How to Make Your Leadership More Effective by using Scaling Questions

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When using coaching tools in your work as a leader, gaining clarity about KPI's and other aspects that can be easily quantified is usually pretty straight forward: sales numbers, market share, employee turnover, productivity, equipment downtime, etc. If there's a number to it, if it can be measured, the risk of misinterpretation or misunderstanding is usually rather low. But how about less tangible aspects like motivation, engagement, confidence, commitment, etc.?

Have you ever found yourself in a conversation when you wished for a more "tangible" or concrete answer? Maybe your question was something like "how confident are you that you will be able to achieve the numbers?" and the answer you got was "It's challenging but I'll do my best!"

Hmmm ... that doesn't really leave you with a lot of certainty, right?

So, how can you put more "flesh on the bones"? One way is to use scaling questions. Scaling questions enable us to put additional criteria to so-called “soft” factors such as confidence, motivation, determination, conviction, etc., or to define the current standpoint in relation to a specific goal. This makes getting to the heart of the matter much easier. As a professional coach, I personally love working with scaling questions and use them very often both in my work with clients and when enabling leaders in using coaching methods.

Two examples:

“On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 standing for you having achieved your goal and 1 for the moment you started working on it – where do you stand right now?”

or

“On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 standing for maximum confidence and 1 for the opposite - how confident are you that you will achieve your goal within the given timeframe?”

In both examples, just as in working with scaling questions in general, it’s not about the absolute number or value given, like a 4 or a 7. Instead, it is more important to focus on the differences and the progress that can be made visible on the scale. And it gives you options as to what you would like to focus on next in the conversation: Usually, the first question that comes naturally to many people is something like "what do you need to do now to get to 10?". This is our natural problem-solving tendency to focus on what is missing.

Alternatively, if you want to use a more resource-oriented approach, it can be very effective to focus on what is already there. You could ask questions like these:

"So, if you are on a 6 on that scale already, what did you do to get there? What has proven to be successful so far? What could you do more of because it works?"

From there, you could go on exploring what would be different just one step higher on the scale:

"Imagine you are on an 8. How will you notice? What do you do on an 8 that you don't do now?"

We can approach the next level on the scale with three possible intentions: Keep - Start - Stop. The question used above is a Start example. A Stop question would be "What have you stopped doing on an 8 that you are currently still doing?" and a Keep example "What do you keep doing on an 8 because it has proven to be helpful/useful?"

In addition to just imagining the scales in your mind, it can be helpful to visualize them. While looking for an elegant solution for visualizing scaling questions, I had a look at the available options. They range from the classic flip chart and whiteboard on the one end, to imprinted notepads and magnetic boards with ready to use scales on the other.

I was looking for a way to always have my scaling instrument at hand. In addition, I was looking for a way of documenting the scales in an uncomplicated way without having to take pictures or save them as a physical file. This is how the idea of a Scaling Board App for tablets was born and realized.

Thanks to this simple yet effective tool, every leader or coach can now have their scales with them at anytime and the screenshot and e-mail functions allow for easy saving or forwarding of the results to the client or employee.

The Scaling Board App is available for you as a free download at the Apple Store (iPad) and at Google Play (Android). An online version for PC and Mac can be found here.

I am happy to assist you in both using the app and in effectively using scaling questions in your work as a leader. 

What are your own experiences or best practice examples in using scaling questions?

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