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The Science Behind Powerful Questioning: A Systemic Questioning Framework for Coach Educators and Practitioners
Abstract
At the heart of the coaching process is the core competency of questioning, often referred to as powerful questioning. Coach educators and trainers diligently teach students the importance of asking questions (versus giving advice) during coaching sessions and teach them to structure questions appropriately (such as using open versus closed-ended questions). Still, coaching students struggle with knowing what questions to ask and when during their work with clients. Although many students search for a list of so-called magic coaching questions, I contend that coaches instead need a framework of questioning to use when coaching a client. A questioning framework could help educators teach the science of questioning as a means for developing coaches’ professional judgment, thereby helping coaches make better-informed choices about what types of questions to ask clients during coaching sessions. This paper presents an evidence-based conceptual framework called the Systemic Questioning Framework. Application of the framework during a coaching conversation may increase the coach’s confidence and competence when making decisions regarding how to shape questions in the moment in response to the client, enabling better coaching outcomes.
Keywords: powerful questioning, dialogue, systems thinking, executive coaching, team coaching
... In addition, mathematics teachers are more fond of using only low or medium-cognitive level questions and focus less on high-cognitive-level questioning, causing the mathematics teaching activities that are implemented to be less stimulating and provoking to students' thinking . Low-level questions in this context refers to questions that focus on specific details or facts within a mathematical concept or problem such as "What is the formula for finding the perimeter of a rectangle" and "What is the square root of 64?" (Hauser, 2017) stated that this happens because a lack of knowledge and skills in oral questioning among mathematics teachers makes it challenging to construct high-level questions in mathematics teaching. ...
Reasoning skills are essential mathematical skills that need to be taught to students starting in primary school and have even become the main domain in global assessments such as TIMSS and PISA. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the implementation of the use of oral questioning in improving students’ reasoning skills in mathematics at the primary school level. Data for the qualitative case study were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations, and field notes. Six mathematics teachers from six different primary schools were selected as participants in the study using the purposive sampling method. The data were then analyzed using a constant comparative method to identify the patterns and themes that emerged. The study found six types of oral questions that are identified as being used by mathematics teachers to help students improve their mathematical reasoning skills and thinking, namely, provocative mathematical questions, puzzle-shaped questions, breaking down hard problems into easier parts, contextual questions, questions to explain the mistakes, and questions asking for clarification. The findings showed that primary mathematics teachers used a variety of oral questions to help students develop their mathematical reasoning skills and, at the same time, assist them in developing higher order thinking skills. This research has implications for expanding the literature and understanding of how primary school teachers perceive that using certain oral questions can help improve students’ mathematical reasoning. In addition, the study’s results revealed the importance of oral questioning in teaching mathematical reasoning skills.
During the past few years, the growth of an emergent ‘coaching industry’ has resulted in some scholars calling for the development of a genuine coaching profession. Yet contemporary organization development (OD) and human resource development (HRD) practitioners conceive of coaching as an extant core component of their respective fields of study and practice. This paper reports the results of a qualitative study that examined different conceptualizations and definitions of ‘coaching,’ OD, and ‘HRD’ found in the respective literatures. The results suggest all three fields of practice are very similar, both in terms of their intended purpose and processes. This finding poses a dilemma and challenge for those who believe a genuine coaching profession with its own identity and unique body of empirically tested knowledge can be distinctly defined and delineated.
Abstract This paper sets out the argument that quite fundamental issues, both theoretical and practical, divide the various approaches ,to coaching. It does ,not suggest that any one approach ,is better or right; each approach would be more appropriatein particular situations. However, by understanding more clearly the nature of the difference between approaches, it will also be easier to fit a coaching model to specific situations. It is argued ,here that goal-oriented approaches ,to coaching ,generally have ,a different perspective than therapeutic or personal-development ,approaches ,on the ,role of the ,coach and on the objective of coaching.
Despite considerable organisational development research and practice suggesting that interventions in organisations should also be targeted at the group level, most organisational coaching is dyadic (one-to-one) and few models of group coaching have been developed. In Part I of this paper we present an introductory overview of group coaching and compare it to other group-based interventions. We distinguish between the goal-focused nature of group coaching and the process-orientation of group facilitation, and posit that group coaching has important but under-used potential as a means of creating goal-focused change in organisational contexts. In Part II of this paper we address practice issues and we present a practical model of GROUP (Goal, Reality, Options, Understanding others, Perform) coaching that integrates the well-known GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Way forward) coaching framework with Scharma's U process for group dialogue, double loop learning and other theoretically-grounded practices. From a practitioner's perspective, we draw on the extant literature, we compare group coaching to other team and group-based interventions. Although precisely distinguishing between different group-based change modalities is difficult, we argue that group coaching is a more goal directed process than group facilitation, and that group coaching has important but under-used potential as a means of creating change in organizational contexts.
The term ‘profession’ derives from the Latin word ‘profiteor’ meaning to profess. Professionalisation, is the process whereby a gainful activity moves from the status of ‘occupation’ to the status of ‘profession’. Claims for professional status and the emergence of standards and awards are typical of the journey that occupations make (or attempt to make) towards professionalisation. However, some occupations fall short of the mark or, at best, become semi-professions with shorter training, less specialised knowledge; and more societal (state) control. If coaching is to become a profession it must adopt criteria such as the development of an agreed and unified body of knowledge, professional standards and qualifications, and codes of ethics and behaviour. While some of these are already completed or in development, the continuation of a multiplicity (and growing) number of coaching associations suggests that the pathway of coaching to professionalisation may be at best bumpy, and at worst derailed.
Lists of core competencies or critical capabilities are popular and plentiful. This article makes the case that a single core competency or critical capability accounts for professional success: the exercise of judgment. Judgment is the critical determinant of the quality of professional decisions, actions, and evaluations. Practical models of judgment are presented. The elements and dynamics of judgment are detailed. Individual, group, and organization implications are explored. Coaching and consulting interventions are explained.
Team coaching is frequently confused with individual coaching, team facilitation, and team building. Coaching several individuals within a team or all the team members individually is not the same as coaching the team. Coaching the team differs from coaching individuals in several key ways. Firstly, there is a much lower level of confidentiality, so it is a lot harder and more time-consuming to build a high level of openness and trusting dialogue than one-to-one. The most effective team coaches had a portfolio of approaches for managing individual variations in pace of thinking, learning, and commitment. Team coaches have a lot more to think about, both overall and simultaneously, and hence might need a higher level of skills. One of the necessary skill sets might be facilitation but it is important to separate out the roles of facilitator and coach, even if they might sometimes overlap.
We argue that academic descriptions of Organization Development (OD) found in textbooks and most journal articles have not kept pace with innovations in OD practice. A growing body of OD practice has, explicitly or implicitly, rejected the modernist assumptions underlying traditional OD in favor of post-modern assumptions about discourse, narrative and the importance of changing conversations for changing human systems. In this paper we identify some of these new OD practices, consider how they differ from traditional OD and how they adhere to traditional OD values and principles. We offer a definition for a new, post-modern form of organization development and criteria for categorizing post-modern OD. We conclude with a call for recognizing this bifurcation in OD practice and increased scholarly attention to and research on post-modern OD.
The Problem
Differing perceptions of what constitutes executive coaching core competencies by academic and coach preparation programs, credentialing associations, and practitioners obfuscates clarity of definition, roles, and implementation. This lack of clarity and agreement can confuse practitioners and slow progress in theory-building, research, and executive coach development.
The Solution
This article examines diverse ways that executive coaching is defined and distinguished. Professional associations have shaped membership, credentialing, and accreditation based on different competencies. The article describes four executive coaching roles and six enabling core coaching competencies, and it draws implications for navigating, researching, and practicing in the diverse terrain of executive coaching, in and for, organizations.
The Stakeholders
Practitioners might be interested in a map of the coaching terrain that Enables them to better choose among possible avenues toward coach preparation and professionalization. Researchers and theory builders might be interested in definitions and competency models to guide further investigation into coaching.
After briefly reviewing the existing literature on team coaching, we propose a new model with three distinguishing features. The model (1) focuses on the functions that coaching serves for a team, rather than on either specific leader behaviors or leadership styles, (2) identifies the specific times in the task performance process when coaching interventions are most likely to have their intended effects, and (3) explicates the conditions under which team-focused coaching is and is not likely to facilitate performance.
Notes that complex dynamics of the consultative relationship demand well-trained and personally competent practitioners. However, only recently has this need been recognized with the development of workshops and courses aimed at promoting consultant's skills. Though a professional helper, a consultant also needs help in practicing interpersonal intervention techniques, such as those enabling him to stimulate a need for help, develop a contract for collaboration, be supportive in working through resistance, and conceptualize criteria for making choices among alternatives. In addition to skills, it is suggested that the consultant must develop the right values, attitudes, and ethics if he is to hold the confidence of those within the client system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A new ensemble of organization development (OD) practices have emerged that are based more on constructionist, post modern and new sciences premises than the assumptions of the early founders. These include practices associated with appreciative inquiry, large group interventions, changing mindsets and consciousness, addressing diversity and multicultural realities, and advancing new and different models of change. We propose that the emerging field of organizational discourse offers sympathetic concepts and research that could add additional insights and theoretical rigour to the New OD. In particular, studies of organizational discourse based upon social constructionist and critical perspectives offer compelling ideas and practices associated with the establishment of change concepts, the role of power and context in relation to organizational change, and specific discursive interventions designed to foster organizational change.
Every question asked by a therapist may be seen to embody some intent and to arise from certain assumptions. Many questions are intended to orient the therapist to the client's situation and experiences; others are asked primarily to provoke therapeutic change. Some questions are based on lineal assumptions about the phenomena being addressed; others are based on circular assumptions. The differences among these questions are not trivial. They tend to have dissimilar effects. This article explores these issues and offers a framework for distinguishing four major groups of questions. The framework may be used by therapists to guide their decision making about what kinds of questions to ask, and by researchers to study different interviewing styles.
A clinical interview affords far more opportunities to act therapeutically than most therapists realize. Because so many of these opportunities remain outside the therapist's conscious awareness, it is useful to elaborate guidelines that orient his or her general activity in directions that are liable to be therapeutic. The Milan associates defined three such basic guidelines: hypothesizing, circularity, and neutrality. Hypothesizing is clear and easy to accept. The notions of circularity and neutrality have aroused considerable interest but are not as readily understood. These guidelines may be clarified and operationalized when reformulated as conceptual postures. This process is enhanced by differentiating a fourth guideline, strategizing, which entails the therapist's decision making, including decisions about how to employ these postures. This paper, the first in a series of three, explores these four interviewing guidelines. The other papers will appear in a subsequent issue. Part II will focus on reflexive questioning, a mode of inquiry oriented toward mobilizing the family's own healing capacity. Part III will provide a scheme for analyzing and choosing among four major types of questions: linear questions, circular questions, reflexive questions, and strategic questions.
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