What was most useful for you? (The Seventh of the Seven Essential Questions from Michael Bungay Stanier’s The Coaching Habit

Ask this question to yourself at the end of the day, at the end of a 1:1 meeting with someone, to a group you are working with or training or teaching, with a friend after you finish connecting or hanging out.

The power of this question lies in its optimism, it’s other focus, it’s directness, it’s reflective nature.

It concludes a conversation or interaction with assumption that there was something useful. This optimism leaves you and the other parties thinking of the good.

It directly states the value and gets to the point.

It helps us or those being asked to reflect on the experience and learn more deeply. This reflection and recall forces us to analyze and stops the forgetting process.

“What was most useful for you?,” embeds learning, extracts wisdom, and extracts what is useful.