{"id":36493,"date":"2017-05-17T04:45:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T09:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/?p=36493"},"modified":"2017-05-17T04:45:29","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T09:45:29","slug":"effective-coaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/effective-coaches\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Habits of Highly Effective Coaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever had the benefit of a great coach, you know just how powerful coaching can be. But leaders know it can sometimes be difficult to coach the people on your own team.
\n
\nIt\u2019s one of the main reasons people are reluctant to delegate work in their Drudgery and Disinterest Zones. It takes so much time and effort we\u2019re tempted to throw in the towel, even though it would save us tons of time in the long run.
\nBut it doesn\u2019t have to be so frustrating.
\n
\nI recently spoke with coaching expert Michael Bungay Stanier<\/a> about his new book The Coaching Habit<\/a><\/em>, which can help us all to get the most out of coaching for the least effort.
\n\u201cYour job as a leader and a manager is to help people become more competent, more confident, more capable, more autonomous,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause that helps them, but honestly it helps you. Because I\u2019m betting nobody here is going \u2018Well thank goodness I can just coach people all day because I\u2019ve got nothing else to do.'\u201d
\nBungay Stanier warns there\u2019s something standing in the way of good life coaching: our own instincts. We often approach coaching in exactly the wrong way.
\nThere are three habits we must adopt to make coaching better for us, better for those who we are coaching, and better for our organizations: give less advice, ask questions instead, and ask the kind of questions that help our teammates learn and grow.<\/p>\n

1. Give Less Advice<\/h3>\n

The first change is something we need to stop doing, or at least drastically slow down. When members of our team come to us seeking feedback, we jump in with advice. That\u2019s the wrong reflex to have, but it\u2019s all too common.
\n\u201cWe are all advice-giving maniacs,\u201d Bungay Stanier cautions. \u201cWe love it. We don\u2019t even know what the problem is, but we\u2019ve got some thoughts about how to go around fixing it.\u201d
\nAll this rampant advising \u201cfeels pretty good,\u201d he admits. It flatters us, and sometimes it even solves specific, small problems. But it creates a bigger problem: Our teams, those who we are coaching, become too dependent on us for answers. It stymies their development and it frustrates us as more and more requests for help mount.
\nThe blame here often lies with ourselves. Our quick answers have sent the wrong message, training them to rely on us and not work things out for themselves. It\u2019s \u201cdebilitating for them, exhausting for you,\u201d Bungay Stanier says.
\nThe first habit we must adopt is becoming slow to offer advice. What do we offer instead?<\/p>\n

2. Ask Questions Instead<\/h3>\n

Bungay Stanier looks to science for how our brains are wired for success or failure. He learned,<\/p>\n

\n Neuroscience says that if people are feeling autonomous, feeling that they are important, feeling like they are clear on what\u2019s happening, feeling like you\u2019re with them, they\u2019re much more likely to stay engaged and actually bring the best of themselves.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Asking questions is the best way to promote those feelings. That\u2019s the second habit.
\nWhen a team member pops in your office or Slack channel to request help solving a problem, probe them first. Say, \u201cThat\u2019s a great question. Before I share my ideas, what ideas do you already have?\u201d and listen.
\nI\u2019ve done this myself and so often it works. People usually come up with the answer that I would have given them, but it\u2019s ten times more powerful because they come up with it on their own. They feel brilliant. They feel smart. And the problem gets solved.
\nBut what if their first answers clearly miss the mark? Should you jump right in with the right one? No.<\/p>\n

3. Ask Better Questions<\/h3>\n

Try something else first. Ask, \u201cWhat else could you do?\u201d Bungay Stanier calls this the \u201cbest coaching question in the world.\u201d The point isn\u2019t to grill your team member but to force them to expand their thinking on the subject and to show them that you actually value their thinking and would like for them to do more of it.
\nAsking questions designed to help team members learn and grow is the third habit.
\nSome expert coaches go so far as to take a purely Socratic approach. Bungay Stanier doesn\u2019t say that. He acknowledges that your experiences are useful too, and can be shared. But he says it is hugely important that we ask questions and that we learn to ask better questions as we go.
\n\u201cPeople do not learn when you tell them stuff,\u201d says Bungay Stanier. \u201cIt goes in one ear. It goes out the other ear pretty quickly.\u201d
\nExperience is a great teacher, but it\u2019s limited by itself. Our people really grow \u201cwhen they have a moment to reflect on what just happened.\u201d You can help put them in that state of mind by asking a very specific question: \u201cWhat was most useful or most valuable about this for you?\u201d
\nIt\u2019s a great question in an unbelievably useful book. And there\u2019s so much more to it than what I can fit in one blog post. These days coaching is my No. 1 job. If I had read The Coaching Habit<\/a><\/em> earlier in my career, I\u2019m confident I would have seen better, faster results with far less frustration.
\n

Which of these three habits do you need to adopt in your coaching?<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever had the benefit of a great coach, you know just how powerful coaching can be. But leaders know it can sometimes be difficult to coach the people on your own team. It\u2019s one of the main reasons people are reluctant to delegate work in their Drudgery and Disinterest Zones. It takes so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":36497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[160,322,33,663],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n3 Habits of Highly Effective Coaches | Full Focus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/effective-coaches\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"3 Habits of Highly Effective Coaches | Full Focus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you\u2019ve ever had the benefit of a great coach, you know just how powerful coaching can be. But leaders know it can sometimes be difficult to coach the people on your own team. It\u2019s one of the main reasons people are reluctant to delegate work in their Drudgery and Disinterest Zones. 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