As Coaches we often ask, How do I ask “good” questions? How do I keep out of the detail and get out of your own way during the coaching conversation? How do I find the next “right” question to ask? How do use effective questioning in coaching.
Psychology and Neuroscience can help
The best bit of advice I was ever given around this was, there is no right question! There is no perfect question and there is no golden question.
Asking the right, perfect, golden question is about using your other coaching skills to be present, actively listen and clarify often. What are you hearing them say? What are they not saying? Share this with them (clarify) then ask your questions based on this.
Knowing where you are in a conversation, can help you use effective questioning in coaching.
David Rock’s Choose Your Focus Model (Quiet Leadership – Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work), explains there are five levels we can focus on in any conversation.
David Rock’s Choose Your Focus Model
Vision
This level is about focusing on what we want to move towards.
What is our vision or goal overall? What does your perfect day off look like?
From a neuroscience point of view, it helps create a toward state (none threat – think fight or flight).
Planning
Is about how you get to where you want to get to. The high level bird’s eye view.
What actions can you take?
It gets our brain thinking and engages the PFC and it taps into System 2 thinking (below).
Detail
We want to avoid too much detail, which can lead to overwhelm (read more in my blog about overwhelm). Also from a neuroscience point of view, the limitations of the working memory can only hold 4-7 pieces of information.
Problem
As with detail, this can cause overwhelm if we stay here too long. However it can be useful to identify the gaps between where a coachee is and where they want to go.
Scaling questions are good here – on a scale of 1-10 where are you now? Where do you want to be?
Drama
From a neuroscience point of view drama is not helpful! This is when we are in full ‘limbic mode’ we can’t think straight and we definitely can’t do our best thinking.
In a coaching conversation, if you are feeling stuck, the chances are you are in the Drama/Detail, so ask some vision and planning questions.
Effective Questioning in Coaching to keep in Vision and Planning:
- What would that look like?
- What picture can you paint for me?
- What would you be doing differently?
- Where are you now on a scale of 1-10?
- Where do you want to be?
- What would a 10 look like?
- What can you do to make it a 10?
Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Another way to use effective questioning in Coaching, is to tap into different brain regions to help us think. The cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner, in his book Thinking Fast and Slow describes 2 types of brain thinking systems, System 1 & 2 thinking.
System 1 thinking is fast and intuitive, however prone to bias and poor decision making. System 2 thinking is the slower, more rational and reflective part of our brain. It engages our Pre-frontal Cortex (PFC), to way up various options and helps us think clearer.
Effective Questioning to tap into System 2
To can help our coachees pause and slow down their thinking, so they tap into this system 2, use questions such as;
- How is this going to impact you?
- How is this going to impact others
- What will you be doing differently?
- What will this enable you to do that you’re not doing now?
- What options do you have?
- What would you tell a best friend?
Other ways to engage our System 2 thinking can be as simple as;
Noticing – notice when we are feeling overwhelmed, can’t think clearly, take a breath, literally. This helps bring much needed physiological resources to our PFC.
Pause/stop – Step away from the problem, go outside, look up, this engages System 2 more.
Labelling – Label the emotion, which calms down the limbic system so your PFC is not hijacked.
