Today, do you find yourself facing conflicting priorities and multiple demands? Are you responsible for managing the chaos and finding the new normal? Do you need to help your team or family adapt to change, and find solid ground?
The Five Questions coaching tool can assist you as you lead. This tool combines the art and science of the coaching process into a simple framework. The Five Questions coaching tool encourages new ideas and collaboration to emerge, within the context of a short conversation. It is a tool you can start using today.
The Five Questions is a perspective. If you choose a deliberate coaching stance to build the capacity of your family or team, you will be investing in a process that both supports and challenges. With a coaching approach you won’t have to choose between achieving tasks or maintaining good relationships.
The questions reflect the profound science behind how people work best. It is based on the power of well-formed questions, 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 rely on your listening skills. You can use the Five Questions to guide a coaching conversation to a timely conclusion. Be assured, 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 specific issue will this conversation tackle? What is within the team or family member’s sphere of control to change? What is preferred instead? If the issue can be fixed and is now working well, what would that look like? What does your family or team member see as desirable? 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 family 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 your family 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 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 or family are real. Cutting through the drama and focusing on the future will create movement in the right direction. Using simple coaching conversations helps you invest your limited energy in a powerful and accurate way.
Why not commit these Five Questions to memory, and try them in a coaching conversation today?
What’s working?
What’s not working?
What are your learning?
What needs to change?
What’s next?
As your team or family settles into the rhythm of coaching conversations, with you and with each other, my bet is you will see more alignment and progress toward your real goals. And, my hope is that you experience more clarity and more joy along the way.
Interesting in coaching? Contact Executive Coach, Wendy McWherter, at www.mcwhertercoaching.com to schedule a complimentary session.
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