May 14, 2024 • 31 mins
This week we are exploring The Coaching Habit with Michael Bungay Stanier.
This book is all about Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever.
Micheal has written books that have sold about a million copies all told, including The Coaching Habit, a self-published book that’s become the best-selling book on coaching this century. He founded a training and development company, Box of Crayons, that has taught coaching skills to hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
If you get a copy of the book and register at the website you then get access to new training (3 webinars in June) and are in with a chance to win coaching with Michael.
The website is here: https://TCHlive.com.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show.
It's great to be with you. Thanks so much for joining me.
We are going to have a great time.
Today I'm sharing my interview with my friend Michael Bungay
Stanier. He helps people be a force for
change. He's best known for his book The
Coaching Habit, which has sold close to 1,000,000 copies and
has thousands of five star reviews online.
(00:21):
He's got a new book out. It's called The Advice Trap that
focuses focuses on what it takesto tame your advice monster.
But today we're going to focus on the coaching habit.
He founded his company, Box of Crayons, a learning and
development company that helps organizations move from advice
driven to curiosity LED. They've trained hundreds of
thousands of managers to be morecoach like, and their clients
(00:43):
range from Microsoft to Gucci. He left Australia about 30 years
ago to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where his
only significant achievement wasfalling in love with a Canadian,
which is why he now lives in Toronto.
Having spent time in London and Boston and balancing out these
moments of success, he was banned from his high school
(01:04):
graduation for the balloon incident.
He was sued by one of his law school professors for defamation
and his first published piece ofwriting was a Harlequin Romance
esque story involved a missed involving a Miss delivered
letter. It was called the Mail MALE
Delivery Hilarious. Michael Bungay Stania is at the
(01:26):
forefront of shaping how organizations around the world
make being coached like an essential leadership competency.
His book The Coaching Habit is the best selling coaching book
of this century with nearly 1,000,000 copies sold.
We are so fortunate to have Michael out.
He's doing a bit of a push around the coaching habit at the
moment. We we're hanging out in Costa
Rica mountain biking recently, had a great chat, got to know
(01:48):
each other a little bit better, had a lot of fun and so I was
super thrilled to bring him ontothe show to share his insights
with all of you. So without any further delays,
please enjoy my conversation with Michael Bunge Stanier all
about the coaching habit. Michael, good to see you buddy.
It. Is nice to be here, Greg.
Thanks for having me. So right before we clicked
(02:09):
start, we were revisiting the fact that the last time that we
were in person together was in Costa Rica on mountain bikes and
you have recently bought a mountain bike and you've done
some lessons. So, good job.
Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm, I have all the
characteristics of an overconfident middle-aged man
who thinks he's younger and moreflexible and more vital and more
(02:30):
able to recover from injury thanhe actually is.
So I'm trying to overcome that cognitive bias.
By getting some coaching, which is what you by.
Getting some going to do exactly.
That's so funny. And as I was saying, like I I
got some coaching as well on mountain biking a couple years
ago when I was out West. And my gosh, when you get help,
it makes everything so much easier.
(02:54):
I think that's right. I mean, honestly, this I don't.
I've been one class so far and it was just teaching me how to
use that. Get my saddle, which is one of
those saddles that can pop up and down.
Yep, which is cool, but it takesa bit of a practice to figure
out when, when, and how high youshould be sitting.
I'm sure this is a metaphor for something.
About us? Yeah.
Where's my house supposed to be?In space?
(03:15):
And what's that metaphor? Yeah, exactly.
But everybody who's listening in, it's like, think about think
about where your ass is, how high it is off the ground.
How? How, How?
Where? Your syndrome, gravity is, and
what that says about your stability.
And you know, it's like we're we're talking about your life,
not your mountain biking. Yeah, that's right.
This is so funny. So I want to dig into this
(03:37):
coaching habit because this bookhas been out for a long time.
You and I are obviously heavily into coaching in various
different ways have been throughout our entire careers.
I truly believe that one of the ways in which we can elevate the
world in addition to learning how to mountain bike is by
learning how to coach. And that could just be, you
know, you versus you and your team could be you and you know,
the athletes that you might be volunteering with.
It could be absolutely anybody. So I think coaching's super
(04:00):
important. I'm grateful for you taking the
time to hang out with us and talk about it.
Oh, thank you. Yeah, you know, I I wrote the
coach. It's like 8 years old and and
two years old as well because eight years ago I published it
on February the 29th so I could kind of con myself to go on its
2nd birthday and sold copies. So it's two and it's eight at
the same time and it's really a book written for non coaches.
(04:22):
It's written for the rest of us because I just became aware of
what a powerful tool to unlock courage and unlock the best
version or unlock focus, all these kind of performative
measures, which I know you know better than I do.
But it also came with all this baggage, all this kind of
slightly woo woo baggage or executive coach baggage or
(04:43):
sporting coach baggage. And I really wanted to make
coaching feel like an everyday act, an everyday behaviour.
And the behaviour is this. Can you stay curious a little
bit longer? And can you rush to action and
advice, giving a little bit moreslowly?
Because you know, most of us areadvice.
Giving maniacs and advice has its place, and it's an important
(05:05):
place. But if you can just slow that
down, you're going to have a more powerful conversation most
of the time. With your kids, with your team,
with your boss, with your whoever.
I'd love to learn more about theapproach to slowing down and
leveraging more curiosity, because that is the unlock.
Imagine diving into a situation and starting to spray your
(05:27):
advice all over the place. You're literally only going to
make people angry and defensive and they won't feel like you
understand them, so that's a really interesting way to
approach it. Yeah, and.
And not only does it have an impact on the other person, but
also it's a waste of your time as well, 'cause often you're
solving the wrong problem with your not very good advice.
So it's not, it's not an effective leadership
(05:50):
intervention. So some years ago I I recorded a
TEDx talk, Contain Your advice Monster.
And we will love this because they recognize that they have an
advice monster. You know, somebody starts
talking and within like 2 seconds your advice monster kind
of looms up out of the dark and goes, oh, we're going to add
some value to this conversation with my brilliant ideas and
(06:11):
thoughts and opinions and suggestions.
And, you know, there's two reasons why we're wired for
this. One is just practice.
You know, We spend our whole lives being rewarded for being
the first person to stick up your hand and have the answer,
you know, through school. That's so curious.
Wow. So, so we have this ability,
(06:31):
this we've been trained to rush to our ideas.
We've been trained because we we, most of us want to be
helpful to go. The way I help people is to have
the solution of the opinion. But there's a deeper level,
which is more around how being the person with the ideas
protects our status, protects our authority, protects our
control. So I say there are three advice
(06:54):
models that says say it, say it,save it and control it.
So tell it, save it and control it.
So tell it is. My job is to have all the
answers. If I don't have all the answers,
I am a bad person and I have failed myself and I've failed
those around us. Impossible.
But lots of us carry that weight, particularly if you're
an organization and you're like,you're a new manager, you're
(07:17):
like, oh, why I be a good manager.
I know all the answers. You can't know all the answers.
Then there's save it where you're like, my job is to
protect everybody, help everybody, make sure nothing bad
happens to everybody. My job is to be the kind of the
mother hen, which, you know, as you'll know, Greg, it's like an
infantilizing stance. It actually keeps people in in
(07:40):
victim mode. And then the third one is
controller, which is like my jobis to control everything, not
like and not let the future in. It's like keep the hand on the
steering wheels at all time, don't give the power or control
to anybody else. And that of course is a
impossible because the future always shows up and chaos always
shows up. But of course you're also not
letting power, authority and responsibility go to other
(08:01):
people. So we've got all these good
reasons for wanting to be the person giving advice, and it's a
powerful unlearning and unlocking when you learn how to
stay curious longer. I love that I'll tell you a
funny story about this just cause for amusement purposes and
you'll get a kick out of this. I'm a physiologist so I work
(08:21):
with athletes a lot and when I started working with canoe
kayak, I got invited down to a training camp in Florida.
And they trained on this river which is far, you know a ways
from where they stay. So you they go paddle out to
this river. And I was in the motorboat with
the coach and we get to the river and he drops me off on one
of the docks from one of the houses of this big massive homes
(08:41):
that are on the river. He leaves me there and he goes
off to coach for two hours and Iwas like, all right, I guess I'm
just sitting on this dock for two hours and this carried on
the dock. Of a Bay there's a song about.
Staying on the dock of the of the Bay of the River in this
case. And he left me there, and they
left me there. And I got dropped off by many
coaches over the next 10 days orso.
And I was, I guess, expected just to sit there and watch.
(09:02):
And they were like, you're gonnasit here and watch our sport,
which is not the most exciting thing in the world.
It's like, you know, it's slightly more exciting than
swimming, my sport. But like, I just sat there for
10 days until someone finally asked me a question.
And then I was like, ah, now I've got them.
But it took that much. And I just sat there and I knew
what was going on. I was like, they're expecting me
(09:24):
to be curious. They're expecting me to watch.
They're expecting me to learn. They're expecting me to be
curious and because I just sat there and went with it and I
didn't immediately go into it, well, I saw this thing and you
could have been doing that. I waited until they asked and as
soon as they asked it was like, OK, now we can have a
conversation. What are your thoughts on on
that? Well, every situation is
(09:48):
different. And the real question is, yeah,
do you think it worked? Was it a helpful intervention?
Yeah, it was amazing, 'cause I Iwas with them for almost 16
years after that, right? Like, it was a long, amazing,
fantastic relationship, 'cause there was like mutual, shared
respect, understood the complexities, like it it I I
needed that time to sit and learn and watch and absorb and
(10:09):
and earn and earn it, frankly, right?
Earn the earn the year. So part of what you're talking
about honestly is, is what a a subtle understanding of politics
looks like and power looks like.Because there's a bunch of
things I would guess going on there, which is like, who is
this guy and can he prove himself?
And you know, how, how opinionated is he?
(10:30):
And is he going to just start telling us who've been doing
this sport for, you know, since childhood to actually what we
should be doing better? I mean, how dare he?
So there's an ability to kind ofgo, what's the appropriate
stance to take to build relationship with these people.
And often I mean this is the kind of broader lesson often the
(10:52):
stance of look, I'm the, I have the answers let me start telling
you what to do. It's not a great stance because
it puts you one up which means it puts them one down.
So now you're kind of going, look, I'm better than you.
I'm smarter than you. I'm cleverer than you.
I'm faster than you. I know more than you.
I'm older than you. I'm younger than you.
(11:14):
I'm I'm I'm I all sorts of theseways where you're like I'm
slightly the better person here and quite frankly even if you
come to the if they come to you first with the the question
they're like hey Greg how do I. Which we're well you're like
that's you know that's your advice monster is going oh this
is great they've literally askedyou for your advice hate the
bait. Hate it.
(11:35):
Even then. There's a time, a place where
you might go, you know, I I've got some thoughts because I've
really enjoyed 10 days sitting on a dock by myself watching
you. I've got some thoughts.
But in answer to your question, I'm curious to know how you'd
answer it yourself. I mean, what are your own first
thoughts around that there's a way that you you.
Keep going. Keep the curiosity going.
(11:57):
Because if you go basically, well, what ideas do you already
have? You know, what insights do you
already have? And then you go, great.
What else have you seen? Yeah, this is amazing.
What else are you noticing, right?
Is there anything else here thatyou you, you're picking up?
First of all, you're hearing what they already know.
Secondly, you're making them feel seen and feel heard and
(12:17):
giving them authority. Thirdly, it means that when you
do share your advice, you know it's the good stuff.
You know, it's the stuff they haven't thought of.
It's the stuff where you can kind of go, and here's really
where I'm going to add value as a nuance, build on some of the
stuff that you've already shared.
That's so fascinating. So it's really almost like
(12:38):
whenever you think you're done being curious and pause,
breathe, and keep going, remain curious.
Ask even more questions, get even more clarifications.
Allow the person that you're quote UN quote coaching or about
to coach to tell you even more. And that because I I actually
wouldn't have, and didn't at thetime, think of going that much
(12:59):
further and asking for even further clarifications.
But that would have been a magicmoment if I'd been able to do
that. Yeah.
I mean, there are times where people, when they when the right
thing to do is tell them stuff. You know, when somebody comes to
you and goes, you know, the building's burning down.
This is not the time to go. How do you feel about smoke?
You know, it's like that's the time for you to go, Great, let's
(13:21):
exit through the store and make our way down to the street below
or whatever else. But as a rule of thumb, I'm
like, is it useful to stay curious a little bit longer?
Maybe ask one more question? And as you practice it, as you
get more experienced it, you canfeel the the energy drop.
You can feel the moment where it's like, oh, we need to move
(13:41):
to the next phase of this conversation, Whether that's
them moving to action themselvesor whether that's you coming in
with your own idea, 'cause you get to a point where you go,
great, What ideas have you got? What else?
What else, what else? This is amazing.
Is there anything else? And that moment you're then at a
crossroads where you could go, Do I add my thoughts here?
That could be helpful? I've got some ideas.
(14:03):
Where do you go? Hey Craig, you've got some
really good ideas. I've.
I've got nothing much more to add to what you've already got.
So I'm curious when you look at the ideas you've got, you know
which one are you most excited about?
Which one do you think is most powerful?
Which one should we go deeper onand and which one would be most
help for us for us to kind of poke at and and look in more
(14:24):
detail and you can see how you can move to a kind of different
phase, which is like less about the idea generating and more
about the kind of let's focus onsomething that would be helpful
for you. Interesting.
A lot of this feels also like a way to balance the relationship.
I love that you're picking that up, so.
I I I think that and that's cure.
(14:45):
That is something I'm curious about and learn more about that.
You know it's it's the unspoken secret source.
The secret power of being more coach like is it's a way of
dismantling hierarchy and and a dissembling, distributing power
(15:07):
in a way that can be really powerful.
Because in most situations, in most organizations, there is
some sort of hierarchy. And there's a way that you bring
out the best of people often when you give them more power
rather than less power. And being more coach, like
(15:28):
staying curious longer is so often an act of empowerment.
Because when you're the person with the idea, the solution, the
opinion, the answer, you have the authority.
Hey, Michael, how do I do this? Well, you do it like this,
right? It's a real clear hierarchy.
I'm the smart one. I'm the experienced one.
You're not. Hey, Michael, how do I do this?
(15:49):
You know, I've got some thoughts, Greg.
But before I give you my thoughts, what do you think?
What actually is the real challenge here?
What's the, what's the hard thing that we're wrestling with
now you're saying to them, hey you, you're smart enough to
figure this out, you can go somewhere here.
You can probably come up with ananswer yourself.
Let me support you in that you're actually giving them
(16:09):
power, you're raising their authority, you're giving them
status. And I think it's a really
powerful way term. Let's just play with power and
hierarchy. But in doing so, help people
feel seen and have people feel heard and have feel people feel
like that they're being invited to make a full contribution.
And that just makes for a betterworkplace in general, but just
(16:32):
more have better humans in general.
And thinking back to all of the challenges that have happened in
sports and coaching over the last 30-40 years and how much of
that is now coming out and don'twant to talk about it too much
because it's painful. I know for a lot of the people
listening who have been in that environment and of course also
(16:54):
that that that has taken place in the workplace with dynamics
that maybe weren't healthy. And it's curious.
It's so interesting that when you elevate others, when you
give other people more power, that that is in fact the
solution to a healthier, higher performing environment.
It's not the opposite. It's not developing your power,
(17:15):
it's actually developing and facilitating other people being.
And I don't use powers and dominance over others.
That's not how I'm thinking about it.
It's like your ability to do what you need to do to solve
problems and move things forwards.
It's so curious. I I remember reading an article
about the New Zealand All Blacksnot that long ago and about how
their coaching process works andof course they are a a, a
(17:37):
dominant team in their sport. They're just just continually
and irresistibly great. As an Australian, that's an
extremely annoying fact. But you can't but admire them.
And you know, I remember the coach saying, look that, Chuck,
there's no point in me giving you guys too much direction
because that's not what they're there for.
(17:57):
If I can help them see the challenge, they're smart enough
to help figure out what the solution might be.
So it's a much less directive and much more kind of invitation
into, hey, step up and figure this stuff out yourself.
Because not only does that grow their capacity, that moment, but
it also continues to give autonomy and capacity when
(18:22):
they're in the field, when they're in that moment, under
stress, when they're playing in in the sport of their choice.
Is there any neuroscience going on here that you're aware of?
Like is that you've that you've studied or come across?
I'd really love to know more about how the brain is working
through all of this. It's it's so fascinating because
I'm trying to place this in the brain and I'm struggling a
(18:43):
little bit, so I'd be curious about your thoughts about that,
if you have any. I've I've got I've got
neuroscience 101, so I'm not going to be able to really name
the the different brain parts that are being lit up.
But I can give you some a general dynamic about what's
happening. So generally speaking the the
brain five times a second on an unconscious level is reading the
(19:05):
situation and asking a singular question.
Is it safe here or is it dangerous?
Safe for dangerous. Safe for dangerous because the
brain's job is primarily to keepyou alive.
Because the longer you're alive,the longer the more chance you
go out of having kids and keeping your DNA alive.
And so that's the brain's job. It's like, don't go into the
dark cave, play it safe. And partly we have that wiring
(19:27):
because all the people of our ancient ancestors who didn't
have that wiring did the stupid thing and died, whereas all the
all the ancestors who were like,unbalanced.
I'm going to play it safe, are the ones but who had children
and our children and their children and so on.
So that's the brain's fundamental question.
Safe or dangerous, risk or reward.
(19:48):
And there are four key drivers that influence how the brain
evaluates the the circumstance. And I use the acronym Terra,
Tera. So tribe, expectation, rank and
autonomy, that's what they standfor.
So I'll go through this one by one.
Tribe the Brain is asking are you with me or are you against
(20:11):
me? So there's a there's a way that
people will feel safe. And when they feel safe, they
feel more able to be themselves,more able to lean in, more able
to cope with ambiguity, more able to deal with stress, more
able to contribute at a high level.
When they feel part of the group.
They're more able to do that when they feel like it's me
(20:31):
versus you. They're less able to do that.
They're more into the amygdala, you know, the lizard brain.
So fight or flight. The second driver is
expectation. So the brain's asking, do I know
what's about to happen or do I not know?
The more certainty you can give the brain, the safer it feels.
If they're not. If the brain feels uncertain,
it's like what's happening. Backing away, the third driver
(20:56):
is rank. And then the brain is asking are
you more or less important than me?
And the more important you can make other people feel, the more
engaged, the safer, the better they feel, the more you're going
to get from them, Oh, you're Brainsight.
The more you can raise their rank, raise their status, the
better. And then the 4th and final
driver is autonomy. And the brain's going.
(21:17):
Are you giving me some choice here or are you making all the
choices for me? And the more choice you can give
them, the safer they feel. Now I think of these four
drivers as kind of like a mixingboard.
You can't. It's hard to push all four of
them up to the top because they kind of they they, they balance
against each other to an extent.But you're constantly going, how
(21:39):
do I increase the terror quotient, the terror quotient of
the moment? Because that will have that
person be more likely to be kindof in and bringing their best
game rather than in amygdala backing out mode.
And just to add to that, Greg, people, people love going to the
backing out mode. It's not a, it's not a do I go
(22:02):
in and do I go out even balance?It's like if I'm not sure I I
opt out. Yeah, because that's the safer
thing to do. So what's powerful about asking
questions is almost always it will raise the terror quotient,
it will increase the sense of tribiness because rather than me
telling you how to do it, which actually pulls us apart, it's
(22:25):
like basically how will we figure this out together?
Let me help us figure this out. That increases the tribiness.
It probably decreases the expectation a bit because
somebody telling you what to do is clearer than somebody asking
you what to do. But if people know that your
style is to ask questions, you know, that kind of balances out.
(22:45):
It definitely increases a sense of rank because rather than I
know best and I'll tell you whatto do, you're saying I think you
can figure this out. And that's an act of not only
raising their rank, but also lowering your rank.
Because you're not, look, I won't tell you.
I'll ask. That's an active service.
And then of course it increases autonomy as well, because now
(23:05):
they're figuring out what the challenge is.
They're coming up with their ideas.
You might be contributing to that, but in the end you're
asking them to make the choices.So there's a way that acting
curious will almost always increase the terror quotient.
And if you're increasing the terror quotient, you're making
it safe. And if you're making it safe,
you're allowing people to bring their best self into the moment.
(23:26):
It's so fascinating that all of this helps us to get people to
lean in, be more engaged. It's so.
And it's counterintuitive because you're like, you're not.
You think that if I tell someonesomething, they're gonna be more
engaged, But it's actually the opposite.
If you listen first, that actually pulls people in.
(23:51):
It's extremely annoying. I mean, for people like you and
me who are, you know, in the end, teachers, that's what we
are. We're teachers.
You know, you teach in your field.
I teach in mine. This podcast is a teaching
moment. So we spend our lives trying to
come up with ways of transmitting ideas and insights
and concepts to people. And when you just tell it to
(24:12):
people, for the most part it goes in one ear and it goes out
the other. Yeah.
So if you want to engage people,I mean, like, even if you like,
here's a here's a question from the Coaching Habit book.
It's the final question. It's the it's the learning
question. And we could, we'll ask this, we
could ask this at the end of this podcast rather than us
going, hey, let's summarise how awesome this podcast was
(24:34):
because, you know, Greg's handsome and articulate and I'm
less handsome and less articulate.
But between us we can work. Out there but.
Rather than us telling you what was good about this podcast, we
could ask the question to you, the listener, like, you know so
far, we're 20 minutes into it orso.
So far, what's been most useful and most valuable for you from
this podcast? And you'll pick something.
(24:57):
It might be the terror quotient.It might be Greg's story about
sitting on the dock of the Bay just waiting for the kayakers.
It might be this idea of kind ofjust what what curiosity does.
There's been a bunch of things that you might grab on, but by
us asking you and you figuring it out yourself, it's much more
likely to stick. It's much more likely to feel
(25:17):
true. It's much more likely to
actually do that little rewiringof your brain, which is what
happens when learning happens. I love it.
How do Would be my last question, 'cause I'm sensitive
to your time, I'm curious about how leaders could start to
practice this. If you want to begin to do this
in your workplace, what's a goodplace to start?
(25:40):
How do people get going with this?
How do we develop our comfort level with doing this more
often? A.
Wonderful question. You know the book, the book I
wrote eight years ago, which, you know, now best selling book
on coaching this century, It's called The Coaching Habit
because the first chapter is about let's talk about what it
means to build a habit. Because what doesn't work is you
(26:00):
listen to this podcast and go, Oh my goodness, Michael and Greg
are right. I just need to do this more
often. Yes.
And you kind of make a sort of jazz hand.
No commitment to it. Yeah.
The the act of building a habit is a more more deliberate
behaviour change and it's a smaller act as well.
So I would pick a question, you know coaching habit book has
(26:24):
seven. It could be What's on your mind,
which is a great keep start opening question.
It could be what's the real challenge here for you?
Which is a great focusing question.
It could be the learning question, which I already
mentioned, you know what was most useful or most valuable.
It could simply be what I call in the book the best coaching
question in the world, which is and what else?
Literally awe. An awesome question and what
(26:47):
else? Because that's a way that you
get to keep curiosity happening longer and tame your advice.
One step and pick a question, pick a person.
So somebody on your team or in your sphere be like I'd like to
be more curious with that person.
Pick a moment, maybe a recurringmoment with that person in my
(27:09):
one to one weekly cause with Greg, rather than going through
the usual agenda which bores both of us to tears, I'm going
to go, hey Greg, rather than going through the usual one to
one gender, I'm going to just ask you this question, what's on
your mind? And just practice it, because
(27:30):
the change of behaviour sounds easy enough and you stay curious
a little bit longer and you rushto action and advice, giving a
little bit more slowly. But it's not.
It is a fundamental foundationalshift in how you show up as a
leader. But if you start realizing that
you become that much more uniqueand that much more valuable when
(27:51):
you're the person who helps figure out what the real
challenge is, rather than be theperson who's fast with an
answer, then that's when you actually start shifting the way
that you lead when you say less and you ask more.
I love it. It's been 8 years.
Believe more than a million people bought the book.
That's pretty incredible. Yeah, like 1.21 point, 3 million
(28:11):
copies sold. So I know and and it got turned
down by a regular publisher, so I had to self publish in the
end. So, yeah, so.
I have a. I'm delighted by the success of
the book, but I'm also a little bit smug about the success of
the book as well. That's OK.
We'll let that. We'll let that sit and lean in.
We'll we'll, we'll marinate in that a little bit because that's
(28:33):
awesome. That makes it even better.
And you're obviously we're here talking about it because you've
got a whole bunch of additional resources for anyone that picks
up a copy and additional training, and you're now really
leaning into helping people implement this.
So I'd love to hear more about if you want to get a copy, which
would be amazing. I'll have all the links in the
show notes and everything like that.
But how do what you're giving away like 3 hours of training?
(28:55):
It's a whole bunch of other stuff too.
So what's going on with all that?
Help us understand you can get here.
Yeah, we're giving it an intenselittle push over a week.
So if you happen to listen to this conversation with Greg and
me between May 14th and May 20th, if you pick up a copy of
the book, you buy a print copy of the book, go to tchlive.com
(29:16):
and two things happen. First of all, you unlock the
invitation to 345 minute webinars for me in June.
So I go and kind of deeper dive into some of this coaching
stuff. First one will be about the
being of coaching. Who do you need to be so that
you can ask a better question. The second one will be two of my
favorite tools that I use to coach.
And beyond the questions themselves, there'll be some
(29:38):
coach demos and there'll be AQ and a session as well.
Also if you want your your name will be thrown in the hat to be
pulled out to win a coaching session with me.
So we'll do an hour together. I I, I coach almost nobody these
days. So it's a kind of rare thing and
you'll be in the running for that.
So tchlive.com and register and you'll be you'll be in the
(30:01):
running for that. If you happen to be listening
after May 20th. I'm sorry it was a time limited
deal, but if you go to thecoachinghabit.com you'll
actually find a ton of videos and resources and downloads you
can use to support you in the reading of the book.
Amazing. Maybe you and I will both go get
some coaching together on how toride our mountain bikes a little
(30:23):
bit less dangerously and a little less less less likely for
us to get ourselves into trouble.
But I really appreciate you taking the time to come and hang
out with us and share these ideas.
I know there are many teachers, coaches in this community and
obviously everyone's going to benefit from hearing these ideas
and sharing them and obviously all that info is going to be in
in the show notes. So thank you for hanging out and
(30:45):
spending some time with us. I really really really
appreciate it. I I love the conversation to
Greg. Thanks for your time all.
Right. Everyone, hope that you enjoyed
that. Thanks so much for listening.
Really appreciate you being partof the community.
If you did enjoy it, please share this on your social
channels. If you have questions, please
ping me at Doctor Greg Wells andwe are just so thrilled to have
(31:07):
you as part of this community. So we really hope that you will
leave us a comment and let us know what you think, either on
iTunes or your platform of choice.
Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, that's it for this week.
Have a great one. We'll see you again soon.
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show.
It's great to be with you. Thanks so much for joining me.
We are going to have a great time.
Today I'm sharing my interview with my friend Michael Bungay
Stanier. He helps people be a force for
change. He's best known for his book The
Coaching Habit, which has sold close to 1,000,000 copies and
has thousands of five star reviews online.
(00:21):
He's got a new book out. It's called The Advice Trap that
focuses focuses on what it takesto tame your advice monster.
But today we're going to focus on the coaching habit.
He founded his company, Box of Crayons, a learning and
development company that helps organizations move from advice
driven to curiosity LED. They've trained hundreds of
thousands of managers to be morecoach like, and their clients
(00:43):
range from Microsoft to Gucci. He left Australia about 30 years
ago to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where his
only significant achievement wasfalling in love with a Canadian,
which is why he now lives in Toronto.
Having spent time in London and Boston and balancing out these
moments of success, he was banned from his high school
(01:04):
graduation for the balloon incident.
He was sued by one of his law school professors for defamation
and his first published piece ofwriting was a Harlequin Romance
esque story involved a missed involving a Miss delivered
letter. It was called the Mail MALE
Delivery Hilarious. Michael Bungay Stania is at the
(01:26):
forefront of shaping how organizations around the world
make being coached like an essential leadership competency.
His book The Coaching Habit is the best selling coaching book
of this century with nearly 1,000,000 copies sold.
We are so fortunate to have Michael out.
He's doing a bit of a push around the coaching habit at the
moment. We we're hanging out in Costa
Rica mountain biking recently, had a great chat, got to know
(01:48):
each other a little bit better, had a lot of fun and so I was
super thrilled to bring him ontothe show to share his insights
with all of you. So without any further delays,
please enjoy my conversation with Michael Bunge Stanier all
about the coaching habit. Michael, good to see you buddy.
It. Is nice to be here, Greg.
Thanks for having me. So right before we clicked
(02:09):
start, we were revisiting the fact that the last time that we
were in person together was in Costa Rica on mountain bikes and
you have recently bought a mountain bike and you've done
some lessons. So, good job.
Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm, I have all the
characteristics of an overconfident middle-aged man
who thinks he's younger and moreflexible and more vital and more
(02:30):
able to recover from injury thanhe actually is.
So I'm trying to overcome that cognitive bias.
By getting some coaching, which is what you by.
Getting some going to do exactly.
That's so funny. And as I was saying, like I I
got some coaching as well on mountain biking a couple years
ago when I was out West. And my gosh, when you get help,
it makes everything so much easier.
(02:54):
I think that's right. I mean, honestly, this I don't.
I've been one class so far and it was just teaching me how to
use that. Get my saddle, which is one of
those saddles that can pop up and down.
Yep, which is cool, but it takesa bit of a practice to figure
out when, when, and how high youshould be sitting.
I'm sure this is a metaphor for something.
About us? Yeah.
Where's my house supposed to be?In space?
(03:15):
And what's that metaphor? Yeah, exactly.
But everybody who's listening in, it's like, think about think
about where your ass is, how high it is off the ground.
How? How, How?
Where? Your syndrome, gravity is, and
what that says about your stability.
And you know, it's like we're we're talking about your life,
not your mountain biking. Yeah, that's right.
This is so funny. So I want to dig into this
(03:37):
coaching habit because this bookhas been out for a long time.
You and I are obviously heavily into coaching in various
different ways have been throughout our entire careers.
I truly believe that one of the ways in which we can elevate the
world in addition to learning how to mountain bike is by
learning how to coach. And that could just be, you
know, you versus you and your team could be you and you know,
the athletes that you might be volunteering with.
It could be absolutely anybody. So I think coaching's super
(04:00):
important. I'm grateful for you taking the
time to hang out with us and talk about it.
Oh, thank you. Yeah, you know, I I wrote the
coach. It's like 8 years old and and
two years old as well because eight years ago I published it
on February the 29th so I could kind of con myself to go on its
2nd birthday and sold copies. So it's two and it's eight at
the same time and it's really a book written for non coaches.
(04:22):
It's written for the rest of us because I just became aware of
what a powerful tool to unlock courage and unlock the best
version or unlock focus, all these kind of performative
measures, which I know you know better than I do.
But it also came with all this baggage, all this kind of
slightly woo woo baggage or executive coach baggage or
(04:43):
sporting coach baggage. And I really wanted to make
coaching feel like an everyday act, an everyday behaviour.
And the behaviour is this. Can you stay curious a little
bit longer? And can you rush to action and
advice, giving a little bit moreslowly?
Because you know, most of us areadvice.
Giving maniacs and advice has its place, and it's an important
(05:05):
place. But if you can just slow that
down, you're going to have a more powerful conversation most
of the time. With your kids, with your team,
with your boss, with your whoever.
I'd love to learn more about theapproach to slowing down and
leveraging more curiosity, because that is the unlock.
Imagine diving into a situation and starting to spray your
(05:27):
advice all over the place. You're literally only going to
make people angry and defensive and they won't feel like you
understand them, so that's a really interesting way to
approach it. Yeah, and.
And not only does it have an impact on the other person, but
also it's a waste of your time as well, 'cause often you're
solving the wrong problem with your not very good advice.
So it's not, it's not an effective leadership
(05:50):
intervention. So some years ago I I recorded a
TEDx talk, Contain Your advice Monster.
And we will love this because they recognize that they have an
advice monster. You know, somebody starts
talking and within like 2 seconds your advice monster kind
of looms up out of the dark and goes, oh, we're going to add
some value to this conversation with my brilliant ideas and
(06:11):
thoughts and opinions and suggestions.
And, you know, there's two reasons why we're wired for
this. One is just practice.
You know, We spend our whole lives being rewarded for being
the first person to stick up your hand and have the answer,
you know, through school. That's so curious.
Wow. So, so we have this ability,
(06:31):
this we've been trained to rush to our ideas.
We've been trained because we we, most of us want to be
helpful to go. The way I help people is to have
the solution of the opinion. But there's a deeper level,
which is more around how being the person with the ideas
protects our status, protects our authority, protects our
control. So I say there are three advice
(06:54):
models that says say it, say it,save it and control it.
So tell it, save it and control it.
So tell it is. My job is to have all the
answers. If I don't have all the answers,
I am a bad person and I have failed myself and I've failed
those around us. Impossible.
But lots of us carry that weight, particularly if you're
an organization and you're like,you're a new manager, you're
(07:17):
like, oh, why I be a good manager.
I know all the answers. You can't know all the answers.
Then there's save it where you're like, my job is to
protect everybody, help everybody, make sure nothing bad
happens to everybody. My job is to be the kind of the
mother hen, which, you know, as you'll know, Greg, it's like an
infantilizing stance. It actually keeps people in in
(07:40):
victim mode. And then the third one is
controller, which is like my jobis to control everything, not
like and not let the future in. It's like keep the hand on the
steering wheels at all time, don't give the power or control
to anybody else. And that of course is a
impossible because the future always shows up and chaos always
shows up. But of course you're also not
letting power, authority and responsibility go to other
(08:01):
people. So we've got all these good
reasons for wanting to be the person giving advice, and it's a
powerful unlearning and unlocking when you learn how to
stay curious longer. I love that I'll tell you a
funny story about this just cause for amusement purposes and
you'll get a kick out of this. I'm a physiologist so I work
(08:21):
with athletes a lot and when I started working with canoe
kayak, I got invited down to a training camp in Florida.
And they trained on this river which is far, you know a ways
from where they stay. So you they go paddle out to
this river. And I was in the motorboat with
the coach and we get to the river and he drops me off on one
of the docks from one of the houses of this big massive homes
(08:41):
that are on the river. He leaves me there and he goes
off to coach for two hours and Iwas like, all right, I guess I'm
just sitting on this dock for two hours and this carried on
the dock. Of a Bay there's a song about.
Staying on the dock of the of the Bay of the River in this
case. And he left me there, and they
left me there. And I got dropped off by many
coaches over the next 10 days orso.
And I was, I guess, expected just to sit there and watch.
(09:02):
And they were like, you're gonnasit here and watch our sport,
which is not the most exciting thing in the world.
It's like, you know, it's slightly more exciting than
swimming, my sport. But like, I just sat there for
10 days until someone finally asked me a question.
And then I was like, ah, now I've got them.
But it took that much. And I just sat there and I knew
what was going on. I was like, they're expecting me
(09:24):
to be curious. They're expecting me to watch.
They're expecting me to learn. They're expecting me to be
curious and because I just sat there and went with it and I
didn't immediately go into it, well, I saw this thing and you
could have been doing that. I waited until they asked and as
soon as they asked it was like, OK, now we can have a
conversation. What are your thoughts on on
that? Well, every situation is
(09:48):
different. And the real question is, yeah,
do you think it worked? Was it a helpful intervention?
Yeah, it was amazing, 'cause I Iwas with them for almost 16
years after that, right? Like, it was a long, amazing,
fantastic relationship, 'cause there was like mutual, shared
respect, understood the complexities, like it it I I
needed that time to sit and learn and watch and absorb and
(10:09):
and earn and earn it, frankly, right?
Earn the earn the year. So part of what you're talking
about honestly is, is what a a subtle understanding of politics
looks like and power looks like.Because there's a bunch of
things I would guess going on there, which is like, who is
this guy and can he prove himself?
And you know, how, how opinionated is he?
(10:30):
And is he going to just start telling us who've been doing
this sport for, you know, since childhood to actually what we
should be doing better? I mean, how dare he?
So there's an ability to kind ofgo, what's the appropriate
stance to take to build relationship with these people.
And often I mean this is the kind of broader lesson often the
(10:52):
stance of look, I'm the, I have the answers let me start telling
you what to do. It's not a great stance because
it puts you one up which means it puts them one down.
So now you're kind of going, look, I'm better than you.
I'm smarter than you. I'm cleverer than you.
I'm faster than you. I know more than you.
I'm older than you. I'm younger than you.
(11:14):
I'm I'm I'm I all sorts of theseways where you're like I'm
slightly the better person here and quite frankly even if you
come to the if they come to you first with the the question
they're like hey Greg how do I. Which we're well you're like
that's you know that's your advice monster is going oh this
is great they've literally askedyou for your advice hate the
bait. Hate it.
(11:35):
Even then. There's a time, a place where
you might go, you know, I I've got some thoughts because I've
really enjoyed 10 days sitting on a dock by myself watching
you. I've got some thoughts.
But in answer to your question, I'm curious to know how you'd
answer it yourself. I mean, what are your own first
thoughts around that there's a way that you you.
Keep going. Keep the curiosity going.
(11:57):
Because if you go basically, well, what ideas do you already
have? You know, what insights do you
already have? And then you go, great.
What else have you seen? Yeah, this is amazing.
What else are you noticing, right?
Is there anything else here thatyou you, you're picking up?
First of all, you're hearing what they already know.
Secondly, you're making them feel seen and feel heard and
(12:17):
giving them authority. Thirdly, it means that when you
do share your advice, you know it's the good stuff.
You know, it's the stuff they haven't thought of.
It's the stuff where you can kind of go, and here's really
where I'm going to add value as a nuance, build on some of the
stuff that you've already shared.
That's so fascinating. So it's really almost like
(12:38):
whenever you think you're done being curious and pause,
breathe, and keep going, remain curious.
Ask even more questions, get even more clarifications.
Allow the person that you're quote UN quote coaching or about
to coach to tell you even more. And that because I I actually
wouldn't have, and didn't at thetime, think of going that much
(12:59):
further and asking for even further clarifications.
But that would have been a magicmoment if I'd been able to do
that. Yeah.
I mean, there are times where people, when they when the right
thing to do is tell them stuff. You know, when somebody comes to
you and goes, you know, the building's burning down.
This is not the time to go. How do you feel about smoke?
You know, it's like that's the time for you to go, Great, let's
(13:21):
exit through the store and make our way down to the street below
or whatever else. But as a rule of thumb, I'm
like, is it useful to stay curious a little bit longer?
Maybe ask one more question? And as you practice it, as you
get more experienced it, you canfeel the the energy drop.
You can feel the moment where it's like, oh, we need to move
(13:41):
to the next phase of this conversation, Whether that's
them moving to action themselvesor whether that's you coming in
with your own idea, 'cause you get to a point where you go,
great, What ideas have you got? What else?
What else, what else? This is amazing.
Is there anything else? And that moment you're then at a
crossroads where you could go, Do I add my thoughts here?
That could be helpful? I've got some ideas.
(14:03):
Where do you go? Hey Craig, you've got some
really good ideas. I've.
I've got nothing much more to add to what you've already got.
So I'm curious when you look at the ideas you've got, you know
which one are you most excited about?
Which one do you think is most powerful?
Which one should we go deeper onand and which one would be most
help for us for us to kind of poke at and and look in more
(14:24):
detail and you can see how you can move to a kind of different
phase, which is like less about the idea generating and more
about the kind of let's focus onsomething that would be helpful
for you. Interesting.
A lot of this feels also like a way to balance the relationship.
I love that you're picking that up, so.
I I I think that and that's cure.
(14:45):
That is something I'm curious about and learn more about that.
You know it's it's the unspoken secret source.
The secret power of being more coach like is it's a way of
dismantling hierarchy and and a dissembling, distributing power
(15:07):
in a way that can be really powerful.
Because in most situations, in most organizations, there is
some sort of hierarchy. And there's a way that you bring
out the best of people often when you give them more power
rather than less power. And being more coach, like
(15:28):
staying curious longer is so often an act of empowerment.
Because when you're the person with the idea, the solution, the
opinion, the answer, you have the authority.
Hey, Michael, how do I do this? Well, you do it like this,
right? It's a real clear hierarchy.
I'm the smart one. I'm the experienced one.
You're not. Hey, Michael, how do I do this?
(15:49):
You know, I've got some thoughts, Greg.
But before I give you my thoughts, what do you think?
What actually is the real challenge here?
What's the, what's the hard thing that we're wrestling with
now you're saying to them, hey you, you're smart enough to
figure this out, you can go somewhere here.
You can probably come up with ananswer yourself.
Let me support you in that you're actually giving them
(16:09):
power, you're raising their authority, you're giving them
status. And I think it's a really
powerful way term. Let's just play with power and
hierarchy. But in doing so, help people
feel seen and have people feel heard and have feel people feel
like that they're being invited to make a full contribution.
And that just makes for a betterworkplace in general, but just
(16:32):
more have better humans in general.
And thinking back to all of the challenges that have happened in
sports and coaching over the last 30-40 years and how much of
that is now coming out and don'twant to talk about it too much
because it's painful. I know for a lot of the people
listening who have been in that environment and of course also
(16:54):
that that that has taken place in the workplace with dynamics
that maybe weren't healthy. And it's curious.
It's so interesting that when you elevate others, when you
give other people more power, that that is in fact the
solution to a healthier, higher performing environment.
It's not the opposite. It's not developing your power,
(17:15):
it's actually developing and facilitating other people being.
And I don't use powers and dominance over others.
That's not how I'm thinking about it.
It's like your ability to do what you need to do to solve
problems and move things forwards.
It's so curious. I I remember reading an article
about the New Zealand All Blacksnot that long ago and about how
their coaching process works andof course they are a a, a
(17:37):
dominant team in their sport. They're just just continually
and irresistibly great. As an Australian, that's an
extremely annoying fact. But you can't but admire them.
And you know, I remember the coach saying, look that, Chuck,
there's no point in me giving you guys too much direction
because that's not what they're there for.
(17:57):
If I can help them see the challenge, they're smart enough
to help figure out what the solution might be.
So it's a much less directive and much more kind of invitation
into, hey, step up and figure this stuff out yourself.
Because not only does that grow their capacity, that moment, but
it also continues to give autonomy and capacity when
(18:22):
they're in the field, when they're in that moment, under
stress, when they're playing in in the sport of their choice.
Is there any neuroscience going on here that you're aware of?
Like is that you've that you've studied or come across?
I'd really love to know more about how the brain is working
through all of this. It's it's so fascinating because
I'm trying to place this in the brain and I'm struggling a
(18:43):
little bit, so I'd be curious about your thoughts about that,
if you have any. I've I've got I've got
neuroscience 101, so I'm not going to be able to really name
the the different brain parts that are being lit up.
But I can give you some a general dynamic about what's
happening. So generally speaking the the
brain five times a second on an unconscious level is reading the
(19:05):
situation and asking a singular question.
Is it safe here or is it dangerous?
Safe for dangerous. Safe for dangerous because the
brain's job is primarily to keepyou alive.
Because the longer you're alive,the longer the more chance you
go out of having kids and keeping your DNA alive.
And so that's the brain's job. It's like, don't go into the
dark cave, play it safe. And partly we have that wiring
(19:27):
because all the people of our ancient ancestors who didn't
have that wiring did the stupid thing and died, whereas all the
all the ancestors who were like,unbalanced.
I'm going to play it safe, are the ones but who had children
and our children and their children and so on.
So that's the brain's fundamental question.
Safe or dangerous, risk or reward.
(19:48):
And there are four key drivers that influence how the brain
evaluates the the circumstance. And I use the acronym Terra,
Tera. So tribe, expectation, rank and
autonomy, that's what they standfor.
So I'll go through this one by one.
Tribe the Brain is asking are you with me or are you against
(20:11):
me? So there's a there's a way that
people will feel safe. And when they feel safe, they
feel more able to be themselves,more able to lean in, more able
to cope with ambiguity, more able to deal with stress, more
able to contribute at a high level.
When they feel part of the group.
They're more able to do that when they feel like it's me
(20:31):
versus you. They're less able to do that.
They're more into the amygdala, you know, the lizard brain.
So fight or flight. The second driver is
expectation. So the brain's asking, do I know
what's about to happen or do I not know?
The more certainty you can give the brain, the safer it feels.
If they're not. If the brain feels uncertain,
it's like what's happening. Backing away, the third driver
(20:56):
is rank. And then the brain is asking are
you more or less important than me?
And the more important you can make other people feel, the more
engaged, the safer, the better they feel, the more you're going
to get from them, Oh, you're Brainsight.
The more you can raise their rank, raise their status, the
better. And then the 4th and final
driver is autonomy. And the brain's going.
(21:17):
Are you giving me some choice here or are you making all the
choices for me? And the more choice you can give
them, the safer they feel. Now I think of these four
drivers as kind of like a mixingboard.
You can't. It's hard to push all four of
them up to the top because they kind of they they, they balance
against each other to an extent.But you're constantly going, how
(21:39):
do I increase the terror quotient, the terror quotient of
the moment? Because that will have that
person be more likely to be kindof in and bringing their best
game rather than in amygdala backing out mode.
And just to add to that, Greg, people, people love going to the
backing out mode. It's not a, it's not a do I go
(22:02):
in and do I go out even balance?It's like if I'm not sure I I
opt out. Yeah, because that's the safer
thing to do. So what's powerful about asking
questions is almost always it will raise the terror quotient,
it will increase the sense of tribiness because rather than me
telling you how to do it, which actually pulls us apart, it's
(22:25):
like basically how will we figure this out together?
Let me help us figure this out. That increases the tribiness.
It probably decreases the expectation a bit because
somebody telling you what to do is clearer than somebody asking
you what to do. But if people know that your
style is to ask questions, you know, that kind of balances out.
(22:45):
It definitely increases a sense of rank because rather than I
know best and I'll tell you whatto do, you're saying I think you
can figure this out. And that's an act of not only
raising their rank, but also lowering your rank.
Because you're not, look, I won't tell you.
I'll ask. That's an active service.
And then of course it increases autonomy as well, because now
(23:05):
they're figuring out what the challenge is.
They're coming up with their ideas.
You might be contributing to that, but in the end you're
asking them to make the choices.So there's a way that acting
curious will almost always increase the terror quotient.
And if you're increasing the terror quotient, you're making
it safe. And if you're making it safe,
you're allowing people to bring their best self into the moment.
(23:26):
It's so fascinating that all of this helps us to get people to
lean in, be more engaged. It's so.
And it's counterintuitive because you're like, you're not.
You think that if I tell someonesomething, they're gonna be more
engaged, But it's actually the opposite.
If you listen first, that actually pulls people in.
(23:51):
It's extremely annoying. I mean, for people like you and
me who are, you know, in the end, teachers, that's what we
are. We're teachers.
You know, you teach in your field.
I teach in mine. This podcast is a teaching
moment. So we spend our lives trying to
come up with ways of transmitting ideas and insights
and concepts to people. And when you just tell it to
(24:12):
people, for the most part it goes in one ear and it goes out
the other. Yeah.
So if you want to engage people,I mean, like, even if you like,
here's a here's a question from the Coaching Habit book.
It's the final question. It's the it's the learning
question. And we could, we'll ask this, we
could ask this at the end of this podcast rather than us
going, hey, let's summarise how awesome this podcast was
(24:34):
because, you know, Greg's handsome and articulate and I'm
less handsome and less articulate.
But between us we can work. Out there but.
Rather than us telling you what was good about this podcast, we
could ask the question to you, the listener, like, you know so
far, we're 20 minutes into it orso.
So far, what's been most useful and most valuable for you from
this podcast? And you'll pick something.
(24:57):
It might be the terror quotient.It might be Greg's story about
sitting on the dock of the Bay just waiting for the kayakers.
It might be this idea of kind ofjust what what curiosity does.
There's been a bunch of things that you might grab on, but by
us asking you and you figuring it out yourself, it's much more
likely to stick. It's much more likely to feel
(25:17):
true. It's much more likely to
actually do that little rewiringof your brain, which is what
happens when learning happens. I love it.
How do Would be my last question, 'cause I'm sensitive
to your time, I'm curious about how leaders could start to
practice this. If you want to begin to do this
in your workplace, what's a goodplace to start?
(25:40):
How do people get going with this?
How do we develop our comfort level with doing this more
often? A.
Wonderful question. You know the book, the book I
wrote eight years ago, which, you know, now best selling book
on coaching this century, It's called The Coaching Habit
because the first chapter is about let's talk about what it
means to build a habit. Because what doesn't work is you
(26:00):
listen to this podcast and go, Oh my goodness, Michael and Greg
are right. I just need to do this more
often. Yes.
And you kind of make a sort of jazz hand.
No commitment to it. Yeah.
The the act of building a habit is a more more deliberate
behaviour change and it's a smaller act as well.
So I would pick a question, you know coaching habit book has
(26:24):
seven. It could be What's on your mind,
which is a great keep start opening question.
It could be what's the real challenge here for you?
Which is a great focusing question.
It could be the learning question, which I already
mentioned, you know what was most useful or most valuable.
It could simply be what I call in the book the best coaching
question in the world, which is and what else?
Literally awe. An awesome question and what
(26:47):
else? Because that's a way that you
get to keep curiosity happening longer and tame your advice.
One step and pick a question, pick a person.
So somebody on your team or in your sphere be like I'd like to
be more curious with that person.
Pick a moment, maybe a recurringmoment with that person in my
(27:09):
one to one weekly cause with Greg, rather than going through
the usual agenda which bores both of us to tears, I'm going
to go, hey Greg, rather than going through the usual one to
one gender, I'm going to just ask you this question, what's on
your mind? And just practice it, because
(27:30):
the change of behaviour sounds easy enough and you stay curious
a little bit longer and you rushto action and advice, giving a
little bit more slowly. But it's not.
It is a fundamental foundationalshift in how you show up as a
leader. But if you start realizing that
you become that much more uniqueand that much more valuable when
(27:51):
you're the person who helps figure out what the real
challenge is, rather than be theperson who's fast with an
answer, then that's when you actually start shifting the way
that you lead when you say less and you ask more.
I love it. It's been 8 years.
Believe more than a million people bought the book.
That's pretty incredible. Yeah, like 1.21 point, 3 million
(28:11):
copies sold. So I know and and it got turned
down by a regular publisher, so I had to self publish in the
end. So, yeah, so.
I have a. I'm delighted by the success of
the book, but I'm also a little bit smug about the success of
the book as well. That's OK.
We'll let that. We'll let that sit and lean in.
We'll we'll, we'll marinate in that a little bit because that's
(28:33):
awesome. That makes it even better.
And you're obviously we're here talking about it because you've
got a whole bunch of additional resources for anyone that picks
up a copy and additional training, and you're now really
leaning into helping people implement this.
So I'd love to hear more about if you want to get a copy, which
would be amazing. I'll have all the links in the
show notes and everything like that.
But how do what you're giving away like 3 hours of training?
(28:55):
It's a whole bunch of other stuff too.
So what's going on with all that?
Help us understand you can get here.
Yeah, we're giving it an intenselittle push over a week.
So if you happen to listen to this conversation with Greg and
me between May 14th and May 20th, if you pick up a copy of
the book, you buy a print copy of the book, go to tchlive.com
(29:16):
and two things happen. First of all, you unlock the
invitation to 345 minute webinars for me in June.
So I go and kind of deeper dive into some of this coaching
stuff. First one will be about the
being of coaching. Who do you need to be so that
you can ask a better question. The second one will be two of my
favorite tools that I use to coach.
And beyond the questions themselves, there'll be some
(29:38):
coach demos and there'll be AQ and a session as well.
Also if you want your your name will be thrown in the hat to be
pulled out to win a coaching session with me.
So we'll do an hour together. I I, I coach almost nobody these
days. So it's a kind of rare thing and
you'll be in the running for that.
So tchlive.com and register and you'll be you'll be in the
(30:01):
running for that. If you happen to be listening
after May 20th. I'm sorry it was a time limited
deal, but if you go to thecoachinghabit.com you'll
actually find a ton of videos and resources and downloads you
can use to support you in the reading of the book.
Amazing. Maybe you and I will both go get
some coaching together on how toride our mountain bikes a little
(30:23):
bit less dangerously and a little less less less likely for
us to get ourselves into trouble.
But I really appreciate you taking the time to come and hang
out with us and share these ideas.
I know there are many teachers, coaches in this community and
obviously everyone's going to benefit from hearing these ideas
and sharing them and obviously all that info is going to be in
in the show notes. So thank you for hanging out and
(30:45):
spending some time with us. I really really really
appreciate it. I I love the conversation to
Greg. Thanks for your time all.
Right. Everyone, hope that you enjoyed
that. Thanks so much for listening.
Really appreciate you being partof the community.
If you did enjoy it, please share this on your social
channels. If you have questions, please
ping me at Doctor Greg Wells andwe are just so thrilled to have
(31:07):
you as part of this community. So we really hope that you will
leave us a comment and let us know what you think, either on
iTunes or your platform of choice.
Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, that's it for this week.
Have a great one. We'll see you again soon.
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