The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, & Change the Way you Lead Forever

Introduction:

Are you ready to discover the secrets of coaching that can empower your team and transform your leadership style? Join us on a blog based on ??Michael Bungay Stanier and his book The Coaching Habit:Say Less, Ask More, & Change the Way you Lead Forever. As ever there is a supporting Miro Mindmap summarising the key takeaways from each chapter as we discover how coaching can empower teams, regain focus, and reignite your sense of purpose as a leader. But before we get too far into it what is coaching?

The essence of coaching lies in helping others unlock their potential.

Within Daniel Colemans' 6 leadership styles, coaching is defined as leaders who focus on developing their team members' long-term capabilities. They provide guidance, feedback and opportunities for growth, nurturing skills and promoting individual development. Nevertheless, it remains the least commonly employed approach. The perception is it's "slow and tedious work to teach people and help them grow". Changing from giving a little less advice to asking a few more questions is surprisingly difficult. We are cultured to answer questions to progress in our lives and careers.

In this blog, we'll delve into the world of coaching, exploring its various facets and shedding light on how adopting a coaching habit can lead to profound transformations in your leadership journey. So, what are the different types of coaching, and how can they empower you to unleash your team's potential? Let's dive in.

Coaching Performance vs. Coaching for Development.

Coaching for Performance is addressing and fixing a specific problem, sorting something out. Development is turning from the issue to the person dealing with the issue, calling individuals forward to learn, improve and grow. This form of coaching is an invitation for individuals to embark on a journey of personal and professional growth. To gain a deeper understanding of these distinctions and their practical implications, let's explore the key differences further in the table below

Why Coaching Others Helps You:

This might sound counterintuitive, but coaching can tackle these issues head-on. By guiding others, we empower teams, regain focus, and reignite our own sense of purpose.

1. Mitigating Over-Dependence: When teams are excessively reliant on you. This is both disempowering for the team and frustrating for you.

2. Prevent Getting Overwhelmed. The more you lose focus, the more overwhelmed you feel. The more overwhelmed you feel the more you lose focus.

3. Becoming Disconnected. The more we do work that has no real purpose the less engaged and motivated we are. The less engaged we are the less likely we are to find and create great work.

The remainder of the blog will follow this structure:

1. The Kickstarter Questions "What's on your mind?"
2. The Best Coaching Question in the World... "And what else?"
3. The Focus Question: What is the real challenge here for you?
4. The Foundation Question: "What do you want?"
5. The Lazy Question: "How can I help?"
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 for you?"
8. Conclusions

1. The Kickstarter Questions "What's on your mind?" ???

This seemingly straightforward question serves as a springboard for deep and meaningful conversations, allowing individuals to open up about the topics that are most relevant and pressing to them. As a coach, you can encourage recipients to go straight away to what's provoking anxiety. "Let's talk about the thing that matters most".

1. Projects: This is the content of the situation, it's easy to start here before exploring the other Ps. Projects refer to the specific tasks, challenges, or goals that individuals are currently working on. In coaching, the focus on projects involves helping the person being coached to clarify and refine their objectives, explore potential solutions or strategies, and take action to move forward effectively.
2. People: Relationships and what your role is in that relationship that might be less than ideal. People, in this context, refer to the individuals with whom you interact and collaborate, such as team members, colleagues, or direct reports. Coaching people involves helping the person being coached improve their interpersonal skills, communication, and relationships with others, as well as addressing any challenges or conflicts they may be facing in their interactions
3. Patterns: Patterns are the recurring behaviours, habits, or ways of thinking that can either support or hinder an individual's effectiveness and growth. Note it's not always appropriate to have these development conversations, in a lot of instances a project-focused conversation is exactly fit for purpose.

By focusing on these three areas, coaches can help individuals become more self-aware, make better decisions, and take meaningful actions to achieve their objectives.

2. The Best Coaching Question in the World... "And what else?"??

"And what else" acts as a catalyst for deeper exploration and fresh perspectives. By prompting individuals to consider additional layers and aspects of their thoughts, it unveils insights that might otherwise remain hidden. What are the benefits and applications of this question?

1. With no effort, it creates more wisdom, more insights, more self-awareness, and more possibilities.
2. You get more options, better options and better decisions which in turn lead to greater success
3. Buy yourself some time. When you are not 100% sure what's going on and you just need a moment or two to figure things out.

"And what else" enables you to stay curious, and genuine, simply asking it one more time or a follow-up question to dig a bit deeper we can get a better understanding. Coaching is a dynamic process, and sometimes, a topic or issue may reach a point where further discussion or coaching on that particular matter is no longer productive or necessary. When this happens it's time to move on.

3. The Focus Question: "What is the real challenge here for you?" ???♂?

This question directs attention to the heart of the matter, helping individuals pinpoint the core issue they're grappling with. When people start talking about the challenge at hand, remember they're laying off on you. When you start jumping in to fix things, things go off the rails. You either:

1. Work on the wrong problem

2. You do the work for your team?

3. Or the work does not get done

As a coach, we must focus on the real problem, not the first problem. Repeat the cycle below to get to the real challenge.

• What's the challenge?
• What's the real challenge here?
• What's the real challenge here for you?

For you pins the question to the person you're talking to.

Hint: Stick to Questions "Starting with "What"

The problem with asking "Why?" is it puts people into a defensive mode - why can come across as What the hell are you thinking? You're trying to solve the problem - you ask why because you want more detail

4. The Foundation Question: "What do you want?" ??

This question can be difficult to answer, we often don't know what we really want, and even if we do it can be hard to ask for it. As humans, we struggle to differentiate in the moment between needs and wants. According to Rosenberg's model our 'wants' are the surface requests and the tactical outcomes we seek in any given situation. However, 'needs' delve much deeper and identify the human drivers behind it that underpin our desires.

Want: I need to have this

Need: I must have this

When asking what people want it can be helpful to trade answers. This can help build trust by sharing your answer to the same question increasing its impact.

5. The Lazy Question: "How can I help?" ??

The power of "How can I help?" is that it forces a colleague to make a direct and clear request and at the same time, it stops you from thinking you know how to help and leaping into action as the rescuer.

The rescuer according to Karpman's drama triage is the "I can help you role" "Don't worry let me jump in and take it on" - "It's my responsibility, not yours". As a rescuer you feel morally indispensable. According to Karman, we fluctuate in any given situation between this and 2 other roles either playing the:

• Victim - "my life is so hard" This role entails a sense of powerlessness and the belief that one cannot change their circumstances. It absolves one of responsibility.
• Persecutor - "I'm surrounded by idiots" This role involves blaming others and adopting an attitude of superiority and control.

6. The Strategic Question: "If you are saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?" ??

A "Yes" is nothing without the "No" that gives it boundaries and form

"What will you say no to?" is powerful and can apply to the Projects, People and Patterns discussed earlier. For example, what projects do you need to abandon or postpone? What expectations do you need to manage? Or, what habits do you need to break?

However saying No is challenging, what tends to be easier is Saying Yes but more slowly and trying to fact-find. For example asking:

• What are you asking me?
• When you say this is urgent, what do you mean?
• What do you want to take off my plate so I can do this?

These strategic questions can force the tough trade-offs.

7. The Learning Question: "What was most useful for you?" ??

Reflection is a form of practice and what is essential is interrupting the inevitable human process of forgetting. Finding that One Big Thing that is worth remembering rather than capturing 10s of actions by asking "What was most useful for you?".

• It Makes it Personal
• It Gives you Feedback
• It's Learning, Not Judgement
• It Reminds people how useful you are to them

Conclusion: ??

In conclusion, coaching isn't just a methodology, it is a mindset that can lead to profound transformations for you and your team. By addressing issues of over-dependence, feeling overwhelmed and disconnection, coaching empowers teams, refocuses leaders and reignites purpose. These coaching techniques from powerful questions to the art of prioritisation, offer a roadmap for unlocking the full potential of both individuals and organisations, ultimately leading to excellence in leadership and personal growth.

These simple triggers should form a line manager's 101 bible for helping coach their team around them. Coaching isn't just a methodology, it is a mindset that can lead to profound transformations for you and your team. It's your guide to unlocking potential and achieving excellence in leadership.

Next, we move into the world of Product, reviewing Marty Cagan s Inspired

looking at how to createtech products customers love.