The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

Open with: What’s on your mind? The perfect way to start; the question is open but focused. Check in: Is there anything else on your mind? Give the person an option to share additional concerns. Then begin to focus: So what’s the real challenge here for you? Already the conversation will deepen. Your job now is to find what’s most useful to look at

“How do I…?” or “What do you think I should do about…?” Seductive and dangerous,

To further reassure yourself, master the last of the Seven Essential Questions—“What was most useful here for you?”—so you create a learning moment for the person and for you.

“I have a sense of the overall challenge. What’s the real challenge here for you?”

the essential exchange: What do you want? What do I want? And now, what shall we do about that?

The bad news is that you are in fact destined to keep falling into the Drama Triangle for the rest of your life. The good news is that you’ll get better and better at recognizing it and breaking the pattern, faster and more often. Samuel Beckett put it best: “Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.”

To further reassure yourself, master the last of the Seven Essential Questions—“What was most useful here for you?”—so you create a learning moment for the person and for you.

“What do you want?”

the difference between coaching for performance and coaching for development. Coaching for performance is the label typically applied to everyday solving-the-problem management. Coaching for development goes beyond just solving the problem and shifts the focus to the person who’s trying to solve the problem. As I said, it’s the difference between t