Coaching Habit
Transformative guidance for leaders to master coaching and empower their teams.
Summary of 7 Key Points
Key Points
- Building a Coaching Habit
- Asking the Kickstart Question
- The Awe Question
- Staying Lazy, Curious & Often
- Avoiding Advice-Giving
- Learning to Listen Effectively
- Implementing the Learning Question
key point 1 of 7
Building a Coaching Habit
Building a coaching habit involves integrating coaching into one’s daily routine as a way to develop people, improve team performance, and foster a more innovative, engaged, and empowered workplace. It suggests that managers should adopt coaching as a regular discipline rather than as an occasional intervention. This involves asking questions and listening rather than jumping in with advice, ensuring that the focus is on helping team members find solutions rather than providing them directly…Read&Listen More
key point 2 of 7
Asking the Kickstart Question
The Kickstart Question is a powerful tool that aims to begin a conversation with impact, ensuring that the dialogue is open, focused, and productive from the outset. This question is designed to quickly engage the person being coached, providing them with an opportunity to share what’s on their mind, thereby setting the direction for the conversation that follows. It’s a way to invite them into the space of the conversation and signal that their input is both valued and valuable…Read&Listen More
key point 3 of 7
The Awe Question
The Awe Question, often formulated as ‘And what else?’, is a powerful tool highlighted for its simplicity and effectiveness in stimulating deeper thinking and uncovering additional possibilities. This question serves as a means to keep the conversation going, allowing the person being coached to explore further options or insights they might not have initially considered. By asking ‘And what else?’, the coach signals an interest in hearing more, encouraging the coachee to think beyond their first response or the obvious answer…Read&Listen More
key point 4 of 7
Staying Lazy, Curious & Often
The principle of ‘Staying Lazy, Curious & Often’ is a central theme in the philosophy of coaching effectively. This mantra suggests that rather than jumping into action and immediately trying to fix things, coaches should resist the urge to provide quick solutions. By staying ‘lazy’, coaches encourage those they are leading to take ownership of their problems and find the solutions themselves. This approach helps in developing the coachee’s problem-solving skills and fosters independence, rather than creating a dependency on the coach for answers…Read&Listen More
key point 5 of 7
Avoiding Advice-Giving
The perspective on avoiding advice-giving is built around the idea of curbing the natural impulse to jump in with solutions when faced with an employee’s problem. The traditional managerial mindset often emphasizes the importance of providing immediate answers as a way to demonstrate expertise and control. However, the book challenges this notion, advocating that managers should resist the urge to give advice too quickly. Instead, they should focus on asking questions that help employees to come up with their own solutions, fostering a sense of autonomy and empowerment…Read&Listen More
key point 6 of 7
Learning to Listen Effectively
Learning to listen effectively is presented in the book as a critical skill for coaching and leading effectively. It emphasizes the importance of staying genuinely curious in conversations and listening with the intent to understand rather than to respond. The act of listening is detailed not just as hearing the words being spoken, but as a more profound act of comprehending and empathizing with the speaker’s perspective. The book discusses the difference between ‘listening’ and ‘waiting for your turn to speak’, advocating for a deeper engagement with the speaker’s ideas…Read&Listen More
key point 7 of 7
Implementing the Learning Question
The Learning Question is central to the process of helping team members reflect on and learn from their experiences. It hinges on the idea that real learning comes from insight, and not necessarily from action alone. By asking the Learning Question, a coach or manager prompts their team member to consider the experience they’ve just had and find the learning opportunity within it. This question is about connecting the dots between what happened, what was done, and what the outcomes were, effectively transforming experiences into wisdom…Read&Listen More