121 POWERFUL QUESTIONS FOR COACHES AND LEADERS TO CHALLENGE THEIR CLIENTS BLINDSPOTS If you are a world-class coach, high-performing clients dont hire you for your answers. After all, theres no one better on the planet in doing what they do. Albert Einstein once said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the answer, I would spend the first 55 minutes figuring out the proper questions to ask. For if I knew the proper questions, I could solve the problem in less than 5 minutes. Although they might not know it when they first meet you, clients spend time with you in order to upgrade their questions. They spend time with you in order to generate powerful questions that create the kind of high level solutions that only THEY can generate. ---------- STOP BEING A COACH. BECOME A GAME-CHANGER. Questions are the life-blood of what we do as coaches, so its important to master the game of asking powerful questions. Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them. - Albert Einstein So, if you want to thrive as a coach—stop being a coach. The world is full of coaches. Become a Game-Changer. Help your clients see the things they cannot see. It isnt that they cant see the solution. Its that they cant see the problem. - G. K. Chesterton YOUR JOB ISNT TO SOLVE YOUR CLIENTS PROBLEMS Youre a coach, not a consultant. Your job isnt to solve your clients problems. Its to help them solve the problems they dont know they have. Always the beautiful answer, who asks a more beautiful question. - e.e. cummings. A great coach helps their client upgrade the quality of their questions—not answer the questions they bring to the table. When you coach for insight you dont need to create big flashes of inspiration. Its usually the tiny distinctions that change everything. Listen for the little clues in your clients language. The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny…” - Isaac Asimov ---------- “WHO THE F**K ARE YOU?” I spent most of my life asking myself, Who Am I? Who am I to be a coach? Who am I to teach others? Who am I to be a leader? Who am I to marry a beautiful woman? Truthfully, the voice in my head that uttered those words to me, so often, sounded much more mean. And they came out more like, “Who the f**k are YOU?” The secret fear that Ive carried since being a young child is that Im worthless—which meant I constantly showed up trying to prove myself. It didnt matter who you were, I did whatever I could to attain your approval. I tried to dress the right way, say the right things and do what it took. Except it was painful. I rarely got the approval I sought. And even if I did it felt yucky because I wasnt being myself anyway. SEAN KICKS MY BUTT One day I shared my Who Am I? question with my friend Sean Stephenson. And he said, Well, Who ARE you? And he blew my mind. I froze. Time seemed to stand still. Because I knew this was my moment. The insight came. I got it. In an instant. All I had to do was to answer his question and claim who I am. And I was afraid. Because this wasnt about proving myself. This was about owning who I really am. Sean didnt give a shit about my answer. I knew that. I didnt need to prove myself to him. I knew that. And I went there. I told him who I am. No self-deprecation. No holding back. No apology. I owned the powerful man that I am. I owned the impact I have in the world. And I owned the difference I make. And then I paused. I looked into his eyes and the bastard was smiling at me. And we laughed out loud. UPGRADE YOUR QUESTIONS Wow. I thought I understood the power of questions. After all, the mission of a powerful coach is to help their client to upgrade the quality of the questions they are asking themselves. Id just missed that it could be even more subtle than that. Who am I? is a question that has held me back for most of my life. Its had me play small. Its had me look for heroes. Its had me feel less than and trying to prove myself. A tiny change of emphasis on the second word, to Who AM I? Enabled me to answer that question MYSELF, for the first time, instead of seeking validation SELF-AWARENESS The key to becoming a better coach and a better leader is not in our training, our skills or our education but in our self-awareness. Its our blind spots that hold us back, not the things we already know we need to improve on. Our clients show up believing they live in a world with hard edges. A world where some things are possible but others are IMPOSSIBLE. Ever heard a client say, But you dont understand... ? The best way to get to these blind spots is a powerful question. THE MOST POWERFUL COACHING QUESTIONS I KNOW Here are some of the most powerful coaching questions I have ever come across. The list continues to grow. Whats YOUR favorite, most powerful (secret) coaching question? 1. What do you want? 2. What else?
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:13:38 +0000