Why did I read this book?

I have a friend who I’ve known since high school and who I’ve always admired for his inner drive and relentless pursuit of his goals. He’s now vice chancellor of a university, author of a few books, hosts a talk show and has presented to many illustrious audiences including at the UN. One day he told me that he recently got a coach and it was the best career decision he has ever made. I went and got a coach.

After working with my coach I started to realize that my management focus had primarily been on improving performance, not developing performers. It wasn’t enough to coach, I too needed to start coaching. After a bit of research and asking around I was eventually led to The Coaching Habit.

Now I’ve completed it and …?

Michael Bungay Stanier starts by highlighting research that shows that the coaching style of leadership is proven to be one of the most effective at improving workplace performance and organisational culture. It has a demonstrably positive effect on the bottom line and yet it is one of the least used styles.

There are primarily two reasons for this. On the one hand, most people have no idea of the benefits of coaching and/or how to go about doing so. On the other hand, we’re programmed from a very early age to provide answers. Most of the rewards in society comes from providing the right answers, whether it be in school, work, games or our social circles. Our default position is to instruct, tell our staff what to do, instead of giving them the tools to formulate their own solutions. This is what coaching is about.

Given the dual nature of the problem, The coaching habit provides a dual track solution. One track focuses on how to form habits. This includes the essential components of forming effective habits as well as tools that can help in the process. The outcome of this track is a “new habit formula” to be used whenever faced with the default behaviour of giving answers.

The second track, which focuses on effective coaching, is distilled into 7 questions. 7 amazing questions. 7 beautiful questions. That’s it, 7 questions that will unlock the potential of your staff and finally transform you into an effective manager. Combined with the new habit formula anyone, in any situation, at any experience level can start applying the ‘technique’ which will ultimately evolve into a way of thinking. It’s too easy.

What are the questions?

I want to stay away from the specifics of the books I review as this blog is about the meaning I took away and I want the readers to try (or not) the book for themselves to find their own meaning. I’ll make an exception in this case. Here are the 7 questions.

What’s on your mind?

And what else?

What’s the real challenge here for you?

What do you want?

How can I help?

If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?

What was most useful for you?

And finally, not one of the questions but my new favourite phrase…

The answer to how is yes

Was it worth the money?

Remember that time when people thought the earth was flat* and stationery? I mean, it was obvious, we stand upright, our buildings – apart from that one in Pisa – stand upright, no one was suffering from dizziness. Of course the earth is flat! Then one day some guy rocks up and proves that not only was the earth not flat, it was ‘spherical’ and rotating. Imagine how those people must have felt. Well I don’t have to imagine because that’s how I felt after reading this. I would have easily paid 10 times the amount for this book having read it. Do you know what you else you could get for that kind of money? It doesn’t matter!

Verdict: Go buy this book now. Buy a few, for your boss, for your staff, for random strangers on the street.

*There are a few who still do