In Executive Coaching Questions, Part I, I reviewed some of the questions you—as a coach, boss, colleague, or husband/wife—can use to initiate a conversation to define the goals and contract of your coaching conversation.
This post reviews some of the questions you can use to move to the next phase: review expectations, explore resources and solutions, and create insights on your coachee.
Before I review the questions I want to highlight a particularity of the Coaching Questions I’m presenting here. Most of my questions are “What,” “How,” “Who,” or “When” questions. The reason for this is that these types of questions are more likely to act as catalysts for discovery than “yes/no” questions or “why” questions which tend to direct the coachee to the past.
Here are some of the questions I’d like to share with you. (Don’t forget to review Part I of Coaching Questions.)
| Question | Potential use | |
| Have you ever been in a situation where you were able to handle this better? | Explore strengths by focusing on times when the coachee was able to handle things better. All of us experience these moments and by exploring them we may be able to find our own solutions. | |
| How have you managed it in the past? | This is a follow up to the question above and assumes the coachee was able to do something to manage the problem. | |
| Who else can help you with this? | It is much easier to work on the problem with the help of others. This question taps on the coachee’s network, another one of his/her resources. | |
| What would be the consequences of that for you or others? | Thinking about the consequences of doing something different helps make it more real to the coachee. In addition, this question may be used to help the coachee evaluate the impact of his/her actions on others. | |
| If someone said/did that to you, what would you feel/think/do? | Allows your coachee to consider his/her own behaviors from the perspective of others and gain insight. | |
| What’s holding you back? | Explores fears, mental roadblocks, etc. and elicits awareness. | |
| What will set you up to be successful? | Allows the coachee to think ahead and review what he/she needs in order to be successful. |
Note from Bob: Isn’t it amazing that you have known great questions to ask ever since you learned the “5 W’s & 1 H” in grade school: “Who, What? When? Where? Why? & How?” So why aren’t you using the great questions that you already know?
Augusten Del Vento is the director and founder of Change Champions Consulting, Agustin works with a team of highly qualified coaches and consultants to meet the particular needs of every client. Agustin has more than ten years working with leading organizations in several industries supporting them with the change initiatives. Raised in Argentina, Agustin is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
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