Leadership Book Club: The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

Kristen and Mike dive into The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier, a book that's transforming how leaders approach coaching. They unpack the seven essential questions that can revolutionize your leadership style, making you more effective and less overwhelmed. From learning to tame your "advice monster" to understanding the neuroscience behind great coaching, this episode is packed with practical insights. Whether you're drowning in an over-dependent team or struggling to focus on what really matters, Kristen and Mike offer a fresh perspective on how to lead with curiosity and empower your team. Plus, they share personal anecdotes and challenges in implementing these techniques, making the journey to better leadership both relatable and achievable.

Highlights:

• Introduction to The Coaching Habit and its impact on leadership at all levels
• The importance of asking "What's on your mind?" to start meaningful conversations
• Using "And what else?" to dive deeper and generate more options
• Focusing on "What's the real challenge here for you?" to address core issues
• The power of "What do you want?" in increasing autonomy and trust
• How "How can I help?" can prevent micromanagement and create clarity
• Understanding trade-offs with "If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?"
• The significance of reflection with "What was most useful for you?"
• Discussion on the neuroscience behind effective coaching techniques
• Personal insights from Kristen and Mike on implementing coaching habits in their lives

Links & Resources Mentioned:

• The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
• Box of Crayons (Michael Bungay Stanier's learning and development company)
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
• Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger, III, and Mark A. McDaniel
• The HeART of Laser-Focused Coaching by Marianne Franklin
• Chill and Prosper by Denise Duffield Thomas

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Podcast Website: www.loveandleadershippod.com
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Kristen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenbsharkey/
Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-s-364970111/

Learn more about Kristen's leadership coaching and facilitation services: http://www.emboldify.com

Transcript

Kristen: Welcome to Love and Leadership, the podcast that helps you lead with both your head and your heart, plus a bit of humor. I'm Kristen Brun Sharkey, a leadership coach and facilitator.

Mike: And I'm Mike Sharkey, a senior living and hospitality executive. We're a couple of leadership nerds who also happen to be a couple.

Kristen: Join us each week as we share our unfiltered opinions, break down influential books, and interview inspiring guests.

Mike: Whether you're a seasoned executive or a rising star, we're here to help you level up your leadership game and amplify your impact.

Kristen: Hello and welcome back to Love and Leadership. I'm Kristen

Mike: And I'm Mike.

Kristen: and today we have another LBC Leadership Book Club episode, our third one.

Mike: Can we get some LBC music?

Kristen: Yeah, I've thought about it. Maybe it will happen.

Mike: Like a special jingle?

Kristen: Let's see if I feel motivated.

So the book we are doing for this episode is The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. Stania?

Mike: Stanier? MBS. 

Kristen: Also known as 

Mike: Sounds like a bank.

Kristen: It does, yeah. Though I realized if I went by my initials, Like my professional initials, I would be KBS, so I don't know that that's better. 

Mike: Also sounds like a bank. Which is good. Let's send us your deposits. We will happily process them

process them and invest them probably in crypto, against the better judgment of my wife. But you know,

Kristen: Yeah, yeah,maybe I'll, maybe the KBS is in my future, 

Mike: I like it.

Kristen: But yes, I'm really excited to do this episode.

I first read this book when I was in Corporate America, actually did a training that went along with it. And I read it again when I was doing my coaching credential. And I would say of all of the books that I regularly recommend to my clients, this is probably the top one because I just find it is so relevant at all different levels of leadership, honestly, both for people who are like first time managers and then a lot of times senior leaders still who are completely overwhelmed and need to get more things off their plate also find this really valuable. So I recommend it a lot. I think it's very easy to read, and I'm excited to do it for the podcast.

Mike: Is this the first book you recommended to me?

Kristen: I don't know.

Mike: I'm trying to remember what it was. I think it was this one. I know. I think this may have been the first one.

Kristen: It might have been.

Mike: Like after our first date?

Kristen: Well, yeah, because I think, because like when we met you were going through a lot of challenges with delegating and having so much on you too.

So I think it was very relevant along with Boundaries for Leaders.

Mike: I can't remember which one was first.

Kristen: Yeah. Oh, well. 

Mike: Anyway. 

Kristen: So, yeah, but, like we had said with the Extreme Ownership, after we started with Founders for Leaders, Mike picked one, which was Extreme Ownership, and then I picked the Coaching Habit just because I recommend it so much. All the time. So, here we are.

Mike: Here we are.

Kristen: And for some background, so, um, MBS is, he's best known for writing this book.

He's written several others. Interestingly, this book was actually self published, and it's sold over a million copies at this point, which is, definitely a nod to self publishing, which is cool. He's a former Rhodes Scholar and he is the founder of Box of Crayons, which is a learning and development company that helps organizations move from advice driven to curiosity led.

This book was published in 2016 and he's written four more books since then. He's a very prolific writer actually. The Advice Trap, How to Begin, and How to Work with Almost Anyone, which came out last year. I'll just 

Mike: Can I just say, I wish I had come up with the Box of Crayons name.

Kristen: Oh, for sure. 

Mike: I still wish that I could somehow

It's such

Kristen: It's such a good name. I kept thinking about it when I was coming up with my company name. I was like, this is like the perfect company

Mike: Right. Will they notice if we 

Kristen: I mean, there are things like trademarks, so, um, you know, they might, 

Mike: name. Yeah.

Kristen: yeah, it's a great name.

And yeah, we can start getting into the book, any opening comments for you, Mike?

Mike: just say, I'm very excited to do this. this is definitely an area that I need to and want to improve in. And, yeah.

Kristen: Awesome. Well,this book is a little bit different in terms of how it's structured, it's not like a traditional chapter structure. He actually bases it around the seven essential questions, where like each question is kind of like a chapter.

And then there's also like these seven quote unquote master classes, which are really just like short best practices for coaching. So as we walk through this, we'll talk about the introduction and then I put all the in our outline, I put all the questions together and then all like the master classes together, just because they don't necessarily need to be interspersed within each other. 

And he starts by talking about how we know coaching is important at this point, but statistically you're probably not getting or delivering very effective coaching. And his truths about coaching are , It's simple. You can coach somebody in 10 minutes or less. It should be a daily informal act. You can build a coaching habit if you understand and use the proven mechanics of embedding new habits. And that's it. He also kind of gets into why coaching is helpful for leaders and this is why I Recommend this book for many different reasons. One is you may be part of an over dependent team so this is where you basically trained your team to be overly reliant on you and there's bottlenecks and it's also disempowering for them. You might just be overwhelmed by the quantity of work that you have, and you need to focus your time, energy, and resources on solving the challenges that make a difference.

Or you might be disconnected from the work that matters. So coaching can be really helpful for you and your team to actually reconnect to the work that has impact and meaning. And I definitely see all three of these with my clients and with myself as well.

Mike: Well, so

I will say like when I first read this book, I love it because it, presupposes that,everyone has talents and abilities. They're very inherent and they're underutilized and they're underrecognized and under supported. So his whole model is not a control based model, but a supportive and nurturing one.

It made me realize I'm definitely not delivering like effective coaching. I didn't even know that what that was. In my, pedagogical background. I've had very good teachers in different ways, but it was very much like imparting knowledge. It wasn't, nurturing someone's creativity or nurturing their own talents.

I also will say it's as someone who feels like they know a lot, it is very hard to break the advice habit. It's so hard, leaders, like you get to your position, you get to your position sometimes by knowing a lot or being highly successful. And that maybe that boosts your ego a lot. And you're like, well, I know a lot I can.

And then at some point you're like, okay, I can share this where people ask you, what should I do? What should I do? And it's so easy to give them the answers. And a lot of times those are the answers that are right for you, but they're not the right answers for those people. Or maybe they have better answers or different answers.

So I, overall,I absolutely love this concept, which is why coaching, I think coaching is a little misunderstood too. So I don't know. Do you want to give a little explanation of what coaching is?

Kristen: Yeah. And that actually is an interesting point. Cause I don't, I think this book just jumps straight into coaching is important. It doesn't necessarily, and it kind of defines coaching by, by walking through these questions basically. But the core of coaching is asking open ended questions and guiding and supporting the other person in finding solutions themselves.

Which is basically exactly how it sounds. So instead of giving advice, which is, as you said, very difficult. I think there's a reason why his book after this is called The Advice Trap because it's something that's challenging. It definitely activates something in us when we feel like we know something and we get to give advice.

I think it also plays into when we were talking about the types of imposters in our imposter syndrome episode, the one that was really based around knowledge, right? Like you're feeling like you have to know everything.

That also feeds into that, and it can be really hard to rein that in. You have to, like with many of the things we talk about, it takes a certain level of awareness.

Mike: So I think it's it can be hard to step back, to let go and to watch people, struggle to move forward.

But that's what is necessary sometimes for them to grow. And there's, I wrote down a lot of things in my reaction to this, as a leader, like being constantly busy gives you a feeling of importance of like, I am, I belong here. I'm so busy. I'm, everyone needs me.

Everyone comes to me and that justifies my position and my existence. There's like an image painting there. The leader must be the most busy, the most stressed and the most burdened. And I think the best leaders are like. Sometimes the least busy. 

Kristen: Oh, yeah, 

Mike: I had someone describe it to me as like, you're a chiropractor and they just, they come to you and you give them a little adjustment and then send them back on their way.

And I'm, I haven't been able to do that.

Kristen: Yeah. That's very inspirational. 

Mike: Okay so the other section that he gets into before starting into the seven questions is how to build a habit. And this is the, half of the title, effectively, of this book, right? You have coaching and then you have habit in there. So he gives like a primer on habit formation.

Kristen: If you've read any of these books, like Atomic Habits he doesn't mention, but I think that's probably the most popular habit book out there at this point. But the Power of Habit, Tiny Habits, any of these, right? There's no, there's not gonna be anything new in this section. It's kind of more just like a refresher on like particular aspects of habit formation. But he gives basically a formula that he uses throughout the book. And that is essentially identify the trigger. So, figuring out the like, when this happens. And because if you don't identify the point where you need to implement it, you're going to forget about it and miss opportunities.

Charles Duhigg, who is the author of The Power of Habit, he says there's five types of triggers. There's location, time, emotional state, other people and the immediately preceding action. And ideally you're combining more than one type of these triggers to create like a very specific trigger. So the example that he gives is when I'm feeling frustrated in my weekly meeting with Bob, because he says I haven't really thought about it. So, there's four different pieces of that. You have an emotional state, a time, a person, and an action. That creates like a very specific situation for you to look out for. And then the second part is identify the old habit, which is like the instead of doing this. And again, the more specific, the better. And then defining the new behavior, which is the I will. And particularly focusing on behaviors that will take 60 seconds or less to do. And then he has a few other things with increasing your chances of success.

Picking something relatively easy. One thing at a time, so do not try to implement the whole book at once. Using accountability buddies or groupsand accepting that you're not always going to stick with your habit. You're going to slip up and just getting back on the horse. 

Mike: Maybe you could create a habit around when your habit fails.

Kristen: create a

Mike: Create a trigger. Yeah. So when I do this, then I do this.

Yeah.

Kristen: Yeah, for sure. That's kind of the overview he gives. I think there's some more to creating habits than this, but he keeps it pretty focused on that formula for the purpose of this book. 

Mike: Habit chaining is extremely effective. You can use it in groupings, you can use it for like finding the space in between the space. You know, while you're doing this, you can also be doing that. I can clean the kitchen and work out at the same time.

Whenever I start working out, I start cleaning the kitchen in between my sets.

Kristen: I cannot do that. But he does that, yes.

Mike: I just, you know, you can, I think habit chaining is,you know, Atomic Habits. I think that's the book I read about it.

Kristen: I think Atomic Habits is the one that talks about habit or habit stacking, habit chaining.

Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. It leads to automaticity.

Kristen: Fancy word.,

Mike: That's my favorite word now.

Kristen: Yeah, you've been using it a lot lately. Just, just whips out automaticity just out of nowhere as we go about our day.

Mike: We'll have business card's printed. 

Kristen: Uh huh.

Mike: So back to the section. I really like his plan of like how to start this, your coaching journey is find someone on your team that's up for the clunkiness of you beginning to coach them. That was actually my leadership moment because, as I read through this book again, it was like, I'm not doing any of this.

So I extracted the seven coaching questions and I'm like, okay, I'm going to actually do this. And I kind of did it today. One of my directors is very self motivated and and he's down for, just down for anything really. And, I was like, okay, I'm going to try this out on him. See if he notices. He did not.

Kristen: And it seemed to go well. yeah, find somebody that's

Mike: not gonna judge you for your baby steps.

Kristen: I like it. All right, well, with that, we can jump into the core of the book, which is the seven essential questions, and they each kind of have a name, like the blank question and then the actual question itself. So starting off with number one, the kickstart question, which is what's on your mind.

So he talks about what often happens when managers start meetings. And I think I should say, I think the majority of this book is really around one on one meetings. that's where it applies the most. Not that you can't coach in other situations, but a lot of this. I often will use it as this is a good guide for doing one on ones as as a new manager, for example.

Mike: I will also say this is, The things he's teaching you are very much directed at, knowledge workers, right?

You 

Kristen: Yeah, that's fair.

Mike: Some of the questions like don't translate super well to like me discussing with my line cook, what about this was most impactful for you?

It's I don't know, man, I just got to cook the order, you know? So, but you can adjust, but it's definitely for knowledge workers for sure. 

Kristen: I think that's, that's that is fair to say. So yeah, he talks about these three tendencies of managers when starting meetings, which is the small talk tango, which is exactly what it sounds like.the ossified agenda, which is like a dreary recitation of facts and figures. Very common with like standing meetings, especially like 

Mike: That's an amazing word.

Kristen: It really, yeah,

Mike: so good.

Kristen: this is going to be the next

Mike: It's so colorful.

Kristen: the time. 

Mike: Okay, fine. I will. Challenge accepted.

Kristen: Okay. And the default diagnosis, which is you don't talk about what the issue is.

You just jump straight into the solution.

Mike: Okay. I don't do that.

Kristen: No, never. So the idea of this question, asking what's on your mind, he says is a great opening question because it implies let's talk about what matters most. And like later in this section, he talks about it working because it's a little pressure release valve.

And I find this fascinating because it's coaching in general, the way it makes the brain work so interesting to me, but it basically helps the coachee figure out like the explicit thing that they want to talk about that might be influencing the way they work. So the thing that they bring up may not be something that we're necessarily thinking about consciously, but that was bothering them beneath the surface.

Mike: I love it too, because it presupposes that your team member is going to have a high level of ownership and dedication.

And that they're going to be, some part of them is subconsciously efforting a problem with the goal of accomplishing the overarching mission. And then it's your job to just steer them on the way. It's not your job to like motivate them to get it. They're coming to you motivated and you're helping, them organize their own thoughts.

Kristen: Yep. For sure. Yeah. I liked that. And then he also talks about the difference between coaching for performance versus coaching for development. And I think it's important to note that both of these are important. But coaching for performance is more you're addressing a specific problem or challenge.

You're coaching on basically focusing on putting out that fire. So you're coaching on the solution to solve one particular thing, right? And then for development is turning the focus from the issue to the person dealing with the issue. So you're focused on the person dealing with the fire. And then this kind of goes further into he has this, the three P model is like a place how to figure out like where to focus your coaching.

So the three P's are projects, So that's basically the content of the situation, like often the default starting point for the conversation. The people, which is when you're really talking about like the relationships that are at play and like the role in the relationship. And then patterns, which is looking at patterns of behavior and the ways of working that the coachee would like to change.

And many conversations need to be focused on the project or people level, but he notes the fact that it is important that as a leader manager, you're having the conversations about patterns that you're seeing so that it is getting to that development level as well. And I think it's a good way to think of it because it's really easy as a leader to just really focus on the tactical piece, like the results, like with the immediate focuses, but remembering that patterns as a way to refocus the conversation on development is a good tool. And then because he always ends each chapter with kind of figuring out, a space for you to write your formula for it.

So the typical trigger for this question is going to be, like, the start of some sort of conversation. Somebody coming into your office for advice, for example. And then the second one is the awe question, or the A W E question, which is, And what else? And anybody who has ever been coached by me, has probably seen this question because it is, it really is a great question. He calls it the best coaching question in the world and says it's almost magical.

Mike: I'll ask people this and they won't even notice that I'm like kind of flowing them on. They'll just start talking. They'll keep talking. And I'll go, and what else that you can almost keep doing it forever. And eventually you'll maybe see their brain run dry, but they don't notice that you're doing it.

They just, because they have these things on their mind and they want to talk about them and they want somebody to listen. And I think this is a, it probably goes to like psychology where,a lot of people just want you to listen. And then what is it, what do they say now? Hold space with them while they work out a problem.

And a lot of us go right to like, let me solve your problem for you. Which I'm super guilty And I guess not everybody wants that. I wish somebody would solve my problem. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: Like, can someone tell me, please, in exact, with exact specificity and in chronological order, exactly what I need to do?

Kristen: Yeah,

It really is. And it's, I think this is one of the things they tell you when you're becoming a coach too is often like the best stuff, the real meat comes out after the second or third and what else.Because then you're really getting beneath the surface, which is amazing. But he says, his three reasons for why this question has so much impact.

Number one is that having more options can lead to better decisions. And we'll do an episode on decision making pretty soon. I think it's within the next couple months. But one of the most important parts of this process, the general decision making process that gets shorted is the generating of options.

And I love this study that he included, it's a study by Paul Nutt, and he basically examined 168 decisions made across organizations. And he looked at how many options they chose between, among other things. And he found that 71 percent of the decisions were only choosing between two options. So basically binary decisions and having at least one more option cut the failure rate of the decision in half.

Mike: So we're not a political podcast, right? But, um,

Kristen: Yeah, there's a little bit of bias towards a binary, in a lot of

Mike: places. Well, it's, it's easy. Good, evil, right, wrong, us, them, you, me. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: George Washington in his farewell address warned against specifically against the like tyranny of the two party system.

Kristen: And here we are 2024. 

Mike: That's amazing. That statistic is amazing.

Kristen: It's so good.

Mike: I'd never heard that, but that's amazing. So even having a third one cuts failure in half.

Kristen: Yeah, But it's so true and it definitely aligns with things I've studied in my work as well. 

I guess the spoiler alert with decision making. A lot of what I talk about is how the generating of options is so often skipped over in decision making and improv techniques are really good for the generative part of that especially.

So I love this statistic and I will be using it in workshops and speaking engagements in the future.

So that's the first one, a little, we were a little lengthy about it, but. The second piece is that it helps you rein in what he calls your advice monster, which we have already talked a bit about.

But I feel like calling it an advice monster, It's very accurate. He actually has a TED Talk on all about the Advice Monster, if you are a fan of TED Talks. But he also has this haiku in here, which I love. I think in general this book is, it's a very easy read. It makes my brain happy because there's a lot of like bullets and big headings and just it's very structured and I just find it very easy to read versus something that's super dense and narrative.

Like we've talked about my preferences of reading already. But I love that he has like things like this haiku in here, which is tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good as you think it is. Which hurts.

Mike: I feel personally attacked.

Kristen: I mean,

Mike: I feel seen.

Kristen: This is the hardest thing because there's certain habits that when you become a coach, you are like broken of in order to get, go through like the ICF credentialing process and the not giving advice.

I think it's the single hardest one. It's so hard and in reality, day to day, I have to kind of balance because sometimes it's also about like giving resources and frameworks, but like the core of coaching is not giving advice. It is asking open ended questions. 

Mike: The therapist I saw for three years in New York, I think my first session, I went in and he's like, why are you here?

I was like, I want advice. He's like, that's not what I do. And I was like, what do you do?

Kristen: think,

Mike: I think, thinking back, like he didn't talk much. He just asked an occasional question, which I probably open ended question. And now I realize he's just leading you to like introspect your own thoughts.

I was like, but what about the advice where you tell me what to do?

Kristen: Yeah.

Mike: Nope, I don't do that. I was like,what?

Kristen: But yeah, and then the third reason for why the and what else question is so good is that you can buy yourself some time, which is very real. 

Mike: People will answer. They will they will keep talking. Like, you can run that out for a while. Yeah, 

Kristen: for sure.

So his tips for asking this question is ask with genuine interest and curiosity. I think that's important, not just like in a formulaic reason, but being like genuinely interested in hearing the answer. He recommends asking it more than once. Ideally, at least three times, but probably maxing it out at five. So I guess there is some point where it starts to be like, okay, I'm out of answers. But at least three times, rarely more than five. That's what he says. And when you get to a point of like, I don't have any other, any other alternatives or anything else to say on this, like framing that as a point of success.

So it's like, okay. You've actually thoroughly thought this through and generated various options or whatever it is that you're talking about. And also just moving on when you feel the energy going out of the conversation. So he recommends switching from, which is one of the few places you'll actually see a yes or no question being here, but wrapping up with, is there anything else?

And then the typical trigger for this question is just basically anywhere. It's it's so useful, it can be added into almost any exchange, which I generally find to be true. 

So, number three is the focus question, which is what's the real challenge here for you? And the idea with this is, well, we, we often tend to jump straight into the solutions, for things without actually making sure we understand what problem we're solving. So, three things that often happen are you end up solving the wrong problem, you solve the problem yourself instead of actually giving your team a chance to solve it, or you don't actually have time to solve it and you just create a bottleneck so. He breaks down this question like why is what's the real challenge here a good question?

But basically the real and the here imply that there are a number of challenges to choose from and you need to find the one that matters most and the for you is what pins the question to the person you're talking about And it talks a little kind of bit throughout there's just like the power of the word you and adding that on to questions.

Mike: It's another thing that just kinda lights up the brain.I definitely noticed that. And I love this question because it also I didn't, I can't really read the part where he's like, oh, it pins it to the person.

But I remember, Keno, my old manager would do this. He's like, what, how are you going to solve your problem? I was like, my problem, what is my problem? Like he, he would really let people like own their jobs and their departments. And he's like, what's the problem here for you? How are you going to solve this?

And it was frustrating. 

But he, he made problems in my sphere of influence, just that my problems, and,I think a lot of us are used to leaders just holding our hands through the thing or just doing it for us and making all the big decisions. But, yeah, he got really good results from people by making them take ownership.

I'm like, Hey, this is your department. It's actually your problem. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me what you're going to do to solve it. What? And now I do that. And my life is better. My life is better for it. I still wind up solving a lot of problems, but I also like hand it back to people and be like, you let me know what you need, what help you need for me to solve this problem that's in your area.

Kristen: It's amazing. I mean, I think if there's anything from this book, it shows it's just the power of just an extra word or two.

Makes such a difference in the way that people perceive something and the way they process it. So, nerd me loves it.

Mike: It's super interesting. 

I agree.

Kristen: He gives some examples of situations where it's helpful to ask this question. One is a case where the person is just listing a million different challenges.

And, they're basically like vomiting all the challenges they're having and they're expecting you to pick out what's the most important. So instead of that ask them which one matters most.

He also talks about coaching the ghost which I like but Situation where this person all they wants to talk about is the ghost how challenging another person is, or even like a specific project.

But this question actually brings it back to the coachee. So it's like, okay, what is the actual challenge here?

And then abstractions and generalizations. So like when you have like big picture conversations that just aren't really anything tangible, this is a good question that actually just grounds it to the coachee and really focuses the conversation. And then the typical trigger that he gives to this question is anytime you find yourself starting to focus on a particular challenge instead of just sitting in the uncertainty of it and giving somebody a chance to work it out.

Mike: Yeah. I think people like to hand problems really up the chain of command.

They don't want to. And we, I don't know if we've been trained that way or it's just. It's definitely like, you know. I come into here's all these problems that somebody else could have solved that somehow, or no, send this back down to the person that's actually going to handle it and let them handle it.

But,it takes emotional effort to take responsibility for something. It's actually easier if you do, it's actually easier to just come up with some ideas and try some things and solve it. But there's an emotional investment that can be a leap.

Kristen: Well, it really fits into like managing up, right? Which I mean, we talked about with Extreme Ownership.

So you, when you're going to your boss, come with a solution, come with ideas or like a, potential solutions so that you're taking that off of them. And then also empower your directs to do the same, so which you can do through asking the right questions. So number four, the foundation question, which is what do you want? And really listening, he talks about like wants versus needs. So sometimes people say they want something, but there's really like an underlying need beneath that. So trying to listen for that as well. And he gets into the neuroscience on this, where it says five times a second your brain is scanning the environment around you and asking if you're safe. And if you're not sure about a situation, your brain is just going to default to unsafe. And we've talked about this a lot. Our brains are wired for survival. So they're always going to err on the side of caution.

And not just

Mike: And not just survival in an epoch that's about 40, 000 years behind us. Yeah. Yeah.

If it was wired for survival in modern day, you'd have very different reactions.

Kristen: We'd be way more chill.

Mike: We'd be way more chill, but we're not. Not like everything is a I don't know,

Kristen: at least in

Mike: Sabertooth, yeah, Sabertooth Tiger, like the email. Yeah. The email is not actually life threatening. 

Kristen: Yep. For sure.And I really liked the, he talks about the four primary drivers, which he describes as terra, because they spell out like T E R A, but that influence how the brain is reading any situation. So T is for tribe, so are you with me or are you against me? E is for expectation. So do I know what's going to happen next? can you read the situation?

R is for rank. So do you have a higher status than me? So considering if there's somebody in a position of authority. And autonomy is do I get a say in what happens? So the reason, getting back to this question, is asking questions like what do you want can help increase that, what he calls like the TERA quotient for the other person.

Because it shows that you care about what they want, so that increases like the tribe part of it. And it also increases their sense of autonomy, because they get a say. And also like, you're letting them say what they want first, instead of telling them what they should want. And they're feeling like more rank from that as well. So, I always like any time we apply neuroscience. 

Mike: Yeah. when I saw the bullet point tribe that's, that really made me think that the, your brain is not wired for modern day. It's wired for tribal existence. Where your survival depended on your maintaining your status in the tribe because if they kicked you out, you were going to probably die alone in the wilderness.

And a lot of our, a lot of our behaviors are, wound up in that and we don't realize.

Kristen: So much of it is.

Mike: Crazy, right? We have the internet now, but I'm worried about, And losing the tribe, which would be like 40 people. Those are the 40 people that you knew on earth total.

That's your perspective, like dating pool also is like 12 people.

Kristen: Yeah.

Mike: It affects the way you unconsciously react to situations.

Kristen: Absolutely. That's why so much like when we talk about the inner judge and all the different types of it like so much of it is around likeis this going to alienate me from other people like your brain will try to stop you from doing things that it feels like is going to put that at risk because being out on your own at that point in time was like certain death.

Mike: Yeah, Oh, she's coming. Hi Beezus. Uh, in the military books I've read, and a lot of people in the military, they don't want to take risks. They won't rock the boat. They won't put out, new programs. They won't really try to reform things because it's actually more dangerous to their career than taking bold action.

Because if you fail, you stand a better chance of being cast out than if you just Oh my god. Hi. Oh, you're beautiful. You're so pretty. Oh, This cat does not mew at all. She chirps just a little bit, especially when she jumps.

Kristen: And then her actual like meow sound is the saddest thing.

Mike: Aww. You're so perfect. 

Kristen: This is just gonna be a thing with our podcast is just cat appearances.

Mike: They take turns.

Kristen: They do.

Mike: Anyway. 

Kristen: So question number five, which is how can I help? And he talks about the drama triangle in here, which is a concept I've heard before, and it's, kind of amazing. So basically the idea is that we all bounce around between these three like archetypes that all have their own dysfunctions. So you have the victim who is not taking responsibility for anything. They also don't have the ability to change anything, but it'slike the martyr, like, I have, I have no responsibility for this. This is not my fault. And then the persecutor, who feels superior to everybody else. They only trust themselves, and have a tendency to like micromanage and bully.

And then the third part of the triangle is the rescuer, which is, who is taking on, all responsibility to fix things, like feeling morally superior and thinking you're indispensable, but like your help is actually often rejected. And Mike wrote in here, reading the rescuer description, I feel personally attacked.

Mike: I feel personally attacked by a lot of these things.

Kristen: I know. Yeah. they're true. Yeah. He says realistically, like we have tendencies. We each have tendencies in these.

Mike: I mean, these are like codependent tendencies from relationships too, like I'll just take all your problems or my problems and I'll try, I'll emotionally bond to them.

Kristen: But what's cool is that,he gives an example of a conversation, which I didn't include here, you can read it in the book, but, where basically everybody cycles through all three of these roles and it just goes back and forth.

It really shows how,how this can play a role in just like day to day exchanges. 

Mike: Um, can we pause for a second? Beezus has injured me.



Mike: For some reason she's very activated and she I'm bleeding a little bit. , oh my god.

Kristen: Okay, we're gonna take a pause.

Mike: We're just gonna pause here. 

Kristen: Okay, so Mike has returned, with his finger Neosporined from bacteria. I would say that Beezus looks guilty, but she does not. Not in the slightest. Like, really could care less. Yes, unrepentant cat. Anyway, so speaking of

victims and I don't know, so back to the drama triangle. So yeah, so we can all bounce between all of these. 

Mike: What I'm actually a victim?

Kristen: Think you were a victim of Beezus.

Mike: victim of 

Kristen: But, Beezus is never a victim,

So, yeah.But yeah, so he talks about a lot of people default to the rescuer role, where you are constantly leaping in to solve problems, and offering advice, and taking over responsibilities, because, it feels good in the moment but it actually exhausts you and it frustrates the other person. Like he says, rescuers create victims. So the how can I help question is really powerful because it, for one thing, forces the person to make a direct and clear request, but it also stops you from thinking you know best and just jumping straight into rescuer mode, which is useful.

He also talks about like, a lot of people are afraid to ask this question because it's like, Oh God, what are they going to ask of me? If I ask them, how can I help them? what are they going to say? But it just gives a reminder. You have a range of possible responses. Just because they ask for it does not mean you have to say yes. 

Mike: Yeah, people you can say no.

Kristen: Yeah, or you can buy yourself time. But you can still ask them how you can help them and not necessarily say yes to it. So,it can take a little bit of power back there.

And the trigger for this question is when you find yourself wanting to jump in and help or give advice.

Ask instead, how can I help? And then question number six is the strategic question, which is if you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? And how he talks about let's ban the idea of it's a good busy. Because busy often actually means you're not prioritizing well, and work smarter not harder is like a useless thing to say because it's, yes, it's true, but like it's not actionable, like how do you work smarter,

Mike: This is the question too, that made me realize this is very much directed at like the knowledge worker.

If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?

My cook doesn't get to say that he's got to prep the broccoli, the carrots, the he's not saying no to prep, he doesn't get to like necessarily organize his time in that way, like a Google engineer gets to decide to some degree what they're spending time on. 

Kristen: For sure. But for your directs, for sure it

Mike: For sure. For sure.

Kristen: But yeah, for 

Mike: This requires like you to have some strategic oversight about like where you spend your time.

Kristen: Yeah, I guess that's true for this question in particular. It is like a more, yeah, you have to have some control over your time.

Mike: Great question though.

Yeah.

Kristen: It's such a good question, and he he breaks it down, be like, why is this a good question? First of all, ask them to be clear about what are they saying yes to and understanding like what that looks like. It uncovers what they just automatically can't do. So like, that's the things like there's two meetings at the same time.

You can only go to one of them. But then it also kind of uncovers, what do you need to do to make the yes happen? And what do you need to deprioritize in order to accomplish it? So it really, puts the spotlight on how do you create the space, the focus, the energy, and the resources needed. I felt this very personally.

I am so personally really bad. I'm really good at saying yes to things and then not deprioritizing things. I will say this. I really felt this, but he says you can apply the same 3P model to it. So projects, what projects to deprioritize, what meetings not to attend for example. People, like what expectations to manage, what relationships did you let go of or let fade. And then patterns like what habits do you need to break, what old stories or beliefs do you, you need to update. And he also gives a good tip in here for saying no, which is just to create a third point that isn't the person. So you say yes to a person, but you say no to like a task. 

Mike: And you have to reach a certain level where you can start saying no to things. And for a while. I would just, anytime anybody sent me a calendar invite, I felt like I had to accept it. And now I don't. I'm like, decline, decline, decline. Come and tell me that you absolutely need me at this meeting, but I can't be at all these meetings. Sorry. I,

Kristen: Yeah. And the trigger he gives for this is when you see somebody already overwhelmed about to add more to their list.

I just raised my hand there. Fudging by saying yes to everything, when scope creep is happening, or whenever somebody is making a decision to commit to something new. It's like,what do you need to deprioritize in order to say yes to this? And then the last question, the learning question, is what was most useful for you? And this question also gets a lot into neuroscience. It's a lot about increasing retention, creating neural pathways, and when we take the time to actually generate knowledge and find an answer rather than just reading it, memory retention is increased. 

So he talks about a book called Make It Stick, which had multiple authors, so I don't think I wrote it down, but what's essential is to interrupt the process of forgetting. So to create disruptions that interrupt the forgetting process. Because forgetting starts immediately, but reflection is a good way to stop it. And this particular question is good because it frames the conversation as useful. It focuses on one big thing that's worth remembering. It makes it personal by, again, adding the for you. It gives you feedback on what to do more of. It's about learning, not judgment. And it reminds people how useful you are to them, which never hurts.

And the trigger for this question is the end of an exchange. I, this is another kind of core coaching question just for me as well. I ask different variations of it, but I will like never end a coaching session without us talking about what were the takeaways? what did you take away from it?

What did you learn? Cause that process of reflection is just so important. It's a critical part of the process. All right, so now we get into the eight quote unquote question masterclasses. These are really just short best practices. So I'm just going to go through them.

So the first one is ask one question at a time. So this is called question stacking in the coaching world. It is another, I would say probably the second hardest habit to break when doing a coaching credentialing.

The first being giving advice, because we all just tend to ask questions like five questions at once. So this is literally, ask one question, wait for a response, ask another question, wait for a response, instead of the, three part question.Cutting the intro when you ask a question, so not, apologizing before you ask, not, spending an over amount of time explaining it and setting it up, just getting to the question.

But he does say he likes out of curiosity as a lead in phrase that's pretty neutral if you need to use one. So, out of curiosity, dot, dot, dot. And then, I love the stop giving advice with a question mark attached. 

Mike: I had a good reaction. Not a good, but I had a reaction to this

Kristen: There's, there's directly giving advice and then there's like sneaky ways.

Mike: So I wrote, I have found a lot of micromanagers and I have one person in mind. 

One of the worst micromanagers I've ever seen, but he had developed some Kung Fu with some steel wrapped in silk about it. And this was exactly what he would do.

He would use this phrase to try and hide the control that he wanted to exert on you and make it seem like he was giving you autonomy in a very like surface level way. And it took me a while to, to realize that. And the last question before too, He wouldn't say out of curiosity, but he would say, help me understand or something, like that, but it was a very threatening.

Like almost like a legal, like he's trying to like trap you help me, you know, and the, the, have you thought of what about to, it's just like, just tell me you want me to do this dude. And just tell me you're controlling what I, and that I am, I'm just your, you're a little mint yellow minion and that's fine, but it's a really a sneaky deceptive um, way to couch your controlling.

Kristen: Yeah, you did have a reaction to that. I totally, yeah, I totally get it. I can see how that would be used that way because it really is like, it's sneaky giving advice, but it's still giving advice and it, but in a little bit more of a manipulative

Mike: manipulative.

Yeah. Yeah. It's manipulative.

Kristen: It's like, have you tried, have you thought about this?

Have you, what about this? It's not a question.

Mike: question like, I'm so magnanimous, I'm leading you down this, and it's just, it's like a puppeteer. 

Kristen: Yeah. It's also one of those things like as you build awareness for how often you're giving advice throughout the day, watch out for this too and you might.

Mike: Oh, I've totally caught myself doing it, because you want it. So at some point in this coaching journey, you'll start to want to let people have more autonomy and be like, hey, that's the right way and you haven't figured out how to do it yet and this is like a pitfall that you will probably step on very early because you're trying to let go. But you also think you still have the best advice.

Kristen: Yeah yes.And this leads into. So he talks about sticking to questions that starting, that start with what.

And I think this is a pretty like coaching 101 thing. So I feel like this almost should have been more at the top of the book, but open ended questions and particularly avoid questions that start with why, because it tends to just put the person on the defensive and usually indicates that you're trying to problem solve instead of actually exploring. A lot of good questions. A lot of good coaching questions start with what. I also think a lot of good questions start with how. But I think this is more like the starting point for a lot of people. It's like just, it's easier to focus on what, as what your questions are starting with. Um, he also notes that like, if you're not doing the fixing, you don't need the back story.

Mike: Interesting.

Kristen: Which is another very difficult, probably number, habit number three that's hard to

Mike: I never thought of that. I always want, tell me everything.

Kristen: Yeah. No, that's another one you have to break. Cause it's you don't actually need this. At some point you're like, am I asking this to help the other person or am I asking this just for me.

Mike: It's like rubbernecking when you see somebody on the side of the road, like I need to know everything. No, you don't just drive to work, sir. Like it's going to be okay. You

Kristen: or am I just like buying time? Am I just like filling time by asking about this?

Is what I'm asking about actually mattering? So that's good point. That's built in there. And then get comfortable with silence. This is another one that's really hard when you first start coaching because we

Mike: Or dating

Kristen: Or dating Or podcasting. Yeah, you have to get used to that.

Silences. No, we, actually in speaking too, this comes up a lot in speaking, but we don't, we tend to like see pauses as something that we need to fill and silence is actually can be a really good thing. Like it's actually a good signal. If somebody's not answering your question right away and they're really thinking about it, like maybe that's a often a good thing.

Or if they're responding with something that's like a buying time. So like, that's a good question, is a response where I like usually know I'm going to get a meaty answer from it because it's something that they're really thinking about. So silence is not bad. It's often a measure of success. And then his number six is actually listen to the answer to your question. This is a little oversimplified maybe, but yeah, I did like his phrase. That's he describes it as the wheel is spinning, but the hamster is dead.

Mike: Oh yeah. 

Kristen: So it's basically, yeah, basically I think that is like you're nodding and leaning in.

You're like giving like the signals that you're listening, but really you're thinking about something else. Like,

Mike: I don't think I can unhear that.

Kristen: Sorry to my vegetarian 

Mike: Mmm. 

Kristen: No, it's like a very like visceral,

Mike: I will remember that though. okay. Am I really just at the wheel? Okay. 

Kristen: And then acknowledge the answers you get. So I think this is really part of like active listening, but, but also even just things like fantastic.

I like it. Got it. Good one, et cetera. This is just from an encouragement before you go on to asking next questions. And then finally, the last one is really just a point that like you can use Zoom or email or whatever other form to ask questions. It's not just reserved for in person meetings. And the closing point for this book is really that coaching is about building a habit of curiosity, which I really like.

Mike: I I love this. I love that. I'm curious person.

Kristen: Yeah, and curiosity is so powerful. and it's something that you can really nourish as a quality in yourself. I know becoming a coach has definitely built up my sense of curiosity. I think like to a point where, you know, we, you had to get used to it, even just being in a relationship with me, cause I will ask questions out of curiosity and you're like taking it as interrogation, 

I'm actually just curious. 

I was like, why do you want to know this?

Yeah. So I think, so yeah, sometimes people might be surprised cause we often don't approach a lot of things with curiosity, but curiosity is pretty magical.

Mike: I agree. Okay, Kristen, what didn't resonate for you?

Kristen: So I, I think probably the main thing, I think there was a little bit of coaching one on one stuff missing in here that I actually think was almost helpful to cover before getting into the questions. But probably the biggest thing was just listening. Like he has the one that's just like actually listen to the answer.

But it doesn't really get into what active listening is. So I think that's super, super important, really important part of coaching. So, um, that is probably my main critique of it. But also I will say, I think, This is a pretty, introductory read. It's really about like developing a coaching style as a leader.

So I think people who are reading this with the expectation of learning everything they need to know to become a coach by profession. Like you're going to need to read more than just this. Like it's really, it's a pretty, pretty introductory.

But I also, if you are really interested in getting more into the meat of coaching and exploring like some of these situations more, I also recommend the Heart of Laser Focused Coaching by Marianne Franklin. It's a good read, but really I think mostly going to appeal to people who are coaches by profession.

Mike: Okay. 

Kristen: What about you? 

Mike: So my least resonant, I kind of had two. So though I love the idea of habit chaining, I found his his teaching of it, it's definitely for me out of his zone of genius.I, and I've read a lot about habits and it just, I don't know. I worked that in with my other, thing that didn't resonate.

I found as somebody who's very like logical and order of operations. I found his presentation of the seven questions a bit disjunct. Like it took me and this could be because I listened to the audiobook also, But when I listen to the book, I love lists, but there's so much subtext that comes right away that I felt the questions got lost.

And this time what I did, I just used your notes and then pulled the seven questions directly out and left out all the kind of filler. 

So I almost feel like he needs better like heading work to, to be like, this is you know, the big question. And then here's some of the things that you should know about it.

But I, I had trouble following it. Yeah. The first time.

Kristen: That's totally fair. And I think this is a book I've never listened to the audiobook, but I would probably assume that it is more impactful to read just because it's just how it's structured.it's really designed to be an easy read but I can see how that doesn't always translate well to understanding when it's an audiobook.

Mike: I mean, so much really did come through, but just the organization, maybe I needed to take notes or something, but yeah. And Kristen, what was your most life changing takeaway?

Kristen: So this is my third read of this book, and I think I've gotten different things out of it each time. This time I really enjoyed nerding out on the language of stuff. And I. I think, in particular, the strategic question, really hit home for me. I think, it really made me think about creating a habit of asking myself this question.

This is the, if you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? And, so I think, creating a habit of asking myself, like, when I take on something new, or make something a priority, like a podcast, for example.

Mike: What are you saying no to?

Kristen: Like what am I

Mike: Sleep for instance. Yeah. Eating.

Kristen: Like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like really thinking about what am I going to deprioritize because something will get deprioritized.

It's just this way you're actually saying it out loud and having control over it. So I think that really hit home for me personally. And I think also using it as a question more often with my coaching clients as well. What about you?

Mike: So the most life-changing takeaway. Your advice is probably not as good as you think it is. Ugh. Okay, that's probably true. So I find this statement extremely profound. And not just the methodology for growing your workplace team, but as a core concept for breaking the orthodoxy of dogmatic ideologies and our unhealthy reliance on traditional power structures.

For instance, religions, political parties, and any other group that tells you how to think. And this leads me to introspect, like, advice is actually a form of control.My favorite thinker, Kong Tze, Confucius, he stated that the natural state of a human was fully good and benevolent and the right way of cultivation was just to nurture that bright inner nature.

And I think that's good coaching should be about nurturing someone's inner character and helping them to reveal it to themselves. I think that's pretty life changing. I'm not doing any of that, but I want to, I very much want to, it sounds great.So yeah, I put this into practice a little bit today and I got interrupted like eight times during the one on one.

So I felt like it wasn't very smooth, but it's a very powerful concept. 

Kristen: Oh, I love the like advice is a form of

Mike: Advice is a form of

Kristen: It's true. Yeah.

Mike: I know better. Do it my way. Really?

I go to some of the like great composers like Debussy studying at, the Paris Conservatory.

They hated him. They were giving him Fs, you know, and he left and he's like, they're educating my music out of me. And he's one of the most unique and beautiful composers ever. And if he had listened to the advice that he was getting, we would not have gotten La Mer. That would be a shame. Everybody who comes before you thinks they know the way of doing it. And they're like, this is the way. Okay. In Jiu Jitsu, there was a, I was there when leg locks were all of a sudden it was like, start, people started getting into that. And the old guard was like, this is outrageous. And this is not the way to do it.

But they were getting beat by these people that were inventing new things or not necessarily inventing, but like incorporating, Debussy didn't invent the 13th chord, but he, he was like, this is actually beautiful. And now, 120, 30 years later, we're still listening to his music. Thank God he didn't listen to anybody else. 

Kristen: Yeah. That is kind of its own thing is you as a leader, watch out for how you're controlling people by giving advice, but also watch out for the advice you're receiving from others. When I'm asked a question of like, what advice would you have for people who are starting their own business?

This is usually the thing I most commonly say is that when you start a business, there's going to be so much advice thrown at you and so many people who have very strong opinions because it's what worked for them, like what they did. And often that advice is just going to be conflicting. And at the end of the day, listen to all of it, but you only need to keep what resonates with you.

And choose something that aligns with your intuition and what feels true to your values. 

Mike: Yeah, I just finished Denise Duffield Thomas, Chill and Prosper.

And she, she really doesn't give that kind of advice. She's like, you have to find your way. Here's some pitfalls that I went through and it's all about your mind. It's the coaching. Her coaching is about your mindset and it's very like, fundamental and it's like you have to find your own message and your own audience and the things that resonate with you.

And here's some pitfalls of your thinking that you can watch out for that might be like negative, negatively impacting your manifestation of your success. How to get out of your own way. That's good coaching, right? How to get out of your own way.

Kristen: Yep. That's the power of coaching.

Mike: So we believe in coaching? Okay.

Kristen: Well, I made a career out of it, so I hope I believe in it, but

Mike: That's pretty good.

Kristen: But it's also a very common topic in

Mike: And it's like sometimes I ask you for coaching and you're like, so what about this is most important to you? I'm like, just tell me the answer,

What do I need to do? ? Tell me in exact detail. In chronological order what I need. Okay. All right. She's not gonna do that.

Kristen: Yeah, it's like most of the time you need to figure it out for yourself, but as a coach you can help guide.

Well, and they found, right,in children that are not always presented with the answer, but allowed to figure it out on their own, they have less anxiety, they're more successful.

Mike: I think they, they did, I think I saw that in a Netflix documentary last week about dogs. It's our nature to like, want to help. You know, but it can actually be counterproductive to the result. Oh, that's very 

Kristen: Yeah, I think we're going to end this with a little bit of pain, a little bit of very human pain of recognizing that we all have this deep need to give advice. But if we want to do what's best for the people we lead, we have to rein it in. Awesome. Any final words, Mike?

Mike: Oh, no, that's enough. I'll just be here with my pain.

Kristen: All right, we are going to wrap there. Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time.

Mike: Thank you all. 

Kristen: The Love and Leadership Podcast is produced and co-hosted by me, Kristen Brun Sharkey and co-hosted by Mike Sharkey. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. We can't stress enough just how much these reviews help. You can follow us on LinkedIn under Kristen Brun Sharkey and Michael Sharkey, and on Instagram as loveleaderpod.

You can also find more information on our website, loveandleadershippod.com. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you again next week.