What else?

Your staff member tells you that a project is going hay-wire. Rather than ask

‘why?’, which will allow them to unburden on how unreasonable the assignment is and their own feelings of failure, you ask ‘what?’ (See Figure 6.1.)

Underpinning every ‘what?’ question is the coach’s determination to help the other person unearth data that will help them move from their present situation of being stuck. ‘What?’ questions are quantum questions because they focus attention on moving forward.

What else?

There is another ‘What?’ question that is invaluable to the Manager Coach.

The question, ‘What else?’.

It is invaluable because it encourages the other person to go further in their thinking, through your encouragement. While the question ‘Anything else?’ may have the same intent, it can be read as a signal of the listener’s desire to bring things to an end. ‘What else?’ suggests that the other person has more to say that will be relevant. To the questioner’s mind, asking the question several times will sound repetitive. However, for the speaker, the question allows them to look inside for longer, and they will not notice the repetition until they have exhausted their thinking. The purpose in asking the question several times is not to encourage a litany of complaints, but to generate the most relevant information for defining the focus of attention.

There is now a clear understanding by both parties of what is the best use of time and what the Manager Coach can bring to the conversation.

Without the ‘what else?’, expediency leads us to work on what is first presented.

The Manager Coach could have spent the time mapping out the organizational structure and the job roles as he saw them (if he had that knowledge).

Alternately, he could have swiftly advised the coachee to talk with HR. Without taking time to understand the real need, both these approaches would have been ineffective.

Question Purpose

What is happening right now? To collect evidence on how the problem is showing itself What are you most worried about? Within this big picture of

anxiety, what is it really important to pay attention to?

What do you need to do right now? Separate out what can be done now from the totality of the issue

What would be a sign that things are improving?

To heighten their awareness of any signals of improvement so that they recognise rather than dismiss them

What help do you need to get things back on track?

To establish specifics that could make a difference

What do you need to do differently? To focus their attention on their own agency and to identify specifics that would make a difference What have you learnt from this that

you can use?

To remind them that they are learning in the process of doing and that learning can be applied

What decisions do you have to make? To separate what has to be addressed now and what has lower urgency

What is the most important thing for you to change?

To understand which part of the whole has most meaning for them in terms of the attention it deserves What are the risks in this? To establish the size and

importance of the risks What do you want to do to manage

them?

To affirm that they can take some control of those risks Figure 6.1 ‘What’ questions

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Coachee: I don’t know how anyone gets to move around in this business. I need some information.

Manager Coach: OK, you have a need for information on how to change roles. What else?

Coachee: Even if I knew there was a system, I wouldn’t know if I have the sort of skills that are needed in other parts of the business.

Manager Coach: So you are not sure of the skills needed elsewhere.

What else?

Coachee: I am not really sure how I am doing right now, so would anyone else want me?

Manager Coach: You are unsure how your performance is being seen, so it is difficult to judge whether you should make an application right now. What else?

Coachee: I think that is it.

Manager Coach: Thanks for that. You have told me about your lack of information on jobs, your lack of knowledge on the skills needed in other areas, and your lack of any sense of how well you are doing. Which of these is most important to you?

Coachee: It has to be knowing how I am doing, so I can get a feel of where I need to develop if I am to move on from here.

Manager Coach: Good, that helps me to see that you need to look at your performance and any development gaps. To do that can you tell me how you see things, and what specifically you want feedback on, so I can offer you some?

Coachee: Yes – that’s exactly what I want.

How?

Your staff member tells you that their team is dysfunctional because of personality clashes within it.

Rather than exploring ‘why?’ it is dysfunctional, which will put the magnifying glass on their failure to manage personality clashes, you ask ‘how’

questions (See Figure 6.2.)

The ‘how?’ question draws attention to how large the issue is. When we are focused on a difficulty, we develop blurred vision on size and we inflate impact.

‘How?’ questions about frequency and impact allow for resizing and, in doing so, allow in another perspective. A team that is dysfunctional 20 per cent of the time is working well for 80 per cent of the time. Establishing the 80 per cent allows for looking at what is happening during the time when the problem is not present. A problem focus sees only what is happening when the problem is there.

The ‘how?’ question can also be used to help the coachee recognize what they are doing that contributes to the problem not being there. The Manager Coach could ask, ‘How do you contribute to the team’s poor working together?’.

This may be a covert way of asking ‘Why are you failing as a manager?’. A more

Question Purpose

How do personality clashes get in the way of the team being effective?

To establish specifics against the context of performance delivery

How often do the personality clashes get in the way of doing good work?

To establish the size of the problem

How would you like it to be different? To understand the change they are looking for How have you still managed to deliver

with such a dysfunctional team?

To draw attention to what they can do as distinct from their awareness of what they can’t How can you use those skills to

address what is happening right now?

To help make connections between resources that have been used in previous situations and a current need How would you know that things were

improving?

To encourage them to identify signs of progress

How can you make more use of what is working OK in the team?

To show that doing more of what works is as important as focusing on what needs to be done differently

Figure 6.2 ‘How’ questions

useful approach is to help the other person see what they contribute when the team is working better, through asking, ‘How have you managed to keep this team performing most of the time?’. This enables the coachee to identify behaviours that are helpful to the team, and to then consider how they could be applied to the current difficulty. ‘How?’ questions are quantum questions because they discover resources available to bring about the change.

There is one other ‘how?’ question that is useful to the coach. The question: