Coaching Leaders: Guiding People Who Guide Others

Chapter 9

Coaching Skills and Techniques

In conversation, ask questions more often than you express opinions; when you speak offer data and information rather than beliefs and judgments.

—WILL DURANT

THE ART OF QUESTIONING

Coaching enables clients to grow by facilitating changes in their thinking that lead to changes in behavior. If we view thinking as the way people talk to themselves about their interpretations of their world, then creating opportunities to talk to themselves differently becomes the engine for the change process. Of the two primary modes of conversation, statements and questions, questions are the coach's more useful tool. Questions are also more likely to promote learning because they acknowledge that we don't know something; ...