The Coaching Habit

The Coaching Habit

by Michael Bungay Stanier

In a nutshell, the "change in behavior" with regards to coaching and mentoring that Michael Bungay Stanier recommends in his book The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever  is "...a little more asking people questions and a little less telling people what to do." (17)

The book opens with a sad irony regarding coaching.  The author states that Daniel Goleman noted several years ago that of the 6 leadership styles this prominent psychologist identified, coaching was the least used, even though "...it was shown to have a 'markedly positive' impact on performance, climate (culture) and the bottom line." (3)

According to Stanier, if coaching hasn't been effective in the past as a leadership development strategy for someone, it is likely due to one of three reasons:

1. The coaching training was too "...theoretical, too complicated, a liitle boring and divorced from [the individual's] reality." 
2. Insufficient time was spent "...figuring out how to translate the new insights into action".
3. Giving less advice and asking more questions is more difficult than it seems. (6)

Given the complexity of giving less advice and asking more questions, the author outlines 7 specific coaching questions.

The 7 Coaching Questions

The first, which he dubs the Kickstart Question, is What's on your mind?  This is a powerful question which communicates:

          Let's talk about the thing that matters most.  It's a question that dissolves ossified 

          agendas, sidesteps small talk and defeats the default diagnosis. (39)

As evidence of the powerfulness of the Kickstart Question, the author points out that it is the Facebook question!

The Awe Question is And what else?  Stanier argues that it has "magical properties" in that it provides "more wisdom, more insights, more self-awareness, more possibilties." (57-58)  Its impact comes from how it invites more options (which can lead to better decisions), keeps the coach focused, and also buys the coach more time for determining appropriate feedback.

Question 3, the Focus Question, is What's the real challenge here for you?  This question "slows down the rush to action, so you spend time solving the real problem, not just the first problem." (84) According to the author, the Focus Question cuts through 3 unhelpful patterns which he terms the Foggy-fiers:

1. The proliferation of challenges such that the coach is overwhelmed by the number of problems the mentee identifies;
2.  Coaching the ghost, in which the mentee focuses not on his own behaviour but that of others; and,
3. The tendency of the mentee to use abstractions and generalizations.

The Gist of the Coaching Habit

Stanier acknowledges that the Foundation Question, What do you want? is difficult for the mentee to answer because people often either don't know what they want or find it hard to ask for it.  The important thing for the coach to do when asking the Foundation Question is to "...listen to see if [the coach] can guess the need that likely lies behind the [mentee's] request. (116)

How can I help?, the Lazy Question, is doubly powerful in that it forces the mentee "...to make a direct and clear request" and prevents the coach "...from thinking [he/she] knows how best to help and leaping into action." (142-143)   A more direct version of the Lazy Question is What do you want from me?, and a way to make it mellower is to place the phrase Out of curiosity in front of it.  The coach has 4 possible responses to whatever answer the mentee gives to this question:

1. Yes
2. No
3. I can't do that ...but I can do ...(a counter-offer)
4. Let me think about that (which buys the coach time)

Question 6, the Strategic Question, is If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? Quoting from Roger Martin and and A. G. Lafley's book Playing to Win, Stanier writes that the Strategic Question is about identifying "winning choices". (173)  It is also about learning to say no.

The final question, the Learning Question, is What was most useful for you?  It is intended for the end of a coaching/mentoring conversation.  The author provides six reasons for why he believes this particular question is the right one to close such conversations:

1. The way it is phrased assumes the conversation was useful;
2. It forces the mentee to identify the main helpful advice or moment in the conversation;
3. For you at the end of the question personalizes the conversation;
4. It provides the coach with useful feedback;
5. It's a learning not judgment-oriented question; and,
6. It signals to the mentee that the coaching session has been useful.

In terms of neuroscience, Stanier offers this analysis to underscore the power of saying less and asking more questions in coaching/mentoring situations:

          I can tell you something, and it's got a limited chance of making its way into

          your brain's hippocampus, the region that encodes memory.  If I can ask you a

          question and you generate the answer yourself, the odds increase substantially.

          (190)