountability
What it Does and How it works
• Initiates action toward the goal • Identifies the client’s responsibility in the process • Empowers the client to do his/her part
Practice Notes Alternative questions
• What is the first step you might take to get started? • What are you already doing towards this> What additional action steps can you take? • What resources do you have that might help achieve it? • Who else might be appropriate to involve in the process? • What do you need?
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The Strategic Question
If you are saying “yes” to this (what you want), what are you saying “no” to?
When to use it
• When you are clear about the goal and action the person might need to take. • When you want to clarify the barriers to taking action • When you want set the stage for the person to commit more fully to the outcome • When you want to help the person manage their commitments by managing their time,
and their activities; What it Does and How it works
• It respects the person’s time and activities; • It helps identify potential barriers or situational factors that might interfere with
success; • It makes it easier to say no to some interfering factors (It is easier to say “no” when
there is a deeper “yes” underneath it—Stephen Covey); • helps to specify the boundaries that allow for real progress
Practice Notes Alternative questions
• What options and activities are automatically eliminated by your saying yes to this? (If I say yes to an expensive holiday in France that eats up the budget, it automatically eliminates other options)
• What do you need to drop, to let go of, or to delegate in order to do this? • What adjustments do you need to make in your activities to focus on this?
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The Learning Question
What was most useful for you?
When to use it
• At the end of a coaching session • At the end of any meeting or event (debriefing time) • When you want to pause and get feedback about what is working, useful, or helpful • Whenever you want to encourage reflection and learning from what has gone before • When you want to encourage a learning frame
What it Does and How it works
• It encourages reflection; It focuses on what was positive in the interaction; • It builds a “review and learn habit” which is one of the best ways for continual learning
and self-improvement; • It also helps you to understand what the coachee attended to and valued from the
interaction Practice Notes Alternative questions
• What was helpful for you (in this process)? • What is your takeaway from the conversation? • How will you use this going forward?
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Putting It All Together
Practicing the Coaching Habit questions is the best way to integrate them. As a final exercise, you will conduct a brief coaching session with a classmate. You will have 15 minutes to complete the series of questions. Remember the basic 4-step model: askListenBacktrack Clarify (if necessary); then repeat with the next question. Use the table below for notes:
Kickstart What is on your mind?
AWE And What Else?
Focus What is the real challenge?
Foundation What do you want?
Bonus: Empowerment What is your part?
Lazy How can I help?
Strategic What do you have to say no to?
Learning What was useful to you?
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Question Sets
The skill of asking high impact questions is critical in coaching. The following question sets combine questions or offer alternative questions for specific coaching contexts. When asking questions, remember the rule:
Ask Listen Backtrack Clarify
Question Set When to Use It; What It Should Get:
Outcome Set; Goal setting; shifting from negative to positive goals; specifying goals; translating general into specific goals.
Goals, Values, Criteria; May reveal conflicts or hesitations
Possibility Frames Brainstorming; generate options; when you want to get a person to think beyond limitations;
Open creativity; get out of limiting frames; generate options
Complaint into Request
When you have a complaint and before you assert the complaint; when you want clarity about what you want
What really matters to you; what you want from the other party/parties that is reasonable; what you are willing to do to get it.
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Action Plan for Continued Learning Take a few moments to write down what you learned today, what stood out to you in the process, or what was useful to you? What are you willing to do to continue your learning?
Where, When, and With Whom to Practice:
Think of three people, preferably in your work environment, for whom the coaching habit approach would be useful and commit to practicing it: 1. I will use coaching habit questions with specifically in the following context or situation on the following day/time: 2. I will use coaching habit questions with specifically in the following context or situation on the following day/time: 3. I will use coaching habit questions with specifically in the following context or situation on the following day/time: Finally, remember the end in mind that you wrote down as you began the class, specifically how you would like to think and feel as you leave the class. What would happen if you stepped into that experience now?
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Addendum
Well Formed Outcomes
Criteria:
1. Positive: What do you want? What is your goal?
If stated negatively (what the person does not want or wants to get rid of) then flip to positive.
2. Specific: How would you know you have achieved it?
a. Evidence: What would be evidence of achievement? b. Context: What? Where? When? With Whom?
3. Self-Managed: Want is your part in bringing it about?
a. Types of Outcomes b. Your Contribution
4. Benefit: What would having it do for you?
Too often, we create poorly formed outcomes that make it difficult for us to get what we want. All “self-sabotage” can be traced back to poorly formed outcomes or to limiting beliefs and old habitual responses that interfere with accomplishment of well-formed outcomes. Well-formed outcomes meet specific criteria as defined below.
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Outcome Criteria Questions These criteria provide a checklist to ensure that your outcome is “well-formed” and more likely to be accomplished. Positive
What do you want?
The outcome must be something that you are moving toward and not away from; Away from can provide powerful motivation but does not serve well to give direction. With move away, ask: What do you want instead?
Specific
Evidence
How would you know you have arrived? What would indicate you have accomplished your goal? What would you see, hear, and feel?
Context:
When will you manifest it? By what timeframe do you anticipate it? Where and when do you want it? Around whom? What specific situations? What specific contexts? Where and when does it not matter or you specifically do not want it?
Self-Managed
What is your part in bringing it about? Your contribution? What actions can you take? What resources do you have?
Benefit
What will achieving the goal do/get for you? What is this goal in the service of? What makes this goal important to you?
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Possibility Frame
It is easy to get stuck in limiting frames of reference. Engaging a possibility frame can help us to “step outside the box” and come up with novel ways of thinking or viewing a situation. . The goal is to temporarily suspend the limiting frame and ask what is possible. Questions that follow or engage a possibility frame are called possibility questions
Possibility questions often take the form “What if…(insert a positive possibility)?
Possibility Frames: • In a perfect world…
• “If you knew you could not fail…”
• “If you had all the resources in the world available to you…”
• “Imagine…” “Pretend..: “Let’s play…”
• Go other: “What would insert name of someone else (Abe Lincoln; Gandhi, etc. do?
• Imagine being transported to another planet where everything worked in your favor…”
• What would a team of top-notch screenwriters write about your best possible future?”
• If you could wave a magic wand and make your dreams possible….
• What would you ask of a genie that could grant your deepest wish?
• Imagine some miracle removed all the barriers to your dream….
• What if you could get what you really want…?
Pace limiting frame Many people often start by assuming something is not possible. The client will literally say, “I can’t” even though it is actually entirely possible for them to do so. NLP suggest pacing this starting position by saying “of course you can’t… and then following it up with the possibility question, “But if you could…?”
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Turning Complaints Into Requests We all feel dissatisfied in life at times and express our dissatisfaction through complaining. Too often, however, we use complaints to justify non-action and caste blame. The following process helps to transform complaints into requests.
1. State the complaint
2. Identify the hidden desire:
a. Identify the value or positive intention behind the compliant
b. Ask: “What do you want instead?”
3. Formulate the desire as a request.
4. Assess the request
a. Is it Appropriate?
b. Is it reasonable?
5. Determine the likely response
6. Identify the benefit to the other in fulfilling the request
a. How can the request be framed as a win-win?
b. What are you willing to do in exchange for fulfilling the request?
7. Restate request with benefit or exchange
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Flipping A Negative Frame to A Positive Frame
Be sure to honor the negative frame first! Backtrack to show understanding and verify the concern or issue and then use this strategy to shift to the positive.
The Thee step process from Conversations Worth Having for shifting from a negative frame to a positive frame
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References
Bandler, Richard & Grinder, John (1975): The Structure of Magic, Vol 1, Science & Behavior Books. Charvet, Shelle Rose (3rd Ed. 2019): Words That Change Minds: The 14 Patterns for Mastering The Language of Influence; Institute for Influence. Dilts, Robert (2003) From Coach to Awakener; Meta-Publications. Dilts, Robert & Gilligan, Stephen (2021): Generative Coaching: The Journey of Creative and Sustainable Change; International Association For Generative Change. Goldberg, Marilee (1998): The Art of The Question: A Guide to Short-Term Question-Centered Therapy; Wiley and Sons. Hallbom, Tim & Kris and LeForce, Nick (2019): Powerful Questions and Techniques for Coaches and Therapists; Inner Works Press Kimsey-House, Henry, et al. (4th Ed. 2018): Co-Active Coaching; Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Leeds, Dorothy (2000): The 7 Powers of Questions: Secrets to Successful Communication in Life and at Work; The Berkeley Publishing Group. Stanier, Michael Bungay (2016): The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, & Change The Way You Lead Forever; Box of Crayons Press. Stavros, Jackie & Torres, Cheri (2018) Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productivity and Meaningful Engagement; Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Stoltzfus, Tony (2008): Coaching Questions: A Coaches Guide to Powerful Asking; Tony Stoltzfus. Stratford, Michael (2003): Masterful Questions: Getting To The Heart Of The Matter; CreativeU Publishing.