Antonio Trombetta
Continuous Improvement Consultant and Enterprise Agile Coach
OK, so you’re a coach! You’ve selected a framework you’re comfortable with in order to have productive conversations with team members. Maybe you’ve chosen to follow the GROW model, maybe FUEL.
The acronyms don’t matter! What’s important is that you work with the individual team members you are coaching to understand their goals, help them gauge where they are, and identify some of the options and obstacles in their way so they can get where they want to go and establishing, as well as, building a plan of action so they can get there!
The key is to have coaching conversations where you actually make an impact, and help folks achieve their goals. It’s not about simply going through an algorithm and at the end of the routine saying “that’s it, case closed!”
The Socratic approach helps, but it’s more than that. It’s not enough to just simply ask open-ended questions. It’s important for a coach to help team members by getting them to improve their own critical thinking skills.
How? you may ask. It’s painfully simple. Painful to put in practice. By making sure to ask questions that ensure the conversation has…
- RELEVANCE – How does… relate to the problem at hand? How does… help you address the situation?
- SIGNIFICANCE – What are some of the factors you have been considering? What are some of the areas that you’re focusing on? How are they relevant to…?
- LOGIC – How does the data support your conclusions? What information are you using as a basis for…?
- RANGE – What are some other points of view you could consider? How would you look at… differently? What are some alternatives? What makes this particular point of view better?
- CONSEQUENCE – How would you think… would impact the team? What are some of the possible outcomes you could expect if you did…? What are some of the barriers to… you may encounter? What if you are wrong?
- CLARITY – Can you provide some examples of what you’re talking about? Can you provide more details? Could you further explain…? What is the problem you are trying to solve?
- SUBSTANTIATED – What are some of the ways you can think of, we could use to test…? How could we verify that… is true? What are your assumptions? Why do you say…?
Asking questions is meant to have team members challenge their assumptions, eliminate their biases, reflect and help them achieve a better understanding of the situation and how to best address it going forwards!
Try some of these questions out, and let me know how it plays out! I welcome your feedback!
For additional information, please don’t hesitate to contact me via LinkedIn or through my e-mail at antoniotrombettad@gmail.com