📚 The Coaching Habit, A Fun Reading Challenge, and more.

👋 Hey everyone,

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This week’s newsletter was made possible by Shortform.

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I like to read their summaries as a way of sampling books before deciding whether to buy them and to review key lessons from my favorite books.

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📚 Book Summary:

This week’s book is “The Coaching Habit” by Michael Bungay Stanier.

Michael’s book has sold 1M+ copies and is now being published as an updated hardcover edition (Michael is a friend, so he sent me an early copy).

This book is for anyone who wants to become a better coach (managers, leaders, parents, etc). In it, Michael shares 7 essential coaching questions that make coaching practical, actionable, and accessible to everyone.

PS: Check out these awesome bonuses you can get if you preorder Michael's book!

Here are 3 lessons from the book:

📖

1) 7 Questions Every Coach Should Remember

We are all coaches in one form or another.

We coach our kids, employees, friends, and anyone who comes to us with a question.

Here are 7 valuable questions Michael advises coaches to ask:

1. What’s on your mind?

2. And what else?

3. What’s the real challenge here for you?

4. What do you want?

5. How can I help?

6. If you’re saying Yes to this, what are you saying No to?

7. What was most useful for you?

Michael explains how and why coaches should ask all of these questions in-depth in his book.

But for now, if you just ask one of these questions in your next conversation, you’ll be a far better coach than you were yesterday.

📖

2) What To Do When Someone Gets Stuck

Imagine you’re coaching your employee or maybe even your own kid who’s having trouble at school.

If they get stuck, analyze the 3 P’s (Project, People, or Patterns):

• Project: Are they facing challenges with the actual task or content?

• People: Are there any issues with other team members, departments, or colleagues?

• Patterns: Are they getting in their own way, such as repeating the same mistake or pattern?

It doesn’t really matter what the issue is, the point is to start a conversation.

And don’t immediately jump to solve their problem for them. A good coach gives people space to share what’s going on and asks follow-up questions until they’ve decided what to do next.

A 1984 study found that the average time a patient talks to a doctor before being interrupted was just 18 seconds. It’s no wonder people always complain about doctors–they don’t listen and try to solve our problems before we even have the chance to fully explain our situation.

People want to be seen, heard, and encouraged.

Create the space for that to happen.

📖

3) How To Ask Questions Without People Getting Defensive

One of the scariest sentences you can hear from your boss, parent, or anyone in a higher rank than you is, “Why did you do that?”

Which in our heads often sounds more like “What the hell were you thinking you idiot?”

If you’re going to ask someone a Why question, you need to do so carefully and in the right tone.

But an easy hack for asking a Why question without people getting defensive is to reframe it so it starts with “What.”

So instead of:

• “Why did you do that?”, ask “What were you hoping for here?”

• “Why did you think this was a good idea?”, ask “What made you choose this course of action?”

• “Why are you bothering with this?”, ask “What’s important for you here?”

Stick to questions starting with “What” and avoid questions starting with “Why.”

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) Save the 7 key questions and ask them the next time someone comes to you with a problem.

2) When someone is stuck, try to identify whether it’s due to the Project, People, or Pattern, and don’t immediately jump in to solve the issue.

3) To ask a question without someone getting defensive, start your question with What instead of Why.

💎 Weekly Gem:

If you want to read more books, here’s a fun challenge for you:

I’m calling it “Screen Time to Read Time”

1. Open up your Screen Time app to see your daily average screen time.

2. Spend that same amount of time reading a book.

If you have time to scroll for hours, you have time to read for hours.

Here’s a video of me doing the challenge and reading for 2 hours and 17 minutes.

(PS: If you do the challenge please tag Alex & Books so I can see it!)

Your opinion matters!

Thank you for your support,

Alex W.