You are not an expert in everything. Hopefully you already know this! But the most difficult hurdle in coaching is to avoid jumping in with your own expertise.
As I wrote last week, creating space for others to think without creating answers for them results in much better quality outcomes. But this is difficult to do at first. That’s why I recommend starting coaching with a basic model that provides enough structure to make it easier to focus on listening rather than responding.
In a moment, I’ll share the model I use to teach coaching. But at the heart of any coaching is two basic tenants: ask good questions and welcome good silence.
Questions and silence
As a coach, you will mainly be asking questions and reflecting back on what you hear. A good question is simple, clean and doesn’t have an implied answer. Avoid the temptation of giving advice in the guise of questions! ‘Have you thought about x?’ is not a coaching question. ‘What are some options you can think of?’ is a much more open, coaching-style alternative. It might prompt the answer you were already thinking of, or it might not. As a coach, your job is not to get attached to the solutions and to trust that good things will emerge from the process eventually.
Once you start coaching, you will immediately notice periods of silence. This can often feel uncomfortable, but it’s a core part of coaching.
We’re not looking for the immediate, surface answers. Allowing someone to slow down and take a moment to think about something is incredibly freeing, and will lead to better ideas.
Of course, there’s a difference between an awkward silence where the coachee is confused by the question or waiting for you to say something, and a good silence where they are thinking. But if you pay attention, you should be able to tell the difference. Remember that silence will feel a lot more uncomfortable to you than it does to them, and allow more silence than you might instinctually aim for.
A basic model: GROW
A simple framework to use whilst you are getting started is the GROW model. This stands for Goal, Reality, Options and Way forward. You structure your conversation around those four areas, asking questions like:
- Goal
- What do you want to get out of this session?
- What’s your overall aim for this area of work?
- Reality
- How are things going at the moment?
- What’s going well?
- What’s going less well?
- What resources are available to you?
- Options
- What are some ways you could approach this?
- What’s the pros and cons for each option?
- What option do you feel most drawn to?
- Way forward
- What will you do differently as a result of our conversation?
- What actions are you going to take?
- What will you do first?
Aim to spend most of the session on Reality and Options, with at least five minutes to explore the Goal and Way forward.
When to abandon the model
The list of questions is not a fixed set of things you must ask, but some suggestions you might find helpful. If the conversation goes in a different direction, feel free to follow it. Just make sure you are asking good questions that relate to what they have said.
It can be really helpful to summarise at regular intervals what you’ve heard and check your understanding. Doing this forces you to really listen and helps clarify for your coachee what they’ve been saying. It will also often prompt you to ask new questions based on your summary.
Starting a coaching session by asking about goals and finishing by asking about actions is almost always helpful. In between, you just need to ask questions to help explore their situation. If the GROW model helps with that, brilliant. If not, ignore it!
As you get more comfortable with coaching you will find some of your skills become automatic. You’ll feel more in the moment and able to ask questions as they occur to you, without worrying about structuring the conversation or what you’re going to say next. The model is like training wheels. Once your skills are more embedded, you won’t need the model any more.
Practices for getting started
One thing that’s really helped me grow my coaching skills is getting coached myself. It’s much easier to understand why you should let the person come up with their own answers when you’ve experienced this yourself.
But if you don’t have access to a professional coach, don’t worry. I often teach whole teams the GROW model, getting them to pair up and coach each other before swapping. My current team loves doing this and has instigated a regular coaching slot to practice regularly.
You don’t have to be brilliant at coaching to be helpful. I’ve been lucky enough to have professional coaching several times over my career, and each time it has been eye-opening. But I’ve also appreciated sessions with novice coaches who are trying out their skills for the first time.
Coaching is a skill you can learn, and learning it together reduces some of the pressure. Next week, I’ll talk more about how to take this further – how to become a better coach once you’ve mastered the basics. Subscribe to my monthly newsletter so that you don’t miss a post.
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