Book Review: "The Coaching Habit" by Michael Bungay Stanier
I'm learning how to CEO from Kris Plachy, who says that we have three types of employees:
Top performers need to be coached for success and growth, whatever their goals are.
Steady Eddies are even-keeled steady performers. They need to be coached for engagement.
Low performers don't need coaching at all, they need to be managed.
I picked up the book by Stanier, full title: "The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever" to see if I could put this into service a bit more. He breaks it down into seven coaching questions, each with their own chapter:
I hightlighted some things as I went.He quotes "Zen Habits: Mastering the Art of Change" to say that we should change because this new habit will help a person I care about. Yep.
He talks about the steps in building an effective new habit: having a reason, a trigger, a micro-habit, effective practice, and a plan.
Use the moments when you see something working to dive into what made it work. Spot excellence and highlight it. (Use experience transformer on good things, too.)
He gives some gurus at www.theCoachingHabit.com/habitgurus. Several of them I know, but not Dan Coyle, Leo Babauta or Jeremy Dean.
He gives videos to illustrate things at TheCoachingHabit.com/videos.
Regarding these questions, he says not to ask them in quick succession. Learn to listen. Sometimes one or two is all you need. Don't make it an interrogation.
What's on their mind is going to be projects, people or patterns.
Add one more option to questions. "Do you want to do this or that? Or some other thing?" You'll get a better result.
Watch out for the "advice monster", where you want to jump out and solve their problems. Stay curious. Those are their monkeys.
His haiku:
Tell less and ask more.
Your advice is not as good
As you think it is.
Don't even ask a fake question if I have the answer like "have you thought of..." or "what about".
Keep asking questions, as the problem they laid out for you probably isn't the real problem. You can ask, "if you had to pick one of these things to focus on, which one here would be the real challenge for you?" Ask, "where would you look for that" and "and what else?"
Don't start with why. Say "what". What made you choose this course of action?
Prime people to find answers, "Suppose that tonight, while you're sleeping: a miracle happens. When you get up in the morning tomorrow, how will you know that things have suddenly gotten better?"
In chapter 5 he talks about the Karpman Drama Triangle, where you have a victim, the persecutor and the rescuer. All have benefits and prices to be paid for choosing those roles. Ask "How can I help" to move them out of their role. Watch out that you're staying out of one of the roles here.
Say yes slowly. Say yes to the person, say no to the task.
Focus on the take-aways. What did you succeed at? What did you learn even when you weren't succeeding? Connect to new ideas.
Top performers need to be coached for success and growth, whatever their goals are.
Steady Eddies are even-keeled steady performers. They need to be coached for engagement.
Low performers don't need coaching at all, they need to be managed.
I picked up the book by Stanier, full title: "The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever" to see if I could put this into service a bit more. He breaks it down into seven coaching questions, each with their own chapter:
- What's on your mind
- And what else?
- What's the real challenge here for you?
- What do you want?
- How can I help?
- If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying "no" to?
- What was most useful to you about this conversation?
I hightlighted some things as I went.He quotes "Zen Habits: Mastering the Art of Change" to say that we should change because this new habit will help a person I care about. Yep.
He talks about the steps in building an effective new habit: having a reason, a trigger, a micro-habit, effective practice, and a plan.
Use the moments when you see something working to dive into what made it work. Spot excellence and highlight it. (Use experience transformer on good things, too.)
He gives some gurus at www.theCoachingHabit.com/habitgurus. Several of them I know, but not Dan Coyle, Leo Babauta or Jeremy Dean.
He gives videos to illustrate things at TheCoachingHabit.com/videos.
Regarding these questions, he says not to ask them in quick succession. Learn to listen. Sometimes one or two is all you need. Don't make it an interrogation.
What's on their mind is going to be projects, people or patterns.
Add one more option to questions. "Do you want to do this or that? Or some other thing?" You'll get a better result.
Watch out for the "advice monster", where you want to jump out and solve their problems. Stay curious. Those are their monkeys.
His haiku:
Tell less and ask more.
Your advice is not as good
As you think it is.
Don't even ask a fake question if I have the answer like "have you thought of..." or "what about".
Keep asking questions, as the problem they laid out for you probably isn't the real problem. You can ask, "if you had to pick one of these things to focus on, which one here would be the real challenge for you?" Ask, "where would you look for that" and "and what else?"
Don't start with why. Say "what". What made you choose this course of action?
Prime people to find answers, "Suppose that tonight, while you're sleeping: a miracle happens. When you get up in the morning tomorrow, how will you know that things have suddenly gotten better?"
In chapter 5 he talks about the Karpman Drama Triangle, where you have a victim, the persecutor and the rescuer. All have benefits and prices to be paid for choosing those roles. Ask "How can I help" to move them out of their role. Watch out that you're staying out of one of the roles here.
Say yes slowly. Say yes to the person, say no to the task.
Focus on the take-aways. What did you succeed at? What did you learn even when you weren't succeeding? Connect to new ideas.