What helps me get my goals accomplished? Developing my own action steps, action steps that I’m motivated to take and that are SMART. I don't have the same success rate when someone else develops the action steps and when the action steps are not SMART.
 
I’m sold on developing my own SMART action steps. And when I work with others, I work to focus them on developing their own SMART action steps.
 
Question: How often do you focus others on developing SMART action steps?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Make sure you consistently focus others on developing SMART action steps. What helps me do this consistently is asking questions like:

• Specific: What do you mean by ___?
• Measurable: How will you know when you’ve achieved your action step?
• Attainable: How doable is this?
• Relevant: How will this action step help you achieve your goal?
• Timebound: When will you do this?

Question: What action steps will you take to ensure that you consistently focus others on developing SMART action steps?
 
*To learn more about focusing others, click here.

Want to encourage coaching in your organization? One way I encourage coaching is by developing sets of questions to be used in meetings and workshops. As a result of using sets of questions in meetings and workshops, staff have shifted toward asking questions and away from giving advice.

In the planning sessions I'm facilitating today, participants are using the following sets of questions to help others reflect:

Set 1

1. What’s your mission?
2. What’s it take to carry out your mission?
3. What’s already been accomplished?
4. What helps you?
5. What hinders you?
6. What are your options?
7. What will you do to achieve your goals?

Set 2

1. What is your mission? What are your goals?
2. How would you categorize progress on your goals? Why?
3. To what extent do your current action steps help you address your goals?

Set 3

1. What topics did you talk about in your tactical meeting?
2. What action steps are you going to take before your next meeting?
3. What did you learn by trying out different roles?
4. What will help your team work together better?

Reflection is powerful. Reflection helps me identify my goals, better understand my current situation, and consider what I can do to move forward on my goals. I regularly take time to reflect and to encourage others to reflect.
 
How can you help others reflect? By asking open-ended questions. By asking questions like “What are your priorities?” and “What can you do to pursue God’s calling?”
 
Question: How often do you ask open-ended questions?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Make sure you consistently ask open-ended questions. What has helped me to do this is:

• Reading books on open-ended questions, like Bobb Biehl’s Asking to Win.
• Developing a set of go-to questions, for example: What’s your goal? What’s going on? What can you do? What will you do?

Question: What action steps will you take to ensure that you consistently ask open-ended questions?
 
*To learn more about asking questions, click here.

When I think of improving my coaching, 3 areas come to mind. Those 3 areas are beliefs, skills, and process. 

Want to empower people? Want to develop leaders? Want to help others become better problem solvers and solve their problems? If so, try this one thing. It’s free. You can do it anywhere. And those you talk with like it.
 
What is it? It’s the 80/20 Rule. The 80/20 Rule says that in each conversation, you should listen 80% of the time and talk 20% of the time.
 
Question: How often do you talk 20% of the time?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Make sure you consistently follow the 80/20 Rule. To do this, you’re going to have to keep the other person talking. What I do to keep others talking (so I can listen) is make inviting statements (Tell me more about that.) and ask open-ended questions like “What’s a key challenge you’re facing?”
 
Question: What action steps will you take to ensure that you consistently talk a maximum of 20% of the time?
 
*To learn more about listening, click here.

That’s a good question. Let me respond by asking you a question: What encouraged you to get coached and to coach others? Figure out what encouraged you and use that to encourage coaching in your organization.

What initially encouraged me to get coached was reading about coaching and talking with a friend about how coaching encouraged him and helped him achieve his goals. What really sold me on getting coached was the results I got from getting coached—I felt encouraged, I was better able to achieve my personal and professional goals, and I was empowered to pursue God’s calling.

What encouraged me to coach others was the results I got from getting coached, talking with a friend who coached others, reading books, and completing a coaching certification program.


Question: So, how can you encourage coaching in your organization?

Answer: Based on what encouraged me to get coaching and coach others, I suggest you consider taking action steps like:

1. Continuing getting coached yourself, coaching others, and talking about the results of coaching.
2. Helping leaders understand what coaching is and how they can benefit from it. 
3. Getting leaders to receive coaching.
4. Training leaders to coach others.
5. Getting leaders to start coaching key staff members and use coaching skills throughout the day. 
6. Helping staff understand what coaching is and how they can benefit from it. 
7. Getting more and more staff to receiving coaching.
8. Training staff to coach others.
9. Getting staff to start coaching other staff members and use coaching skills throughout the day. 

You might be thinking, “Looks like I should take those steps in the order they are listed.” I can see why you would think that, and generally speaking, taking the steps in the order listed is helpful. But, there is no one right way to do it—for example, you can take the steps in a different order if that is what works best for you and your organization.


Question: How can you determine the action steps you want to take and the sequence of those action steps?

Answer: I suggest that you get a team together and:

• Share what encouraged you to get coached, what encouraged you to coach others, and how coaching has helped you and others.
• Reflect on the benefits of establishing a coaching culture.
• Take a self-assessment on how a coaching culture could help your organization, and discuss your assessment results.
• Review the action steps listed above. Then, determine what action steps you will take and the order of those action steps.

Question: What might encouraging coaching in your organization look like?

Answer: Here’s an example. Let’s assume you’ve already talked with your team about establishing a coaching culture, and you’ve determined that you want to start by introducing everyone to coaching through a 3-hour workshop:

Your goals for the workshop include having participants:

1. Reflect on the power of questions.
2. Understand what coaching is and how it works.
3. Experience leading by asking questions/coaching.
4. Get more interested in getting coached and getting coach training.

To prepare leaders and staff for the workshop, you:

1. Ask them to take a short online tutorial on exploring getting coaching.
2. Encourage key staff (especially the members of your team) to experience coaching by providing coaching sessions at their convenience.

Then during the 3-hour workshop, you have participants:

1. (10 minutes) Listen to 1 or more testimonials on how coaching has helped.
2. (10 minutes) Watch 2 people model coaching by using a set of questions, for example: What people/projects are you spending your time/energy on? What’s been satisfying/frustrating? What are the reasons for your feelings of satisfaction/frustration? What do you think you’ll do?
3. (25 minutes) Use a set of questions to talk with a partner (What people/projects are you spending your time/energy on? What’s been satisfying/frustrating? What are the reasons for your feelings of satisfaction/frustration? How can I pray for you?). Then, pray together.
4. (20 minutes) Reflect on why God asks questions.
5. (30 minutes) Read and discuss 1 or more articles on Christian coaching that include an emphasis on asking questions, for example: “Lead by Asking Questions,” “The Startup Guide to Coaching Leaders,” “The Coaching Approach to Growth,” “The Heart of a Coach,” and “What is ‘Coaching’ to You?” (Additional resources are available through Close the Gap Now, Creative Results Management, The Christian Coaching Center, and Coach22.)
6. (15 minutes) Break
7. (20 minutes) Take and discuss a self-assessment on leading by asking questions.
8. (25 minutes) Use a set of questions to help a partner process something. (Time permitting, debrief this.)
9. (15 minutes) Use a set of questions to debrief the workshop, for example: What did we do during the workshop? What excites/concerns you about leading by asking questions? What excites/concerns you about coaching? What insights did you have? How could leading by asking questions/coaching help us? What’s next? (This can be done in partners/small groups and then as a whole group.)
10. (10 minutes) Receive information about how they can get coach training and coaching.

After the workshop, you will:

1. Continue getting coached, coaching others, and talking about the results of coaching.
2. Continue meeting as a team to talk about encouraging coaching and to identify action steps.
3. Provide coaching and encourage staff (especially leaders) to receive coaching.
4. Provide coach training.
5. Provide reading material.

Reflect: How are you going to encourage coaching in your organization? What action steps are you going to take? In what order?

*Want additional resources on coaching?

• Tutorials
• Videos
• Blog entries on coaching culture
• Books
• Newsletters
• Training: Close the Gap Now, Creative Results Management

We all want to accomplish our goals. To accomplish our goals, we need to take action steps. I’ve found that the SMARTer the action step, the more likely I am to accomplish it. A SMART action steps is:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timebound

“Get in shape” is not a SMART action step, and it’s actually not that easy to accomplish. “Walk for 30 minutes 3 times per week for 1 month” is a SMART action step, and it’s actually easier to accomplish than “Get in shape.”
 
Question: How often do you empower others to develop SMART action steps for each of their goals?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Make sure you consistently empower others to develop SMART actions steps for each of their goals. If the person you’re talking to develops general action steps, help them SMARTen them up by asking questions like:

• Specific: What do you mean by ___?
• Measurable: How will you know when you’ve achieved your action step?
• Attainable: How doable is this?
• Relevant: How will this action step help you achieve your goal?
• Timebound: When will you do this?

Question: What action steps will you take to ensure that you consistently empower others to develop SMART action steps for each of their goals?
 
*To learn more about coaching others on taking action, click here.

You're a missionary serving in Latin America. You send monthly newsletters to your supporters, and you send monthly reports to your mission. Each time you send a newsletter, you receive encouraging emails and notes; each time you send a report, you receive an acknowledgement (and most times not even that). Unless things aren't going well—then you receive “feedback.”
 
Now you learn that your mission wants to encourage you to get coaching.
 
How do you feel about getting coaching? I wouldn’t be feeling good. And I'd be thinking, "Am I doing something wrong? Is something not going well? I think things are going well, so maybe coaching is for others. The mission tends to offer help when things aren't going well, so coaching probably wouldn't be useful."
 
My point: If you want missionaries to feel good about getting coaching, you may need to help them see coaching as a way of getting positive feedback. You can do this by:

• Explaining that the coach provides encouragement (not criticism).
• Sharing that coaching is a way to build on strengths.
• Emphasizing that in coaching, the client (not the supervisor) decides what to work on.

What are some other ways you can help missionaries feel good about getting coaching?

Sometimes I get stuck. I have a problem, and I can’t find a way to solve it. Then, I remember to brainstorm my options, to think outside the box. In short order, I’m unstuck and on my way to solving my problem. Brainstorming works for me. And I’ve found that brainstorming helps others.
 
Question: How often do you empower others to brainstorm options?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Make sure you consistently empower others to brainstorm options. To help others brainstorm options, I like to ask “What are your options?” and “What else?”
 
Question: What action steps will you take to ensure that you consistently empower others to brainstorm options?
 
*To learn more about coaching on options, click here.

You want to achieve your goal. And you want to take action now! Ever feel like that? I have. I like the energy, but I don’t necessarily like the results.
 
Why? Because when I take action without reflecting on my current reality, I forget to take into account things like family plans and my overall workload. What happens? I achieve things I don’t want (like family disharmony and personal fatigue), and I don’t achieve my goal.
 
Question: How often do you empower others to explore their current reality?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Make sure you consistently empower others to explore their current reality. What helps me do this is asking open-ended questions:

• What’s happening?
• How do you feel about this?
• How is God using _______ in your life?
• What are some other ways to look at this?

Question: What action steps will you take to ensure that you consistently empower others to explore their reality?
 
*To learn more about coaching others on the reality of their goals, click here.

If you want to help missionaries value getting coaching, you may need to start by helping them value personal and professional growth. Why? Because coaching is about growth, and if missionaries don’t value growth, they won’t seek coaching.
 
Question: Why might missionaries not value personal and professional growth?
 
Answer: Because they focus on serving others. Because they work in an organization that doesn’t have an organizational growth plan or a professional development plan. Because their mission doesn’t emphasize personal or professional growth.
 
Question: How can you help missionaries value growth?
 
Answer: By asking questions like “If you could grow in one area of your life, what would it be?” And by encouraging missions to develop organizational growth plans and professional development plans—this will help missions emphasize personal and professional growth.
 
Question: What strategies have you found useful in helping missionaries value personal and professional growth?

Missionaries want to proclaim the good news of Jesus. So, they do evangelism, baptize and disciple believers, and preach during worship services. God uses these activities to build His kingdom. These activities tend to flow from an advice-giving paradigm, rather than a question-asking paradigm.

Implications: Missionaries have more experience with giving advice than with asking questions. And missionaries value getting advice than more than getting asked questions—which is one reason they don’t pursue getting coaching.

Question: How can you help missionaries value getting asked questions?

My answer: I’m publishing sets of coaching questions in a quarterly magazine that missionaries I know read. I’m encouraging missions to publish short articles on asking questions.

Question: What strategies have you found useful in helping missionaries value getting asked questions?

In a coaching culture, staff members empower each other through listening, inquiry, focusing on SMART actions, and encouragement. To find out how establishing a coaching culture would help you, take the following self-assessment. Read More...

You’re coaching Toru. You have 30 minutes to help Toru achieve his goal. To use this time effectively, make sure you are clear on Toru’s goal. Otherwise, you’ll waste Toru’s time by asking irrelevant questions.
 
Question: How often are you clear on the other person’s goal?

• Consistently?
• Usually?
• Sometimes?
• Rarely?

Read More...

Leaders empower others. A key way leaders empower others is by asking questions.

Through Christian coaching, you can empower others to pursue God’s call. To get an idea of how you can empower others even more effectively, complete the following self-assessment that addresses coaching beliefs, skills, and process. Read More...

Missionaries want to proclaim the good news of Jesus. So, they do evangelism, baptize and disciple believers, and preach during worship services. God uses these activities to build His kingdom. These activities tend to flow from an advice-giving paradigm, rather than a question-asking paradigm.

Implications: Missionaries have more experience with giving advice than with asking questions. And missionaries value getting advice than more than getting asked questions—which is one reason they don't pursue getting coaching.

Question: How can you help missionaries value getting asked questions?

My answer: By publishing sets of coaching questions in a quarterly magazine (Japan Harvest) that missionaries I know read. By encouraging missions to publish short articles on asking questions. Here's an example.

Question: What strategies have you found useful in helping missionaries value getting asked questions?

Your client wants to clarify and strategically pursue God’s calling. That’s great!

Question: How can you empower your client to do this?
Read More...

To get an idea of how you can more effectively lead by asking questions, complete the following self-assessment (or download it here). Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sort of • 1: Rarely

Lead from your heart
___ I trust that the Holy Spirit is working in the heart of every believer.
___ I believe others can define and achieve their goals.
___ I target motivation, not information. Read More...

Ask questions to help those around you to focus, think through problems, and reach their goals. For example:

• If your co-worker wants to more effectively disciple others, ask: How do you disciple people now? What’s causing you to want to improve? What’s “more effective discipleship” look like? What can you do?

Read More...

The following is the transcript of an interview about moving a mission toward coaching. The interviewee is a veteran missionary.

What challenges do your mission staff face? Missionaries need greater clarity on ministry goals and when enough work is enough. Life balance issues are huge. Our missionaries need more support to put into practice what they already know.

What do your missionaries know about coaching? There’s a general awareness of coaching. About 50% of our people have had some exposure to coaching. Some have received coaching, and some have been in 1-day coaching workshops.

What excites you about having your missionaries get coaching? When people get coached, they make progress. Sometimes they get clear on what their goals are. Through coaching, our staff would receive strategic encouragement.

What concerns you? Some feel that coaching is a fad, so it might be hard to move in this direction. Another thing is that there’s the danger of coaches stepping out of their role and giving direction.

If your mission members got coaching, what might happen? People would be more focused on what they came to do, what they should be about, and confident that they’re doing what they should be doing.

What helps you move your mission toward getting your missionaries involved in coaching? A network of other coaches who prod me to continue on this path.

What hinders you? Busyness. Other things. Limited authority.

What are your options? I can keep on coaching people. I can encourage people to get coach training and to get a coach.

What will you do? I’m going to talk with the person responsible for member care about coaching.

Want to help others to reduce their frustrations? Ask questions that provoke reflection, for example:

1. What are 5 frustrations you have?
2. How do you feel when these frustrations are present/not present?
3. How would you feel if you could reduce 1 or more of these 5 frustrations?
4. How would reducing 1 or more frustrations impact your ministry?
5. If you reduced all 5 frustrations, what might happen?
6. What helps you reduce your frustrations? What hinders you?
7. What’s 1 frustration you want to reduce?
8. What can you do to reduce that frustration?
9. What will you do?

Want to help others to get organized? Ask questions that provoke reflection, for example:

1. What’s your primary workspace like?
2. What tools do you use to get organized?
3. How do you feel when you’re organized/disorganized?
4. For you, what does being organized look like?
5. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high), how organized are you?
6. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high), how organized do you want to be?
7. If you were more organized, what might happen?
8. To get organized, what do you need to keep doing? start doing? stop doing?
9. What will you do?

Want to help others to target their strengths? Ask questions that provoke reflection, for example:

1. What strengths has God given you to pursue His calling? (What truths has God taught you? What relationships has He provided? What abilities, character traits, experiences, and education has He given you?)
2. What excites/frustrates you about your God-given strengths?
3. How do you feel when you can/can’t use your strengths?
4. How does targeting your strengths impact ministry?
5. If you targeted your strengths more, what might happen?
6. What helps you target your strengths? What hinders you?
7. What 2-3 strengths do you want to target?
8. What can you do to target those 2-3 God-given strengths?
9. What will you do?

Want to help others pay attention to their goals? Ask questions that provoke reflection, for example:

1. What are your goals?
2. What satisfies/concerns you about your progress?
3. What do you like/dislike about paying attention to your goals?
4. How does paying attention to your goals help you accomplish them?
5. If you paid more attention to your goals, what might happen?
6. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high), how much attention do you pay to your goals?
7. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high), how much attention do you want to pay to your goals?
8. What helps you pay attention on your goals?
9. What will you do?