A List of Brilliant Coaching Questions

Thanks for the reference to The Perfect Question, Linda. The question “What is out of Harmony, and how do I restore it?” is my best starting point for coaching conversations because it immediately sets the goal – restoring whatever is out of Harmony back into harmonic resonance. But the person I’m working with will then often throw up a bunch of roadblocks as an excuse as to why Disharmony needs to be maintained. The dreaded “becauses”. “It’s out of Harmony because …” It’s like bringing a note from one’s mother: “Please excuse my child from having to be in Harmony because …”

“What if …” questions are the best means I’ve found for getting past the “becauses”. “What if you did have enough money to do that?” “What if you did make friends easily?” “What if you were able to get past your writer’s block?” “What if your employees were properly motivated?”

“What if …” questions are suitable for use with any roadblock the client throws up. They slice past the objections and keep us from getting stuck. Once the client gets to the point where they can actually see themselves at the goal state, albeit by assuming a lot of “what ifs”, they become enamored with the ultimate state they want to reach and are a lot more motivated for us to go back and deal with the “becauses” in a realistic manner. The “becauses” then become issues to be dealt with rather than excuses.

I think this is a great idea, Linda. Thanks for suggesting it. I look forward to reading about all the inventive questions that my fellow coaches use.

Lable

The following are questions that I ask in my coaching sessions which I originally acquired from Dr Rob McNeilly (www.cet.net.au)

1. Ask your client ‚ÄúWhat will be different when you have your solution?”
2. Ask yourself ‚ÄúWhat’s missing for this client?”
3. Ask clients randomly about what it is about the problem that is problematic, even if you are both completely clear.
4. Ask clients randomly about what problem is important to make a difference to, even if you are both totally certain.
5. Ask clients what they like about their likes. What specific resource begins to emerge?
6. Ask the client “what’s missing?”

I find these useful and hope others do to.

“Right this moment, what physical sensations can you identify?”

Our bodies are far better truth tellers than our minds or our emotions, and it is very difficult to dispute the tangible proof they offer to a client who otherwise has difficulty thinking through to the answers.

It’s both grounding and disarming, and a great short-cut through the ‘yeah, but..’ and is a direct road to the beliefs that act like chains keeping a client stuck.

Note to coaches who’ve never used this one: expect your client to look at you as though you are from Mars. It means you’ve just tapped into a powerful source of information that they don’t normally access.

Thomas Leonard had a good one that I have found amazingly useful at various points of my coaching career:

Why are you telling me this?

Thank you for stimulating me to review my own habits to decide which questions I find bring special value to my sessions with my coaching clients.

Here is a brief list of questions that have arisen in recent sessions:

1. What will it mean for your life/business/career if you DON’T….?

2. What will be different about the way you see yourself if you…?

3. What major fear will you be addressing if you…?

4. What ‘magic solution’ would make that fear decrease/disappear?

5. How can you/Who can help you make that ‘magic solution’ become reality?

I like to use the question “what makes that important to you” at the early goal setting stages of the coaching conversation as it often provides a heartfelt connection between the client and their stated desired outcome (or it makes it clear their stated outcome is not what they really want).

Into the conversation, I find the most powerful question do come in the moment from the energy between coach and client and I allow myself to be guided in that way. In doing so I have learned two things (at least): the first is that the question that sometimes feels like the uncomfortable one to ask is often the most crucial one for the client to hear – so I ground, breathe and give them the gift of asking it; secondly I believe holding the silence and the space for any question to resonate fully with the client is what can make even the most simple question powerful.

Great conversation topic! Thanks for all the ideas.

Aileen

When clients are anxious I’ve found it helpful to ask: “Where do you know you are stopping short?”

By answering this question in the company of a good coach, the person can begin to see the way forward. I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately – it leaves you nowhere to hide!

Thanks for Coaching Commons. I love being part of this community.

Regards to All,
Elle

It’s tempting to look for a list of magic questions that will unlock all of your client’s self-limiting behaviors. I don’t think these exist. It’s always a in-the-moment conversation and I try to be aware of any “script” that I might have in my mind. Having said that, it is helpful to have a coaching toolkit that includes a variety of power questions. I tend to go with broad questions that allow the coachee to come forth with whatever answer has value to them. For example, I tend to like:
“How is that working for you?”
“How will it feel to do that?”
“What other options can you think of?”
“How does that fit in with your goal?”
“What is the worst thing / the best thing that could happen?”
“If you take this step, what would you do next?”

Love the concept . . . Wonderful idea?

Some of my favorites:
What inspires you about you?
What is the gift in this challenge?
Who do you need to be . . . to invite the flow of effortless manifestation?
Let’s play a game: You are God . . . What do you choose as God?

Tons of blessings,
Nancy

Some from Tim Gallwey that are often useful and powerful:

How do you know?

What can you control in the situation?
What can’t you control in the situation?
What might you control that you haven’t been?

Great idea Linda!

Some of my favourite questions:

1. What’s the problem in a nutshell/in one sentence/in one word?
2. Who will you have to become to have all that you want?
3. OK, so imagine you have a magic wand. Now what? (useful in SO many scenarios!)
4. Where do YOU add stress to your life?
5. What do you get out of having this difficulty/problem? What are the benefits?
6. Think of someone you truly respect and admire. How would they look differently at this situation? What would they do in your position?
7. If you were at your best, what would you do right now?

I have been collecting questions for a while and really want to put them into an ebook!

Warmly, Emma-Louise

One question I find really helpful – the very first one of the session: “What would you like to have happen by the end of this session?”

Really sets up the focus for the session, in the context of coaching as something purposeful. Also the client assumes quite naturally a mind-set that something will happen, be achieved or occur!

I think the origin of this question is probably in Clean Language. I also like the way that it holds the client’s agenda from the start.

Warmest,
Lisa

At times I will ask the 5 whys? depending on the situation and be careful in my tone and actions.
Says a client wishes has a challenge and create a certain reaction to it. We can ask,
Why do you think this makes you react this way? and when the answer, we ask them ‘Why’ does this make you react this way. Why does this make you mad? Usually the third ‘Why’ may expose the underlying reason which we can see if this is healthy or not for the client.

Usually if I’m trying to help a client get to the bottom of where they’re stuck (and they’re all over the place with their energy / or very overwhelmed), I’ll zero in with questions like:

1) In a perfect world, what would [x] look like for you?
2) If you could only pick one TODAY [ideal client, issue to solve, battle to fight, etc] what would it be?

Sometimes people just need a place to start the journey without worrying about being right or wrong or tripping, and these two questions are surefire ways to kick start that!

I am really enjoying reading everyone’s list of wonderful coaching questions! I work largely with teens with AD/HD and have not found a specific set of questions that are consistently helpful with my clients. Instead, I find I rely on intuition and bravery for my individualized best questions.

Thanks for this interesting exchange,

Liz Ahmann

Thanks for the fascinating responses so far. I tend to believe that the most powerful questions arise out of the moment, but I do have a few favourites that I keep tucked away for sticky moments – my favourite is

What knowledge do you have about this situation that you are hiding from yourself?

It usually produces a look of dumbfounded amazement, followed by a very busy silence…and more often than not a door is unlocked for the client.

When clients are procrastinating with “I’ll do this (have this, be this) when I get(that)my favourite question is

“What’s stopping you from having this right now?”

This has been met with jaw dropping silence, followed by “OMGosh actually nothing” and then a stream of possibilities. A whole new dialogue opens up.

Wow- these questions are sensational! I just started compiling them in a document and am going to keep tracking this thread and adding to it! I love hearing what works for other people.

I’m going to throw one out that goes in a bit of a different direction, but tends to have powerful results for me:

When the client is on the verge of tears (you can either see tears welling up or hear it in their voice) then ask, “What do the tears want to say?”

It gives them permission to speak from the heart and beautiful things inevitably flow out.

I’ll throw out one more bonus one too. After a session of hard work, ask the client: “What would you like to celebrate about your work today?” Great way to deepen the learning and help them recognize what they accomplished!

Keep the great questions coming,
Sarah

Lable, I just read your book, In Case of Emergency, Ask Question, and you have some great questions and insights in there! I really enjoyed it and will refer to it often.

I’m just getting started in this work, but I’ve been having good success with the question, “What would have to be true in order for you to feel confident moving forward?”

1- If you knew that people would follow you where would you lead them?

2-What is the one question you are not asking yourself?

3-What is the one thing that nobady knows about you?

Hi,

Everytime I ask this question, people remember it:

What would you have to do again if in the future you want to be in the same situation you are now?

Ana

Oh Ana this is a good one. It works for situations people want to change as well as situations they want to stay the same. Thanks so much for this idea.

Best,
Elle

Generally, all questions are brilliant or near brilliant or not so brilliant depending on the context in question.

Perhaps when we ask a question, we could validate with:
“What are the indications/evidences that I have asked the ‘right’ question in this context?”

If there are ‘positive indications/evidences’, then the question is brilliant. Am I correct?

Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.

Good point, Billy. One way I know I’ve asked a brilliant question is if I get a pregnant pause. You can also hear the aha in the client’s tone of voice when they do respond.

I absoluetly agree with Sue… the longer the silence, the better the question

Now, what if we are to measure the reactions or responses of our clents/coachees as measurements of how effective, impactful and brilliant our ‘coaching questions’ are?

If we take ‘silence’ as a measurement, how do we measure it? Response time/duration to access ‘internal frames’ in order to respond to the ‘coaching question’?; the ‘quality’ of the response that would ‘discover’ the ‘answers’ that the client/coachee is seeking (whether consciously or unconsciously or intuitively)?; the shift in ‘frames’/'insights’/'paradigms’ that the client/coachee is experiencing as a result of the ‘coaching question’?; or what else?

Should we be focusing on ‘coaching brilliant questions’ themselves; or should we explore further on what measurements of responses/reactions that ‘brilliant coaching questions’ can bring about?

Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia

If you could go back in time what advice would you give your younger self?

My question to people I coach is; If you could look at the bigger picture and there were no obatacles in the way what would your goal look like?

My clients all lack direction and clarity in their life. They also allow fears and limiting self-beliefs to hold them back from achieving their hearfelt deep desires.
I ask the following 10 base questions:
1. Who are you?
2. Why are you here? What are you here to do?
3. What is the one thing you can say that nobody else can say?
4. Why should I believe you?
5. What are you afraid of? What could be holding you back?
6. What is most important to you? (values)
7. What are your natural gifts/talents? What is your core gift?
8. What are your strengths?
9. What are you passionate about?
10.What exactly does your dream life look like?

When a client is feeling stuck and having problems resolving their “stickiness” I ask the clean coaching question ….. and that [clients own issue] is like what? Then we can talk about, resolve and move the “metaphor”. It works every time

As a business and executive improvement coach, I begin by asking the chief officer this question: Is there a horizontal or vertical style of communication in place; do you as the leader only count on your staff to know what is going on, or is there an open and horizontal line of communication from you, all the way to the very nadir of your organization, and then back to you again? Like most leaders who go through this exercise, they begin to question whether or not they really do know what is going on in their workplace. I have proven time and again to many executives that whoever sets up ‘awareness’ in their own system, will know more about what is happening at that place of business than anyone else there.

What a great idea this is! So much useful information. I like to ask the client ‘what lens are you looking through right now’. That often gets them to think about it from a different perspective.

Here are some more that are great to use:
What tools do you know about that you haven’t used yet? Which will you try?
What could you change/do to make the situation more positive?
What have you tried so far?
What are you holding as true that may not be?