HOW COACHING BRINGS QUESTIONS BEFORE ANSWERS

Recently, spending quality time on the beach with a toddler brought an insane level of curiosity and inquisitiveness. The sort of curiosity we seek in executive coaching.

A thousand questions a minute.

– Why does a shell look like that?

– How do jellyfish swim?

– Where does the water go?

If you are a parent or grandparent, you know how it goes. Great fun, but after a while, our brain hurts trying to synthesise and simplify the answers!

After producing increasingly complicated responses, my husband dryly advised me to stick to undergraduate rather than Ph.D. level responses.

Hmmm.

Scrolling for Answers

It made me think about content on LinkedIn.

We are all looking for answers that are easy to access, quick to implement, and make us feel that our time scrolling online was worth it.

Yet, we know in our hearts it won’t give us the full answer.

But it might spark some ideas, and open a gateway to another activity or insight on a quiet Wednesday afternoon.

We want some quick wins alongside all the long-term projects, strategic planning, and pushing through.

We need those quick wins to motivate us and help us maintain momentum.

Getting Out of ‘Stuck’

So why do we feel stuck, lacking energy, and distant from ourselves?

Why can’t we consistently work with Time Blocking, Pomodoro techniques, and your favourite and mine… the Eisenhower Matrix!

Because whilst we need productive activity that satisfies and stretches us, we must also satisfy our emotions.

One of the most important ways to achieve personal growth is to stretch ourselves and do the demanding thing.

But not without small celebrations along the way.

My Biggest Lesson

I was a senior manager before becoming an executive coach.

The one concept that held me back for a while I was doing too much on my own and widened the range of people who could collaborate, support, or champion my/our projects and goals.

Once I could see the problem, the solution was just there within reach.

However, if you can’t always see the sand for the seashells, here are more questions…

If you come up for air and think about all your tasks and activities, which will make the most significant difference?
If you work with teams and are pushing to improve quality – what will get you there first – more reports or the much-needed tricky conversation?

Could you go through all the aspects of your business and work out where collaboration, persuasion, or communication will be more effective?

· What matters now and why?

· What has changed today, and what effect will it have?

· What can I do now to improve tomorrow?

· Who is available that I can call on?

This is what we do in coaching. We reflect, we observe, and we ask and answer questions. We do so to gain insight, to self-nourish, and to give out.

Want to know more? You can just book a call.

https://go.oncehub.com/meeting30mins