How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Page 26

Open questions:
Obvious line to take for collecting information, for
stimulating coachee to talk, for helping coachee describe a
situation or put a feeling into words, or for making them
reflect on a specific subject.
Open questions often start with: who – what – where – why
– when – where to – where from - what for – which - how –
how man y - ….
They rarely start with a verb.
The use of “why” has to be carefully considered, since this
kind of questions easily lead to coachees feeling that they
have to justify themselves and then often leads to a
defensive attitude.
In coaching it is recommended to start asking about an
experience or situation and then move to asking about
connected emortions.
Examples:
Phase 1: exploration of situation:
“What exactly happened?”
“What was the discussion about?”
“When did you notice things were going the wrong way?”
Phase 2: exploration of emotions:
“Who was having most problems with the situation?”
“How were you feeling at that point?”
“What did it mean to you that …?”
“What is your biggest fear?”
“What do you think of it now?”
“What are you expecting from him?”

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