The Coaching Habit - Michael Bungay Stanier - Part 3

The Coaching Habit -
Michael Bungay Stanier

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 138

  May 18, 2017 

Book 39 - The Coaching Habit -
Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way You Lead Forever
Michael Bungay Stanier (2016)
 Part 3 - pages 105-159
Reading Time - 1 hour

Questions 4 and 5 are powerful ones as well. Question 4 gets to the heart - What do You Want? What do you Really Want? There is a distinction to be made between wants and needs. But ultimately, under every seemingly frivolous want is an underlying Need. They can be grouped under the following main broad categories: Affection, Creation, Recreation, Freedom, Identity, Understanding, Participation, Protection, Subsistence. Oftentimes when we are griping out something or coming with a huge list of problems and issues - this is a good question that can get to the heart of the matter. On the other hand... having been asked this question myself, I find myself a bit stymied in answering it. Do I really know what I want?

One of the tips the author offers is... get comfortable with silence. If you ask someone one of these coaching questions... sit in the silence after the question and allow the person time to formulate this answer. We might feel like a minute has gone past, but on average it's only a few seconds. Just sit and be calm.

Question 5 is the Lazy Question... which is an intriguing title. So... here's the thing... when we help someone... we raise our status and lower theirs. In any interaction, there are three Archetypal roles that we tend to circulate through: Victim, Persecutor and Rescuer. We can get caught in a Drama Triangle, cycling through all three of these in one interaction. How do we break out of the cycle? Ask the following - How can I Help? It gets us out of thinking we know how to help and shifts the responsibility to them. Another way to phrase it, a bit more bluntly, is: What Do You Want From Me? And... in case you want to soften that... preface it by "out of curiosity..." or "Just so I know..." or "To help me understand better..." or "To make sure I'm clear...".

At all costs... avoid the cheddar on the mousetrap... when someone asks you "What do you think I should do about..." Don't answer it!! Remember... we don't have the answer... they do. And if we ask a question... we really need to listen to the answer.