If you want to find out something, ask a question. Children do it instinctively and they will keep asking, digging and digging until they get an answer that satisfies them.
As a coach, questions, or rather the right questions at the right time are as powerful a tool as listening. Listening well allows you to understand what is or is not being said, which means that you can ask the right question to dig deeper into your client’s issues to bring to the surface the answers that will ultimately help them to overcome their barriers to success.
There are many types of questions. Here are three of them.
1. Reflective questions
A reflective question is where the coach asks the client to “reflect” on their own experiences, skills, knowledge, subjects that they have an awareness of. This invites the client to be truly expressive and open in their answer; it is their answer, not something that has been fed to them in the way a leading question would do, where the question contains the answer or presumes to contain the answer.
An example of a leading question would be a salesman talking to a customer and saying, “I can see you agree that this product works really well, it’s in the right colour and it’s something that you would like to own, isn’t it? This leads the client to answer the way that the questioner wants.
This is not what a good coach would do. They would ask a reflective question, such as: “When you scored your goal in last weeks match, how did it make you feel?”
“When you go home at night to an empty house what is it that allows you to relax?”
“You started to tell me about the bullying at your school, what did you do differently to avoid it?”
These types of questions allow the client to fully explore their knowledge of a situation and to give voice to the emotions they felt at that particular time and how they dealt with it, or not, which will allow the coach to ask other questions to let the client find alternative ways to move forward towards their goal.
2. Incisive questions
An incisive question can interrupt and destabilise a limiting belief that the client has. Your client wants to gain two A levels, history and geography to get accepted onto a course that would lead them towards the career that they are passionate about, they however have a limiting belief that because no-one in their family has ever achieved academic success, they won’t either. So to get them to put their limiting belief to one side for a moment the question to put to them could be: “Imagine that when you take your A levels you know that you would pass, and having succeeded in getting top grades what would you plan for your future career?”
This allows them to see through the obstacle they have placed in their path to obtain the goal. The client feels that this is fun way of putting their limiting belief out of action for a short while and the first part of the question allows them to move past it, the second part of the question becomes something more substantial and they can feel that this could be a future reality.
When you get a “don’t know” the best question to ask is: “What if you did know?”
3. Presupposition questions
When your client is stuck or fixed to a particular way of thinking and acting to the same situation, a presupposition question can get them to alter their approach. Your client has said that they get annoyed at the way their parents seem to be telling them off all the time. The biggest problem as it appears to them is at mealtimes. They don’t want to eat the dinner that’s put in front of them and they don’t want to eat with the rest of the family because it always ends up in a row, so their answer to this problem is to storm out and go to their bedroom. So to get them to explore other ways of dealing with this is to ask a question or series of questions that the brain will automatically allow answers to.
“Who is the person that gets most upset when this happens?” They will know that through this question people are getting upset and will answer.
“What is one thing that you could do to improve mealtimes?” This will get them to think that things will improve and will provide options.
“When will you help to set the table?” One of the options they provided, this is getting agreement on a course of action that the brain has accepted can happen.
Getting your client to put forward options which would make it possible to resolve the mealtime issue means that through the questions that you have asked the fixed process that your client used to handle the situation has been broken.
If you want to help your client is the only way to do that is to know which type of question to ask at the right time? Well yes, but something to consider is that children ask questions at the right and wrong times, but they still get answers!
David Kentish is an experienced Youth Coach; you can contact him on coach@lizkentishcoaching.co.uk
Tuesday 23 August 2011
Wednesday 3 August 2011
Coaching Tools - Part One - The BWF Model
BWF (Body Words Focus) helps us get from an undesired state to a desired state by understanding how we inwardly communicate to ourselves and outwardly communicate to others.
It is how we manage our state, which is a way of being at any given time. It is how we can control our emotions in any situation rather than allowing a situation or others to control the way we react.
Our state determines how we feel and behave and it’s a combination of the way we are feeling, our body language, our cognitive process and the connection it makes in our brain, which ultimately determines our state.
Anger, happiness, love, nervousness, sadness, meditative, these are all states that we may want to get out of or get into.
Someone cuts us up on the motorway, we can choose our reaction, annoyance, anger, pity or just being calm. The other person does not make us get angry that is the choice that we have made for ourself.
These are the three factors that will determine your state:
Your Body language, your physiology the way that you hold and shape your body and control your breathing. Just standing up from a sitting position and stretching will create a state change.
The Words that you use, whether you are talking inside your head or to others, it’s the choice of words. Expand your use of words that have a positive and complimentary meaning and ou will find that a more resourceful state comes naturally.
Your Focus, the questions you ask yourself. What we focus on is what we experience. Internal questions such as “why can’t I do this” and “why do I never have any luck” Change those words to “I can do this” and “ I make my own luck” will mean that a far more beneficial outcome can be achieved.
To be best prepared to achieve a desired outcome we need to be in our most resourceful state. Going into a meeting, a sporting event or having that difficult conversation with a family member and not being in peak state (which could also be termed as being in the wrong frame of mind) will lessen the chance of a successful outcome.
When I run a coaching session I need to be in peak state. If I were slumped in my seat (body) I would not be able to ask the right questions (words) because I have something else on my mind (focus); I would not be in my most resourceful state to enable my client to move themselves forward towards their goal. My whole demeanour would communicate to that person that I was not interested in them or what they had to say.
To get into peak state requires adjustments in three areas:
Sit up straight, take deep breaths, run through your mind how good a coach you are and that you will benefit your clients/team, use the words that allow you to focus on the most important thing because 'the most important thing is always the most important thing'.
Another way to change your state would be to create an “anchor”, by making a link to the desired state through an association to a certain emotion through repetitive use of a trigger. Get into peak state and then make a movement, say a word, tug or press on a part of your body and repeat the process until the trigger can automatically move you into your peak state.
When working with a client the BWF model is not just for me to use on me, it is a process that they can subconsciously adopt to enable them to reach their goals as quickly as possible. I can’t sit there and explain what BWF is and how it works. It needs to be achieved through the overall coaching sessions and importantly by my example.
Ask them how they would feel when they reach their goal, how would they stand, what would they say, what questions had they asked of themselves to get there. Ask them who they admire and why, what do they think has made that person so successful, well liked, respected, excellent at what they do. Is there anything that they could learn from that person.
David Kentish is an experienced Coach working with young people. You can contact him on 01778 561326 or coach@lizkentishcoaching.co.uk
It is how we manage our state, which is a way of being at any given time. It is how we can control our emotions in any situation rather than allowing a situation or others to control the way we react.
Our state determines how we feel and behave and it’s a combination of the way we are feeling, our body language, our cognitive process and the connection it makes in our brain, which ultimately determines our state.
Anger, happiness, love, nervousness, sadness, meditative, these are all states that we may want to get out of or get into.
Someone cuts us up on the motorway, we can choose our reaction, annoyance, anger, pity or just being calm. The other person does not make us get angry that is the choice that we have made for ourself.
These are the three factors that will determine your state:
Your Body language, your physiology the way that you hold and shape your body and control your breathing. Just standing up from a sitting position and stretching will create a state change.
The Words that you use, whether you are talking inside your head or to others, it’s the choice of words. Expand your use of words that have a positive and complimentary meaning and ou will find that a more resourceful state comes naturally.
Your Focus, the questions you ask yourself. What we focus on is what we experience. Internal questions such as “why can’t I do this” and “why do I never have any luck” Change those words to “I can do this” and “ I make my own luck” will mean that a far more beneficial outcome can be achieved.
To be best prepared to achieve a desired outcome we need to be in our most resourceful state. Going into a meeting, a sporting event or having that difficult conversation with a family member and not being in peak state (which could also be termed as being in the wrong frame of mind) will lessen the chance of a successful outcome.
When I run a coaching session I need to be in peak state. If I were slumped in my seat (body) I would not be able to ask the right questions (words) because I have something else on my mind (focus); I would not be in my most resourceful state to enable my client to move themselves forward towards their goal. My whole demeanour would communicate to that person that I was not interested in them or what they had to say.
To get into peak state requires adjustments in three areas:
Sit up straight, take deep breaths, run through your mind how good a coach you are and that you will benefit your clients/team, use the words that allow you to focus on the most important thing because 'the most important thing is always the most important thing'.
Another way to change your state would be to create an “anchor”, by making a link to the desired state through an association to a certain emotion through repetitive use of a trigger. Get into peak state and then make a movement, say a word, tug or press on a part of your body and repeat the process until the trigger can automatically move you into your peak state.
When working with a client the BWF model is not just for me to use on me, it is a process that they can subconsciously adopt to enable them to reach their goals as quickly as possible. I can’t sit there and explain what BWF is and how it works. It needs to be achieved through the overall coaching sessions and importantly by my example.
Ask them how they would feel when they reach their goal, how would they stand, what would they say, what questions had they asked of themselves to get there. Ask them who they admire and why, what do they think has made that person so successful, well liked, respected, excellent at what they do. Is there anything that they could learn from that person.
David Kentish is an experienced Coach working with young people. You can contact him on 01778 561326 or coach@lizkentishcoaching.co.uk
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
