“Replace an old habit, the advice giving habit with a new habit…Can you stay curious a little bit longer?…”
“Questions are the kindling of curiosity…”
More on the Coaching Habit
Recommended Read: The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay-Stainer – It’s fun and light but powerful and actionable!
This is Part 2 of 2 of content in review of The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stainer. See The Question Master Class Content here. All content in images below is summary of his book.
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.
I love a good “why” question but they aren’t the right question most of the time. Why can be ambiguous, come off as condescending and create defensiveness.
We should be asking more “what” questions.
What makes the situation less personal and more factual.
What invites an observant perspective to truly analyze what is going on rather than dig deep for some abstract answer.
What removes judgement you might have of a persons decision. It can put you both on the same team looking at the problem together.
I’m looking for ways to make sure my what questions are more frequent than my why questions.
Some examples:
Why did you do that? —> What were you hoping for there?
Why did you think that was a good idea? —> What made you chose that course of action?
Why are you bothering with this? —> What’s important here for you?
Idea and examples come from Michael Bungay Stanier’s book The Coaching Habit where he offers Question Master Classes. This is one of those nuggets of gold from this book!
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Above is summarized from Michael Bungay Stanier’s book The Coaching Habit
Questions and how we ask them matter.
They shape the world we interact in because they shape our interactions with others and our own perception s
We can be better by asking better questions.
When we want to ask the best questions, we must first be willing to listen.
Questions aren’t a way for us to convince someone but a way for discovery to occur.
We must be grounded and trust the question for it to be a good question.
Questions help other people come to conclusion, go through a process of understanding and critical thinking.
Questions are there for us to understand the other and ourselves and the work around us. A question is a way for us to grow in our own understanding.
Be curious.
Inspired by Michael Bungay Stanier’s the Coaching Habit as I turn the book concepts into a training.
phil invites 