Questions For Coaching And Mentoring Sessions

You don’t ask this question so you can hear the answer, you ask it so your mentee can hear their answer. This is a question designed to help people understand that they should dream about their future. Isn’t it sad that we need to be encouraged to dream? Ask a six-year old and they’ll give [...]

Business, any business, is about people. I will defend that statement at any time, in any place, under any circumstance. Leaders know more people, usually because they’ve been around longer and had more opportunities to meet and converse with more people inside and outside their organization. When a leader leaves one company to go to [...]

When coaches and mentors ask this question, they’re taking responsibility in two areas–the quality of training programs and the quality of work experiences. Covers a lot of ground for a seven-word question doesn’t it? Let’s start with training. Training sessions that impart vast quantities of information without considerable time for asking questions and practicing are [...]

In the discussion of the last question, I suggested that building on strengths was a better way to go as a coach than trying to eliminate weaknesses. I hope I didn’t leave you thinking that you never had to do anything with the latter. This is the question that moves you into the tricky arena [...]

When you’re in a coaching situation, I believe that this is the best beginning question. Not that it is easy for people to answer. Far from it. Many of us are filled with childhood admonitions like "Don’t boast" and "Be humble." People who carry these messages often have great difficulty articulating their personal strengths. Some [...]