Coaching Approach: How to Truly Coach Someone

Coaching is about helping a person find the answers to a challenge or problem they are dealing with, without telling them the answers.  It places them in the driver’s seat and you as their coach in the passenger seat for the ride.  By asking the right questions at the right time, you can assist a person with seeing the situation clearly, and also the possible solutions and the associated outcomes.

Questions you can use during coaching:

• What about this is important to you?

• How have you approached this in the past?

• Where do you want to start?

• When do you get most frustrated/excited by.….?

• Say more about that...

• What are some ways to approach this goal?

• What makes you say that?

• When inquiring about strong beliefs:

• What had led you to this strong believe?

• In what ways does this belief influence your behavior and decisions at work?

• What does it say about you to believe so passionately about this?

• What could it say about a person who has a different passion or focus than you?

Avoid questions that start with:

• "Why" (it implies right and wrong, makes people defensive)

• Closed ended.…. "did you", "have you", "could you" "do you" "are you (they limit inquiry and make people defensive, and also appears to test whether your hypothesis is correct instead of being curious about the other person's thinking)