Coaching Habit - Part 1: Launching into "The Coaching Habit": A Book Club for Leaders and Facilitators

Hello everyone! Welcome to a new series here on the blog (or podcast version if you prefer that), inspired by one of my new favorite books: "The Coaching Habit" by Michael Bungay Stanier. I'm so excited about this journey that I'm practically bursting with enthusiasm (as you'll soon discover!). Over the next several weeks, consider this space a virtual book club where we'll explore and apply the coaching techniques from this transformative book together.I invite you to read along with me and engage on this journey. If you're hesitant to buy yet another book, check out the Hoopla app through your local U.S. public library – you might be able to access it for free! Of course, you can also just follow along with this blog series and glean plenty of wisdom that way, too. No pressure.Why "The Coaching Habit"?As an active manager and leader, I was looking for ways to level up my game, especially with the addition of some organizational shifts and new direct reports this year. I wanted to ensure that 2025 is about fostering growth and curiosity, not micromanagement. "The Coaching Habit" offers practical advice on adopting a coaching style of leadership that empowers your team and enhances your leadership skills. It seemed like the perfect fit.More than just a book, "The Coaching Habit" is a guide for becoming a more effective leader through the power of coaching. Michael Bungay Stanier, the founder of Box of Crayons, distills years of experience into seven essential questions that we're going to unpack week by week. These can revolutionize our leadership styles together.Ask More, Speak Less: Breaking Vicious CyclesThe core message is simple yet profound: ask more, speak less. By adopting this approach, we're trying to break free from three vicious cycles that plague our workplaces (and probably our habits as managers and leaders and people in general):* Creating Over-Dependence: We constantly (and often unintentionally) provide solutions, training our teams to rely on us excessively.* Getting Overwhelmed: The more we do, the more work comes our way. As someone who likes to say "yes," I know this all too well! Delegation is key, but it's not just about delegating tasks. It's about delegating responsibility, fostering new leadership opportunities for my direct reports, not just giving them tasks I don't want.* Becoming Disconnected: It's easy to lose sight of the impact and meaning of our work in the day-to-day grind.My "Kickstart" ExperienceThe very first week I read this book, I had countless one-on-ones. I decided to experiment with the first question, the Kickstart Question. So instead of following the usual script and working through the items on our shared agendas (which were filled with topics I could easily answer, but didn't feel were necessary), I put the advice into practice and opened each meeting with that Kickstart Question: "What's really on your mind today?"The results were immediate and profound. In an organization experiencing a lot of change, this simple question created a safe space for each team member to express their true concerns and feelings. They had a lot to say! We were able to have some meaningful conversations about the challenges they were facing, rather than just checking off items on a to-do list. And they pretty much said at the end, "I don't really need to talk with you about these things".The Seven Essential QuestionsSo, what are these seven essential questions we're going to work through?* The Kickstart Question: "What's on your mind?" (We'll unpack this more deeply next time!)* The AWE Question: "And what else?" (yes, AWE is an acronym and will put you in awe at how powerful the question is)* The Focus Question: "What's the real challenge for you?"* The Foundation Question: "What do you want?"* The Lazy Question: "How can I help?"* The Strategic Question: "If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?"* The Learning Question: "What was most useful for you?"You'll notice that all of these questions start with "what" and "how" and don't require much contribution from the person asking. These questions guide you to stay curious and listen. They're designed to help whoever you're working with get to the heart of the issues quickly and to ensure that these sessions are truly beneficial for everyone involved.Building New HabitsThe book highlights is that this isn't just about knowing what to do and what the questions are. It's about building new habits. Stanier outlines five essential components that we need to effectively build our new habit: a reason, a trigger, a micro habit, an effective practice, and a plan.* Reason: It's less about what your habit can do for you and more about how this new habit will help a person or the people you care about. This is an act of service, which resonates deeply with my core values of purpose and service.* Trigger: Charles Duhigg ("The Power of Habit") emphasizes that "if you don't know what triggers your old behaviors, then you're never going to change it because you're already doing it before you know it". Pay attention to how you're feeling as the facilitator and notice the triggers that come up for you.* Micro Habit: BJ Fogg ("Tiny Habits") advocates for defining a new micro habit that literally takes 60 seconds or less. What small thing can you do to lead to that bigger habit?* Effective Practice: Dan Coyle (The Talent Code) provides great insight into how to make the practice "stickier" (my word, not his!). Effective practice includes three components: 1) practicing "chunks" to make it manageable, such as tossing a ball vs. the full tennis serve 2) repetition with variation...practicing it fast, slow, different. 3) mindful and noticing WHEN IT GOES WELL. Celebrate even small successes!* Plan: Jeremy Dean, author of Making Habits, Breaking Habits. reminds us that resilience and recovery are part of the plan. It's "progress over perfection." You have to know what you'll do when you miss, that way you can recover and rebound instead of giving up entirely.Stanier emphasizes the importance of starting small and being specific. For example, here's how I'm applying this to my own leadership:When Bob asks me a question about how to solve a problem...Instead of offering my advice immediately...I will stay curious and ask him what ideas he has now.One last story….If you are on the fence about joining me, let me tell you that I would have never run my first race without these two girls in the picture. I had never run for more than 20 minutes (without panting no less) and the girl on the right invited me to do a relay! I was terrified, but these girls showed up for me week after week as I learned I could run a few more steps and begin to believe I was a healthy human. Creating new habits is really hard without support! So please, JOIN ME and we can help each other!I can't wait to continue this journey with you! Next time we will delve deeper into the Kickstart Question and explore how it can transform your conversations and relationships.Whenever you're ready, I can help you with:* Workshop design and facilitation* Facilitation and workshop training* Intention setting, planning, and incremental progress for success Get full access to Confessions of a Creative Leader at creativeleaderconfessions.substack.com/subscribe