I love basketball. Even in my middle age (When do you leave middle age?), I still play a couple of times per week.
Since I love the game, I like to learn from its coaches. I notice a trend in modern coaches that differs from the popular coaches of my youth.
- The coaches of yesteryear often yelled and screamed when players did something wrong. (Not all, but a lot.)
- Now, when a player does something wrong, many coaches call him over and ask him: “What did you see?” The coach then gives feedback based on the player’s answer and what he saw from the sideline.
A well-placed question like, “What did you see?” or “What happened over there?” does a few things:
- It assumes the best in the player. It assumes the player saw or did something in response to the situation that may explain his actions.
- It opens the lines of communication.
- It applies one of the principles of Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People: Seek first to understand, then be understood.
The best coaches know that asking the right questions is the first step in making lasting change.
In a 2014 article in the Harvard Business Review, Amy Jen Su highlights “The Questions Good Coaches Ask.”
She writes that to get others to respond effectively, “your questions should be phrased as open-ended queries. It can be helpful to think about the first word: open-ended questions often begin with “what,” “how,” “who,” “where,” and “when.”
Pro Tip: If your coaching question begins with WHY?, it can put people on the defensive because it questions their motives.
So, before your next coaching session, write down some good questions to ask.