My Book Review: The Coaching Habit

After seeing the awesome TED talk by ?? Michael Bungay Stanier , How to tame your Advice Monster , I downloaded and listened to the audio version of his book, The Coaching Habit . Unlike some books that are difficult to get through or I lose interest halfway, The Coaching Habit is pure gold. I listened to it rapt with attention, always looking forward to what the next insights would be.

At the core of the book is his assertion that effective coaching is about getting the coachee to articulate what they are dealing with and ultimately to solve their own problems, rather than giving the coachee advice and solutions.

In the book, Michael covers 7 essential coaching questions or conversations:

1. What's on your mind?
2. And what else?
3. What's the real challenge here for you?
4. What do you want?
5. How can I help?
6. If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
7. What was most useful for you from our conversation?

Many of these questions require follow-up questions and digging. For example, “What’s the real challenge here for you?” is intended to get to the heart of the issue. ?But it likely requires re-asking it several times, maybe in different ways, until the core issue is articulated in a way that an actionable solution is possible for the coachee.

Given the typical desire to give solutions and advise to others, to teach them what we want them to know, it requires the coach has discipline and practices holding back their inner Advice Monster, asking questions and giving space for others to discover for themselves.

I also enjoyed how he wove in the work of several pioneers of humanistic psychology such as Carl Rogers human-centric approach, Marshall Rosenberg's Non-Violent Communication, and Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis, and some newer works such as Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit.?