"On a scale of 1-10, you can't say 7."
Rating questions are popular with coaches because they quickly give us a gauge of progress.
But on a scale of 1-10, 7 is a problem.
It’s safe, it’s average.
It’s saying that we’re not doing badly, but we’re not excelling either.
7 is a great number to choose if you don’t want to be overly self-critical.
7 is a way to escape a potentially difficult but important conversation.
In order to know what work we need to do, we need a truly honest score.
As a coach, when you are asking rating questions,?eliminate 7 as an option and challenge people to pick a 6 or an 8.
If it’s a 6, what are we ignoring? Where are we lacking? Where do we need to step up?
If it’s an 8, what have we done to truly deserve an 8??
Here at IMPACT, we use scorecards as the foundation of our coaching programs, and here’s an example of how I phrase the question:
?
领英推荐
“On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being ‘we’re failing’ and 10 being ‘we’re world class and this has truly become part of our culture’, how would you rate your ability to consistently produce high quality They Ask, You Answer content? And you can’t choose 7.”
?
Or, if you are doing the scoring activity asynchronously, you can add:
?
“...you can’t choose 7. If you feel tempted to answer with a 7, ask yourself - is it really a 6 and we’ve clearly got work to do to show that we’re truly performing in this category, or is it an 8 and I can prove why we deserve an 8 in this category? And so, I don’t want to see any 7s in your results. We want an honest and realistic score that helps us get clear on the work we need to do our best work.”
Try it out next time you are asking a 1-10 rating question and see what difference it makes to the quality of your coaching conversations.
DFTBA!
Chris.
PS.?If you'd like a weekly letter and more coaching resources/tips from me, go ahead and?subscribe to my weekly letter?that lands in your inbox every Thursday.
Photo by Graphic Node on Unsplash
Learn how to build trust with prospects and customers through AI, educational content, stay top of mind 24/7/365, lowering online advertising costs, increasing leads and revenues? Contact me!
2 年Chris, I have to completely disagree with you and Marcus on this point. I grew up in competitive springboard and platform diving, training to make the US Olympic team. I fell short, but what I learned is the importance of "7" on a rating scale of 1-10 means.? Being measured on a scale for most of my youth and young adult life, a 7 was NOT:? "...a great number to choose if you don’t want to be overly self-critical." Nor "...a way to escape a potentially difficult but important conversation. "7" is a great number to measure someone or an organization's performance because "6" is not that good (just above satisfactory) and "8" is just below very good. I knew when I received a 7 or 7.5 on a dive, I knew that this was good, but I needed to work harder to get to that 8 or 9.? I know exactly what a "7 means. I know what it means to me and I know what it means to give. If you're considering removing numbers, here's something to consider. *Continued below
Helping B2B Service Owners Break ￡1M Barrier & Build a ￡2M Freedom Fund | Investor & Mentor | Profits without Pressure
2 年Interesting insight Chris Marr and it makes total sense why 7 would be a safe choice
Revenue Acceleration Consultant, I help clients transition from solution selling to buyer facilitation via customer-led growth strategies and differentiated conversations that resonate to drive pipeline & win rate.
2 年This is why wine ratings sourced from the general public on platforms like Vivino are worthless. A disproportionate number of wines are clustered around a rating of 3.5 out of 5 or 7/10. Average, neither good nor bad, just average.