A good sports coach can inspire and motivate their players and lead a team to victory. In much the same way, coaches in the workplace can bring out the best in their employees and increase productivity. However, many managers and leaders avoid coaching, thinking that it’s too complicated, too awkward, or too impractical. Others believe they’re already coaching when all they’re really doing is giving advice.
Whatever it is that’s keeping you from coaching, there are three reasons why you should put in the time and effort to make it a daily habit:
In short, coaching helps your team members grow and develop while making your work easier, more focused, more meaningful, and more enjoyable—in other words, coaching is imperative to being a good manager. In The Coaching Habit, you’ll learn how to turn coaching into an informal, effective daily habit.
The Coaching Habit aims to help you get rid of bad coaching habits and replace them with a new coaching habit that you can practice every day: Talk less; listen more.
Building any habit can be challenging. Simply declaring that you’ll exercise more, that you’ll stop spending and start investing, or that you’ll start coaching isn’t enough to form a new habit. Approach it systematically with the following steps:
You can’t get rid of an old habit if you don’t know what it is in the first place, so be clear and specific about the habit you’re trying to change.
Once you have your old habit in mind, figure out what triggers it. There are five common types of triggers: location, time, emotional state, other people, and the immediately preceding action. Thinking in terms of these five categories may help you determine your triggers—once you realize what they are, you can more consciously stop yourself from engaging with them and performing your bad habits.
For example, you may be triggered to make decisions when you feel impatient (emotional state), when you’re trying to get out of the office at the end of the day (time), or whenever you deal with a team member who has a reputation for being indecisive (other people).
Just as you’re clear and specific about the old habit you want to change, you need to identify the new habit that you want to form. In this case, you want to form the new habit of asking your team members one of the seven essential questions.
Evaluate your current behavior and determine “coaching” habits that you might have. Maybe you jump in too quickly to give advice or try to solve team members’ problems as soon as they knock on your door or send you an email. Replace these old habits with the new habit of listening more by asking one of the seven essential questions.
(Shortform note: You should view these seven questions as individual tools rather than as a system—you don’t need to use all the questions one after the other. In any coaching situation, choose whichever questions feel most natural, applicable, and useful.)
The goal of coaching is to unlock a person’s potential, and small talk about the weather, sports teams, or weekend plans rarely leads to something that can help your direct reports grow. On the other hand, questions that seem like they come from a coaching manual may be difficult to bring up and may feel too formal and uncomfortable. What you need, then, is a question that hits just the right balance, one that’s casual and non-threatening while being direct and meaningful. The first essential question, “What’s on your mind?” is informal enough to encourage openness but focused enough to draw out the exciting or worrying things that have been occupying your team members’ thoughts.
When you ask a team member about something that’s been taking up space in his mind, you allow him to bring those thoughts to the surface and release them—therefore ensuring that they don’t get in the way of his work.
First, recognize your bad habit—when someone comes to talk to you, do you get caught in small talk, jump to giving advice right away, or talk about some other work topic that isn’t really the issue?
Then, determine what usually prompts you to jump into these bad habits. Often, this trigger looks like a team member or colleague popping in to ask if you’ve “got a minute” or instant messaging you to ask if you’re busy—in other words, when someone approaches you with an issue, you react by doing what feels the most helpful or least awkward.
Once you’re aware of the different ways team members approach you, you can consciously respond by performing the good habit of asking the right question: “What’s on your mind?” Listen intently and understand what the team member is saying and resist steering the conversation towards what you think they’re saying and then offering canned advice. It helps to keep in mind that every issue involves one of the “3Ps”:
When your team member tells you what they’re thinking about, look for the “P" at the center of the issue: Think about the relationships, behaviors, and technical obstacles involved, and ask your team member which one they’d like to discuss.
Team members may leave many things unsaid to maintain diplomacy or to avoid difficult conversations. By asking the second essential question, “Anything else?” you can bring up hidden issues and help team members dig down to continue unearthing solutions and possibilities. It’s a question that encourages deeper thinking and greater participation and shows how the first answer isn’t necessarily the best answer. Asking, “And what else?” can lead to:
Use “Anything else?” in a variety of scenarios: after your conversation starter, when you’re trying to get to the heart of an issue, when you want to keep a conversation moving forward, or any other situation where you feel like there’s more that is waiting to be said. Be curious and give the person your full attention so that your “Anything else?” comes out as genuine, rather than as an automatic follow-up.
As a manager, you’re trained to be the chief troubleshooter in a fast-paced environment. When someone comes to you with a problem, you might come charging in to put out a fire without stopping to figure out what caused it. This then leads to three problems:
The third essential question, “What’s the central challenge for you?” allows you to weed through several issues to find and solve the real issue at hand. Since you’re used to the bad habit of fixing things yourself, stopping to ask questions might feel like inaction. However, any insight you uncover by asking the laser beam question will be much more valuable than the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
Three common situations are great coaching opportunities, but often trigger “fixing mode” if you’re not careful:
Every person has wants, but they may not express them due to fear of saying the wrong thing, being rejected, or coming across as demanding. When team members feel afraid to express what they want, the workplace can take on an atmosphere of uncertainty. These underlying negative feelings can make it difficult for team members to perform at their best.
Make a habit of asking the fourth essential question: “What do you want?” This question increases the feeling of safety in the workplace because it makes team members feel that you’re on their side, that they have some control over their future, that they’re valued, and that they’re in a position to make a decision. All these signals encourage team members to lower the defenses that may be blocking them from thinking at their best.
Asking “What do you want?” is especially useful in two situations that can cause friction or uncertainty in the workplace:
When someone comes to you with a question or a problem, you may feel like it’s your duty as a manager to rescue him by finding solutions yourself. It seems like the most efficient way to address a problem, but your good intentions may backfire: Your team members may feel resentful when you step in instead of trusting them to find solutions, and in addition to preventing team members from learning and growing, you’ll needlessly add to your workload.
Replace your old “rescuing” habit with the good habit of asking the fifth essential question: “How can I support you?” This question makes for effective coaching in two ways:
You might be hesitant to ask this question because you’re worried the team member will ask for more help than you’re willing to give. Keep in mind that it’s just a question, not a commitment—asking “How can I support you?” doesn’t mean you’re obligated to say “yes.” You can also say “no,” give a conditional “yes” or “no,” or ask for more time to think about it. When considering your response, let your goal of training your team members to find their own solutions guide you.
Many team members tend to take on any extra tasks someone asks of them—such as sitting in on meetings, joining committees, or participating in social activities—even when their schedules are already overflowing. They tend to say “yes” to these tasks, ignoring their overload, for two reasons: they associate being busy with being successful, and it can be hard or awkward to say “no.”
Seeing team members contemplating an opportunity or additional responsibilities should trigger you to ask the sixth essential question: “What’s the cost of saying ‘yes?” After asking, guide them to the best decision in two ways:
1) Help them reflect on their 3Ps: What projects will they need to give up to take on this new responsibility? Which people will be affected by his decision? What patterns and habits will he need to overcome to accomplish the new task?
2) Give them the tools to say no: You can help them avoid the difficulty of saying “no” with two methods:
As a manager, it’s part of your job to help your direct reports learn new skills and become better, more successful team members. Projects and problems provide many valuable teaching moments, but the lessons from those experiences may not always stick.
The best way to help your team members absorb new information is by asking the last essential question: “What insights did you gain?” This question encourages your team members to identify and retain a concrete lesson they learned, as well as making them feel like you care about them. Additionally, knowing what parts of a project or issue taught them the most can clue you in to how to better coach them in the future.
Once the other person tells you what was useful for them, be sure to tell them what insights you gained, in order to reinforce that your coaching conversations aren’t meant to be one-sided.
It’s not enough to just know and robotically ask the seven essential questions. Take your coaching skills a step further by knowing the most effective way to ask them. There are four elements of “effective asking”: pacing, straightforwardness, engagement, and consistency.
Keep coaching, even when you’re not face-to-face. These days, much of the interaction between team leaders and team members takes place online via email, text, and messaging apps. This means you have fewer opportunities for face-to-face coaching, but don’t discount the power of remote coaching.
Commit to your habit of being curious and regularly coaching your team by asking the seven essential questions and making use of the conversational tips above. If you think of new coaching questions that would fit into your team environment, work them into your conversations as you would the seven essential questions. By building up these good habits, you’ll greatly improve your coaching skills and be better able to help your team members become more valuable players.
Most companies recognize that yesterday’s leadership tactics are becoming less and less applicable in today’s increasingly fast-paced business environment. They’re thus shifting towards a coaching model, where managers empower their employees to find solutions and take action, instead of dictating what their employees should do. This landscape has led to the birth of a multitude of coaching seminars and programs, where managers spend the day trying to learn to be more effective coaches. But few go back to their workplace and apply what they’ve learned. In fact, out of the 73 percent of managers who’ve received coaching training, only 23 percent say that the training has been helpful.
We’ve seen what good coaches can do in sports—they inspire and motivate their players and lead a team to victory. In much the same way, coaches in the workplace can bring out the best in their employees and increase productivity. However, many managers and leaders avoid coaching, thinking that it’s too complicated, too awkward, or too impractical. Others believe they’re already coaching, when all they’re really doing is giving advice.
As we’ll see, true coaching is imperative to being a good manager. In The Coaching Habit, you’ll learn how to turn coaching into an informal, effective daily habit.
Whatever it is that’s keeping you from coaching, there are three reasons why you should put in the time and effort to make it a daily habit:
In short, coaching helps your team members grow and develop while making your work easier, more focused, more meaningful, and more enjoyable.
In order to be effective and sustainable, your coaching should cover seven essential questions:
In the following chapters, we’ll discuss each of these questions and why they’re important to effective coaching, and explore ways to make them habitual. Asking these questions is a habit that will help you get over a big hurdle of effective coaching: talking too much and not listening enough. It’s a habit that can refresh and revamp your daily interactions with your team members and other people at work (like your customers and your boss) and ultimately transform the way you and your team work. But learning new habits means unlearning old ones that you might have, like automatically offering solutions or not coaching at all.
(Shortform note: You should view these seven questions as individual tools rather than as a system—you don’t need to use all the questions one after the other. In any coaching situation, choose whichever questions feel most natural, applicable, and useful.)
For coaching to be truly effective, you need to turn it into something that you routinely do—a habit. It sounds simple, but building a habit can be a challenge. You only need to recall all your failed New Year’s resolutions to see how difficult it can be. Simply declaring that you’ll exercise more, that you’ll stop spending and start investing, or that you’ll start coaching isn’t enough to form a habit. You need to approach it systematically in three steps:
You can’t get rid of an old habit if you don’t know what it is in the first place, so be clear and specific about the habit you’re trying to change.
Once you have your old habit in mind, figure out what triggers it. There are five common types of triggers: location, time, emotional state, other people, and the immediately preceding action. Thinking in terms of these five categories may help you determine your triggers—once you realize what they are, you can more consciously stop yourself from engaging with them and performing your bad habits.
Just as you’re clear and specific about the old habit you want to change, you need to identify the new habit that you want to form. In this case, you want to form the new habit of asking your team members one of the seven essential questions.
(Shortform note: Read our guide to Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit to learn more about identifying your triggers, breaking bad habits, and forming good habits.)
When starting your new coaching habit, or any habit for that matter, you’ll encounter a lot of challenges, so make it as easy as possible by practicing and mastering one part of the new habit at a time.
The best way to build up your confidence and consistency with your new coaching habits is to try them out on receptive team members, rather than those who may have been resistant to coaching in the past. Additionally, you can inform friends and colleagues of the new habits you’re trying to put in place and ask them to support you and help keep you accountable.
Most importantly, remember that failure is inevitable and normal—nobody perfects a habit on their first attempt. Keep trying, even if it takes a few tries.
One of the keys to becoming a better coach to your team members is to recognize when you’re prone to a bad habit and visualize a good coaching habit to take its place.
Describe your bad habit. Remember that it’s key to be specific about what your habit is, so use the clearest terms possible.
What is the trigger that usually sets this habit off? Recall the five common triggers: location, time, emotional state, other people, immediately preceding action.
What is the good habit you’d like to start performing?
For some managers, the spirit may be willing but the conversation skills may be weak. You may have all the best intentions to coach your team members, but you just can’t seem to find a way to start a conversation without any awkwardness. So, you fall back on small talk, mere troubleshooting, or weekly meetings with the same old agenda, leading to meandering, time-consuming, and unproductive conversations.
Questions about the weather, sports teams, or weekend plans rarely lead to something that can help your direct reports grow. However, questions that seem like they come from a coaching manual may feel too formal or uncomfortable to address.
What you need, then, is a question that hits just the right balance, one that’s casual and non-threatening while being direct and meaningful. The first essential question, “What’s on your mind?” is informal enough to encourage openness but focused enough to draw out the exciting or worrying things that have been occupying your team members’ thoughts.
Asking, “What’s on your mind?” not only starts a productive conversation and coaching session but also helps relieve cluttered thoughts.
Science has shown that even holding a thought in the back of your mind uses a decent amount of your brain power and can influence your work, for better or for worse.
When you ask a team member about something that’s been taking up space in his mind, you allow him to bring those thoughts to the surface and release them—therefore helping him let go of subconscious influences on his work.
First, recognize your bad habit—when someone comes to talk to you, do you get caught in small talk, jump to giving advice right away, or talk about some other work topic that isn’t really the issue? All these habits prevent the other person from effectively releasing their cluttered thoughts.
Then, determine what usually prompts you to jump into these bad habits. Often, this trigger looks like a team member or colleague popping in to ask if you’ve “got a minute” or instant messaging you to ask if you’re busy—in other words, when someone approaches you with an issue, you react by doing what feels the most helpful or least awkward.
Once you’re aware of the different ways team members approach you, you can consciously respond by performing the good habit of asking the right question: “What’s on your mind?”
Make sure you really understand what they’re saying, instead of steering the conversation towards what you think they’re saying. It helps to keep in mind that every issue involves one of the “3Ps”:
When your team member tells you what they’re thinking about, look for the “P" at the center of the issue: Think about the relationships, behaviors, and technical obstacles involved, and ask your team member which one they’d like to discuss.
“What’s on your mind?” already covers a lot of ground, but if you want to dig even deeper, work through the questions in the following chapters.
In a relationship, there might be times when your partner asks you if something is wrong, to which you reply that everything is “fine.” Your partner, sensing that this is a loaded reply, may try to prod you a bit more. After being asked for the third or fourth time, you finally open up and tell your partner what’s bothering you. There are many reasons you may haven’t answered directly at first—maybe the issue seemed too trivial to mention, or maybe you wanted to keep the peace. But doesn’t it feel amazing when you’re finally able to confront and resolve whatever it is? It might even lead to a deeper level of intimacy and understanding.
Similarly, in the workplace, there are many important things left unsaid. The second essential question, “Anything else?” reveals these hidden issues and helps team members dig down to continue unearthing solutions and possibilities. It’s a question that encourages deeper thinking and greater participation and shows how the first answer isn’t necessarily the best answer.
There are three benefits to asking your team members, “Anything else?”
The more you ask, “Anything else?” the more ideas and options for action you unearth. And, according to science, more options are a good thing: One study showed that when you make a decision based on just two choices, the failure rate is more than 50 percent. When you add just one other option into the mix, you cut the failure rate down to 30 percent.
When someone comes to you with a problem your immediate reaction might be to fix it. Isn’t that why they’re coming to you in the first place, to ask for your advice?
The problem with flexing your problem-solving abilities is that sometimes you only think you know what the problem is—you may not know all the pertinent issues and details. Asking, “Anything else?” keeps you from the bad habit of immediately giving out advice based on your conclusions or perspective on the issue.
As a manager, you want to show that you’re always on top of things—but sometimes, you may not know the answer to a question your team member is asking you or aren’t sure of the correct way to proceed. When you ask, “Anything else?” and let your team member continue hashing out the problem, you give yourself more time to think.
You can use this question in a variety of scenarios: after your conversation starter, when you’re trying to get to the heart of an issue, when you want to keep a conversation moving forward, or in any other situation where you feel like there’s more that’s waiting to be said. Be curious and give the person your full attention so that your “Anything else?” comes out as a genuine inquiry, rather than as an automatic follow-up.
To keep the conversation productive, keep a balance between asking enough and too much. Ask the question more than once: Some people need time to warm up and get comfortable before saying what’s really on their minds. Asking them the question three to five times gives them the chance to open up and provide you with better insights.
However, be aware of when you’ve exhausted the question. Coming up with too many “anything elses” can create too many options—you and your team member may become paralyzed by trying to decide which to focus on. Three to five options are plenty to work with. If you’ve gotten to the heart of the matter or come up with enough options before the fifth time you ask the question, stop and focus on the material you have.
As a manager, you’re trained to be the chief troubleshooter in a fast-paced environment. When someone comes to you with a problem, you might come charging in to put out a fire without stopping to figure out what caused it. This then leads to three problems:
The third essential question, “What’s the central challenge for you?” allows you to weed through several issues to find and solve the real issue at hand.
When a direct report comes to you with an issue or several issues, stopping to ask a question forces you to slow down and get to the heart of the matter. The phrasing of this question is important to getting useful information: Asking, “What’s the challenge?” invites vague, abstract answers that may not address the source of the problem. Asking, “What’s the real challenge here?” widens the scope too much—the team member ends up overthinking, trying to see the issue from all sides to determine the real challenge.
One study shows that when you add “you” to a complicated question, problem-solving happens more quickly and accurately. Therefore, you should phrase the question as, “What’s the central challenge for you?” This not only conveys that you want to know precisely what the team member is grappling with personally, but it also helps the person add shape or terminology to their struggles.
Since you’re used to the bad habit of fixing things yourself, stopping to ask questions might feel like inaction. However, any insight you uncover by asking the laser beam question will be much more valuable than the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
You don’t have to stop giving advice altogether—in fact, it’s bound to get annoying if you answer every question with another question. You just have to learn to differentiate between a problem that needs your immediate attention and problem-solving prowess and one that is a golden coaching opportunity.
Three common situations are great coaching opportunities, but often trigger “fixing mode” if you’re not careful:
Some people don’t hold back when you ask them “What’s on your mind?”
Your brain, oriented towards problem-solving, will go into overdrive, trying to figure out which issue to tackle first. Stop yourself from going into fix-it mode—take a deep breath, and ask, “If you had to choose only one of these issues, which would you say is the central challenge for you?”
When the other person complains about another team member, customer, or client, the issue goes into the realm of something neither of you can control.
Stop yourself from getting into the gossip. You can only coach the person in front of you, so switch the focus from the person you’re talking about toward the person you’re talking to.
Sometimes, it seems like the other person might not know the exact problem himself, so he talks about abstract big-picture stuff, drifting to other things that seem vaguely related to the issue at hand—such as a recent article he read, societal issues, or what social media has been saying.
Stop yourself from latching onto a random issue to discuss. If you’re left feeling unsure of the most productive direction to take the conversation, say, “I can see that this issue comes with a lot of great challenges. What’s the central challenge for you?”
You can use the conversation starter, the follow-through question, and the laser beam question in one session to have an insightful conversation. But first, you have to be aware of your triggers and articulate both your old and new habits.
Describe a time you tried to open a conversation with a question such as, “What’s on your mind?” How did your team member respond? (For example, they acted closed-off or talked about vague, big-picture issues or dumped information on you.)
What bad habits did you react with, and what was the result? (For example, you didn’t try to pry any further with your closed-off team member. As a result, a small problem you could have helped with was allowed to build up into a huge, expensive issue.)
How would asking, “Anything else?” or “What’s the central challenge for you?” have helped you better coach the team member toward a solution?
Sometimes, you may be working with a team member who seems to have trouble articulating what they’d like to happen in a certain situation—they may not know, or they may feel afraid to directly ask.
In these cases, you can use the fourth essential question: “What do you want?” This question helps your employees operate at their best, creates a sense of trust, and makes your employees feel valued.
There are three ways that this question strengthens your coaching skills and your relationships with your team members.
According to Marshall Rosenberg, psychologist and author of Nonviolent Communication, there are nine universal needs: affection, creation, recreation, freedom, identity, understanding, participation, protection, and subsistence.
Most of the time, the wants that people express are grounded in one of these needs. When you get someone to talk about what they want, you can use that information to figure out what they actually need—and then provide the most suitable solution possible.
Most people don’t express needs or wants directly because they fear saying the wrong thing, being rejected, being misunderstood, or coming across as demanding. When team members feel that they can’t express what they want, the workplace may feel full of uncertainty or underlying tension. This lack of “safety” significantly reduces team members’ ability to think optimally.
When you ask, “What do you want?” you increase the feeling of psychological safety in the workplace. The question sends a powerful message that makes the team member feel like you’re on his side, that he has some sense of control over his future, that he is valued, and that he is in a position to make a decision. All these signals encourage him to let his defenses down and allow his brain to relax and operate at its best.
Asking “What do you want?” also makes the path forward more concrete. Expressed wants focus on outcomes and therefore prevent you from getting bogged down in the details of how to get there.
Unless you’re a mind reader, you shouldn’t assume to know what another person wants; neither should you assume that they know what you want if you haven’t expressly told them. Asking, “What do you want?” instead of making assumptions is especially useful in response to the following triggers:
Sometimes a discussion seems to be going around in circles. If you’ve cycled through one solution after another, but nothing feels right, it may be a sign that the other person doesn’t feel safe enough to articulate what he wants. Directly asking, “What do you want?” expresses that he can freely share his desired outcome.
Sometimes you and another person might reach an impasse, whether it’s with a colleague, a boss, or a client. When neither of you wants to budge and you can’t come to an agreement, make sure you truly understand what the other person is asking for by asking, “What do you want?” Then, clarify your position by telling him what you want as well.
Sometimes, good coaching depends on seeing a team member’s needs underneath their expressed wants. Practice responding to wants with solutions to needs.
Describe a time an employee expressed a want to you. What was the want? How did you respond?
Which of the nine needs (recall: affection, creation, recreation, freedom, identity, understanding, participation, protection, and subsistence) could this want have been hiding?
How could you have better responded to the want in a way that addressed the need?
It’s not unusual for managers to have some sort of rescuer complex—that is, when someone comes to you with a question or a problem, you may feel like it’s your duty to rescue him by finding solutions yourself. This may seem like the most efficient way to address a problem, but your good intentions may create a toxic environment: You breed resentment among team members when you step in instead of trusting them to find solutions, prevent team members from learning and growing, and needlessly add more to your workload.
Break this unhealthy cycle with the next essential question: “How can I support you?”
This question is effective in two ways:
This question trains team members to find solutions by themselves. It also increases team members’ respect for you. One study found that doctors who asked patients general support questions such as, “How can I support you?” got more detailed responses from their patients and received higher evaluation scores, compared with doctors who asked verifying questions such as, “So you’re having stomach problems?”
You might be hesitant to ask this question because you’re worried about opening a can of worms—it might start a difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding or require you to give more help than you’re willing to give.
Don’t let your discomfort trigger you to shy away from asking about your team members’ needs. Keep in mind that it’s just a question, not a commitment—asking, “How can I support you?” doesn’t mean you’re obligated to say “yes.”
There are four acceptable responses, based on the situation:
When considering your response, let your goal of coaching your team members’ ability to find good solutions on their own guide you.
In a fast-moving, highly competitive work environment, employees are often asked to take on more and more tasks, even when their plates are already overflowing. For example, they’re asked to sit in at a meeting, to join a committee, or to take part in out-of-office activities on top of their existing responsibilities. Despite being overloaded, they tend to say “yes” to more tasks because they associate being busy with being successful, and it’s often hard or awkward to say “no.”
When you see team members contemplating an opportunity or additional responsibilities, you can help them make the best decision by asking them the sixth essential question: “What’s the cost of saying ‘yes’?”
According to psychologists, two factors lead to poor choices when it comes to deciding whether or not to take on new tasks. First, people believe they can do more than is actually possible. Second, people tend to overvalue what they have.
In the workplace, these two factors show up as team members who are overwhelmed because they don’t have a realistic understanding of the commitment needed for all the new tasks coming their way, and they’re unwilling to let go of anything they’re already doing.
Asking, “What’s the cost of saying ‘yes’?” leads a person to evaluate and be realistic about the time, energy, and resources he’ll need to expend to accomplish a task. It also leads him to reflect on the value of his pre-existing tasks, and whether he’s willing to sacrifice them to fully commit to another task.
(Shortform note: Read our guide to Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow to learn more about the psychological phenomena directing our decision-making.)
A team member who’s considering taking on additional tasks should trigger you to ask, “What’s the cost of saying ‘yes’?” Then, you can guide him to make an informed decision with two further steps:
Have him outline the projects he’ll need to give up to take on this new responsibility, the people who will be affected by his decision, and the patterns and behaviors he’ll need to overcome to accomplish the new task.
Explain that there are two ways to turn down new opportunities that make the process a bit easier.
1) The “slow yes”: In response to the offer of a new task, he should ask questions that give a clearer picture of the commitment required, such as, “What’s the timetable?” and, “If I can only commit x hours, what would you like me to do?” Such questions will lead to one of four outcomes:
2) The “diplomatic no”: Make saying no less awkward by refusing the task rather than the person. For example, you might say, “It looks like I have to say no to this project” instead of, “It looks like I’ll have to say no to you.”
As a manager, it’s part of your job to help your direct reports learn new skills and become better, more successful workers. Projects and problems present many teaching moments, but the lessons from those experiences may not always stick. The best way to help your team members absorb new information is by asking the last essential question, “What insights did you gain?”
“What insights did you gain?” not only encourages your team members to identify and retain a concrete lesson they learned, but also makes them feel like you care about them. As a bonus, their answers can clue you in on how to better coach them in the future.
There are three science-backed reasons why asking, “What insights did you gain?” leads to increased learning:
Single-loop learning is solving a problem outright. Double-loop learning, according to business theorist Chris Argyris, is where we learn best—this involves questioning the procedure and goals underlying issues you’re trying to solve.
Asking your team members, “What insights did you gain?” prompts double-loop learning as they reflect on the issue and question their approach to it.
Psychologists have found that when we learn something, we immediately start to forget it. Asking, “What insights did you gain?” stops the process of forgetting.
(Shortform note: Read our guide to Make It Stick to learn more about this psychological phenomenon and get more memory-retention strategies.)
The peak-end rule states that when people recall an event, they tend to remember the emotional peaks and the end. Therefore, if an experience ends on a high note, people will recall it more positively.
Asking, “What was most useful for you?” at the end of a conversation means that the experience will end with the team member thinking about the most useful parts of the conversation. According to the peak-end rule, this will cause him to recall the entire conversation as a useful and positive experience.
Instead of rushing your team member off at the end of a coaching session, finish strong by asking, “What insights did you gain?” This gives your team members the chance to reflect on the important information they picked up and is an elegant way to signal the end of the conversation.
Additionally, share what insights you gained. Being a manager doesn’t mean your learning has stopped. Sharing your perspective and insights reinforces the idea that your coaching conversations aren’t one-sided.
Now that you know the seven essential questions, it’s time to put them into practice.
To keep from getting overwhelmed, try practicing and mastering one new habit at a time. Which of the seven essential questions will you practice this week?
It’s easier to build a habit when you meet minimal resistance. Which team members will be the most receptive to the coaching habit that you’re trying to build?
Describe a specific trigger that will prompt you to ask this question. (For example, when one of the team members listed above sends a lengthy email, you’ll respond by asking them to articulate their central challenge.)
It’s not enough to just know and robotically ask the seven essential questions. Take your coaching skills a step further by knowing the most effective way to ask them. There are four elements of “effective asking”: pacing, straightforwardness, engagement, and consistency.
As you start your new coaching habit, you may feel unsure of yourself or wonder if your team members will be receptive to your new way of doing things—you may rush through your coaching to “get it over with.”
With this book’s set of coaching prompts in your toolbox, you might be tempted to fire them off one after the other. However, your direct report may feel overwhelmed if you ask them too many questions at once.
It’s most effective to launch your questions one at a time. Wait for your team member’s response, really listen to it, and consider the best response before launching into your next question.
Be comfortable with silence, and allow the conversation some breathing room. You don’t have to fill every second with conversation, nor do you have to keep prodding the other person to say something—sometimes they may need time to get their thoughts in order before speaking up. Don’t say anything for a few seconds to give the other person the chance to come up with thoughtful responses.
The seven essential questions are meant to help you get directly to the heart of issues—make sure you’re letting them do their job.
If you already know what you’re going to ask, just ask. Hemming and hawing will only needlessly prolong a conversation. If you feel uncomfortable asking a question or think that your question might sound too blunt, preface it with phrases such as, “Out of curiosity…” or, “To make sure that I understand…”
Sometimes you want the other person to get to the solution you want without making it seem like you want things done your way. So, you ask questions like, “Have you considered…?” to put your ideas and solutions in their mind.
Whenever you’re tempted to give advice disguised as a question, resist your bad habit—instead try asking, “Anything else?” Only after hearing everything the team member has thought of should you offer your own ideas.
Make sure that, in addition to asking the seven essential questions, you’re paying attention to both their attitudes and their responses.
While “Why?” is a useful question in many situations, it may sound judgmental when it comes to coaching and make people feel defensive. Reframe your “why” questions into less intimidating “what” questions.
While this book focuses on the seven essential questions, they only contribute to half of your coaching success. The other half is really listening to the other person’s response. Turn off distractions such as email or phone notifications, and consciously put aside thoughts like deadlines or what you’re having for lunch. If you catch your mind drifting, just get back in the moment and refocus.
Embracing silence and stopping yourself from doling out advice doesn’t mean that you should be a completely passive audience to your team member. Instead, show that you’re listening to them by engaging with what they’re saying.
Keep coaching, even when you’re not face-to-face. These days, much of the interaction between team leaders and team members takes place online via email, text, and messaging apps. This means you have fewer opportunities for face-to-face coaching, but don’t discount the power of remote coaching.
Commit to your habit of being curious and regularly coaching your team by asking the seven essential questions and making use of the conversational tips above. If you think of new coaching questions that would fit into your team environment, work them into your conversations as you would the seven essential questions. By building up these good habits, you’ll greatly improve your coaching skills and be better able to help your team members become more valuable players.