Sally Bonneywell's One Best Question

[podcast] https://s3.amazonaws.com/tch-podcast/2018/bonneywell_sally/Sally_Bonneywell_1BQ.mp3

If you're a leader, manager or coach, and are looking to help your people have more impact, listen in as Sally Bonneywell shares her one best question. (And, it's one you're going to want to use right away.)

Or bookmark it here to listen to later. And don’t forget to rate it on iTunes.

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Full Transcript

Michael: It's Michael Bungay Stanier. You're listening to the Coaching habit podcast where I get to talk to cool people and figure out how are they using coaching or being more coach-like in their lives, so they get to live a better life, people around them get to live a better life, great work gets done, happiness ensues. It's all about that. And my guest today is an old friend of mine, Sally Bonneywell. She's not old. We've just known each other for a while. She has just in the last two weeks retired or moved on from a career at GSK where she was a force of goodness for coaching. She built and led the coaching center for excellence at GSK and over close to a decade really turned coaching into business force at GSK, not just a nice HR initiative, but something that drove business results, drove productivity, drove impact, drove engagement. And her doctoral thesis is actually also on coaching, particularly how individual and group coaching can accelerate the development of women leaders in a large, complex global organization. So, very excited to be talking to Sally again. Sally, welcome.

Sally Bonneywell: Thank you Michael. It's great.

Michael: And we are just gonna focus on one thing on this kind of short outtake episode and that it your one best question. I mean, coaching ... This is how we talk about coaching a box crayons. Can you stay curious a little bit longer? Can you rush to action and advice giving a little bit more slowly? And of course, the question is the secret sauce to staying curious a little bit longer. So, Sally, as an experienced coach, is there one question that you're like "Here’s my favorite coaching question."

Sally Bonneywell: Yes. It's a really hard question to say what's my one favorite one.

Michael: It is. It is.

Sally Bonneywell: But, the one I really, really like is some version or variation of "What do you want to cause?" And I like it because it really gets people to pause and to think because it's what are you trying to cause or what do you want to cause because it helps people to take a big step back and to reflect on "What do I really want to be different at many different levels?" And it might be "What am I causing in terms of action for myself?" Or it might be "What are they trying to cause in themselves?" Or "What impact do they want to have?" But, I've just found that that particular using the word cause is a way, it gets away from any question about outputs or impact and anything like that. It's just the cause word seems to open things up for people a lot more.

Michael: I think that's really subtle. You know, it's one of those, as I listen to it, it's that specificity of language can make all the difference between a good-ish question and then a really great question. You know, a decent question is "So, what's the impact you want to have? What's the outcome? What's the bold outcome that you're looking for?" But, what's disingenuous about that is we typically can't actually cause an outcome or control that. So, it can be almost subtle disempowering to nominate an outcome then go "Well, how the hell's that gonna happen?"

Sally Bonneywell: Yes.

Michael: But, as a cause, you're like it's a single snowflake that causes the avalanche. So, how do you make something cool happen without necessarily being it all about you? Or even ... That's where my head goes in terms of trying to understand the power of that question.

Sally Bonneywell: Yes. Exactly, because it's not about a one specific thing. It's about it's much broader than that, and yet it can be tiny, as you say a nice way of putting it, one snowflake. What are you trying to cause here? What is it that it's really all about here? And then people can interpret it in their own way. And you can use it as a sort of, you know, jumping off point for other sort of follow on questions and probes and so on.

Michael: Yeah, 'cause as soon as you say what you want to cause, what that also helps me do is figure out what's the thing that's gonna give me the biggest bang for my buck in trying to make that ripple effect happen.

Sally Bonneywell: Yeah.

Michael: It creates a kind of strategic analysis as well about where do I need to start to actually make that cause happen.

Sally Bonneywell: Yes. Exactly, 'cause it makes you think about "Well, what is it really? What's it really all about? What's the purpose behind it?" It's not just the superficial thing. It's what's really behind it that's important as well.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. One of my quotes that I hold dear is "It's amazing what you can achieve if you don't care who gets the credit." And I think there's something about that question that also points to that around being willing to step aside from the spotlight for the sake of a bigger outcome.

Sally Bonneywell: Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's a really good point.

Michael: Sally, awesome question. I love it. Where will they find out more about Sally Bonneywell and the work that you're doing in the world in your post-GSK career?

Sally Bonneywell: I am putting together a website, so people can find me on that, which will be bonnywelldevelopment.com.

Michael: Perfect.

Sally Bonneywell: It's in the progress at moment, but it will be there shortly.

Michael: This, by the way, is a piece of subtle meta coaching where you made somebody say something outrageous around accountability and now Sally's going "Oh my god, I've got a week to put this website up." Don't panic. That's perfect.

Sally Bonneywell: Thank you.

Michael: Sally, its been a pleasure. Thank you.

Sally Bonneywell: Thanks.

______________________________________________________________________About Michael Bungay Stanier

Michael is the Senior Partner at Box of Crayons, a company that teaches 10-minute coaching so that busy managers can build stronger teams and get better results. His most recent book, The Coaching Habit, has sold a quarter of a million copies. Along with David Creelman and Anna Tavis, Michael recently conducted and released a new piece of research, The Truth & Lies of Performance Management. Michael is a Rhodes Scholar and was recently recognized as the #3 Global Guru in coaching. Visit BoxofCrayons.com and https://boxofcrayons.com/pmresearch/  for more information.