Review of The Coaching Habit – Say less, ask more and change the way you lead forever by Michael Bungay Stanier

Coaching is simple and can be done in 10 minutes or less, should be a daily informal act and is a habit you can build says the author. He uses the rest of the book to share and explain his seven essential questions. To start with he teaches the reader how to build a habit and to do that effectively you need five essentials: a reason, a trigger, a micro-habit, an effective practice and a plan. These five are used over and over throughout the book as he teaches each of the seven questions. But, reader pay attention, only one question at a time! Here are the seven questions with short explanations.

Book review of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

1. The opening question, the icebreaker, the kickstart question – “What’s on your mind?” This question allows the client to spend the coaching time on what matters most to them, and keeps small talk to a minimum.
2. AWE, The awe question – “And what else?” This question allows to client to go as deep as they like and explore options that are available to solve the dilemma. This question can be asked repeatedly and is a tool to use when we want to start giving advice.
3. The focus question – “What’s the real challenge here for you?” This question helps to boils down to what the main thing really is for the client.
4. The foundation question – “What do you want?” The author calls this the Goldfish question, since it can elicit bugged out eyes and gaping mouth, since, he says, we often don’t know what we want.
5. The lazy question – “How can I help?” Keeping the relationship squarely in the autonomy space, this question keeps the coach from rushing in with the answer, but allows the client to state what would be helpful for them.
6. The strategic question – “If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?” This question honors the sacrifice that is made when making a decision. The no can give boundaries to the yes.
7. The learning question – “What was most useful for you?” This question helps to solidify the learning that may have happened in the coaching call for the client, by having a change to reflect on what made an impact during the session.

There are awesome coaching tips sprinkled throughout the book like asking one question at a time, learning to get comfortable with silence, really listening and relying more on “what” questions. This was a super practical coaching book that I found quite helpful and would recommend to anyone looking to be more coach like in their work or relationships, as well as work with clients.

Thank you for reading my review of The Coaching Habit. To get your own copy of this book click here.

Want to read another book review? Try The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke Harris, M.D.

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