Open and Closed Questions
All questions are either open questions or closed questions. Closed questions by definition have yes or no answers. Closed questions usually start with words like: ‘was’, ‘do’, ‘have’ and ‘can’, whereas open questions usually start with ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘which, ‘who’ ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’. Open questions cannot usually be answered by single word answers and therefore help coaches to open up coaching conversations.
Examples of Closed Questions:
- Was the strategy you adopted effective?
- Do your two sales representatives perform well?
- Have you any ideas about how to increase sales?
- Can you tell me the underlying reason for your company’s sales problem?
Examples of Open Questions:
- When did you notice the decline in sales?
- Where do you believe the problem lies with the level of sales being generated?
- Which strategies have proven to be particularly effective in the past?
- Who are your key customers?
- What are the key factors impacting on sales levels right now?
- Why do you think the two sales representatives are not performing effectively?
Although open questions generally result in fuller answers than closed questions, a poorly phrased open question can still result in a single word answer, for example:
“Which of the two sales representatives in your company is the best?”
The answer will be a single response. A better question might be “What are the qualities of the best sales representative in your company?”
Questions staring with ‘why’ need to be used carefully and sparsely as ‘why’ can be particularly challenging, for example:
“Why have you not taken action to address the poor sales performance?”
The TED Model
Why questions can be very challenging and imply criticism. Why questions can easily be re-framed making them less critical and challenging using the TED Model.
Instead of asking ‘why’, coaches can ask a question that does not sound like a question using the pre-fixes ‘tell me’, ‘explain to me’ and ‘describe to me’.
Examples:
Tell about your company’s sales performance?
Explain to me your company’s sales process?
Describe to me how you prepare sales proposals?
Whilst sounding softer and not implying criticism, TED still enables coaches to challenge and probe. The use of TED also feels more conversational.
Leading Questions
Coaches also need to avoid asking leading questions in an attempt to help clients to reach a specific conclusion or to provide some guidance or advice, for example
“Do you not think your sales commission scheme is too generous?”
High pressure sales representatives often use leading questions to manipulate their prospects into making a purchase. This is not a suitable technique for coaching.
Leading questions should not be confused with pacing, matching and leading (see Building Rapport).
Coaches may be tempted to use leading questions if the coaching dialogue is not advancing in a positive direction or is advancing too slowly. Whilst this might be frustrating for the coach, the temptation to lead and offer advice in the form of questions is inappropriate. Firstly, it imposes the coach’s own ideas on the client. Secondly, it also involves the coach making an assumption about their client’s own motivations and beliefs.
Assumptive Questions
Effective coaches ensure that coaching sessions are filled with questions, but avoid it feeling like an interrogation. They ask questions whilst retaining a relaxed, conversational atmosphere. Assumptive questions help coaches to achieve this.
Although looking like a closed question, assumptive questions enable coaches to check or confirm an assumption or their understanding, for example:
“You appear to be quite anxious about the lack of sales in your company, is that the case?
“Didn’t you say that there were three factors impacting on sales performance?”
Unlike leading questions, assumptive questions do not lead clients. Unlike closed questions, they tend not to result in short, one word responses because they are part of the natural conversation flow. They also serve to challenge clients in a gentle way and to check or confirm facts and issues.
“One of the main differences between a poor coach and an effective coach is the quality of the questions they ask. Poor coaches ask poor questions and great coaches ask great questions.” – John Moore
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