Five Powerful Questions for Every Coaching Conversation
True story: when I first started coaching, I was terrible. Those coaching conversations were painful, likely for the client more than me. I asked good questions, but they were closed, yes-no questions. I spent more time thinking of what my next question would be rather than listening to what the person was saying. And where am I now? I love questions, and I work incredibly hard to ask curious, powerful questions. There is no better compliment for me than to hear a client say, “Wow, that is a great question.” But it wasn’t easy for me to get here.
There is no shortcut, no formula, for good coaching conversations. Every conversation and session are unique, and as a coach, it is my job to go where the client takes me. These five questions I’ve given here are simply a starting point as you go through the coaching arc, helping you make your own coaching conversations more impactful and less awful than my first coaching sessions.
The Questions
What’s your topic today?
I generally open a coaching session with a version of this question. Why? Because I want my clients to learn to come to sessions with something that is important to them. Their time is valuable, and I want to make certain that we focus on work that is of value to them. Yes, there are times that a client will come to a session with what they think is their topic, but as we progress, we might find that something else is actually the topic. And that is okay.
However, I know that sometimes clients just don’t know what they want to work on that day. (Hey, I’ve been there myself.) In those instances, I still begin with questions, but they might center around where they have been in action, what has been working well for them or what hasn’t been working well for them. My level-three listening kicks in, I pull on some common threads from what I hear, and the topic oftentimes presents itself. The pithy, cut-to-the-chase question of “What’s Your Topic Today?” is my go-to opener in the majority of sessions.
Variants
Powerful questions can always be modified. Here are some variations on “What’s your topic today?”.
What has your attention today?
Where is your focus?
Where should we start?
What is important to you about this topic?
The combination of the first and this second question helps me to articulate more clearly, to name our work for that session. The first question gets the topic out in the open, and this second question helps us to get clear on why that topic matters to the client. It gets us to the heart of things. It is what I call a builder or an amplifier question. It is always asked after that first articulating question, and it amplifies the resonance of the conversation.
Variants
What about this matters so much to you?
What is here for you on this topic?
What do you want to get from coaching today?
Remember back at the first question when I was talking about value, namely that I want every coaching conversation to be valuable to the client? This question gets to delivery of that value, providing me with insight into where the client would like to be. It also continues the amplification, the resonance that we began building with that second question, and gives me additional clues about what I need to listen for.
Let’s revisit junior-high physics. Newton’s first law is this:
An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
Newton’s law also applies to coaching. So many people want to be unstuck, to find a way forward, and as a coach, I want that for them, too. By using a question that models motion, forward momentum, movement, it makes it easier for a client to envision themselves getting where they want to be.
Variants
Where do you want to be at the end of this session?
What do you want to get out of this conversation?
What did you learn?
Boy, this is a big question, leaning right into growth mindset, and that is where I want to be. What I love about this question is that it encourages reflection, examination, and ownership. Events may happen in life, but this question begins to bring about the subtle shift. Instead of things happening to me—be they good, bad, or indifferent—things might happen for me. If I’m asking a client, “What did you learn from that?”, they begin to shift from to over to for, and that can make all the difference.
Variants
What is the wisdom to be found?
What is your heart telling you about this?
What is the impact of this event?
What did that experience teach you?
How are you different?
How will you take this forward?
There is value in every experience, regardless of how painful it might have been. (I speak from experience here. I managed to find the silver lining in my own cancer diagnosis five years ago. Some truly wonderful things came out of something truly awful, hard as that might have been to envision at the time.) Good questions help the client to articulate the learning, but that isn’t enough. That shift that stared with “What is the learning?” We need to take that learning forward, to continue that momentum. By explicitly asking that question of “How will you take this forward?”, the momentum is amplified, and the coaching session resonates.
Variants
What is important about this in light of <goal/outcome/future>?
How will you carry this learning with you?
How can you share what you learned?
What will you do to remember or to utilize what you learned?
A Final Note
The questions that I’ve given here are great starting points for better coaching conversations, but I’m not quite finished. One of the best pieces of feedback that I received from my coach (and yes, coaches have coaches) was this:
Your questions must come from a place of curiosity, not judgement.
Ouch. Really, that hurt, because he was right. I had been asking good, powerful questions, but they oftentimes lacked that spark of wonder, that genuine, heartfelt curiosity. I took his feedback to heart, dropped my own judgement and attitude, and stepped into curiosity. And you know what—my coaching shifted. For the better. My questions were in service of my clients, what they wanted and needed, and less about my thinking and views and thoughts. When I live in curiosity, I step out of judgement, and that helped me to become a better coach.
As they are every month, the image used for this blog post was captured by Linda Nickell on one of her recent adventures to Costa Rica. Connect with her on Instagram as @coznlinda, or join in on Wednesday evenings for her Happiness Hour. Details, upcoming presentations, and links to past recordings can be found on her site. You can also find her on YouTube.