A Gift of 20 Questions

The last 20 years have shown us - without doubt – the power of coaching. The potential for lasting transformational change to individuals and to organisations.

When we first began in 2004, coaching was a relatively new and unknown profession, reserved historically for high performing sportspeople. 

Over the last two decades, the transfer into the workplace has been fast. Now coaching is considered a core skill for most line managers and organisational cultures. And  the focus on coaching continues to be on the rise.

As professional practitioners, the art of coaching is something to be developed over time. It’s a skill which requires practise, evaluation, and more and more practise.

People often ask us “what is the one most significant thing that they could do to shift towards a coaching approach?”

We simply reply…   “Tell less and ask more. Then listen to the response”

When someone is given the opportunity to think for themselves, the most wonderful things can happen.

So to help you to ‘start asking’ as part of our 20 celebrations we’d like to share with you our top 20, in case they are useful for you too. Remember asking, rather than telling, is one of the most significant shifts you can make towards a coaching-led approach.

If you’ve got favourite coaching questions of your own, please do share them with us as we’d love to read them. 

Enjoy!

1.        Why?

2.        And what else?

3.        How are you really?

4.        What happened?

5.        How does that make you feel?

6.        What emotions are you experiencing at the moment?

7.        If there were no risks, what would you be doing?

8.        If you weren’t concerned or scared, what would you say?

9.        What is important to you right now?

10.  What is it about the situation that is concerning you?

11.  What are you assuming? And is that assumption helpful or not?

12.  What’s the worst thing that could happen if you do that?

13.  What’s the worst thing that could happen if you don’t do that?

14.  What impact is this situation having right now?

15.  If you were observing this, what would you see?

16.  If a friend were experiencing this, what should you suggest?

17.  What are all the things you could do about that right now?

18.  What good may come out of this situation?

19.  What would you do differently if faced with a similar situation again?

20.  What learning have you taken from this?