There is a saying about coaches talking during the sessions… that the only reasons that a coach has their mouth open during a coaching session is to ask a question, or to breathe.
Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but not that much! When new to our coaching practice, we often talk a lot, do plenty of explaining and summarising. I know I did! And as we improve the realisation comes to us, that the majority of what we do well in coaching comes out of our questions. So let’s explore that today.
Questions in coaching: what is the purpose?
To answer this, we need to reflect on what is the purpose of coaching. What are we, and our coachee trying to achieve? The coachee may be looking for ideas, answers, clarity, decisions. And they may want the reduction of difficult feelings and replacement by positive ones.
And in our turn we are looking to help them raise their awareness, notice things about themselves, think things through. And finally, for the coachee to decide on actions that they will commit to.
So, the purpose of questions is to allow all of this to happen and happen well and consistently.
Good questions: what can they achieve in coaching?
There are many things that good questions can help to happen. Let’s take it from the top!
- Gets the coachee talking. By asking a good question, and then pausing and committing to not interrupt, the other person will most likely talk. This seems obvious, but it is worth repeating
- Encourages new thoughts. Questions that the coachee is asked may provoke new thoughts, feelings and awareness about situations. When reviewing coaching sessions, I often hear the coachee respond to the question by saying “I never thought about that”.
- Get to the heart of the matter. This doesn’t always happen, but when it does it is powerful! We may ask a question that the coachee can use to see the wood for the trees. The question can be the first step to making sense of jumbled up thoughts and feelings.
- Challenge respectfully. With permission, a question can help our coachee overcome assumptions about themselves. Recently I heard a coaching session when the coachee was frustrated about the lack of positive feedback from their boss. The coach asked “why is someone else’s opinion of you so important?”. This question made the coachee stop in their tracks. Then they were able to answer with renewed clarity.
Questions in coaching: how do they help with structuring coaching sessions?
Books have indexes and chapters. TV programmes have titles, adverts and credits. Teachers and trainers have stages in their lessons that they write on the board. And coaches too need to have a structure to their sessions, see our blog on questions at each stage of the coaching session.
And this is a magic use of questions. By asking the most helpful type of question, we create and manage the structure of the coaching session.
If we ask, “what’s today’s topic?” we are in the opening, topic setting stage. If we ask any one of a hundred enquiry-based questions, we are in the guts, the exploratory stage.
And if we ask about actions and commitment, we are in the closing stage. These questions help us to remember the structure, and for our coachee to taken through a process seamlessly.
How do I become a great questioner as a coach?
Good question! We write plenty of articles about questioning approaches so look at the other blogs here.
Next, start thinking about the questions that you are using already. Whether you are an experienced coach, or completely new to it, you will be asking questions every single day. As well as in coaching sessions, you’ll be asking questions of colleagues, of friends and family, of yourself. Start making a list of the questions you ask. Pick out the ones that you ask regularly and that seem to be most useful. That will give you a benchmark.
Then, review the questions that you ask during coaching sessions. Make an audio recording, and write down all your questions. You’ll see patterns of question types. You’ll notice strong questions in there. And questions that aren’t so powerful. Start building your library of useful questions, based on what you are already doing.
Finally, look at resources that are available, but not too many! One of the coaching magazines published a list called 549 great questions to ask. Some good ones in there, but way too many! The best coaching books will write about the questions they like to ask, with explanations about them.
Mostly, decide that being a great questioner is one of the keyways to develop as a coach. They choose to commit to working, regularly, on your questioning.
Next steps for your questioning
When we think about core coaching skills, questioning is absolutely up there with listening, pausing and structuring conversations. These are the key skills to master. In all of our training programmes we spend plenty of time working on our questions. Nearly 20 years into my coaching, and I am still seeking ways to improve my questions. And so is my coach, who has been in the game for nearly 30 years! It’s an enriching exploration, and one that I encourage you to take as you grow and develop as a coach. Get in touch with us to explore how we can support your coaching development.
Happy coaching
