Written by Mimi Village

How to use coaching conversations to empower your team

24th September, 2024   •  

‘I have quite a lot on my plate at the moment and it’s making me quite stressed’ 

A colleague comes to you and shares this, how do you respond? 

Often we can jump straight to problem-solving mode, ‘right, what can we do to reduce your workload’, or ‘let me help you finish this task’. 

What can be more effective is shifting from ‘tell’ to ‘ask’, taking a coaching approach and empowering the individual to come to a resolution. 

Coaching, rather than managing, places the focus on the individual’s development. It grows their skill and understanding and usually comes to a more productive and useful outcome. 

You can think of your role in this case similar to a doctor. It’s likely that what they initially share are the symptoms of the problem; you need to investigate further to help them find the underlying cause of the problem before thinking about treatments. 

80% of people who receive coaching report increased self-confidence, and over 70% benefit from improved work performance, relationships, and more effective communication skills.

What questions should we be asking? 

The coaching funnel is a useful tool to help us move through these conversations. 

One of the most powerful skills you can develop to be an effective coach is active listening. It’s important to consider, once we’ve asked the right question, are we really listening to understand rather than just formulating our response or getting our next question ready. Read our blog on listening to learn more. 

Not all questions will feel natural and authentic to you, so it’s thinking how can I adapt this to my language? Practice and test out different questions to see what suits your coaching style best.

Objective

We want to start by identifying the objective; people may share a problem with you to find a solution and get your ideas, explore an opportunity, or just simply vent. It’s really important that you are both on the same page about the direction of the conversation. 

• Make sure the focus is on them
  “What do you want to focus on today? What would you like to get out of this conversation?”
  
• Look to the future
  “What does success look like? What’s your ideal outcome?”
• They may come to you with multiple trains of thoughts; acknowledge this and separate the ideas to focus on one
  “I noticed you mentioned a couple of themes, what resonates the most? Which of these is most important?”

Explore 

Once we have established the objective, we can move to the ‘explore’ phase. 

At this stage we’re gaining more of an understanding of the context, giving them space and time to share a more complete picture 

• Ask expanding questions to encourage them to open up and share
  “Tell me more about that … and what else?”
• Uncover their motivations and how the situation has impacted them
  “What has pushed you to speak about it now?”
• Work together to understand the obstacles and challenges
  “What could be the potential challenges / barriers here?”
• Encourage them to consider other perspectives
  “What do you think XYZ’s perspective on the situation is?”

It can be useful at this stage to ‘playback’ which is when you repeat what they have shared in their words. This checks understanding and shows you’ve been listening. A study published in Psychological Science, found ‘playback’, using people’s words back to them, had a 20% increase in cooperative behaviour and a significantly higher perceived empathy rating. 

“From what you’ve shared it sounds like… Is that correct?”

Options 

Once we feel they have explored the situation sufficiently and we have sufficient context we can bring them ‘out of the clouds’ of exploring and understanding on to the ground with solution finding and next steps. 

• If they are blocked with tunnel vision on a solution, or can’t think of one it can be helpful to look to the past and future
  “Have you navigated a similar situation in the past?”
• It’s important to get get ALL options on the table
  “What options (possibilities) do you see?  What else?”
• Compare the value and output of the options, this helps with motivation towards the right option.
  “What value would there be if…?”

Action

The final stage is action. Here, we are defining next steps and creating accountability in what is going to happen. 

We want to co-create this plan so that the individual has clarity on outcomes from the conversation.

• Firstly, they need to choose an option
  “What option do you want to move forward with? What will you do?”
• Review the option together and ensure they are motivated to do it. This stage is often forgotten but is important.
  “Are you motivated to do this? How would you feel if you don’t move forward?”
• Make a plan of action.
  “What do you see as the next steps? How will you know when you have made progress?”

Summary 

Coaching doesn’t always come in the form of a nicely packaged and structured hour long coaching session. Having these questions at our fingertips allows us to take a coaching approach and weave in coaching habits to everyday conversations to empower and motivate our people.

To move through/structure a productive and motivating coaching conversation, use this coaching flow: 

• Objective: Clarify the objective together at the start  
• Explore: Understand the wider context and different perspectives
• Options: Consider all the options and outcomes of each
• Action: Define actions and next steps 

At Higson we run workshops and training programmes to help individuals and teams improve their coaching and management skills. If you would like to learn more please get in touch.