Sometimes a coach will go blank, get stuck, and not know what to say next! This is normal, human and happens to all coaches that I know of. Causes and potential options include:
The coach has lost concentration and has lost the thread of the conversation Be honest, declare what’s happened, and move on, e.g. ‘I’m really sorry, I need you to repeat what you just said, I lost concentration just then.’ Then make sure you refocus on the conversation and what the coachee is saying, in order to regain your involvement.
The coach is genuinely distracted by another thought, idea or insight
Be honest, declare what’s happening, e.g. ‘I’m sorry, but I keep thinking about what you said earlier about not liking things too easy, can we go back to that a little?’ It might be that your intuition has made a connection that’s worth exploring.
The conversation seems to be leading nowhere or seems ‘stuck’, e.g. maybe the energy has gone out of the conversation, or the conversation feels pointless
Be honest (again!). Say what you’re feeling or thinking – after all, they might be think-ing it too. For example, ‘OK, I’m kind of stuck now because I don’t know where our con-versation is heading – is this still a useful discussion?’ They might say ‘Yes I’m actually getting a lot from this,’ So if they think it’s still useful, find out how, e.g. ‘Help me understand a little more about that.’ You’ll then have a new focus for the conversation.
Alternatively, if they say ‘I know what you mean, I’m stuck with it as well’, you can then decide how it’s best to continue, e.g. ‘OK – do we leave that or do we want to know why we’ve got stuck with it?’ or ‘OK, what could we be talking about?’
Q
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The coach’s mind has simply gone blank because they are nervous or new to coaching This one is helped by a little advance preparation. Learn to relax yourself and refocus.
Perhaps use your body to help you regain your sense of inner calm and confidence.
Maybe sit back a little, pull your shoulders back, and move your breathing down into your stomach (so that your tummy goes in and out as you breathe). Use a ‘holding’
phrase to enable you to refocus your thoughts, e.g. ‘I’m pausing a little here, I just want to think about what you’ve just said’ (then focus onto what they’ve just said). Remem-ber that pauses are often useful for the coachee as well as the coach – silences can be powerful! Alternatively, do a brief recap, using your notes if you have them, e.g. ‘Let’s just recap a little, we’ve begun by saying that we wanted to. . .’ Usually this is enough to re-orientate you to the conversation, helping you decide what you want to explore or discuss.
Powerful questions
Powerful questions have many potential benefits, for example:
➡ They refocus thought, e.g. from problem to solution.
➡ They can help someone feel more powerful and constructive about a situation.
➡ They tap into creativity and create options.
➡ They can make a problem feel more like a challenge or an opportunity.
➡ They create forward movement, i.e. out of the problem state and into solution or action.
Powerful questions are phrased in such a way to encompass the problem and provoke an answer. The answer that they produce addresses the deeper problem, not just the surface issue. Table 5.4 demonstrates the journey between describing a situation as a problem and describing the same situation with a powerful question. The particular situation here is that the person is overworked and wants more support from their boss. They feel that their boss doesn’t know much about their day-to-day situation and doesn’t value the workload they are carrying.
Table 5.4 Using powerful questions
Statement/Question Comment
‘I’m really struggling with this job, and my This is a statement of complaint or problem;
boss doesn’t support me – he doesn’t even it focuses on what’s wrong. It’s not a question, know what I do!’ and it produces no creative thoughts or ideas.
‘Why can’t my boss help me?’ This is a question, but it’s not a powerful question. It’s actually still a complaint. Also, if this question were answered, we’d get responses like ‘because he’s not
interested/too busy, etc.’ Such responses are not going to progress this issue.
‘How can I get my boss to know more about This question covers only the superficial what I’m doing?’ aspect of the problem and so evokes only a
partial answer. Remember that the person also wants their boss to support them, not just be aware of what they do. Responses to this question might include ‘Spend some time with him so that he understands what you do.’
A powerful question will produce answers to the deeper problem.
‘How can I make sure my boss understands This is a good, powerful question. The more about what I’m doing, and encourage question digs below the surface, in order to him to give me more support?’ bring up a complete solution. The likely
response would create ideas that address all parts of the problem, i.e. make the boss aware, and get him to support more.
As soon as we present a really powerful question around a situation, you can almost hear minds crunch into gear. It’s as if the human brain can’t resist the challenge of a really juicy question. For example, imagine you’ve been complaining relentlessly about needing a
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holiday but also needing the money to fix your car. You hate the car, you’d prefer some-thing smaller, but it seems too much hassle to change it. Then someone asks you:
‘How can you have both the car you want and the holiday you need?’
Hmm – gets you thinking, doesn’t it?
Powerful questions are an invaluable tool within coaching, and good coaches will ask them in a variety of situations.
Perhaps the coachee is complaining repeatedly and not pro-gressing towards a solution. Or maybe the coachee is blaming their situation on other people or things. Powerful questions often shift people’s atten-tion to a more powerful, responsible perspective. In addiatten-tion, they introduce the possi-bility of a solution in the mind of a coachee where previously none existed.
Table 5.5 shows some more examples of powerful questions.
Table 5.5 More powerful questions
Coachee’s statement Powerful question
‘I’ve moved jobs, I’ve moved home and now ‘What could you be doing to feel more I’ve got no friends and no social life – it makes settled and meet some new friends?’
the whole thing seem pointless somehow.’
‘I’m always worried about money, I’m worried ‘What’s it going to take for you to feel about it regardless of how much I have. It’s relaxed about money?’
just always in my thoughts.’
‘I want to go to night school but there’s no one ‘How can you get someone reliable to reliable to look after the kids, the situation’s look after the kids while you go to night
just impossible.’ school?’
Often, people get bogged down by their complaints about how bad things are, or about how difficult their problems are, and never progress to sorting things out. In coaching, powerful questions can be a really effective way of moving someone forward from a problem, to a Powerful questions are an
invaluable tool within coaching.
solution and action. This is a natural part of the coaching role, and can be of great value to the person being coached.
An exercise Powerful questions
The following will help you to experience powerful questions:
Step one – identify three problem statements
Write down three problems that you think you have. Choose things that are moderately important but not earth-shattering, e.g. ‘I don’t have enough time to exercise.’ Leave enough space under each statement to write a few more sentences.
Step two – change problem statements into powerful questions
Under each problem, write down questions that provoke solutions to the issue, e.g. ‘How can I create more time to exercise?’ Remember, for a question to be powerful it must have the following attributes:
➡ The question assumes that there is an answer to the problem.
➡ The question provokes thought to begin to create answers or solutions.
➡ The question digs below the surface, and thereby invites a more encompassing solution.
For further support, look back at the previous examples.
Step three – answer your own questions!
On a clean piece of paper, write your powerful questions down one side. Then, focusing on each question, produce ideas or solutions, e.g. ‘Get up an hour earlier’, ‘Ask Jon to pick the kids up from school sometimes’, ‘Prepare more food for the freezer on weekends.’
Once you have some really great solutions, simply decide which you’re going to commit to!
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What if your question doesn’t create progress?
Sometimes, no matter how many great questions a coach might ask a coachee, the coachee is simply stuck and can’t progress in the conversation. For example, a coach asks ‘What else could you have done in that situation?’ and the coachee simply can’t think of an answer. The coach has asked the question because they want the coachee to understand their options, or perhaps produce some learning from a situation. The coach would prefer that the learn-ing came from the coachee if possible. However, the coachee appears not to be able to think of anything as a response. In this instance, a coach has the following options:
➡ Does the coachee need more time or silence in order to respond?
➡ Is there another, similar question that might help them, e.g. ‘What options did you have?’ or ‘What would Zorro do?’ (OK maybe not Zorro, but someone else, then.)
➡ Is there something else bothering them that needs to be addressed before they can continue, e.g. ‘Are you comfortable discussing this right now?’
Give an observation before an answer
If the above options still fail to create progress, the coach may be tempted to just give the coachee an answer, e.g. ‘Well, you could have spoken to your manager about your plans first.’ For reasons discussed previously, this may not be the best way to promote learning for the coachee, plus the coach might get the answer wrong. There is, however, a useful step towards giving an answer.
The coach has the option of first making an observation, as a way of encouraging the coachee’s thinking process. Using the earlier example, the following observations may all be relevant:
➡ ‘What you did was to prepare the report by yourself then introduce it at the meeting.’
➡ ‘The report came as quite a surprise to everyone didn’t it?’
➡ ‘Well, you said that the report didn’t get the response you wanted, and I was wondering what else you might have done to make sure that it was well received.’
That last seems to work particularly well, as it combines an observation with a nice, gentle question.
So it’s important to remember that just because a coachee can’t answer a question quickly and easily, the coach still has options. A period of silence, asking another ques-tion or making an observaques-tion can all encourage further thoughts and ideas.
Exercise summary Asking questions
The ability to ask great questions is one of the most important skills a coach develops.
Great questions are simple to answer, give direction to the conversation and gently influence someone else’s thinking. A simply worded question, delivered at the appropriate moment, can shift or shape someone’s thinking dramatically.