28 Jun Coaching Counts – Are you creating an environment for learning and growth in your business?
The words ‘coach’ and ‘coaching’ are mostly associated with sport. These words are not commonplace or really taken seriously in business, but just as athletes need to be coached to reach their full potential, so does your team.
The pressure to deliver immediate, high-quality results, as well as the fear of failure, means that the medium/long-term payoff of coaching is overlooked by the short-term demands of your business.
All it takes is your commitment to carve out a little time each week to use your newly developed coaching skills.
So, what makes a great coach?
“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking” – Voltaire
Sustained thinking requires better questions. Better questions can unlock your team’s potential and remove the obstacles in their way.
If coaching questions help create an environment where your team is inspired to learn, succeed, grow and do the right thing, then it’s vital that you improve your coaching questioning skills.
There are six words used when you ask questions: WHAT? HOW? WHEN? WHERE? WHO? and WHY?
WHY? is deliberately last on the list as it can sometimes produce emotive and defensive responses.
These six words provide the basis for an infinite number of questions, especially open questions, and when used in proven coaching frameworks can unlock your team’s performance.
Before we learn more about the frameworks, it’s important to understand the difference between open and closed questions.
A closed question is where ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Maybe’ are the only possible answers.
Example: Are you happy with your current level of results?
An open question can generate a number of possible answers and allow your team to think for themselves.
Example: What results are you hoping to get?
Just adding a single word to an open question can increase the focus:
- What else do you want?
- What more could you do?
An open question will unlock layers of insight that may prove valuable and, used with proven coaching frameworks, can really help elevate the standards of your team and encourage their development.