05 Jul Use the right equation to unlock the right coaching questions in your business
When coaching is done well it has the power to transform individual team members, your team as a whole and your business.
The future success of your business and the development of your team means it’s worth taking the time to get your coaching right, and the way to do this is to ask your team the right questions.
Tim Gallwey is considered a giant in the field thanks to his insights around the simple but powerful Inner Game Equation, which enables you to ask questions around these three elements:
(P) Performance =
(p) potential – (i) interference
This equation lies at the heart of coaching – when you ask questions that focus on improving performance (P) by growing or making more of existing potential (p) and by decreasing interference (i) you help grow your people’s capabilities and results.
Interference can often consist of self-imposed obstacles such as fear, self-doubt, lapses in focus, insecurities and uncertainty – normal human emotions that often stand in the way of people believing and realising their full potential.
The Inner Game Equation provides a positive and optimistic framework for asking questions that change people’s thinking, remove obstacles and improve performance.
And if you don’t grow your people, you won’t grow your business.
“Coaching focuses on future possibilities, not past mistakes.”
– Sir John Whitmore, Coaching for Performance.
Sir John Whitmore explains more about this classic framework for asking great questions, in a prescribed running order, in his book Coaching for Performance, probably the most referenced book in the world of coaching. He uses this framework alongside the GROW model.