COACHING QUESTIONS
Powerful Coaching Questions and other types of questions in Coaching

It has been frequently said that professional coaches work with clients by carefully avoiding to get involved in their problems, to propose answers or to offer options and solutions.  Probably just as often, it has been more specifically said that coaches help clients find their own solutions by asking coaching questions.

If these affirmations are relatively true, the second one calls for precise clarifications both as to the form and the content of the coaching questions a coach may ask clients.  Indeed, journalism can also be considered an art of asking questions, and so can the interrogation process during the inquisition and other dismal totalitarian places and eras of our history.  So how is the coaching art of asking questions different from other everyday questioning processes and from the role of questions in other professions?

COACHING QUESTION FOCUS

The coaching process rests on a very specific frame of reference, and all coach behavior and interactions, including coaching questions, should reflect that frame of reference. According to a coaching frame of reference, all clients are to be considered a priori intelligent and well-informed people.  Coaches believe that clients know all there is to know on the technical dimensions of their issues, either to solve their own problem or to achieve more performing results than those they have met in the past. 

Consequently during a coaching process and without any exception, each and every client can and must be considered as an “expert” in his or her field.  As a matter of fact, in coaching relationships, each client is perceived as the sole person capable of finding original and appropriate answers to achieve his or her personal or professional objectives.

Given this client expertise, it is futile to think that in the course of any coaching process, coaches will find answers or options that their clients have not already considered and brushed aside.  It is almost unimaginable that a coach could find solutions in any specific client’s field of expertise, unless of course, the client is a fool, in which case, be assured that he or she would not seek a coach. 

Consequently, it is not a coach’s job to ask numerous questions aimed at finding solutions or original ideas within a mental or emotional environment that the client has already processed backward and forward, to no avail.  For a coach, it is a priori necessary to consider that all the ideas and options one could possibly imagine have already been considered by the client, and have been rejected.   Consequently, humility is requested in any coaching process, given that clients, by definition, are not fools. 

Furthermore, it is not a coach's job to have a pocketful of powerful or very tricky questissn that will jolt clients with surprise and gaping with awe at their coach's intelligence.  So how does a coach proceed to serve which single pertinent or appropriate question, to what client, and when?

CLIENT FRAME OF REFERENCE

To be a coach, it is necessary to know that if clients are the first and best expert capable of solving their own problems and achieving their own ambitions, that is precisely the main reason why clients are motivated to call on a coach.  When clients bring important issues to a coach, they already made a complete inventory of their personal or professional issue and of all possible options.  Clients have already tried working out their issues alone, and have not succeeded. 

Coaching clients generally consult coaches after having tried to solve their problems, meet their ambitions or deal with their issues. In spite of this, these clients feel stuck in a rut or up a dead end.  Clients have consequently generally well thought out their problems or ambitions, and they perceive no solutions to their issues as they have defined them, no practical way to achieve their goals as they have established them.

This is exactly where the key to most client difficulties lies, and what defines the foundation of the art of coaching.  As they have been defined, client problems have no apparent solution.  As they have been formulated, client objectives are not attainable.   The coach must therefore focus with coaching listening skills and other specific communication competencies on the client definitions and formulations.

Consequently, the professional coach does not focus on problems as they are defined by clients, but rather on the clients’ way of defining their problems. The coach does not focus on an ambition as it is considered by a specific client but rather on the client’s way of considering goals and ambitions.

This original approach proposed by coaching rests on this one principle: a well defined problem or issue very easily finds its solution, and conversely, a problem that finds no solution has most probably been defined in a manner that is too restrictive, constrictive, or somehow limiting. 

POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Consequently, when a client does not easily or naturally find answers to issues or solutions to problems, it is useless to search in the same way, place or direction as the client has already done. It is useful however, to help the client “reconfigure” or reboot his or her way of defining the issue, of considering the problem, or of visioning an ambition.  Consequently, a coaching approach is to question the client’s frame of reference.   As a result, coaching questions that are considered to be powerful are precisely those that jolt clients into reconsidering the way they define a problem, perceive an issue or envision an ambition.

To reformulate the specificity of the art of coaching: Coaching questions are not presented to elicit more information from the client but rather to provoke the client to think, feel or react differently about the issue at hand.  

Consequently, a coach does not focus on the technical details of a client’s specific problem at the risk of also becoming a prisoner to the same limiting frame of reference. Instead, the coach explores the general framework that underlies the way the client considers an issue and the way the client searches for options.

In fact, this reconfiguration of client frames of reference or this change of perspective on client goals and issues will permit them to suddenly discover totally new approaches to define and solve problems, to achieve ambitions.. 

This coaching frame of reference is sometimes relatively difficult to implement.  Numerous clients feel the imperative need to give coaches a complete inventory of the long painful path that has lead them to their quagmire.  Clients often seek to over-detail their perception of their problems and environments in order to explain why they are stuck.  They do not realize that their perception is the main limiting factor at the origin of their search for a coach.  These clients often paradoxically feel or think that their coach must very logically know all the informational details that define their constraining frame of reference.

Paradoxically, the more clients define their issue to a coach or anyone else, the more they reinforce their limiting frame of reference.  Note also that coaches who do not know how to ask the right coaching question also tend to elicit more and more information from clients with content-oriented questions.  They thereby help clients reinforce their restraining perspective.. 

In this paradoxical relationship with the client, the more the coach attentively listens to situation details and the more the coach becomes “in tune” with client emotions, the more that coach will risk getting stuck with the client in the same exit-less client situation

Consequently, a correct coaching “posture” or attitude consists in accompanying the client without ever totally adhering to the underlying frame of reference, without ever completely immersing into client context and mindset.  A coach is to help clients question their frames of reference, and perceive their environments from new original angles, their issues under different lights.  Coaching questions that transform frames of reference will let the client act differently and grow taller.

Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical questions are figures of speech that just seek to elicit public approval so the speaker can go on with a predictable demonstration.  Rhetorical questions are not real questions, as they are not really designed to elicit original answers.  Needless to say that they are not to be considered very useful coaching questions.

Interestingly many coaches treat other types of questions as if they were rhetorical questions.  They do not really listen to the client answer and do not react if the client provides a response that has nothing to do with the question.  In other words, many coaches do not seem to pay enough attention or give sufficient importance to many of their questions nor to the specific answers these should elicit.  If a coach is not going to follow up on answers to a given question, when a client ignores or avoids it, then the question was not worth asking in the first place. 

Coaching questions are not rhetorical questions in the sense that when they are precisely asked, they should be precisely answered.  Any avoidance strategy or any answer that does not really pertain to the object of the question could well be challenged and refocused by a strategic coach.  But then, the question should be well chosen and formulated and timely put.  Consider the following habitual types of questions.

Simple / Complicated Questions

When coaching, it is useful to leave a maximum amount of space for clients to have ample room to deploy their own dialogue, define their own new frames of reference, and develop their own growth potentials.  Consequently, a coach’s role is to be present in a relatively light and transparent manner, except for a few occasional, short, precise and respecting intrusions into the coaching conversation.  This minimalist attitude also concerns all coaching questions that should be short, simple and to the point..

• Caution: The opposite of a simple question is not a complex question, but a complicated question.  Complex questions rest on a systemic frame of reference and could be paradoxical, recursive or strategically designed to create confusion.  We will cover complex farther below.

When there are too many, too long and too complicated questions, (of which many are invariably problem-focused) some coaches reveal that they are indirectly or unconsciously trying to process the issue in order to propose solutions, obtain recognition, justify their presence, accelerate client problem solving, etc.  Even if these numerous, lengthy and inappropriate questions are motivated by a positive desire to help, they only get in the way of client autonomy. When coaching, fewer, shorter and simple questions are considered most useful and effective.  So as we shall see, coaching questions are often minimalist questions. 

One linguistic key is that all coaching questions should be stand-alone interruptions.  Coaches that ask questions that begin with “and…” or “so…” may be indicating that these are linked to the preceding conversation.  They do not interrupt the flow to open new doors or avenues.  These introductions should alert that the coach is getting too involved in the client content.

Neutral / Leading Questions

Another standard distinction between questions concerns their object. Habitually, a question’s purpose is to obtain new information or generate new ideas.  To really do either well, it is critical that the formulation of the question does not reveal an attempt to influence, lead or direct the content of the answer in any intentional direction. 

Thus, coaching questions that offer a totally open field for client response are neutral questions.  They are considered much more useful to open client perspectives.   Examples of useful neutral coaching questions as compared to leading questions are:

• Leading Questions

«Are you angry?» proposes a specific emotion amongst a host of others and can focus client attention on that specific content.

When asked that question, clients can focus on that emotion and become aware that indeed, they are feeling anger. But client concentration on any emotion can give that emotion accrued importance at the expense of another.  Sadness, fear, etc. may also be just as present, but not mentioned by the coach.. 

• Neutral Questions: 

«What do you feel? » presents a more open field for client to define emotions without limitations.  Even more open would be "what is your perception?" This would let the client choose between feeling, thinking, intuiting, or whatever.

The form of the question « Are you angry?  » does have the merit of being simple rather than complicated.  Some leading or directed questions carry so much information that they display the judgments, beliefs and frames of reference of the questioner.  These seem to propose that the listener should merely accept and agree with the whole package.  If directed and complicated questions formally pretend to be searching for information,  but a quick analysis of their content will reveal a contrary effect :

«Don’t you feel mad or at least a form of anger when you are facing that kind of passive environment which in effect is obliging you to take on more than your share of responsibility»

«Don’t you believe that when you are in a hierarchical context and in a company culture like yours, rather traditional if not military, that you’d better think twice before reacting to…?»

Both questions immediately limit the thinking playground of both the coach and client by the boundaries within the specificity of language.  Beware also of all negatively formulated questions that start with “Don’t you…”.  When coaches wish to offer their clients a really free and open space to let them express and grow without hindrance, simple neutral questions are particularly recommended.  Consequently « what do you think? » or « what do you feel? », etc. are considered much more neutral coaching questions.  Consequently, leading questions are not considered coaching questions.

Negative Interrogation

Notice also that both above question examples are negative interrogations.  Negative interrogations such as "why don't you..." or "what keeps you from..." focus clients on their blocks and hindrances.   Other more positive-oriented coaching question formulations are advised to help clients move forward towards finding and designing their solutions.   Consequently, negative interrogation questions are not considered good coaching questions.

Open / Closed Coaching Questions

Among questions categories, there are also « open questions », which give the client a very large area for expression, and  « closed questions », which propose a choice between specific options, or within an alternative. Open coaching questions increase the scope of client personal « dialogue », and closed coaching questions direct clients towards the necessity to choose a position or decide on a specific action. Consider the following open questions:

• What do you want to do in the following situation?
• What are your options?
• What could be your next step?
• What deadline you would set for this action?
• What do you feel when facing this type of situation?

When a coach asks open questions, clients can develop whatever they want or express whatever they think or feel.  Nothing in the coaching question formulation suggests that the coach has a specific idea, goal or expectation.  This type of coaching question elicits a client personal response that could either be short or long, original or unexpected, assertive or hesitant, etc.

Towards the end of coaching sequences or sessions, however, it is useful for the coach to accompany client dialogues towards a more centered, concentrated focus or conclusion.  At times, it is indeed useful for a coach to help clients limit the scope of their personal dialogue.  The coach would then offer either / or closed coaching questions which aim for client decision and action:

• Do you want to decide on some actions right away, or is this still a little early for you?
• Do you prefer option A, option B, or option C?
• Are you going to react right away or do you want to let the situation mature?
• Are you bothered by this occurrence, or on the contrary, do you feel stimulated by it?

All these coaching questions propose an alternative or a choice.  The client is put in a position to choose between two or more options proposed by the coach.  Note that the options should be originating from prior client dialogue.  In the above examples, if the clients have not yet decided to make a choice, the form of the closed coaching questions may be prematurely suggesting it is time to do so.  The client may feel pushed by the coach, and that may elicit healthy resistance.

This type of alternative coaching question is therefore useful to confirm that the client has already made an unconscious choice or to confirm that the client is ready to make a choice.  Notice that the form of closed coaching questions can direct the client towards a conclusion, without influencing the content of the client’s choice in any way.  Indeed, closed coaching questions must not be directed or leading to satisfy coach agendas or impatience.

Professional coaches are careful with closed questions.  If the choice is proposed too early, clients may not be ready to decide. “I don’t know” is the invariably powerless answer that indicates that the question is prematurely offered by the coach.  Consequently, it is useful to know when to offer a closed coaching question.

• A timely closed coaching question can provoke or confirm a decision or a conclusion.
• A premature closed question can reveal coach impatience, or again lack of client readiness to decide. 

The coach must be attentive to both situations by managing their own impatience.

After answering a closed question, clients often expect the coach to keep the coaching initiative and ask another structuring question.  Consequently, closed questions tend to create a pause in client responsibility.  A judicious linguistic prod or open coaching question will help clients dig deeper into the direction defined by their choice, or will direct them to another coaching sequence or issue. 

Single / Multiple Questions

An excellent indicator that coaches may be getting too involved in an analytical approach is when they serve a battery of questions, one after the other, hardly providing silences nor letting the client time to think or search for their own answers.  Again, good coaching questions are usually stand-alone interventions and elicit ample enough thoughtful client dialogue.

Practical oriented questions

When clients approach general or vague theoretical issues, it is useful for coaches to bring them back to precise occurrences, measurable situations, specific people and places.  Coaching can indeed accompany clients to solve issues and accomplish important results in specific situations and very precise areas of their lives.  Very progressive and pragmatic questions can help the client focus on specific situations to achieve their goals.  Consider the following:

_Client: " I can’t seem to finish my projects.”
_Coach: "Can you give a precise example of an ongoing project you would like to finish?"

_Client: "I cannot stand indecisive people ".
_Coach: "Who in your life are you referring to today?”

_Client: "JI would like to improve the relationships with my employees”.

_Coach: "Starting with which employee, to take a practical example?”

On the one hand, the objective is obviously to proceed in a practical fashion.  On the other, the principle is to help the client center on developing a specific process that could then be enlarged to other situations. Consequently, rather than attempting to accompany the client in solving a vague and general problem, coaches ask this type of question to have the client focus on a practical learning situation that can be progressively enlarged to other situations.
Asking practical oriented questions are very useful at the beginning of a coaching sequence.  They will help focus the coaching process on solutions that will allow the end of the session on much more precise action plans.

Active / Analytic Questions

Another distinction between types of questions differentiates those centered on eliciting an analytical response from those centered on eliciting future orientation towards action. Analytical questions generally elicit responses that describe client past, an acquired client frame of reference and limiting context.

By asking an analytical question, coaches help clients center on understanding motivations, context, environmental support and limits, etc.  Clients will then explain historical and contextual problem or ambition with excruciating details.  When asked by a coach, these questions elicit information, explanation and sometimes justification.  Consequently, coaches who want to help clients focus on future actions and solutions will not favor analytical questions. 

Indeed, if coaching is an accompanying process centered on action and results, useful questions are intently focused on active, future-oriented change and on implementing solutions that drive client solutions and success.

Why?

The first practical consequence of having a future and solution-oriented coaching strategy is to avoid to ask « why », at all costs.  Almost every time this question is asked, the answer that follows is a detailed client elaboration of the old frame of reference that limits their mental agility or emotional mobility. 

To follow up on this logic, all questions centered on understanding client problems, client history, client difficulties, client unsuccessful past options, client context, etc. could be considered as relatively useless.  “Why” questions rests on the popular belief that « to succeed, one should understand how one has failed ».  In other words, to learn how to swim, one must carefully analyze how one has almost drowned.  In effect, why questions only let clients meander within the same limited past frame of reference.  A good coaching process needs to gently lead the client out of the box.

There are of course some rare exceptions to this affirmation.  A coach may ask “why?” to better listen to how a client is limiting the development of personal potentials.  If that coach avoids listening to the obvious information and tries instead to catch the client’s limiting world-view, basic assumptions, behavior patterns, etc., then the client answer to “why” can be very rich to enhance future coaching work.

Consequently if ever a coach asks a client a « why ? » question, it should be less to hear the content of the answer in its specific relevance to a given situation, and more to listen to the general form of the client’s way of thinking and emoting.  The answer then gives numerous indications of the inherent limits of client frame of reference. More often than not, however, the why question reveals that coaches are completely caught up in the client issue, uselessly trying to understand the origins of the client context.  Generally, coaches that fall in the trap of trying to be experts ask way too may why questions.  These may often take a subtle form that don’t stat with why, such as “what keeps you from…” or “what makes you think that…” etc.

How?

Coaching questions centered on action have the merit of urging clients to envision creating future possibilities.  These questions start with « how could you…? », or « how will you…? » Generally, coaching questions which begin with « how are you going to…? » are considered better coaching questions.  Depending on the work previously achieved by clients, this form of open coaching question can be either neutral or subtly directed.

« How are you going to…» are asked to clients who are perceived to be ready to move into action.  These coaching questions suggest it is now time to reflect on strategy, tactics, or behavior.  This assumption can have been confirmed by work preceding the coaching question, in which case the question is considered “neutral”.  If however, a client has not given any indication of readiness to start moving into action, this coaching question directs the client towards defining specific action a little bit too early. Consequently, if it is prematurely asked, the question « how to…?” can be considered directed, and, can therefore be inappropriate.  
For example, consider the two following questions:

« Do you plan to explain your point of view to your boss? ».
The question is simple, analytical and neutral.  « Do you plan to…? » suggests the client consider the opportunity to implement action, or not.    It may elicit client dialogue on the advantages and inconveniencies of an action, which in effect temporarily postpones the decision to act.  That could be opportune, if the client is not ready to envision action, or unfortunate if the client is comforted in postponing decisions. 

« How are you going to appropriately explain your point of view to your boss ? »
This question is considered simple, active and subtly directed.  Starting with “how”, the question presumes there is going to be an explanation.  The question is focused on how the client will explain.  The coaching question suggests the client should prepare to implement action.  In effect, the decision to act is already made.  If the client is not ready for the explanation however, the coach may be prematurely “pushy”.  If however, the client is ready to move, then the opportune coaching question suggests it is time to move on to define effective strategies and behavior.

In general coaching questions that focus the client on elaborating future action plans and implementing solutions are considered much more powerful than those that center the client on analysis and understanding present or past occurrences. 

Action plan coaching questions

Similar to the practical "how" question above, are practical coaching questions, such as those that start with what will you... (to elicit precision or details), when will you , with whom will you, where will you?  Typically these coaching questions really find their place towards the second half of a coaching sequence, when the client has sufficiently explored the issue or subject to discover new perspectives and is ready to move on to action.

When/where

Impatient coaches often ask the when question too early in the coaching process, aiming for rapid action plans to satisfy their own need to be useful.  More subtle coaches will replace "when will you do this" by "where is the best place to do this", thus indirectly using the concept of time-space.  If the client decides where to do something, an appropriate time will usually come with the chosen location.  This illustrates that even the most apparently banal and practical coaching question can become much more effective if it is strategically proposed at the most appropriate time for the client.

Beyond being attentive to choosing the right kind of coaching question, coaches also pay particular attention to how coaching questions are formulated.  This attention concerns the linguistic content of coaching questions.  Consider, for example, the first coaching question a coach can ask clients at the start of a coaching session, in order to suggest that clients focus on the work at hand:

• « How can I help you? », or
• « Well? (followed by a long silence) », or
• « On what issues do you want to work today? », or
• « What brings you here today? » or
• « What do you want to achieve by the end of this session? », or
• « What do you expect from me today? », or
• « Where do you stand with your issues now? » or
• « What shall we talk about today? »
• Etc.

The first question at the beginning of a coaching session or sequence is considered to “set the stage”.  The above examples illustrate how that essential question is often asked in a very routinely way.  In some ways, these examples may all look alike. Indeed, most are relatively open and focused on the future. All these questions also suggest that clients take responsibility and actively lead the beginning coaching process.

Closer examination of the linguistic formulation of each question, however, reveals that they are all relatively different.  Each subtly suggests a distinct coach frame of reference.  If some of the questions propose that the client be active and responsible, two of them suggest the client formulate demands to the coach. If one of the questions offers a totally open and non-directive field, another suggests that the client evaluate present situation, and another yet immediately focuses on defining client objectives. 

All these ways of introducing a coaching session or sequence are fundamentally different and can provoke radically different client responses and results.  This illustrates that all coach questions merit reflection as to their precise formulation focused on achieving an objective.  All coaching questions need careful wording to convey coaching process intention.

Throughout the length of a coaching session, there is no such thing as an innocently worded question.  While keeping in mind this linguistic imperative relative to all professional coaching skills, we can now list a number of other categories of coaching questions, and cover their function as powerful tools in the “art of coaching”. 

To Empower the Client

Careful coaching questions formulation can help coaches regularly remind clients they are responsible to pilot their work.  The more a coach remembers to put clients at the center of the coaching process, the more clients will develop autonomy and focus on personal goals and ambitions.  Coaches do this by regularly formulating coaching questions which suggest clients be active and make decisions as to the content and the process of their own work.
Consider the different coaching question formulations below:

• « What results do you wish to accomplish today?»
• « How do you want to begin this work? »
• « Where do you stand now?  »
• « What could be your next step?»
• « How would you like to conclude this session? »
• « What do you plan to implement, back on your job, before your next coaching session? »

Calling on clients directly with “you” is a much more active and empowering approach than attempts to “protect” clients with more indirect or impersonal formulations.  Professional coaches avoid such wording as “we” or “one”, or coaching question formulations centered on the coach using “I” since they direct attention away from the client towards the coach.

To Respect the Client

Useful coaching questions ask the client for permissions.  Considering that clients can only answer these with “yes”, they can be consider pure formalities.  Beyond this first social level, “permission” questions help coaches regularly remember and remind clients that the coaching space belongs to the latter.  Before intruding into the private client space, coaches manifest respect and ask clients for permission to enter:

• « May I interrupt you here? »
• « May I ask you a question?»
• « Do you mind if I try to reformulate what I think I understood?  »
• « May I share a feeling with you?»
• "May I share a perception?"

Obviously, some of these coaching questions are completely paradoxical.  To ask if one can interrupt is already an interruption, and to ask if one can ask a question is already a question.  However those coaching questions express coach respect of client “coaching space”.  They also are a subtle way to get client complete attention prior to a coach intervention.  When clients give coaches the permission to intervene within their personal dialogue, there is a much higher chance they will intently listen to whatever the coach will offer.

There are other more « strategic » or powerful categories of coaching questions which propose that clients switch to an original or unexpected, more creative type of personal research. These “strategic” coaching questions suggest clients think differently, take some « critical » distance from issues, problems or goals, try other « indirect » approaches, etc.  Strategic powerful or coaching questions aim to surprise clients or put “off balance” and provoke the emergence of new perspectives on problems, objectives and issues.

When asking strategic coaching questions, coaches take initiatives, “play with” and help open client dialogue and exploratory processes.  With this type of coaching questions, coaches formulate work proposals which help client « redirect » their focus, at minimum by provoking a surprising angle or point of view.   Obviously, for best coaching results, it is necessary that clients be ready and willing to “play the game” and work into those unexpected avenues. 

Consequently, the strategy for asking the following “powerful” types of coaching questions rests on a solid coach-client relationship.  The prerequisite for asking “strategic” questions is that a strong coaching alliance already exists between coach and client.  Strategic or powerful coaching questions can fall into several categories.

One word of caution before we present a short list of powerful types of coaching questions: an unknowing or beginning coach may take the following examples as a form of methodology and feel that memorizing them and serving them to clients will bring results, only to find out that is not the case.  A truly powerful coaching question most often emerges in a coaching relationship spontaneously, almost surprising the coach who has formulated it.  For this magic to happen, a strong client-coach relationship must already be established, resting on coaching silence and presence, deep listening, and an intuitive perception of the client frame of reference.  With that in mind, the following types of powerful questions may emerge into the coach's awareness.

Hypothetical Coaching Questions

This category of powerful coaching questions is composed of a number of different options, some of which will be suggested further below. This type of question is served in two if/then parts.  It suggests a fictitious situation or context by which the client is first asked to change perspectives, and then asked to consider a question centered on action.

• Example: If this problem was solved and behind you, what would you do next?”

There is a high risk that these strategies become simple rhetorical questions.  Consequently coaches really need to give clients the time to change perspectives before they move on to answer the second question.  The more a client can really elaborate a new perspective, the more a coach can then ask practical questions on what can be done considering the new client vision.  If, as in the above example, the client does not have ample time to elaborate a new vision, he or she will manifest difficulties in modifying their frame of reference to envision new possibilities.  Consequently, hypothetical questions gain in their effectiveness when they are really separated into two coach interventions.

• If you were a 6-year-old child, how would you perceive the situation?
• What can you do tomorrow considering this very simple and clear perception?

Ideal Solution Coaching Questions

To help clients think out of the box, simple coaching questions can suggest they dare to formulate ultimately positive outcomes to issues, problems and goals. Consequently, coaches can very directly suggest that clients need to aim “strong”, “high” and “beautiful”.

• « What is your ideal outcome? »
• « What is your best possible scenario? »
• « If you really dared to formulate your deepest hopes, what would you say? » 
• « What is your ultimate possible goal? »
• « In the best of all possible worlds, what would be your ultimate wish? » 
• « If the situation were perfect, what would it look like? »
• « What is your highest possible goal? The one you wouldn’t even dare share with me. »
• Etc.

Magical Coaching Questions

A similar approach involves using magical, mythical, hero, or super powers:

• « What would you do with a magic wand? »
• « If you had a « genie » that could grant you three wishes, how would you go about solving this issue to perfection? »
• « What would your favorite hero (role-model, guru, etc.) do in this situation ? »
• « What would you do to make things right, if you had unlimited super powers? »
• « If you consulted the old wizard (good witch) in yourself, what would he (she) say? »
• « What would your best childhood friend suggest you could do?”
• “What does your guardian angel (Jiminy Cricket, etc.) say about this ?”

Zero Base Coaching Questions

This approach consists in getting the client to erase history and personal involvement, in order to reconsider a situation, a relationship or an issue as completely new and fresh.

• If you started this project today, knowing what you know, what would you do differently?
• If you just met the person now, and wanted to ensure a different foundation for your relationship, how would you start it?
• If you could erase all the history in this project and get off to a fresh start, how would you do it?

The following coaching process will consist in integrating the options to correct the actual situation.  It is never too late to put things right, by setting better foundations.

Future Projection Coaching Questions:

Another creative approach consists in asking clients to project themselves into the future and imagine having finished a perfect process to solve their issue or achieve their goal. By this projection, coaches first ask clients to describe the ideally solved situation or ambition achieved beyond reasonable hopes, or totally successful outcome, or happily developed, relationship etc.  Once clients have finished this description, THEN the coach asks how they got there.

• If you project yourself several years forward and imagine the problem is totally solved.  Can you describe it.  (THEN) What have you done to reach that satisfactory outcome?
  
• Imagine yourself in five years when everything is exactly as you wish.  How have you changed from what you are today? (or) Can you describe your environment? (or) can you make an inventory of your successes ?, (THEN)  How have you achieved this?
• Pretend that you have solved your issue in the most satisfactory possible way, what is the final result?(or) Can you describe how you feel ? (THEN.)  What did you do to get there?
  

Here and Now Projection Questions

Imagine that a client mentions having difficulty expressing an issue to a third party in their personal or professional environment.  The coach could immediately get the client in situation and say:

• «If the person was here now, what would you say?” 

Sometimes this strategy can be implemented by having the client address an empty chair in the coaching environment, as if the third party were in that chair.  Sometimes the coach could also ask “what do you want to tell that person?” in order to rick the client into immediately formulating what he or she claims is difficult to formulate, and then say: “You just said it, so it seems that you know exactly how to formulate what you have to say.”

Client Resource Inventory Questions

In case of intense stress, confusion or despair, clients can start feeling completely helpless, forgetting how to use their own resources, usually available in normal situations.  A simple question can allow these clients to refocus on their own known capacities and skills, taking some distance form the issue at hand.  A similar inquiry can concern client resources usually recognized by the client environment.  A second, subsequent question can then bring the client to focus back onto their issue, with less stress and more conscious of their intrinsic competencies that can allow positive outcomes.

• “What are the qualities that you generally recognize in yourself?”
• “What are the five main kills that people you know usually see in you?”

Once these qualities have been listed and detailed, the coach can ask the client how each of them could be usefully applied to the current difficult issue.  This strategy to refocus on client capacities and skills can help clients self-validate their own power to solve their problems and achieve their goals.  They sometimes very simply realize that they do have qualities that can help them pull through.

Perceived Client Resource Questions

These questions concern resources perceived or intuited by the coach.  This can even be done with a humorous slant, knowing that any change in the client state will help provoke a change of perspective. If the coach can get clients to smile or laugh during the coaching process, They will change their focus when they come back to consider their issue.

• “How can you use your legendary sense of humor/ feline reactivity/ feminine intuition/ knucklehead resilience/ in this situation?”

Coaching Questions on Past Strategies

Obviously, for more reserved or down to earth clients reluctant to let loose their “free wheeling” imagination, other equivalent but more classical questions aim to make an inventory of strengths or strategies that were successfully implemented in client past.  Much in the same way as with the above questions, coaches will suggest clients search within their past personal or professional experience to dig up resources that were not perceived or considered useful to solve the issue at hand.

• “Have you already faced similar situations (problems, types of people, apparently unattainable goals, etc.) in your past ? (THEN) How did you go about implementing a successful outcome?”

In this process, care needs to be given that the client does not start giving a lengthy description of the past issue, nor answer beside the question to justify their feelings of incompetency by explaining that the past was fundamentally different.

Inside out/ Outside in Coaching Questions

Resting on the perception principle that there is no "out there" out there, this questioning approach consists in proposing that the client integrate what they perceive as external, or externalize what they perceive as inside.

• “You say you are totally confused, but if you were actually very clear about the confusion that is actually widespread in your environment, what do you need to do?”
• “You just described a truly wonderful place that seems to brings you so much peace, and helps you really center.  What if this place is actually inside of you, and you always had access to it, wherever you are?”

Coaching Questions to Change Client Context

Based on the principle that client contexts could have resonating structures, this questioning approach consists in proposing that the client envision how the issue could be approached in a really different context. 

• What if this situation was not happening in your office setting, but at home, how would you deal with it?
• If this was not a personal finance issue, but a corporate problem.  How would you solve it?
• If she was your best friend, how would you tell her?
  

Coaching Questions to Change Subjects

A coach can also test the principle that a train can always conceal another one, or that in coaching an initial problem could mainly serve the purpose of hiding another deeper concern.  In this case a coach can ask questions to refocus client attention or energy on completely different issues:

• “If this apparent problem didn’t use up all your time and energy, what do you really want to do with yourself and your life?”
• “If you knew that this situation was only there to divert your vital attention, towards what really motivating goal would you direct all your beautiful energy?“
• “If you didn’t spend so much time banging your head on the wall in front of you, where could be the door to your future?”
• “Can you tell me, in one short sentence, what the really fundamental subject is, beyond all this information?”
  

Space Mobility Coaching Questions

With almost all of the above types of questions, coaches can also suggest that clients get up and/or physically move to consider issues from a different angle or point of view.  It is possible to ask clients to get up, take some distance and then look at “themselves” in their empty seat from afar.  The coach can then ask:

• “What is your perception of « her » problem?”
• “What really original advice would you give” yourself?”
• “What resource do you think « he » could use?”
• “What obvious potential outcome is « she » not even considering”?”
• “If you were “his” personal counselor, what would you say to help “him” out?”
• Etc.

One active potential inherent in this type of geographical move is to get the client into action to find new perspectives.  This can be particularly useful for clients who appear to be "stuck" or paralyzed in a situation from which they feel there are no "exit". Following this geographic maneuver, coaches can also ask clients to resume to their original position on the empty seat and offer conclusions to whatever perceptions or options were proposed, and then close in on suitable action plans and deadlines. 

This outside projection strategy can also be done with original, creative or humorous slants using personal or ad hoc objects in the environment:

• “What is your favorite book?  Where is it? Now, what does that book think you should do?”
• “Your dog really pays good attention to you.  From his “dog” position and if he could talk, what would he say that you haven’t even considered?”
• “If you were a fly on the ceiling looking at the situation, what strikes you as really surprising /funny?”

Mapping Coaching Questions

When clients are covering complex issues including a number of people, places, elements or items, having them map out or symbolically draw these and their interconnections on a flip chart or paper often does wonders.  At some point, it is useful for the coach to ask the client to conclude the drawing, take some distance from it and get a different perspective from a distance or different angles. Coach questions concerning the relationships between the items, relevance of positioning, significance of sizes, shapes and colors can often help the client discover new dimensions to an apparently well-known situation.

Priority and Ordering Coaching Questions

Questions that ask the client to rank elements of an issue from the easiest to the most difficult, from the closest to the farthest, from the most supportive to the most resistant, from the riskiest to the safes, etc. can offer clients food for thought, insights and different perspectives on a known network, team, environment or ensemble.

Think Small Coaching Questions

With some clients who perceive their goals or issues to be insurmountable or much too « huge » to face, reassuring strategic questions suggest the client cut the « problem pie » into much smaller chunks.  When fear limits capacity to act, these can be much easier to consider and digest.  This coaching strategy amounts to suggesting a very progressive approach, one very little step at a time, made up of much smaller, easier and manageable sequences.  The fundamental objective is actually to get the client moving, out of paralysis.

• «What could be your first smallest step in the right direction? »
• « What would be a first easy act that would get you started down the right path? »
• « Now if you cut up your challenge up into ten equal pieces, what first obvious chunk would you could consider facing right away?»
• « What is the first smallest possible immediate change for you?»

Worst Scenario Coaching Questions

A relatively paradoxical and somewhat surprising questioning strategy consists in asking clients to proceed with an approach opposite to one that would normally be considered “common sense”.  With this type of work, clients sometimes come to the awareness that their worst possible scenario is already at hand and that things can only get better.  Sometimes, also, by considering really “negative” options, new positive or constructive strategies suddenly come to mind.

• « What is your most catastrophic option? »
• « If the situation became as dramatic as possible, what would it be like?»
• « If you wanted to fail every inch of the way, how would you go about it?»
• « If it was your goal, how would you go about provoking your whole team to turn against you?”

Reverse Affirmations

This strategy suggests that:  All apparent « problems » are great opportunities.  All apparent « crisis » situations introduce healthy necessary change.  All apparent « problem partners » in one’s life also offer a righ growth or learning challenge.  All which creates disorder and disruption in a well-planned life is the result of a life force that one has not yet recognized.  Etc.

Consider the following coaching questions:

• « What would you do if this apparently difficult problem was really an opportunity to start considering important changes?».
• « How could you react to this apparently « negative situation » if it was really a solution to a lot of your problems?
• « What must you start changing in yourself to welcome this apparently disruptive event in the positive way it really deserves? »
• « If this problem was actually an opportunity to grow for you, what would you start changing in yourself? ”
• « How if this « problem person » is offering you an opportunity to learn something about yourself?”

Weakest Link Questions

A particularly useful question when the client may need to double check an apparently complete action plan or project, and has the time to make sure all is solid/

• If one person/team/department in this program may need particular attention to make sure that there are no hitches, who/where would that be?
• If this proposal was to fail because of one apparently minor detail, which one would that be? 
• If one wanted to block this project at the most appropriate time, when would be the best period?

Obviously, these questions then need to be followed with a plan to make sure the weak link becomes as strong as the others in the expected program.

Paradoxical Coach Questions

Some strategic questions can be thrown out just simply to create confusion.  Consequently they serve to reshuffle client mental patterns by provoking a form of temporarily chaos:

• « What is the obvious common denominator to all your apparently different options? »
• « What is the opposite of your apparently contrary options?»
• « How are all your different alternatives really similar in essence?»

Note that when coaches ask those questions, they may not have any precise idea as to the client response that may follow.  By serving those questions, the coach is just attempting to interrupt too linear or too logical a client process.  These questions serve to provoke mental disruption and send the client spinning in a different stranger orbit, away from obvious certitudes.

Consequently, if following one of these questions, a client suddenly changes expressions, the coach can simply stay in silence until a new perspective takes shape and is offered as an option for exploration.

Coach Questions to Propose Immobility

When clients seem to be passive, very slow or at a standstill, numerous coaches may take on the responsibility to urge, question, accelerate, or motivate.  A paradoxical strategy could consist in asking what if it was really urgent to do nothing and wait it out ?  Suppose you change nothing for the next five years, how o you predict that the situation will evolve ?

By proposing that passivity and inaction may indeed be an option, the client is left with the responsibility to decide to wake up and act, or to decide to let go, build a plan to adapt to an unchanging situation, and then and go on to other issues and projects. 

Coach Questions To Eliminate The Problem

The objective of this approach is to help clients focus on fundamental objectives or deeper motivations, rather than waste time solving more superficial issues.  The underlying principle is the more one focuses on issues, difficulties and problems to solve, the more these seem to appear in order to occupy one, full time.  The more one focuses on motivating projects, ambitions and enlightening experiences the more these seem to start filling one’s life.  It is a matter of choice as to where clients (and their coaches) want to put their energy.

• »If this situation were to disappear out of your life, just by magic, towards fulfilling what project/ambition/adventure would you put all your vital energy?»
• »If this problem just evaporated into thin air, what would you really want to do with your life? »
  

Essential Motivation Coach Questions

In the same direction, a very simple question focused on revealing client fundamental motivations can help them re-center their energy on deeper aspirations that are often dimmed by more superficial everyday preoccupations.  Very often, asking the same question a number of times will get the client to delve deeper to find a more personal answer.

• What do you really-really want?
• What are your deepest hopes for your long term future?
• What are your most fundamental motivations in life?

Coaching Questions on the Positive Dimensions of Emotions

Based on the principle that all emotions are useful in that they each awaken positive strategies, these questions help client go beyond just feeling negative and focus on how to move to action. 

• If your anger was an excellent fuel to get you moving in this situation, what would be the most effective way to use it to achieve your goal?
• If your fear was just there to make sure you stayed aware of possible risks and vigilantly stayed on your toes, how can you use it to proceed very carefully and safely?
• If you imagined that your sadness was an excellent indicator that it is high time you really took care of yourself and of your needs, what do you need to do for yourself, as a high priority? 

Poetic Coaching Questions

Depending on the client's fields of interest and capacity to visualize, some coaching questions can appeal to other senses to create a break in client frame of reference and strategy. Consider the following examples:

• "It feels as if you are stubbornly struggling uphill hardly making any progress.  How can you change your process to make it a smooth and enjoyable downhill slide?"
• "I have the impression you are wading waist-deep in a muddy marsh.  What would you do if you were dancing in the clouds?"
• "Your reactive strategy sounds as subtle as that of an impatient rhinoceros.  How would you go about doing this if you were as light as a feather?"
  

Systemic Coaching Questions

These are sometimes called "circular" questions in reference to the principle of circularity in systems or also reflexive or recursive questions for their indirect effect on the environment present in the same room.   These are successfully asked when coaching within structured systems such as in families, in teams or within networks.

The powerful nature of circular questions rests on their capacity both to provoke an awareness of complex collective interactions and to stimulate the transformation of formal systems.  To be effective, these questions

• Are often put to one precise person in the presence of all the other members of a system, and
• Concern information or behaviors the one person perceives among the rest of the team or family members.  

Examples:

• What would be the indirect objectives of this team coaching process if they were formulated by your leader here?"
• When your team leader manifests impatience during your team meetings, who is the first team member to acknowledge and offer support?"
• When your assistant expresses personal stress due work overload within the team, who is the first team member to express understanding?  Who will first help to look for solutions?"
• When it is time for the team to get focused on a new project, who are the usual three most motivated volunteers?"
• Who are the two team members most likely to disagree with each other during meetings, no matter the issue or the subject at hand?"
• Who benefits most from this collective focus on George as the designated team scapegoat?"

This type of systemic question can also be put to an individual client during a one-on-one coaching sequence.  In this case, the question would have less of a "circular" effect on the surrounding system.  Similar to Mappin Questions mentioned above, it could still be asked to help individual clients better perceive their environment's influence when focusing on problem resolution or when achieving objectives.

• In your family environment, who is the person who will support you most actively and unconditionally during this coming personal transition?"
• When your Operational VP focuses on obtaining better results, what exactly does your financial VP do to support that effort?"
• On whom can you count most for support in the external environment of your team, when you are experiencing difficulties?"

Numerous sub-categories of such circular or systemic questions take into account some of the criteria exposed earlier in this article.   They can be centered on problems or on solutions, on the past or on the future, on behaviors or on values, be neutral or directed, etc.   Their powerful nature resides principally in their capacity to center the individual or collective client on developing an awareness of the potential interfaces between all the actors within a precise system or in the larger general environment.  

Coaching Questions to Face the Coach-Client Relationship

Note that if clients often serve their coaches with problems or issues originating from their personal or professional lives, the coach-client relationship offers numerous indicators on the quality of relationships and processes that these client implement in those other environments.  To be more precise, in the relationship with their coaches, clients unknowingly or unconsciously “transfer” relational reflexes and behaviors habitually implemented in their “other” environments. To add to this phenomena, coaches also participate in those client patterns.

To offer some common examples,

• Clients who wish to work out « time management » issues will often play out the same behavior with their coaches, coming or calling late to coaching meetings, or rescheduling numerous meetings for invariably « urgent » reasons. Thier coaches have the same or complementary time management issues.
  
• Clients who have little respect for the needs of others in their work or home environments often consider that their coaches should be available ‘round the clock, or at a needle’s drop. Their coaches may be facing the same issues elsewhere, having difficulty to set limits.
  
• Clients who spend time catering to other people's needs, fearing negative judgment or rejection may implement similar relational processes with their coaches, for the same reasons. And their coaches may fit in very well with complementary pleasing behavior.
  

Some questions suggest that clients make parallels between their work issue and real occurrences that have taken place within the coach-client relationship.  These questions may accelerate work on a central issues by helping both coach and client focus on the “real” relationship in which they are both participating.

• Are you conscious that this has also occurred between us? »
• How can your description of your boss also apply to me and what I do? »
• How could our relationship be somewhat similar to the one you have with this partner?

A brief caution, if the coach-client relationship does not rest on a solid alliance or a high level of complicity, this direct or somewhat “confronting” approach may jolt the client and provoke defensive reactions.  It is consequently useful to formulate these questions in a way to underline that the responsibility for the occurrences are totally shared both by coach and client.   This may call for some coach humility and transparency.  But then, people often say that is what coaching is about.

Conclusions

Questioning skills deserve a much more critical attention than they usually get. Through appropriate and pertinent questions, coach objectives are nothing less than to provoke clients to come to their own extraordinary personal and professional solutions.

• In proper professional hands, powerful questions are both simple, and can be as precise as surgical tools. 
• With very few powerful questions, a coach can allow clients to deploy unexpected potential by providing an almost magical change of perspective
• Appropriately formulated powerful question can open unlimited horizons for client development and growth.
• Deep presence and listening in order to let emerge and then precisely serve simple, strategic and powerful questions can make the difference between professional coaching and true coaching mastery.

This introductory and very partial inventory only begins to open the rich and creative field of question structures and contents coaches can deliver their clients.  We hope the presentation illustrates how appropriate and well formulated questions can provoke original work or exploration outside a given client frame of reference and help them better solve their own problems to achieve greater ambitions. 

We will underline again, that the questions above are just illustrations of one question could be appropriately served to one client, at an appropriate time.  They are in no way a set procedure of questions to systematically test with all clients without discrimination.   True coaching is the art of asking the one pertinent question, and then letting the client enough space and time to work with it to complete satisfaction.

Copyright 2008.  www.metasysteme.eu  Alain Cardon