You’re a manager. Your direct report brings up a problem during your 1:1 meeting. In response, you give advice. Lots of advice. So much advice that you become the dreaded advice monster.
Not to worry! You don’t have to be an action hero to stop this monster. In fact, drastic action isn’t required at all. The Coaching Habit will teach you how to tame your advice monster and develop you into a better leader.
I’ve taken a number of professional development courses throughout my career. When I reflect upon the effectiveness of any training, I consider aha! moments as a measure of success. I recently completed on-demand learning courses for The Coaching Habit. After the first learning module, I found myself thinking, “Aha!”
Michael Bungay Stanier is the author of the best-selling book, The Coaching Habit. The book helps managers to develop their coaching skills. Michael teaches managers how to guide their team members to develop the skills they need to solve their problems on their own. During coaching sessions, he advocates asking questions and being curious rather than inundating team members with advice, recognizing that managers have a tendency to give advice and rescue their team members.
Aha!
Sounds familiar? Right? Think of all the times that we’ve interjected during our 1:1s and offered our advice to fix somebody’s problems. Michael coined the term “advice monster” to describe this well-intentioned, yet counter-productive, behavior. Not only do managers become advice monsters, we develop a sort of action hero mindset, believing that we must do whatever it takes to solve ALL the problems. We don’t consider the consequences. Our team members become overdependent on us. We become overwhelmed.
Oops.
Instead of enabling this codependent relationship, Michael encourages managers to coach their team members to solve their own problems. By strengthening the team to become more self-sufficient, your team members will achieve growth and deliver better results for the business. But we can’t get there unless we kick our bad “advice monster” coaching habit and develop our new coaching habit. The goal is to “stay curious longer” and “say less, ask more” during our coaching sessions with our team members.
Michael conceived 7 essential questions for managers to use during their coaching sessions:
1. The Kickstart Question: What’s on your mind?
2. The AWE Question: And what else?
3. The Focus Question: What’s the real challenge here for you?
4. The Foundation Question: What do you want?
5. The Lazy Question: How can I help?
6. The Strategic Question: If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
7. The Learning Question: What was most useful to you?
After I completed The Coaching Habit learning courses, I wanted to write a review for my blog. However, I struggled with the first draft of the review. Normally, I present my blog posts in a student-teacher style format, using real-life scenarios to share my insights into people management topics. I wanted to take a different approach with the format of the review. I didn’t know which approach to take. I found myself blocked.
Now, I could have told you about the 7 essential questions and checked off this blog post as done. That’s too easy. I used a growth mindset to come up with an alternative approach. What’s better than telling? Showing! I’ll show you how I used the 7 essential questions from The Coaching Habit to coach myself through my struggle to write this review.
The Kickstart Question: What’s on your mind?
Where do we begin our coaching session? With the kickstart question, of course! A simple yet effective question that gives you insight into what’s on your team member’s mind. The response usually involves the 3 P’s: project, people or (behavioral) patterns. The kickstart question gives the coaching conversation a sense of direction.
What’s on your mind? I completed The Coaching Habit training. I really enjoyed the learning courses. Michael Bungay Stanier is an engaging, lively speaker. His passion for developing leaders really comes across. Thanks to Michael, I learned about the power of staying curious a little longer. I also learned how my advice monster can inhibit growth. I liked The Coaching Habit so much that I’m going to review it for my blog.
The AWE Question: And what else?
The response to the kickstart question won’t always give your coaching conversation a sense of direction. The conversation needs to focus on a challenge related to projects, people or patterns. To dig a little deeper, we ask the AWE Question. I really like this question because it prevents the coach from jumping in with instant advice after a team member’s response to the kickstart question.
And what else? Okay. So I’m going to write a review about The Coaching Habit for my blog. That means I need to incorporate a funky T-shirt into the blog post. Which T-shirt should I use? Hulk, Spock or Action Hero T-Shirt? Hmmm…
The Focus Question: What’s the real challenge here for you?
We got the conversation rolling with the first two questions. Even though our team member has opened up, their responses may not be indicative of the real challenge for them. And this is the key to the Focus Question: It needs to focus on our team member’s personal challenge. Remember: We’re coaching them to become self-sufficient, leading them to develop a growth mindset to solve their own problems. We keep it personal by appending “for you” to the challenge question.
What’s the real challenge here for you? This will be my first review for the blog. I’m struggling with the format of the review. My usual student-teacher blog style doesn’t seem right for a review. Maybe it is? Actually, I want to try a different approach for this review. That means I need to break out of my old pattern. I’m blocked now, trying to figure out an unconventional style to use for this review.
The Foundation Question: What do you want?
Most people don’t have an issue with expressing their personal challenges. Right? In many cases, the venting person never stops to think about their desired outcome for a solution. I like how this question forces somebody to consider potential outcomes. An awkward question for the coach to ask, for sure. Uncomfortable silence is likely, as the team member considers the possibilities. An added benefit of this question: Our advice monster is blocked from hindering our progress on leading the way to becoming more self-sufficient!
What do you want? Well… I know that I don’t want to write a generic review that simply tells people about The Coaching Habit. I want to be creative with my review. I like the idea of showing how The Coaching Habit can be used to solve an actual problem.
The Lazy Question: How can I help?
As coaches, we have to be lazy. What? Yes, lazy! That means taming our advice monster. At this point, we’ve coached our team member to devise their own solution to their problem. We have to resist the urge to step in and offer our advice on implementation. The Lazy Question compels our team member to initiate a request for help from us, telling us what they need from us in order to be successful.
How can I help? That’s a great question. Thanks to this conversation, I’ve decided that I’m going to write a review of The Coaching Habit by showing the 7 questions in action. I’ll use my action hero T-shirt for the post. I’d like you to review a draft of my post before I click on the publish button. I’d like your feedback.
The Strategic Question: If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
Through our coaching session, we’ve identified the challenge and the solution. Pretty cool! Now, we need our team member to make a commitment to work on the solution. This question takes their decision on the solution to the next level. For example, if they decide to work on a specific project, they’re going to have to say no to other projects. Saying no to other things makes their decision real and actionable.
If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? Like I mentioned before, one of my goals with this post was to break out of my usual pattern of writing in a student-teacher format. I’m saying no to my usual blog format for this blog post. I’m trying out a new style.
The Learning Question: What was most useful to you?
At the conclusion of our coaching session, our goal is to have our team member acknowledge a learning moment. That acknowledgment needs to come from them, not the coach. We want them to walk away feeling uplifted and confident, knowing they have the ability to solve their own problems.
What was most useful to you? I learned that I can use the 7 essential questions from The Coaching Habit to solve a real-world problem! Also, I learned that I enjoy coming up with creative alternatives for writing a blog post.
Conclusion
The Coaching Habit helps managers to develop their coaching skills. Managers can lead their team members to achieve growth by consistently using the 7 essential questions during their engagements with their team. Using the techniques of The Coaching Habit, managers can teach their team members to solve their own problems. And if the dreaded advice monster shows up, remember to “stay curious longer” and “say less, ask more” to tame the unwelcome beast!