Viewing entries tagged
crucial conversations

The ARC of a Coaching Conversation

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The ARC of a Coaching Conversation

This was inspired to write this by the Music City Nashville talk by Faye Thompson and Charles Husemann. It was entitled: Coaching Katas - In Search of The Answer to the Agile Kobayashi Maru.

Essentially it was a series of coaching scenarios where we run thru Coaching Kata’s (very similar to Dojo’s as I’ve shared on them before). The scenarios were inspired by Star Trek episodes (original Star Trek I might add). In it, they emphasized using the 7-questions from The Coaching Habit book by Michael Bungay Stanier.

As we debriefed each of the scenarios, I heard attendees really struggling to apply the 7-questions effectively as part of a “normal” conversation.

It made me think that:

  • 7-questions (from the Coaching Habit)

  • Powerful questions (from Co-Active Coaching)

  • Other question-based coaching models 

Can set you up for failure if you don’t use them sparingly within the ARC of an overarching conversation model/framework.  And we shouldn’t use them sequentially or artificially as well. They are also only for the coaching stance/role. For example, what about teaching, mentoring, or modeling stances/roles?

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Is it Worth the Energy?

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Is it Worth the Energy?

A short time ago I was working with an agile coach. He was quite experienced and well known in the agile community. He also held a wide variety of certifications.

We were working together on a project that had, if I were to be honest, quite a few cultural and organizational challenges.

There was one specific individual who always seemed to be the most challenging. My coaching colleague and I were talking about them one day and he was grousing (complaining) about them to me.

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