by Michael Stanier
7/10
Key Ideas:
Start coaching sessions with: “what’s on your mind?“; “and what else?“
To re-focus, ask “what’s the real challenge here?” or “what do you want?”
If coachee is only complaining, try “how can I help you?”
To help decisions, ask “if you’re saying ‘yes’ to this, what are you saying ‘no’ to?”
End session with “what was most useful for you?” to help the person reflect and change.
Other interesting notes:
Regardless of the question, the key to effective coaching is in listening.
Coaching should be a daily, informal act, not an occasional, formal “it’s coaching time!” event.
Tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good as you think it is.
A Coaching habit helps break 3 vicious cycles at work:
- Overdependence – team becomes self sufficient, less need to intervene and risk becoming a bottleneck
- Overwhelm – Frees up leader’s time to focus on what matters instead of getting increasing amounts of work
- Disconnect – Coaching pushes everyone out of comfort zones to learn and grow, instead of getting lost in mundane day-to-day work
Thoughts on the book:
Great book for someone leading teams, especially if they have a hard time delegating
Questions work well as prompts for journaling and reflecting.
If you like this, you’ll probably like: What got you here…, Just listen, High output management, books
Leo :) 