Your Client Doesn’t Need Your Best Question
One of the questions I hear coaches ask most often is, “What’s the best question to ask here?”
I understand why. We all want to ask questions that unlock something important for our clients. We collect them from books, courses and social media posts, hoping to find that one question that will create a breakthrough.
But I wonder whether we sometimes give the question too much credit.
It’s Not the Question
I’ve listened to thousands of coaching conversations over the years as a mentor, assessor and MCC coach. What strikes me isn’t that the strongest coaches have a secret collection of brilliant questions. In fact, many of their questions are remarkably ordinary.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Can you say a bit more?”
“What are you noticing?”
There’s nothing particularly clever about them.
The difference is not the wording. It’s the attention behind the words.
A question asked from genuine curiosity lands very differently from exactly the same question asked because the coach thinks they ought to ask something powerful. Clients notice the difference, even if they couldn’t explain why.
Where Is Your Attention?
When we’re busy searching our mental library for the perfect question, our attention inevitably shifts away from the client and towards ourselves. We start evaluating, planning and performing. The coaching conversation subtly becomes about whether we’re doing a good job rather than about what is actually unfolding in front of us.
Ironically, that is often the moment we become less helpful.
I’ve noticed that some of the deepest moments in coaching don’t arrive because the coach asks an extraordinary question. They happen because the client feels deeply heard. They have enough space to stay with a thought a little longer, to hear themselves more clearly and to notice something they had been overlooking.
Presence Creates the Conditions
Presence creates the conditions for insight.
The question simply gives it somewhere to land.
This doesn’t mean that questions don’t matter. Of course they do. Poorly timed, leading or closed questions can narrow thinking instead of opening it.
But if we’re constantly searching for the next impressive question, we may be missing the conversation that is already happening.
Some of the most transformative coaching I’ve witnessed has come from coaches who were willing to slow down, remain curious and trust that they didn’t have to manufacture insight. They weren’t trying to sound like great coaches. They were simply interested in the person sitting opposite them.
Your Client Knows the Difference
It’s not about our coaching technique or vocabulary, or our ability to produce a question worthy of a coaching textbook.
Clients respond to the experience of having someone fully with them, listening without rushing them, without trying to fix them, being comfortable with not knowing.
When that quality of attention is present, even the simplest question can cause a shift in thinking.
And without it, even the cleverest question falls flat.
A Reflection Question…
The next time you’re coaching, notice how much time you spend searching for the “right” question.
What changes when you stop trying to ask a brilliant question and instead give your full attention to understanding what is happening for your client in this moment?
Until next time,
Cath
