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Great questions to ask in coaching conversations, 1-1's and other curious contexts
"What's the one thing" — A prefix for actionable feedback
What’s the one thing I can do to make our 1-1’s more effective?
What's one thing I can do this week to make your life easier?
What's the one thing I can do to improve the delivery of my presentation at the next all hands?
What's the one thing you think I'm still not spending enough time focussing on?
Chris Voss's Six 'Calibrated Questions'
In his popular book on negotiation — Never Split the Difference — former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss introduces the idea of the 'calibrated question'. Questions designed to get someone else thinking about solutions. He's using them with highly stressed hostage takers, but they can be equally effective in the world of work.
Here are six of his favourites:
What about this is important to you?
How can I help to make this better for you?
How would you like me to proceed?
How can we solve this problem?
What are we trying to achieve here?
How am I supposed to do that?
Questions to assess motivation
When do you feel you are at your best? What conditions create it?
How much autonomy are you feeling at work at the moment? How could we up that?
Which part of your work are you finding most energising? And how about the least?
What strengths are you making the most of at work recently? And what strengths would you like to be making more of?
Who on the team would you like to be teaming up with more?
What skills are you most keen to develop right now?
Are there any meetings or discussions you feel you should be a part of that you’re not?
Questions to develop strategic thinking
How do you go about prioritising your work?
What's helping you to keep focussed?
When you get stuck on something, what is your process for getting unstuck?
What’s a recent situation you wish you handled differently? What would you change? What can you learn from it?
Questions about a manager’s role
What could I do, as your manager, to make your work easier or support you better?
How do you feel about the amount of feedback you are getting?
What was one thing that your last manager did that you found helpful, that I don’t do?
What’s one thing we, as a team, could do to improve our ways of collaborating?
The Coaching Habit ‒ 7 Questions to Ask
In his popular book The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier works through seven questions, and the invitation for managers to make them an everyday habit. Here they are:
What's on your mind?
And what else?
What's the real challenge here for you?
What do you want?
How can I help?
If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
What was most useful for you?
