Casefile 1

Critical Questions

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Questions are the stock-in-trade of the business coach, consultant, and leader. An effective coach will want to ask the right questions, although there is far more to coaching than just that. This raises some important considerations: What makes a question ‘good’? Why am I asking it? What effect do I want it to have? Or, more generally: How do I go about asking the right questions? Novices simply mimic a method learnt in childhood, which was useful for memorizing multiplication tables.

That method involves compiling a list of pre-fabricated questions before ever meeting a client. A typical application: Client:

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