And What Else?

Monday, March 11, 2024

Article submitted by CESA 11 Coach, Theresa Stanley

Every instructional coach needs a coaching partner. My peer coach is an amazing resource who recommended a Brené Brown podcast where Brené spoke with Michael Bungay Stanier about giving advice. This podcast led me to purchase Michael Stanier’s coaching book, The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious and Change the Way You Lead Forever; this text prompted a change in how I approach conversations when working with individual educators as well as educational teams.

Wisconsin’s Coaching Competencies Practice Profile states that coaching conversations support clients in order to positively impact equitable outcomes for each and every learner. [CCPP - C5], A solid foundational toolkit of coaching questions and stems that help facilitate conversations for this purpose is a priority. One of Brené Brown’s guiding statements is, “Clear is kind.” When applied to instructional coaching, we need to establish clarity around what is a strong coaching question that will lead to equitable outcomes for our learners. True questioning requires an instructional coach to be curious and ask questions. Questioning from the lens of curiosity is one of Elena Aguilar’s transformational coaching “ways of being” when coaching a client. She states, “We are insatiably curious about others, about ourselves, and about what is possible. We navigate our fear to stay open, curious and hopeful.”

Coaching conversations that include, “Have you considered---” or “Have you thought about---” are not coaching questions. They are advice and indicate to your client that they no longer know their own next best move. These questions take ownership away from the clients you are coaching, Michael Stanier calls these types of questions leaning into your advice monster. Your advice monster wants to solve a problem immediately instead of waiting to see how the conversation will evolve.

The Advice Trap suggests three cornerstone questions to ask instead of leaning into our advice monsters.

The first question is {out of curiosity}, “What is the real challenge here for you?”
The second question is, “What else?”
The third question is, “What do you want?”

The Equity Collaborative emphasizes the need for a clear process when coaching a client. This organization follows three essential skills that intersect beautifully with Michael Stanier’s.

Follow-up a client's answer with another question.
Do not ask questions that you already know the answers to.
Do not give advice unless asked more than once.

Unpacking these ideas allows us to understand why these simple questions and suggestions lead to forward movement, educator empowerment in their decision making and more equitable outcomes for students. The first question, “Out of curiosity, what is the real challenge here for you?” puts ownership and reflection in the educator’s control. This allows the educator to be reflective and pinpoint either a student target area of growth or an instructional strategy that may need to be revised.

The second question, “What else?” is incredibly powerful because there is often more than one idea that the educator is thinking about. “What else?” allows for those ideas to be shared and further connects or leads to a revision in thinking. This question aligns with The Equity Collaborative’s statement that you follow-up an answer with another question and clearly connects with Michael Stanier’s guidance that, as instructional coaches, we need to remain curious just a little bit longer.

The third question, “What do you want?” allows an educator to determine next steps in his/her work. This question also helps identify an entry point where research and/or new instructional practices might be explored. Elena Aguilar calls these entry points “minding the gap.” These entry points help with next steps in building client capacity as identified. A skills gap suggests dialogue around high-leverage instructional practices. A knowledge gap might focus on current research on best practices in educational pedagogy. A capacity gap might include finding time and/or resources to work together and focus on identified goals. A cultural gap can also be a knowledge gap which is an opportunity to facilitate understanding and appreciation of “cultures and belief systems other than our own.”

Putting two sets of questions and recommendations from The Advice Trap and The Equity Collaborative together creates a very strong framework for facilitating your coaching conversations.

Ask, {out of curiosity}, “What is the real challenge here for you?”
Follow-up a client's answer with another question.
Do not ask questions that you already know the answers to.
Ask, “What else?”
Ask,, “What do you want?”
Do not give advice unless asked more than once.

These core questions are my foundation for facilitating conversations when working with individual educators, teams and at the systems level with administrators. To keep these prompts at the forefront and to tame my own advice monster, I have the prompts printed on a Post-It note that I keep secured to my computer for reference. My Post-It note also contains the phrase, “Let’s talk about that.” I have found that this prompt helps focus on something that needs to be addressed -- either a bias, a data point that is standing out, or an area of frustration for the client. Finally, my prompt for goal setting happens after the “What do you want?” prompt and creates an action plan for our next follow-up conversation. This prompt is simply, “What is your next step?” If someone is struggling, I will ask, “What is your FIRST next step? Let’s start there.”

These coaching questions are attached in a PDF form below and can be used to print your own coaching Post-It note.

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And What Else?

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