You don’t need to be a trained coach to hold powerful coaching conversations. Developing the ability to listen actively and hold a coaching conversation is a valuable transformational leadership skill for anyone to have—no matter what profession you’re in.
Today, many organizations are moving towards creating what’s known as a coaching culture. The goal is to help empower, encourage and teach through an open conversation between managers and employees.
Creating a coaching culture helps an organization move away from dictating what steps need to be taken to solve particular problems and challenge. And creates a culture that involves two-sided conversations to set goals and decide an appropriate course of action.
It’s thought that when enough people within an organization learn to hold coaching conversations the entire organizational culture begins to shift. As a result, an environment is created where people are willing to share their ideas and suggestions for improvement more freely. In turn, raising morale across the entire organization.
Whether you’re a professional coach, employee, or manager anyone can benefit from learning basic coaching skills. In this article, we’ll explore how to hold an effective coaching conversation and provide some examples of scripts or questions to ask during your own coaching sessions.
- What makes an effective coaching conversation?
- The three keys to any successful coaching conversation
- 5 Tips for creating more impactful coaching conversations
- Creating a coaching conversation template
What makes an effective coaching conversation?
All effective coaching conversations start with asking good questions. By asking the right coaching questions, you help others gain insight into the problems or challenges they’re facing. Coaching conversations are a great way to reinforce people’s strengths and help others take responsibility for their actions, development, and overall success.
Coaching conversations can be held in a formal exchange, such as a coaching session or employee review. But, shorter and more informal sessions can take place in the elevator, at lunch or in the hallway.
The first step to holding an effective coaching conversation is to ensure that the person you are about to enter into a conversation with is open to giving and receiving feedback. Not all conversations lend themselves to coaching opportunities, so it is important to start by asking questions like these:
- “Can you please help me walk through an idea?”
- “If you have a minute, I’d love to run something by you.”
- “Are you open to feedback on X”
By opening a coaching conversation with questions similar to those above, you prepare yourself to receive feedback on an idea you’re about to share. You also prepare others for situations where you will likely be offering them feedback.
The three keys to any successful coaching conversation
The three keys to any coaching conversation are to approach it from a place of positivity, collaboration and support. This means entering into a conversation with a judgment-free mindset and learning to keep your focus on the big picture impact rather than individual reactions within the conversation.
1. Positivity
It’s important to go into every coaching conversation from a place of positivity. This allows you to be open to new goals and outcomes without any preconceived ideas of how the conversation will go. Staying positive also eliminates the very human tendency to get defensive and take things personally within a conversation.
2. Collaboration
Collaboration is key to any coaching conversation because it allows learning opportunities for both parties through a two-way conversation. Being collaborative means getting curious about what the other person is asking for. It also means staying present and open to what the other person has to say.
3. Support
Lastly, it’s important that all coaching conversations come from a place of support. This means giving the other person your full attention and focus, which may require you to take a few minutes ahead of your coaching session to put aside your own stresses and challenges.
5 Tips for creating more impactful coaching conversations
These 5 tips will help you hold more powerful and impactful coaching conversations.
1. Listen intently
While holding a coaching conversation, it is important to listen intently. Try to stay clear of interruptions and our very human tendency to fill uncomfortable pauses or moments of silence with words.
A good rule of thumb is the 90/10 rule, which means spending 90% of your conversation listening and only 10% of it talking. Remember to ask one question at a time, rather than stacking many questions together. It’s also important to enter the conversation with an open mind and willingness to listen to avoid making assumptions about the conversation’s outcome.
2. Reflect back
Reflecting back means summarizing what you heard to ensure that you correctly understood the person you’re speaking with. Try reflecting during coaching conversations to gain clarity and insight into what the other person is trying to express. A great way to do this is to ask questions like:
- “ What I heard you say is…….”
- “Am I hearing you correctly, you said….”
- “It sounds like you’re saying that…”
Next, take a pause and wait for the other person’s answer. They’ll either say yes or go on to tell you what they meant.
3. Be curious
Being genuinely curious about what the other person has to say allows them to share their thoughts more freely. When people can speak freely, they often come to their own conclusion on the next best course of action.
Practice asking simple yet powerful questions such as:
- “What would happen if you explored that further?”
- “Is there anything holding you back from trying that today?”
- “What steps would you need to take to make that happen?”
When you ask simple and powerful questions, it gets people thinking and problem-solving without feeling like you’ve handed them the answer.
3. Avoid imposing your opinion
Often when someone asks us for feedback, our instinct is to problem solve. To hold an effective coaching conversation means learning to move away from that very human tendency. Instead, the focus lies on ensuring that the person in front of you feels heard. Doing this requires developing the ability to take your opinions out of the conversation. You can practice saying things like:
- “Your smile suggests you’re really excited about this, am I correct?”
- “How does that make you feel?”
- “What comes up for you when you think about trying that?”
5. Take time for takeaways
For every coaching conversation, make sure to set aside time to allow time for the coachee to solidify what action steps they will take following your conversation. You can do this by setting 5-10 minutes aside at the end of your conversation and asking questions like:
- “What step are you most excited to start on?”
- “What three steps will you take towards your goal this week?”
- “What had the biggest impact for you today?”
- “What two things are you taking away from this conversation today?”
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Creating a coaching conversation template
The following is a rough template for a one hour coaching session. Keep in mind that every coaching conversation is different. However, when you’re first learning to hold coaching conversations, a rough template and timeline can be help your coaching session stay on task.
Step 1: Clarifying the direction of the conversation 5-10 minutes
Ask questions like:
- “Does this still feel relevant to talk about today?”
- “You mentioned wanting to talk about X, is that correct?”
- “Are you open to feedback on X?”
Step 2: Uncover problems and challenges: 30-40 minutes
Ask questions like:
- “What I hear you saying is…”
- “How does that make you feel?”
- “Is there an area you see for improvement?”
Step 3: Set goals 5-10 minutes
Ask questions like:
- “What would you change if you could?”
- “How could we improve on X”
- “Do you have any suggestions? “
Step 4: Identify takeaways and action steps 5-10 minutes
Ask questions like:
- “What action step will you try first?”
- “What 3 things are you taking away from today’s conversation?”
- What step are you open to trying this week?”
For more insight into holding powerful coaching conversations, we recommend Jerry Connor & Karim Hirani’s book the Four Greatest Coaching Conversations.
Once you’ve mastered holding effective coaching conversations, why not share your knowledge with the world. Help more people learn the impact of holding coaching conversations by starting an online course.
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