Asking Powerful Questions - Part 1

Building a Coaching Culture - #87: Asking Powerful Questions - Part 1 === J.R. Flatter [00:00:00]: You better have thought very purposefully about what you're saying, and it better be crisp. It'd be very succinct because when you're talking, you're not coaching. When you're listening and you're in the passenger seat, you're responding and adapting, supporting, creating new awareness, then you're[00:00:25]: guest. If you need to compete and win in the 21st century labor market as an employer of choice, this podcast is for you. Each week, we share leadership development, coaching, and culture development insights from leading experts who are developing world class Cultures in their own organizations. And now here's your host, JR Flutter. J.R. Flatter [00:00:53]: Hey. Welcome back, everybody. It's JR Flatter here. And as always, I'm here with my cohost, Lucas. Lucas Flatter [00:00:59]: Hello? J.R. Flatter [00:01:00]: So we wanted to spend this time building a coaching culture, talking about coaching questions. I know we've talked about what is coaching and how does it differ from mentoring. And and part of that difference, a big part of that difference is how do you engage? And in that session, we talked about findings and conclusions and recommendations. And as a coach, we help discover finding, we help discover conclusions, and we help discover recommendations. And largely, we do that through questioning and through powerful coach like questioning. And that's what this session's all about is what does it mean to ask a powerful question? What does it mean to be a coaching question versus a mentoring question or a therapy question. So that's what we're gonna talk about. And there's always a rely on your experience as a coach and a leader so one of the things maybe I'll start off with is the arc of a session. J.R. Flatter [00:02:04]: And so when we talk about coaching, we talk about it both as an informal style of leadership within coaching culture, but also an external formal coaching relationship or even an internal formal coaching relationship. Whether it's formal or informal, there's an arc to every session. ARC arc like arc of a bridge. So the 8 competencies that we talked about in coaching, they're not meant to be a linear. I start with 1 and finish with 8. There's a natural linear progression there, but it's not absolute. And it is back and forth waves and bows. There is a beginning and there is an end. J.R. Flatter [00:02:50]: We're teaching a boot camp as we speak, a 30 hour fundamentals coaching boot camp as we speak, in we're teaching that time is not our friend. Even as you and I are doing this podcast, I'm already looking at the clock and looking at the arc of the session. Where are we in the time available to discuss a particular topic? So this idea, this arc idea transcends coaching, transcends the relationship could be the arc of your day, arc of your year. We talk a lot about the arc of your lifetime. What do you wanna accomplish in your lifetime? But in this particular session, when we're talking about asking powerful questions primarily focused on the arc of any given session, whether it's formal or informal. I think the reason I like to start here when we start this discussion is to set that expectation that you could be as empathetic as you wanna be. You could be as supportive and adaptive and responsive as you wanna be, but the clock is the clock, in the time you have is the time you have. And as a coach and as a leader, we wanna be very purposeful about our use of that time. J.R. Flatter [00:04:05]: In our management of that time, you know, management of that arc, we wanna make sure we lay a good baseline. We also wanna make sure we capture the heart of the session. But, also, we don't wanna leave them hanging, whoever we might be coaching, whether it was 5 minutes or 50 minutes. We don't wanna leave them hanging. So that informs the questions we ask. In the beginning of a session, the questions will be primarily about the baseline of the session. What is it do we wanna accomplish together? What would be some measures of success for the session? What about this session is important to you as a leader, as a human being? What might be some obstacles between us and success in this session, that's the beginning of this arc. The focus of the questions are necessarily on that baseline. J.R. Flatter [00:04:57]: Then as we get into the heart and soul of the session, our questions will necessarily move to those heart and soul competencies for 5, 6, and 7, cultivating trust and safety, maintaining presence, listening act actively evoking awareness. For me, if I look at competency 2, which is embodying a coaching mindset and all of the subcompetencies that say I'm embodying a coaching mindset in any given session or any given relationship. It's those 4 competencies that I look to. Am I supporting the leader that I'm working with? That's what competency force for me all about. Am I adapting to what I'm learning and hearing? For me, that's what competency 5 is all about. Am I responding? Am I responding to the leader? That's what competency 6 and then finally creating competency 7. So that's the heart. And so therefore, my questions as I tend to be in the heart of a session focus on that. J.R. Flatter [00:05:58]: But I could always go back to the baseline, back to 3, or I can always go forward and close a particular topic. If I think in my coaching mind, yeah, we've gone where we needed to go in this particular topic. And I'll look at my watch, even though we don't coach to the hour, time is time. And if I have sufficient time available and I think I have sufficient energy in the room and I've done the arc of that challenge. I might go back to the beginning and say, okay, we have 30 minutes left, 31 minutes left. This is something else you wanted to bring in to the to the room today. If the energy is not strong and or if I think it's time to celebrate and go home, that's what I'm gonna do at the end of that particular challenge. So I know I'm wondering about the forest a little bit on the arc of a session. J.R. Flatter [00:06:51]: And I know you you coach and you coach to the calendar like we all do to the time that you have set aside for a particular session. Talk to me about the arc of a session and how it informs your next challenging question, you know, it's a powerful question. Lucas Flatter [00:07:07]: Yeah. I mean, I think we had a podcast session talking all about the arc. And the thing that I remember from that most vividly is, you know, you can be at the end of a of an arc of a session. Maybe you have 10 minutes left, and You might have a really powerful question. Oh, this this could lead to some clarity. This can lead to some some actual results. But We can't we can't breach that topic at the end of the session. So you're thinking about, like you said, the time constraint. Lucas Flatter [00:07:43]: I guess, Thinking about it like, you're going on a trip and you have a destination in mind and your questions are kind of Bringing you to that destination, but you don't wanna be lost and stranded out in the middle of nowhere. You wanna get back to you know, you wanna Leave and come back home. So thinking about how you're going to set things up at the beginning, like you're saying, Get into, some clarity and provide some value to the person. But then also, let's Kind of wrap up. Let's have a little retrospective and see how did it go, what did you like about The session, what did I do well and what do I need to improve next summer? J.R. Flatter [00:08:26]: Yeah. And I and I think a lot of what you just said, it goes to people who are newer to coaching, they make 1 or both of those coaching mistakes in in any given session. One would be yeah. We got 5 minutes left, and I know we've just discovered fire for the first time ever as human beings and when it take a moment to celebrate, you know, what do you wanna do in the last 4 minutes of our time together? The same is true of not managing that time well at all and leaving them hanging. Oh, you know what? The clock just hit 0. Sorry. I gotta go. I got a doctor's appointment. J.R. Flatter [00:09:06]: Both are equally challenging in the arc of a session. And so as I'm watching the clock, as I always do, I lose track. And I was giving a lecture this morning, a particular topic, and I said I wanna be here for 10 minutes. And then I wanna get out and do some practice coaching. You know, 55 minutes later, we were still in session. So, even I'm not the best in the world at it. We're all human beings. We make human mistakes. J.R. Flatter [00:09:35]: But the clock is the clock. And when it hits a certain time, you have better drawing the session to a close with your powerful coaching questions and or laid the groundwork for what's happening next rather than, hey, the clock's at 0, let's leave. And equally challenging would be, hey, we got 5 minutes left, we've just had this amazing discovery and celebration. You know, what do you wanna do with our time together? All of which goes back to what's the next powerful question or the next powerful observation that we wanna make? So in our coaching approach, which every coach builds an approach to how they coach. Even though we all work with the same competencies and the same ethics and core values, each of us develops our own approach. I have this arc in front of me in every coaching session I have. I have 8 competencies in front of me in every coaching session I have to include the PCC markers within them and what the ICF calls markers, which is how I demonstrate the competencies. So if I say, embodying a coaching mindset, here are the markers that demonstrate that because I know I don't wanna leave them hanging, nor do I want to not give them the full power and scope of of coaching, nor do I want to open Pandora's box, you know, with 4 minutes left with a powerful question. J.R. Flatter [00:11:03]: It might be really powerful. Thoughts before we move on? Yeah. I I like Lucas Flatter [00:11:07]: what you said about, you know, it's almost like a novice tendency to you know, you might not have those safety measures that an expert might have. So you're going gung ho, and you actually end up, Even though you you're enthusiastic, you end up making some mistakes. Like, maybe like you said, You ask a powerful question right at the end, and you cut somebody off. I was trying to, teach Declan, my son, about, like, Just slow down, like, take a minute, like, think about it, and then do something. And I don't know where I heard it, but I I somebody was talking about, like, you're looking at a pond or like a creek and you see a fish. And if you stick your hand in it, all the mud goes everywhere and you can't see it. But if you go slow, you might be able to actually see it still. Yeah. J.R. Flatter [00:12:00]: You're quoting Daniel Kahneman now thinking fast and slow. Oh, yeah, take some time, slow down. Yeah. And a beautiful transition into some fundamentals of a powerful question. In a lot of ways, this part of our conversation is lessons learned from coaching and from teaching coaching. I just one of the things we do, and we probably talk about this in every every session. But when we get feedback, we give 1 on 1 feedback. One thing you loved about the session, one thing you thought could have been stronger. J.R. Flatter [00:12:31]: In this 1st bullet that I'm getting ready to talk about, I just, actually, within the last 12 hours, gave to someone. And that is the powerful question at the beginning of the session should always start with a blank chalkboard and an empty table, you know, take some time to explain that. If you're in a formal coaching relationship or you're coaching as a style of leadership, you're somewhere in the arc of your relationship with that person. You could have just met. You could have been working together for years. You could be in your 1st session, you could be in your 12th session. But every time you walk into the coaching room, which is where just you and the leader are, in my metaphor, there's an empty table and a blank chalkboard, and it's just the 2 of us. No distractions. J.R. Flatter [00:13:19]: We had a minute or 2 of mindfulness get into the coaching room, stop doing what we were doing and get ready to coach and lead, learn, discover. Always, when I walk into that room, even if I've known you for years or even if I've been coaching you for years, I will ask that baseline question that leaves the chalkboard and the table completely empty. It would be something like, hey, what's the best use of our time today, or what challenges are on your mind? And as I'm even thinking about example questions, I'm trying to ensure that I don't write on the chalkboard or put something on the table to premise what the session that we're about to have will contain because that ownership is not mine. It belongs to the leader. The findings, the conclusions, and the recommendations belong to the leader that I'm coaching. And if I preface our conversation with anything, I've taken that ownership away from them. And we talk about a lot, the neuroscience of coaching, that simple nuanced mistake is potentially insignificant as it might seem makes all the difference in the world in that session and in our relationship and I'll give you an example before I pass the torch over to you. But if we had just had a session 7 days earlier, and you said, here's one thing I must accomplish before we come back together in 7 days and absolutely commit to making it happen. J.R. Flatter [00:14:54]: And we do our thumbs up, close out, I asked you I don't leave you hanging, so I do a good closing of the session. And we come back together 7 days later, think about how different the conversation would be if I said, hey, what's on your mind? Versus how did that go? Because I have no idea what's happened to you in the last 7 days. You could have had something absolutely catastrophic happen to you, or you could have had something absolutely magnificent happen to you. You could have a entirely new topic that's been on top of your mind for the entire week. You just couldn't wait to get together and have that con that discovery conversation with me. But now I've just suddenly snatched all that away from you, and I've taken ownership of the room. I've taken ownership of the relationship. I've taken ownership of the direction of the conversation. J.R. Flatter [00:15:47]: What are your thoughts on that blank table and the blank chalkboard? Lucas Flatter [00:15:50]: Yeah. I think, I've fallen into that several times where it's like, I have notes, so I'll pull up my notes and I'll say, okay. These are the things that we wrapped up with. And but I find, Depending on the person, it can turn into, like, a long retrospective. And and, yeah, then we're Focusing on just catching me up since the last time we spoke. And I also think about when, like, a photographer Goes to look at some some bad events, you know, like war crimes or something. You see the photo and you think, why didn't. Somebody helped them. Lucas Flatter [00:16:29]: They took a photo instead of helping, but it's like an ethical barrier for those professions. They're observing and they're not influencing. So I think that's important to keep in mind that we're observing and we're trying to gain clarity, but we're not trying to step in and be a player. J.R. Flatter [00:16:50]: Yeah. That's an in a great example of mentoring versus coaching. Right? In as challenging as that might be, you're gonna be faced with that decision again and again and again. Do I step in now as a mentor or in in your analogy, an EMS or a soldier, or do I stay in my coaching role? So I rarely speak in absolutes, and I couldn't think about any exception as to where I would preface the conversation by writing something on the chalkboard, putting something on the table as we both walked into that room, one of those probably near absolutes of a powerful coaching question to start a powerful coaching session. Most coaching questions start with what, who, or how. They're open ended. If you look at competency 8 and embedded within competency 8, as you close a session, it's always about what has been powerful in this session for you. Some way of asking, what have you discovered? What do you know now that you didn't know 30 minutes ago? But it's purposely open ended so that the person, their brain, again, going back to the neuroscience of coaching, doesn't go to a yes, no, but it rather goes and explores. J.R. Flatter [00:18:14]: So what, who, or how requires exploration and discovery? Yes or no it's simply a yes or no. I would call that a box canyon question. If I ask you a box canyon question, I might find myself staring up on three sides with nowhere to go. So I try really, really hard. Who, what, or how? What's in your control? Who have you spoken to? How are you gonna address this? I asked that closing question today, the coaching student, and it probably took them 5 minutes to discover it was a short 15 minute session. What they had discovered, I hesitate to say no one's ever said nothing. Like, you know, I haven't discovered anything. It's been absolutely a waste of my time. J.R. Flatter [00:18:59]: But that's why it's a what, who, or a how. And in every coaching question, irrespective of where it is in the arc of the session, we want to initiate that same discovery, who, what, or how. Rarely, rarely, why? I'm not strong enough on this to make it an absolute. Neither am I strong enough on the who, what, or how. There are other beginning words of sentences that would not be a box canyon. Those are really good starting places. Avoiding the yes or no, not absolute might be an appropriate time if you're engaged with an engaged leader. And you know they're not gonna leave you hanging and give you some exploratory thoughtful responses. J.R. Flatter [00:19:44]: If you're working with a voluntold and you ask a yes or no, well, I'm told somebody who came to you, your coaching world, because somebody told them they needed to or demand them demanded that they go get a coach. They're gonna give you yes, no responses to yes, no questions. But if you're working with an engaged leader who's really seeking discovery and growth, gonna work with you and you're gonna get away with that once in a while. And the same is true of why, but it's really hard to ask a why question without being judgmental. Why did you do that? Why was that your response? Why are you interested in law? Why are you interested in medicine? Why did you say no? One of the things we teach in our coaching style, and it's actually gonna be one of our topics in a few minutes, is silence. Well, it's actually coming up really quickly. Learn to bask in silence. And one of the things that you do when you're basking in that silence, if you have a why question in your mind as your next powerful question or a yes no question as your next powerful question, turn it into a who, what, or a how. J.R. Flatter [00:20:49]: So instead of a why, one might ask, what were the criteria that led to that decision? Instead of a yes or no, a yes question or a no question is, did you learn anything in the last 30 minutes? A who, what, or how coaching question is, what do you know now that you didn't know 30 minutes ago? Who are you going to go talk to after this session? How is this challenge clearer to you now? You're really interested to hear your thoughts on who, what, how, and why. Yes and no. Lucas Flatter [00:21:19]: Yeah. Before you said that why is Judgmental. That's that's what I was thinking about where it's like you had mentioned what, how, you know, but not why. And I was thinking, oh, why is one of those 3rd rail questions were well, Simon Simon Sinek has talks about how important finding your why is when you're Going and trying to, you know, in an organization or have a goal for yourself personally. And I think Then it's so powerful because it contains, like, a multitude of other questions. So it's like, why did you do that? Like, what were you thinking? What were the circumstances? How did the situation come about? You you're thinking like All these other things. And then you're basically asking the person to, you know, justify or explain it to you, Explain to you all the circumstances in an ambiguous way where, like, if I ask what, I'm asking, like, about one specific thing. It's pretty interesting. Lucas Flatter [00:22:23]: I wonder if there's more psychology behind J.R. Flatter [00:22:27]: that. Yeah. And one of the reasons that that's such a challenging question. And and we'll get to competency 8 in a minute. But one one of these, it's such a challenging question is it requires a great deal of courage. Because as I asked that student coach this morning, what do you know now that you didn't know 15 minutes ago in front of an entire cohort of students that I'm supposed to be the subject matter expert. And now this leader that I'm working with has the opportunity to tell me, well, you know, really nothing. Absolutely nothing. J.R. Flatter [00:22:59]: It takes a lot of courage, but it has been my experience. If I'm engaged and using my knowledge, feasibility and experiences as a coach, there's going to be discovery in that question if the leaders engaged in good faith. But, yeah, it does require, some courage. Secondly, as I'm thinking about the next powerful question, well, not secondly, we've been talking for a while now. I'm thinking about who's in control. And I know I've been indirectly talking about this the whole time. But if I'm thinking in my mind, in the basking in my silence, letting the leader think and maybe perhaps even continue talking. I'm asking myself, who's in charge if I ask this question? In the metaphor that we use in our teaching is who's in the driver's seat. J.R. Flatter [00:23:50]: I, as the coach, always want to be in the passenger seat. I don't know if any of our listeners have ever taught their children how to drive, but it's a terribly frightening experience because for the first time, very likely in your parenting with regard to that child, you have so little control. There's no steering wheel, no brake, no accelerator at your feet. Where you've had that control until that very moment in almost every aspect of their life, the same challenge is there. If you're using coaching as a style of as a mentor, you're the driver. Where are we going? How fast are we gonna get there? Are there any stopoffs on the way? We're gonna go straight there, or we're gonna take 2 days to get there. All of those decisions as a mentor are yours. As soon as you put on the coaching hat when you sit in that passenger seat, you're now making sure the questions you're asking leave the leader in the driver's seat. J.R. Flatter [00:24:49]: Where where where is your head on this, metaphor that we use? Lucas Flatter [00:24:52]: Yeah. And I like going back To the mentorship versus coaching here. Because when you're just thinking about mentoring somebody, the first thing that comes to my mind is just Talking and talking and talking and talking. But the these powerful questions, it's not like You talk, talk, talk, and then you try to come up with a powerful question. The powerful questions are the only things that you're saying pretty much in the session. It's interesting. Like, yeah, like, it's almost like an insurance thing. Like, you're putting the liability on the person, but you're also they're getting the reward, and they're getting the growth. Lucas Flatter [00:25:31]: So you want them to be responsible so that they can have that growth. J.R. Flatter [00:25:36]: Well, that concludes this episode of building a coaching culture. I truly hope that this episode was helpful to you. If it was, Be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Maybe stop and give us a rating or a review and share this podcast with someone who might find