Coaching Reflection
I was coaching a teacher sometime back, and she had an issue with student learning in her class. I was trying to explore her understanding of how students are learning, so I asked:
"I am wondering how does your student learn?"
However, the question she heard was:
"What are you doing to help students learn?"
She kept on explaining what she was doing.
A similar experience
A few days back, I was talking to one of my friends — let’s call him Mr. X. Suddenly, he asked me:
"Hey Nitin, ask me a challenging question."
I looked at him, smiled, and thought: Now that he has asked me, I must give it to him. So, I asked:
"X, you always make commitments of doing one thing or another, but you never do it. Why is that?"
My friend heard the question and kept staring at me for a while. So, I said:
"You asked for it."
He wasn’t really trying to answer my question. Instead, he was thinking: Why did I ask him that specific question? Was I trying to tell him that he doesn’t deliver on commitments?
The question that got raised in his mind was very different from the question I asked.
Common Reflection
Both scenarios share a common reflection point: the question being answered is very different from the question being asked.
Examples of such questions
- "How did you feel?" or "How are you feeling?"
If your client doesn’t have a good grasp on expressing feelings, they may go all over it and yet not express their feelings. - "Where is that coming from?"
This question is often asked to explore what is causing a particular feeling. However, in an effort to be short and crisp, sometimes we as coaches make our questions cryptic.
The real question
The real question is the one that gets raised in the mind of the person you’re asking, not necessarily the one you asked.
Reflection for coaches
- How can we get closer to what our coachees are thinking and help them explore unexplored areas?
- Has this happened to you in your conversations?
- If yes, what are some of those scenarios?
- Should we try and reduce the gap?
- What are your thoughts?
