# The Coaching Habit **Michael Bungay Stanier**  --- _Stay curious longer. Rush to solutions and you miss the real problem._ One of your roles as a manager is to have answers. The problem is when that becomes your default behaviour. You jump in too quickly, solve problems that aren't quite the real problem, and create dependency instead of capability, undermining the very thing [[Designing the organisation]] is supposed to achieve. The first answer someone gives you is almost never the only answer, and it's rarely the best answer. Having just one more option (should we do this, or this, or not?) lowers the failure rate by almost half. Seven questions. That's the toolkit. Each one designed to keep you in coaching mode rather than advice-giving mode, to help the other person think rather than demonstrate how clever you are. --- **"What's on your mind?"** cuts through small talk and gets to what matters. It's broad enough to let them choose the topic, focused enough to avoid aimless wandering. **"And what else?"** is the one with the most practical leverage: it creates more (more wisdom, more self-awareness, more possibilities) almost by itself. Three things happen: you generate more options, you rein yourself in from jumping to solutions, and you buy time to understand the real issue before reacting. **"What's the real challenge here for you?"** cuts to the heart when someone presents a problem that's probably not the real problem. The "for you" is critical; it keeps the focus on their experience, not abstract organisational issues. **"What do you want?"** is simple, direct, clarifying. People often don't know what they want until asked. Forcing articulation creates clarity, and it does so before anyone starts solving. **"How can I help?"** stops you from assuming you know what's needed and forces them to make a direct request, which they may not have formulated yet. It puts you in service mode rather than hero mode. **"If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?"** connects directly to [[Real choices]]: every yes implies nos, some obvious and some hidden, and the hidden nos are what you need to surface. **"What was most useful for you?"** ends the conversation by creating a learning moment. Not what did I teach you, but what landed for you. The distinction matters: you're asking them to extract their own insight. --- **Why questions trigger defensiveness.** Asking "why did you do that?" sounds like an interrogation. Reframing to "what were you hoping for here?" sounds like curiosity. The shift from why to what is subtle but changes what becomes possible in the conversation. When someone says yes to something, they're uncovering two types of no. The no of omission: the options automatically eliminated by committing. If you take on this project, you can't simultaneously take on that one. The no of commission: what you now need to actively say no to in order to make the yes happen. What conversations need to be had, what priorities need to shift, what resources need to be redirected. These require effort, not just passive acceptance, and most people haven't thought them through when they said yes. --- "Being busy is a form of laziness: lazy thinking and indiscriminate action." The coaching habit is not about reducing your output or avoiding decisions. It's about ensuring that the problems you're solving are the real ones, and that solving them builds capability in others rather than just transferring tasks to yourself. Managers who default to answers end up with teams that default to bringing them problems. The loop is self-reinforcing in the wrong direction. Asking one more question before you start solving is a small behaviour change with a disproportionate return. ---