Some super-useful questions Flashcards
What’s the issue?
This asks the client to state the problem. It can often usefully cut through a client’s lengthy account by asking them to summarize what the problem actually is.
What makes it an issue now?
What makes it an issue now? Issues that clients bring to coaching have typically been around in the client’s life for a long time. But often there is some immediate provocation or development, even if this is in the form of anger or worry. This emotion will provide energy for change and resolution. That is why it is worth naming and surfacing it.
Who owns the issue/problem
If the client does not own it, there is no point in discussing it. You can only coach the problem owner. Some clients come to coaching in order to find out how to change someone else, whereas the basic assumption of coaching is that you can only change yourself. This question puts the onus back onto clients to own whichever bit of the issue is theirs.
How important is it on a 1–10 scale?
If the problem is not important, then why are you and the client wasting time discussing it? Importance captures the idea of issues with potential for major impact on a client’s life. Anything the client scores at less than 5 should be set aside.
Implications: what are the implications of doing nothing (or of letting things carry on as they are)?
This question builds the pain created by contemplating staying stuck. When we are in the client role many of us like to imagine that the default scenario can continue for ever, whereas inside we know perfectly well that it cannot and that we are ignoring the discomfort the problem is creating. Naming out loud the likely consequences of inactivity paradoxically builds energy for change. You might want to follow this question with a further probe: . . . and what would be the implications if that happened?
What have you already tried?
This question stops you offering pointless advice which the client has already tried or considered and it also lets you
in early on the client’s thinking. Most coaching problems have already been the focus of a great deal of energy and thought on the client’s part. You need to know what this energy and thought has produced. If the client has not tried anything yet, that will also provoke an interesting discussion.
Imagine this problem has been solved. What would you see, hear and feel?
Imagine this problem has been solved. What would you see, hear and feel? Up until now, the client has been deep in the problem. You will typically see this reflected in the way the client has been sitting and talking – often slumped or despairing. By asking this question you tap into their optimism. Clients will sit up straighter, stop frowning and will look generally lighter. Asking the question at this stage prevents you coaching on the symptoms rather than on the underlying causes.
What’s standing in the way of that ideal outcome?
This question broadens out the client’s thinking. Expect new insights to occur from this point on.
What’s your own responsibility for what’s been happening?
An essential question. The client is always part of the problem as well as part of the solution. This question makes that assumption explicit and encourages clients to see how they have, maybe at an unconscious level, been sustaining the problem through their own behaviour.
Imagine you’re at your most resourceful. What do you say to yourself about this issue?
This question assumes that underneath all our typical confusion, at some level we do know what we should do. Another version of this question: ‘If I could give you a pill which contained all the courage and insight you needed, what would you do?’ I have yet to find a client who could not find an instant reply to this one.
What are the options for action here?
What are the options for action here? Now that the question has been looked at from several angles, the client can begin to consider the options for change.
What criteria will you use to judge the options?
Options are even more useful when you have criteria against which to judge them. Typical criteria might be: practicality, cost, fit with the client’s values, time – and so on.
Which option seems the best one against those criteria?
At this point you are narrowing down again towards action – including, of course, just pondering.
So what’s the next/first step?
The answer may be to do some more research, to have a conversation, or to make a big life decision.
When will you take it?
Asking for a commitment to when makes it more likely that the client will actually do something different as a result of the coaching.
