While coaching is a familiar discipline in America, Canada and the UK, in Australia it is a growing profession and one that still needs defining for many people. That means, conversations need to be had about what coaching is, and what it isn’t. Coaching training is not mentoring – coaching is a journey, peer to peer (not a mentor to mentee) where you create a resourceful space for your client to come into their own understanding of their issue and its solutions.  Coaching is also not Therapy, although many people seek out a Coach to answer some of life’s biggest and most important questions, like ‘how to be happier?’

Well-timed questions

Perhaps the most powerful coaching tool is the well-timed question. There is clearly nothing new about using questions to generate internal resourcefulness and understanding; Socrates was very keen on doing this in ancient Greece.

The well-timed question is not for the coach to find out information; it is for the client to go within to seek the knowledge, feeling or response that will bring a new perspective to the issue at hand.

Importance of presence

One of the most important aspects of questioning is the coach’s presence; being present with and to the client so that the most helpful question is apparent to the coach.

Context

The coaching presence ensures the coach and coachee are in the same context of understanding; so in reality, the words in the question are not so important as the relevance to what has come before, and what will help the coachee move into that resourceful space of connection with internal resources, where the solutions are all waiting.

Some favourites

Having noted that context is everything, there are, nonetheless, below are some that you can think about in self-reflection, such as journalling:

• What are you tolerating?
• What are you currently gaining from this situation? (The situation you want to change).
• If I could wave a magic wand and you woke up tomorrow and this problem was solved, how would it be different?

We would love to hear from coaches about your learnings about powerful questions.

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