My Notes on “The Coaching Habit” — Part 2

My notes on the last four of the seven questions proposed in Michael Bungay Stanier’s book aimed at cultivating effective coaching conversation.

Before We Start

• Throughout this series I refer to Michael Bungay Stanier’s book “The Coaching Habit”
• In the previous article I have shared my notes on the first three questions.

The Foundation Question — What do you want?

Have you ever got stuck in a rut, literally?

When getting stuck in a rut, or in a pool of mud, with your car or your bike, conventional ways of driving stop being effective. It is at that stage that you need to put in some creativity, some ingenious idea that brings back the laws of physics that typically make wheels the useful invention that they are.

I see this question as intervening in a very similar fashion.

When we are absorbed by our anxieties and worries, typical open coaching questions come short to being effective. The direct question, What do you want? gives a nudge that brings back the focus on the foundations. The act of verbalizing what one wants has the potential to become a real moment of revelation to the speaker.

Challenge

• What do you, as a coach, observe when you ask your coachees the Foundation Question?
• 📝Note: Build up towards this moment and wait for the right moment to bring in the Foundation Question.

The Lazy Question — How can I help?

The teaser for the Netflix series, New Amsterdam opens with the main character, Dr. Max Goodwin, a new hospital director, asking this question to his colleagues.

“How can I help?”

In that series, his sense of service is the key for the revolution and reconfiguration he drives across the New Amsterdam hospital’s ways of working.

If this sense of service, depicted by this question “How can I help?”, can really be a source of radical change, then why does Michael Bungay Stanier call this question the lazy question?

Interestingly, it is because by offering help you claim that you can be a source of help. Quoting the book itself:

Edgar Schein has untangled the paradox of being helpful in his excellent book Helping. At its crux is the insight that when you offer to help someone, you “one up” yourself: you raise your status and you lower hers, whether you mean to or not.

From “The Coaching Habit”, Chapter 5: The Lazy Question

When looking at leadership, I like to see the act of empowerment as a two-sided activity. On one hand, there’s the leader that gives the power. On the other, it’s the receiver of power who takes the power. Often, empowerment is interpreted mostly as the prior, but it is overseen that the receiver of power must consciously take on their own initiative, no matter how limited the remits of powers provided are.

In a similar sense, the Lazy Question can act in reverse and remove power of action. The person asking the question, in this case the coach, is offering a perspective of support for a situation in which the coachee may still take charge themselves. Michael Bungay Stanier depicts this in the idea of the Drama Triangle, which I will be exploring further in a separate article.

Challenge

• If you found yourself asking your coachees the Lazy Question, what kind of responses did you receive? How can you maintain an enabling, supporting role without taking the savior role?
• 📝Note: Acknowledge your own boundaries and scope for action. Say “no” to those requests that push you to act outside of your boundaries.

The Strategic Question — If you say yes to this, what do you have to say no to?

We often think of strategy as something complicated, but the real deal of strategy is the art of choosing. This Strategic Question is one that has thought me a lot personally.

Creative people continuously think of options and are encouraged to experiment even the wild ideas. We interpret creativity as trying things that are not the norm, at times dealing with the dubious. No matter their level of creativity, people live in a constrained space, and constraints necessitate choices. Nothing changes on the entrepreneurial or creative spirits, actually entrepreneurs and creativity are beautiful because they happen within a constrained space, and manage to transform it into something beyond common imagination.

So putting forth the idea that decisions, ideas, projects eat from the same pool of time and resources, and that we need to choose among them, brings home a very strong concept.

Challenge

• How can the strategic question support your coachees? What were the instances in which the Strategic Question proved to have a positive impact when you least expected?
• 📝Note: Keep the Strategic Question in its simple format. You do not need complicated questions for insightful answers.

The Learning Question — What was most useful to you?

Closing a coaching conversation is as an important moment as all others, perhaps more. It is not only time to say goodbye, but a moment to sling back to your routine ready to act on the ideas revealed during the conversation.

The question “What was most useful to you?” is personal, and that is what makes it most powerful. It is time for the coachee to reflect on what has been said, and evaluate for themselves what is it that they want to take away with them.

At the same time, it is time for the coach to get their feedback. Since the feedback asked is on the conversation, and not on the “coaching performance”, here too the coach needs to listen deep into the feedback given.

Challenge

• What are the lessons you learn about yourself when you ask the learning question? How can this help you become an even better listener?
• 📝Note: Keep in mind the “Power of Moments”, and aim to finish big and positive to energize the coachee.

Reflection — And What Else?

Asking questions is an essential skill for coaches, but it is not just limited to the seven questions outlined in this article. Each question can spawn more questions that can lead to even more insightful conversations.

The coach’s goals are clear: assist the coachee to come to terms with goals, let them feel heard and supported to find creative solutions.

How else can coaches reach these goals?