team building organization development leadership coaching expert michael cardus

While presenting the coaching model I use, SOLVED Solution-Focused method, to my local ASTD Chapter one of the participants asked,

“When do we get to the deeper questions?”

That made me stop and think:
  1. What do they mean by deeper?
  2. What are “deeper questions”?
  3. Are they paying attention?

I paused the team coaching process and responded,

“It is not really the depth of the questions, it is the person being coached and their response. They can go as deep or shallow as they please, it is their time to respond.”

For some reason we think that “deep” responses come from “deep” questions, not true.

Responses can be at the proper depth that the person answering the question feels is necessary, it has very little to do with the question.

For example, “How was your day?” the response can be long and thoughtful with the full run-down of lessons learned and interactions, etc… OR it can just be “fine”.

How do you determine proper “depth” of the response?

  • When is the response too much, too little, just right? How do you know?

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