The Heart of Mentoring: Asking Powerful Questions


Introduction:

Coaching helps people get where they want to go more quickly, maximize performance, and call out the best in their clients. They help clients focus by asking the right questions.

Coaching helps people explore other perspectives (not give them one) to see what resonates with them and may lead to the breakthrough idea that will bring about growth and change.

We are much more used to telling than asking. Powerful listening is foundational to powerful asking. We need to be slow to speak and quick to listen so that when we speak, we speak to the situation. It is better to speak by asking powerful questions rather than by always giving answers and advice. Asking questions fosters personal responsibility and ultimately empowers the other to work out their own issues.

We need to steward our conversations and lead them the way that Jesus did – catalyzing conversations with powerful questions that got to the heart of the matter.

"Who do men say that I am?” – Direct Question
"Who do you say that I am?” - Direct Questions
"Could you not watch me with one hour?”

Powerful questions lead to powerful breakthroughs, insights, and illuminations in the life of the person we are seeking to help. Asking the right questions is not about voyeurism or prurient interest but about respecting the other and probing what God may be doing in the life of another and helping them to see it for themselves. Good questions can get to the heart of a matter with an ease simple telling cannot. Questions engage the coachee in their own process of growth.

Good questions improve interest, stimulate thinking, and invite contribution. Questions generate awareness and responsibility. Powerful questions can be used to analyze and problem solve, evaluate options and make decisions, explore how to do things better or differently, and develop plans. Good questions are:

  1. Clear and easily understood
  2. Address a specific purpose
  3. Emphasize one point
  4. Thought provoking

Questions are powerful because people respond from the heart and questions cause them to step back and reflect on what is going on in their lives. Powerful questions make people stop and respond from the heart. Powerful questions open the door to how people really are processing their lives. Powerful questions help them reflect and what is going on around them and get in touch with what God is doing in their lives.

Powerful Questions: D.O.O.R.

The following kinds of questions provide a D.O.O.R. into a person’s life.

Direct Questions – Point straight to the heart of an issue

Direct questions allow the coach to broach difficult issues without accusing or judging. Being direct is not always easy – fear of getting a reaction, of trusting our intuition, of knowing when to ask and when not to ask. Direct questions require some relational equity. You need to earn the right to ask direct questions through a genuine care and concern for the other individual.

  1. Are you being true to your own values in this situation?
  2. Do you think this is how God intends you to handle this situation?
  3. Who benefits most from that course of action?
  4. Does that response line up with scripture?
  5. Is that decision going to take you where you want to go in life?

Points to Ponder:

  • How can your frustration or disappointment come out in your questions?
  • How do you set your own agenda aside when asking direct questions?

Open Questions - Open questions open the door to let the other person direct the conversation.

How the coach asks questions has a lot to do with whether coaches feel comfortable and will open up to the coach. The coach asks the question by way of invitation to explore an area if the coachee wants to go there. The coachee leads the process. We ask permission to go where the coachee wants to go with open questions. Open questions cause people to think for themselves.

  1. Could you tell me a little more about that?
  2. What was significant to you about this experience?
  3. What would you like to talk about?
  4. What is happening with your ______________ these days?


Closed Questions control the conversation by forcing the other person to choose from the options you supply. Telling or asking closed questions saves people from having to think.

  1. Have you run this decision by your spouse?
    Better: Talk a little about the role your spouse plays in this decision.
  2. Did you do that because you were afraid?
    Better: What led you to make that decision?

Solution oriented questions are advice in the form of a question
(Fix it/judgmental).

  1. Have you thought about talking to your boss? (translation – you ought to talk to him)
  2. What if you just chalked this one up to experience and start over? (translation – you should just start over)

Principle: If you want to really explore things, give the person room to explore.
Follow-up exercise: Have a peer share a life or leadership challenge and help him or her think it through using open questions. Avoid closed or solution-oriented questions. After 15 minutes debrief and give feedback.

Ownership Questions – focus on taking responsibility and being proactive.

Getting a person to focus on his or her own part of the problem is vital to growth.

1. What to you think the answer is?
2. How might your actions have contributed to the problem?
3. Let’s ay this person never changes or ‘gets it’. What do you need to do to move on in life even if they don’t?
4. What do you think God is trying to form in your character through this situation?
5. Can you think of a positive solution to the problem? What can you do to make that happen?

Points to Ponder:

  • What is the difference between questions that create ownership and ones that blame or accuse?

Revealing Questions – Help the Coachee look at the situation in a fresh way.

These questions help a person see the problem or issue at hand for him or her self. These kinds of questions help a person to get perspective. What a person sees becomes their effective reality.

  1. What does your response to this way about who you are of what you are called to?
  2. Can you express what it is about this kind of situation that stops you?
  3. If you could do anything in this area, with unlimited resources, what would it be?
  4. What is God’s heart for this person right now? How does he see them?
  5. What do you wan to be doing in a year – of in five years?

Points to Ponders:

  • How might you help this person see the problem on his own, without telling him or her?
  • Why is helping coaches see the answer for themselves so critical?

Significant Questions:

Jump Start questions – when you want to go beyond the small talk, ask a Jump Start question:

  1. What is the best thing that happened to you so far today?
  2. Tell me something that happened in your life this week.
  3. What is the most interesting thing that happened to you this week?
  4. What’s on your mind today?
  5. How are things on the ___________ front?

'Going Deeper’ questions – when you have more time for significant conversation.

  1. Where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing in 10 years?
  2. If you had unlimited resources and could not fail, what would you do?
  3. If you could change one thing about your life right now, what would it be?
  4. Who is a person who had a major influence on your life? How did he/she impact you?
  5. What’s a great choice you made in a difficult situation that you’re proud of today?
  6. What’s on growth agenda for you this year?
  7. What is the message of your life? What does your life uniquely prepare you to say to others?
  8. What’s the most fun, joyful thing (or the biggest stress point) in your life right now?
  9. If you could ask God one question and knew you’d get an answer, what would you ask?
  10. What would you most want a friend to know about the real you?
  11. Share an important turning point in your life. What did your learn from it?


Principle: All it takes to have a significant conversation is someone to start it.

Follow-Up Exercise: Find an opportunity to ask at least on person a significant question. E-Mail peer each day for accountability and encouragement with a two sentence report of what you did.

Questioning Tips:

  1. Ask only one clear question at a time.
  2. Pause to give the listener time to think.
  3. Listen to and analyze the response.
  4. Give recognition and credit, where warranted
  5. Probe vague or ambiguous responses to ensure the questions was not misunderstood or poorly worded.

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BOOKS & ARTICLES ON MENTORING

Bell, Chip R. Managers as Mentors, Building Partnerships for Learning, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1996.

Biell, Bobb. Mentoring: Confidence in Finding A Mentor and Becoming One Nashville: Broadman Press, 1996.

Cook, Marshall, J. Effective Coaching. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishers, 1999.

Crow, Gary M. & Matthews, Joseph L. Finding One’s Way: How Mentoring Can Lead to Dynamic Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press Inc., 1998.

Davis, Ron Lee. Mentoring: The Strategy of the Master, Thomas Nelson Pub., l991.

Dunne, Tad. Spiritual Mentoring, San Francisco: Harper Publishers, 1991, 200p.

Galbraith, Michael W. & Cohen, Norman H. Mentoring: New Strategies and Challenges, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, Number 66, Summer, 1995; San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Hargrove, Robert. Masterful Coaching, Toronto: Pfeiffer & co., 1995.

Hendricks, Howard & Henricks William. As Iron Sharpens Iron: Building Character in A Mentoring Relationship. Chicago: Moody Press, l995.

Jones, Timothy K. Mentor-Friend: Building Friendships that Point To God, Lion Publishing, l991.

Kraft, Vickie. Women Mentoring Women, Chicago: Moody Press, 1992, 169p.

Krallmann, Gunter. Mentoring for Mission, Hong Kong: Jensco Ltd., l992.

Leatherman, Dick. Quality Leadership Through Empowerment, HRD Press, l992.

Longnecker, Harold. Growing Leaders By Design, Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Resources, 1995.

(Mentoring articles: issue devoted to) Church Administration: vol. 38, No. 3, December 1995.

Murray, Margo. Beyond the Myths and Magic of Mentoring San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. 1991.

Sellner, Edward C. Mentoring: The Ministry of Spiritual Kinship, Ava Maria Press, l990.

Smallbones, Jackie L. “Spiritual Director, Mentor, and Christian Educator”, Christian Education Journal, Vol. 16, No.1, Autumn 1995, p.37.

Stanley, Paul D. & Clinton, J. Robert, Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Need to Succeed in Life, Navpress, 1992.

  
 
   
 
 

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