Coaching is more than just about coaching questioning skills…

Those of you who know me and my book ‘Great Coaching Questions’ will recognise the importance I place on meaningful coaching questions and coaching questioning skills. They are soooo important, and most of us need practice to get great at questioning.

Asking meaningful questions will help to raise that self-awareness. However direct questions in themselves may not always bring different perspectives to light. Some clients will struggle to look outside themselves or their immediate contexts. Some clients won’t be able to think differently, alternatively, or see perspectives that are ultimately going to unlock things for them.

Questions should form the mainstay in your conversations, there are many other approaches and ideas a leader and coach can bring in. When training new coaches or coaching leaders I often use the metaphor of a cut gemstone to help them understand their role with clients. Many clients, or reports often focus on what they see immediately before them, and their own recent experiences. However, these just represent a few facets or cuts of a gem stone, that are available. They only portray a few perspectives that will help them learn and grow. One of our roles as a Coach is to help our clients see more of these facets, or sides of their situation or challenge. In this way, they have more information and insight at their disposal. They can then make more informed decisions about what to do, how to approach something, or understand it, or themselves better.

We look to take, or walk our client around what they bring to us, raising their self-awareness, to then potentially make different choices.

Helping your clients to think, or see things differently

The signs of an effective coach is someone who can bring different approaches and techniques into their coaching questioning and conversations, to support their coaching questioning skills. The flexibility to respond to where the client is or needs. Combining them with your coaching questioning skills to bring new or different insight for your clients. This list is not exhaustive by any means. 

Ideas, approaches and techniques to bring into your coaching conversations

• Stories – stories which are pertinent to the client’s context may bring different perspectives. More detailed and personalised the better, to bring out more meaning. 
• Anecdotes – as above, but often shorter and more amusing.
• Hypothetical situations – bringing different thinking and perhaps challenge. These situations might present opposite ideas to those currently held by the client.
• What if’s – an opportunity to be safely but deliberately provocative, ‘forcing’ different thinking.
• Your own personal experiences – where you have relevant experiences, especially if you took a different approach that the client isn’t seeing. Then exploring what they took from your experiences.
• Experiences of others – encouraging them to think about what they experience others doing in similar situations. Behaviours or approaches exhibited by others. Then testing the validity of these for their own contexts. 
• Reversing roles – helping the client to consider how the person in the opposite situation might view, experience, or understand them or the situation.
• Their situations – what situations from their past might there be that could help them to understand, or work through their current situation?
• Ideal world scenario – removing limiting thinking by enabling them to create their ‘ideal’ situation. Then working to see how it, or part of it could be brought to life.
• What would you change – allowing the client the freedom to theoretically change what they needed to in their situation to make it ‘right’ for them. Then through questioning, testing what is in their actual gift to change.
• What won’t work, or they wouldn’t do – encouraging the client to deeply consider what won’t work, or they wouldn’t do. This stimulates alternative and freedom in thinking. Then, using this in helping them to see what might work actually for them.

More planned approaches

The contracting conversation, or the client’s own admission or by your observations, may reveal the client’s thinking is very linear, or them focussed. Here, having more planned approaches is useful. This might form part of the coach’s preparation for the conversation, having approaches ‘in their back pocket’ if needed.

• Viewing through different roles or perspectives – ‘forcing’ the client to embody relevant stakeholders imagining what their perspectives might be on a situation or potential solution. Experiencing it from a stakeholder’s perspective. A more somatic approach. Can be done as an activity, with the client moving from stakeholder to stakeholder.
• Case studies – perhaps from outside the client’s field of work to bring different perspectives. 
• Drawing, or mapping out – for highly visual clients, getting them to draw out their thoughts, feelings, situations, what’s going on for them. As well as drawing ideas or opportunities. Exploring what they notice, patterns and themes.
• Visualising – helping the client to picture a situation in the future. How they want it to be. Describing their thoughts, feeling, what would be happening, what they would be doing differently, feedback received from others. To help build a 3D picture of their potential future state. The art of the possible.
• Process mapping – mapping out the stages of the process in a situation to understand both issues and opportunities. Allows the coach to bring specific challenge and examination.
• Coaching cards – using cards to help the client represent their situations and apply meaning, or explain their situations through the picture or words on the cards. Allows them to consider their situation less subjectively.
• Starting from scratch – if a client if facing a situation to work through, sometimes getting them to rewrite or recreate situation, process or plan from scratch can be useful. Helping them to think differently, without boundaries can stimulate creativity.

Everyday work-based usage 

These techniques don’t have to be limited to coaching style conversations and coaching questioning. They can be brought into any conversation to bring different thinking. The skill is for the leader to recognise when an approach will add value, or bring out different outcomes. Really getting to know your people, will help you to know what approaches work best for them.

What to learn more, or become a more effective coach? Want to develop your team or leaders and coaches?

As a Coach, Supervisor and facilitator over the past 23 years I have vast experience of working with you or your managers to develop their coaching skills. Or helping you to establish more of a coaching approach, language or culture in your organisation. Drop me a line – nick@abintus.co.uk, or give me a call – 07867 785314 and let’s have a chat about how I can help you to establish your coaching.