by Seth Sinclair
In previous posts, we’ve talked about the importance of good
listening, and offered suggestions on how to improve your ability to perform
this vital coaching skill. A closely
related and equally important skill is the art of asking questions.
What types of questions are most impactful in coaching? Questions that make the person who is
required to answer them think and reflect before responding. Questions that clarify thought processes, and
make it difficult to evade the truth.
Questions that change listeners’ perspective, and give them the
opportunity to develop new insights.
Coaches call these kinds of questions powerful
questions. Powerful questions are at the
heart of any good coaching relationship.
They are usually open-ended and well timed, encouraging deeper thinking,
creativity, and new possibilities
How important is this to you? What do you really need to
accomplish your goals? What’s stopping you?
Used at the right point in a conversation, these questions have the
power to reveal new perspectives, and sometimes envision a new way to move
forward and take action.
Albert Einstein once said, “no problem can be solved from
the same level of consciousness that created it.” Powerful questions are a valuable
tool to change people’s understandings of the way things are, to look at things
in a new light, and to find different ways to solve the personal and
professional problems they face.
A coach can begin a session with a powerful question. Something simple like “what do you want to
work on today?” or “what do you hope to achieve by the end of our conversation”
sets the stage for a productive discussion by reminding a client that he or she
has important responsibilities in the coaching process.
These powerful questions get people’s attention. To hold their attention, coaches sprinkle
their sessions with questions that pose challenges. “What would happen if you did this in a
different way?” sometimes means challenging the way things always have been
done. “What are you afraid of?” helps
people confront their fears, and their situation, head-on. “What do you want
your legacy to be?” encourages them to take the long view of their situation.
By asking powerful questions, coaches open up new horizons
for development and growth. They hope
that, as they think about responses to such questions, clients will step
forward and develop their own solutions to their problems, the key to success
in any coaching relationship.
Coaches are not looking for quick, easy, answers—in fact, if
a client answers a question right away, it’s likely that the question wasn’t a
powerful question at all! Silence,
thought, and a measured response tells a coach that his or her question has
struck home.
Just one truly powerful question, asked in the right way and
at the right time, can change perspectives, careers, businesses, and lives.
