Ten minute toolbox: Are you asking powerful questions?
Powerful questions are great tool; use them in meetings to create progress, during one to one conversations or simply ask them of yourself when you have an issue or feel ‘stuck’.
Benefits of powerful questions include:
- They refocus thought, e.g. from problem to solution.
- They can help someone feel more powerful and constructive about a situation.
- They tap into creativity and create options.
- They can make a problem feel more like a challenge or an opportunity.
- They create forward movement, i.e. out of the problem state and into solution or action.
Encourage a sense of possibility
Powerful questions also create a sense of possibility into a situation where previously that is lacking. For example, imagine you’ve been complaining relentlessly about really wanting a holiday but also needing the money to fix your car. You really dislike your car, you’d prefer something more economical, but it seems too much hassle to change it. Then someone asks you:
‘How can you have both the car you want and the holiday you want?’
Well it gets you thinking, doesn’t it? When we ask a really powerful question in response to a situation, you can almost hear someone’s mind crunch into gear. As our minds can’t resist the challenge of a stimulating question.
Powerful Questions in Coaching
In coaching, powerful questions are a valuable asset in many situations. They are phrased in such a way as to encompass the problem and provoke an answer. The answer that they produce often addresses the deeper problem, not just the surface issue.
Watch how this type of question can be used within a coaching session.
| Coachee’s statement | Powerful question |
| ‘I’ve moved jobs, I’ve moved home and now I’ve got no friends and no social life – it makes the whole thing seem pointless somehow.’ | ‘What could you be doing to feel more settled and meet some new friends?’ |
| ‘I’ve got too much on. Plus my boss is telling me I need to demonstrate an ability to delegate to show management potential but then keeps giving me tasks that only I can do!’ | ‘How can you show your boss that you are able to delegate, even with your current workload and tasks?’ |
| ‘I want to go to night school but there’s no one reliable to look after the kids, the situation’s just impossible.’ | ‘How can you get someone reliable to look after the kids while you go to night school?’ |
Try it yourself
Use the following to experience this idea using your own situations:
Step one – identify three problem statements
Write down three problems that you think you have. Choose things that are moderately important but not earth-shattering, e.g. ‘I want to exercise but I’m just too busy with everything else’. Leave enough space under each statement to write a few more sentences.
Step two – change problem statements into powerful questions
Under each problem, write down questions that provoke solutions to the issue, e.g. ‘How can I be less busy and create time to exercise?’ Remember, for a question to be powerful it must have the following attributes:
- The question assumes that there is an answer to the problem.
- The question provokes thought to begin to create answers or solutions.
- The question digs below the surface, and thereby invites a more encompassing solution.
For further support, look back at the previous examples.
Step three – answer your own questions
On a clean piece of paper, write your powerful questions down one side. Then, take a moment to relax and then focus on each question properly. Challenge yourself to produce ideas or solutions, e.g. ‘Get up an hour earlier’, ‘Ask Jon to pick the kids up from school on Thursdays’, ‘Cook meals and freezer them on weekends’.
Once you have some positive solutions, simply decide which you’re going to commit to!
