A Great Pairing: VUCA and Coaching
Two things we hear a lot about these days!
By Benita Stafford-Smith - Master Certified Coach and Accredited Coach Supervisor
As a professional coach, I invite you to think about using your coaching skills to navigate these uncertain times, or what is commonly called as VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity).
To succeed in this environment, one of the big shifts managers need to make is shifting from “telling” to “asking”, when applying their coaching skills. It is a great opportunity to take off your expert hat (I have the answers) and ask some “beautiful questions”.
In his book, A More Beautiful Question, the Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas, Warren Berger states “in a fascinating research study of thousands of top business executives – the most creative, successful business leaders have tended to be expert questioners.”
Berger offers us a three part framework for inquiry: “Why? – What if? – How?” This framework is not leading to the answer but to the next insightful question. Example: Why do we do this? What if we did something different? How is this different?
One of the coaching skills to apply here is Discovery Questioning® as developed by CoachU in their Coaching Clinic®: Strategic Coaching Skills for Managers and Leaders. The art of Discovery Questioning® invites you to craft questions/statements with the intention for the other to discover.
Asking interesting, provocative questions and tapping into the innovation present in your organisation will help to tame VUCA. Visit Takatuf at the HR Summit and Expo Dubai 2016 to learn more about executive coaching and how it will help you to ride the VUCA wave. Use one complimentary session to experience first-hand the benefits of coaching.