person at hand. To do that, you’d ask something like this:
“I have a sense of the overall challenge. What’s the real
challenge here for you?”
Moving from Performance to Development
In the Kickstart Question chapter, I touched briefly on the
difference between coaching for performance and coaching for
development. Coaching for performance is the label typically
applied to everyday solving-the-problem management. Coaching
for development goes beyond just solving the problem and shifts
the focus to the person who’s trying to solve the problem. As I said,
it’s the difference between the fire and the person who’s trying to
put out the fire.
The simple act of adding “for you” to the end of as many
questions as possible is an everyday technique for making
conversations more development- than performance-oriented.
Yes, the problems still get sorted out. But with “for you” there’s
often additional personal insight, and with personal insight comes
increased growth and capability.
Three Strategies to Make This Question Work for You
Now that you know why the Focus Question works so well, here
are a few tips to ensure that it works well—for you.