Most CEOs manage by answering: someone brings a problem, you solve it. That feels efficient and quietly makes you the bottleneck. Michael Bungay Stanier's The Coaching Habit flips it: by asking a few good questions instead of jumping to advice, you get your team thinking for themselves, do less of their work, and have more impact.
The whole practice runs on seven questions you can use in any conversation, even over email.
The 7 Questions, in Brief
- "What's on your mind?" (start fast)
- "And what else?" (the best answer is rarely the first)
- "What's the real challenge here for you?" (get past the surface problem) Getting past the surface to the real problem is the heart of a strong pitch: The Art of Pitching
- "What do you really want?"
- "How can I help?" (forces a clear ask) That clear-ask coaching stance is what a fractional executive brings: What Is a Fractional Executive
- "If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?"
- "What was most useful for you?" (locks in learning)
The core discipline underneath them: ask "what," not "why"; stay curious a little longer; and stop giving advice with a question mark attached. That curious, slow-to-advise stance is an emotional-intelligence skill: Emotional Intelligence SERIES [replaces.
The deeper tactics, saying yes slowly, finding the real problem, the 3 Ps (Project, Person, Pattern), and how to use the questions over email, are in the full summary.
- Read the complete summary: our Coaching Habit Full Summary covers all seven questions, the add-ons, the tactics, and the 3 Ps.
- Read the book: The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier.
- For sharper decisions under uncertainty, see our summary of Thinking in Bets.
If you keep being the person everyone brings problems to, that's a delegation issue worth solving.
An executive coach can help you build the habit. Talk to our Team to book a free 30-minute Scalability Audit to learn more.