I have spoken in a few places and have got good feedback. Being a non-native English speaker and as an immigrant trying to land some comments and jokes incorrectly, I felt I could do better in terms of delivery. So, I worked with a coach in mid-2017 to help me become a better public speaker. He always made me comfortable as part of the initial discussions concluding with asking me permission to engage in the coaching activity. He continued to emphasize that he would only expand on what I discussed seeking clarity as I spoke. Then, the discussions focused on activities both of us should in the engagement and then the specific problem to resolve. As we continued to discuss how to be a better speaker, we both explored alternatives. It was a great engagement!
Recently, I attended a meeting within my company where there was an external speaker who was helping us with brainstorming ideas to bring a more concerted effort to product management within my company. This speaker laid out in one of the slides the following five steps to coaching us as a group.
- Get Permission to be a coach
- Ensure Psychological Safety
- Agree on a Common Goal
- Converge on a Specific Problem
- Evaluate Alternatives
Oh my God! It dawned on me only then that my coach from the year before was doing exactly those five steps except that he didn't specifically mention that. As an Agile Coach, I knew mentorship and coaching differed fundamentally. However, this group coaching engagement made me I realize the power of powerful questions in coaching for deeper appreciative enquiry based on open-ended dialog requiring active listening where the coached controls the charter and the coach guides the coached. I connected coaching as a leadership skill based on transformational leadership (individual consideration and inspirational motivation are critical here) and situational leadership (the four levels based on the extent of team maturity and direction needed). These thoughts connect with the curiosity, compassion, and courage paramount in a coaching engagement.
I have done my best to capture some of the questions that I remember being asked for the benefit of the larger community. You can see from the questions that coach believes that the coached has answers and focuses on bringing these answers to the forefront making one to think beyond the blind spots. As the coach focuses mainly on the future, they shouldn't be judgmental (avoid all biases) and promote accountability.
Get Permission
- Are you willing to work with a coaching engagement?
- Do you give me permission to work with you as a coach?
- What do you plan to achieve in our time together today?
- What are you planning to walk away with from our discussion today?
Ensure Psychological Safety
- How do you want me to work with you so that you can best contribute to our discussion?
- What is distracting you from discussion and why does it bother you?
- If there is one thing that we can do differently which you are willing to discuss openly, what would that be?
- What is the best thing I should do to best support our discussion?
Agree on Goal
- What would you like to discuss?
- What is eating your mind (figurative way of saying what's bothering you)?
- Among the topics you mentioned, what is the one thing we can discuss in more detail today?
Converge on Problem
- How does this problem bother you? (Understand the impact)
- What makes this problem rank the highest?
- What is the benefit of addressing this for you?
- Can you give me an example?
- Tell me more how this impacts you?
- What have you tried that is working or not working?
- What have you learned from these attempts or problems?
- What does success look like?
- What would you like to see happen instead?
- What do you think is the cost of taking any action or not acting on it?
- What comes in your way?
- What are you willing to give up resolving this problem?
- What impediments, obstacles, blockers, or issues stand in your way?
Explore Alternatives
- What else can we do?
- How do you feel about the options we have discussed so far?
- What options have we not talked about that you think we should?
- What are you learning towards? Why?
- What do you plan to do before we meet again?
- What would you like me to do before we reconvene?
Hope this helps! Let me know.
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