Laser Coaching-Five Questions to Save You Time

Are you a busy leader who needs more time?  Do you need to make the limited time you have with your team or staff more productive and more empowering?

Let me introduce you to a simple coaching tool that can assist you as you lead your team.  This tool, called “laser coaching”, combines the art and science of the coaching process into a simple format.  You can foster pinpoint focus, if you use the five questions of a laser coaching conversation.

Working together with your team, you can create and sustain movement toward key goals with powerful accuracy.  Laser coaching encourages new ideas and collaboration to emerge, within the context of a short conversation.

If you choose a deliberate coaching stance to build the capacity of your staff, you will be investing in a process that both supports and challenges your team.   With a coaching approach you won’t have to choose between achieving tasks or maintaining good relationships.  The secret is giving time to the process.

As you continually model the laser coaching tool with your team as a common practice, a coaching culture will grow in your organization.  You can foster meaningful relationships and exceptional accomplishments by utilizing coaching conversations.  Use laser coaching as your team’s “go-to” process for overcoming difficult issues and frustrating barriers.

The laser coaching approach is ingenious; it uses only five questions.  These prompts reflect the profound science behind how people work best, the power of well-formed questions, the need for trust, the necessity of dialogue, and the importance of clear goal setting in facilitating change.  Just add your unique personality.  Create the optimal context to make this coaching style your own.

Your challenge to unlocking the power of coaching is your ability to trust and rely on your listening skills.   You have the five questions to guide a coaching conversation through to a timely conclusion.  You can be assured that the time you invest in truly listening while coaching will reap the results you desire.

What’s working?

Be deliberate about noticing the good work occurring, the positive efforts already contributed.  Celebrate what you see as good.  Call out progress you already see.  Ask your team members what they view as positive, then listen. Don’t skip this essential step.

What’s not working?

What is the specific issue that this conversation will tackle?  What is within the staff member’s sphere of control to change?  What is preferred instead?  If the issue is fixed and is now working well, what would that look like?  What does your staff member see? Reframe what’s not working currently into what it will look like when improved.

What are you learning?

During this challenge, what new awareness does the team member have?  What progress has already been made?  What is your staff member most excited/concerned about? What do they need to be properly resourced?  How can new learning be applied in a positive way moving forward?

What needs to change?

Here’s where specifics get important.  Design the goals together with your team member.  Listen to new ideas that the team member has the passion to accomplish.  Voice why these changes are important, and what it will mean when they are implemented.  Support and challenge are needed. The whys are essential here.  Again, don’t skip this step.

What’s next?

Here’s where the conversation nears conclusion.  Design action steps or experiments together that are mutually acceptable.  Get clarity on the what, when, and who.  How will you both know when progress is made?  Set the time for your next laser coaching conversation.  When you meet next, begin your conversation with the “What’s working?” question and continue with the coaching rhythm of the five questions.

The benefits of assuming a coaching posture with your team are real.  Cutting through the drama and  focusing on the future will create movement in the right direction.  Using laser coaching conversations helps you invest your limited time in a powerful and accurate way.  As your team settles into the rhythm of these coaching conversations, with you and with each other, my bet is you will see more alignment and progress toward your real goals.

For more ideas on implementing coaching in your organization, contact me at www.mcwhertercoaching.com.