The 9 Coaching Keys Questions

The first four questions are based within the behavioral focus stream, questions 5 to 7 are questions from the cognitive stream and 8 to 10 from the unconscious cognitive stream

1 WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE?
This is a typical question for use within the behavioral coaching model. The aim is to help the coachee to explicitly state his goal. Frequently less experienced coaches take at face value the first statement and move on, and thus need to return at a later stage to this.
More experienced coaches recognize that time spent at this stage exploring the features of the goal will save time later.


2. WHAT IS HAPPENING?
This question aims to help the coach and coachee gather evidence on what is the current situation. How close or far is the coachee from his actual challenges.
Bringing them back to the present not tempted to accept at face value what the coachee provides as evidence. It is wise for the coach to challenge initial claims, and seek third party evidence for these. A candid and direct open communication will provide such evidence and help ensure a rounded view, not a single perspective, whether coming from either party


3 WHAT OPINIONS DO YOU THINK THERE ARE?
Exploring options is a valuable process in all coaching, if there is a belief that the coachee already has the answer to his own questions and doubts. Reviewing options is a two parts process. The coachee needs to be clear what criteria he is evaluating the options against. As a result the coachee needs to generate the criteria first, before he can start a process of generating or evaluating options


4 CAN YOU SUMMARIZE WHAT YOU GOING TO DO AND BY WHEN?
This question is concerned with action planning when working in the behavioral focus stream. The question encourages coaches to take responsibility for reviewing their process, summarizing what has been discussed and to formally state what they intend to do. This is useful question to ask towards the end of a coaching session, even if the coach has been working with cognitive and unconscious cognitive aspects.
The coach may then encourage the coachee to document this, and develop an action plan that includes a series of sub-goals or steps that take him to this goal over the coming week, month or year ,


5 HOW WOULD YOUR BOSS, MENTOR OR COLLEGUE SEE THIS SITUATION?
This question encourages the coachee to begin to explore the issue or challenge that he faces from a number of different perspectives. Often an issue looks to be an insurmountable problem to us, but when considered from the perspective of another person, either solution can be found or a deeper understanding of the issue gained. A parallel type questions is asking the coachee to consider the challenge as if he were a famous person. For a management issue, the coach may ask the coachee to consider how Richard Branson would deal with the problem.
For a relationship issue, we might select a different characters offering different perspective: Marilyn Monroe and Nelson Mandela. Initially the coachee typically provides a short or flippant remark, but the coach needs to focus the coachee’s response and ensure that he explores the issue and provides a what, where and when descriptive answer.


6. WOULD LIKE YOU TO CLOSE YOUR EYES AND DESCRIBE TO ME WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE EVENT WENT PERFECTLY?
This visualization technique gets coachee to engage with visualization and explore what they see and, with follow up questions, what they feel, smell and think. Evidence has shown in the sports psychology arena that visualization not only builds self-confidence but also creates physical changes in the brain structure that aid subsequent muscle movement and thus enhance performance


7. CAN YOU SUMMARIZE FOR ME THE TASK THAT YOU WILL TEY OUT BEFORE WE MEET AGAIN?
The summarizing task that has already been discussed is applied in this context to focus the attention of the coachee on a homework task. The use of the task provides an opportunity for emersion gradual exposure to the challenging behavior, Follow up questions might be
”What would stop you doing and achieving this?”
“What could you do to overcome these barriers?”
These questions enable the coachee to prepare for the real world of competing priorities and stakeholders who may need to be persuaded



8. TELL ME ABOUT A TIME WHEN YOU HAVE FELT A SIMILAR FEELING BEFORE
This may be useful question to explore patterns. Preceding the question the coach will have encouraged coachee to talk about the current issue or problem, and in particular to draw out the feelings within their body which they experience. Using these bodily sensations the coach may then ask the pattern question that may help coachee to identify similar events, but to access these bodily feelings rather than events.


9. HOW READY DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE TO CHANGE ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10?
WHERE 10 IS THAT YOU HAVE ALREADYMADE THE CHANGE, AND 0 THAT YOU
ARE NOT AT ALL INTERESTED IN CHANGING?

This question refers to the motivational interviewing approach. This is a complex technique and suggests that the developing coach would benefit from training before making use of the technique. However, questions such as this provide clues to whether the coachee is likely to change, or if he needs more help to explore the benefits of changing. A low score of 1 to 7 would suggest the focusing on change tools would be a waste of time and effort; instead the coach needs to invest time exploring motivation and helping the coachee to develop the intrinsic motivation to change l