Effective coaches certainly use closed questions far less than open ones (closed questions require either a “yes” or a “no” response while open questions stimulate the sharing of information). However, closed questions serve a number of useful purposes, including clarifying, challenging and confirming. They can therefore be used to check understanding, to push a coachee’s envelope or to conclude a discussion. While open questions encourage people to reveal more, closed questions can pin a person down and may even sometimes intentionally create discomfort. They can propel a coachee towards agreement or taking action, especially where the coach senses a need for the coachee to make a firm commitment. In this coaching corner article we are going to briefly address this important conversational skill, that of asking closed questions, with the help of an idealized dialogue:
In a future article we will look at the use of giving feedback in a coaching context.
Sam: Coach, I have been practicing asking open questions, as you suggested, and I have really found them effective at getting my people to open up, so we can understand issues better from each others’ perspectives.
Coach: That’s good to hear, Sam, although I sense a “but” coming.
Sam: Although we are now certainly talking a lot more about a lot of things, I don’t think I always have full clarity about what the other person really means. Asking “What exactly do you mean by that?” isn’t specific enough.
Mary: Have you tried asking closed questions, like “So do you mean…?” to check your understanding? At first I thought my team members would find this irritating and actually they are quite happy to elaborate, even when I have got their meaning wrong. And they love it when they can say “Yes!” because they realise we are actually on the same page now.
Sam: I hadn’t thought of that.
Coach: In terms of closed questions, think of the 3 Cs – clarity, challenge and confirmation. We very often use open questions to challenge people when we need them to think more broadly. However, closed questions can focus people instead and create a commitment to action. A challenging open question might be “How much longer are you going to keep doing what you’ve always done?” A closed question, “You’re going to sort this out with Fred, then?” would set your coachee up to accept the challenge and for you to ask a follow up open question, “When?” for example.
Mary: I did exactly that the other day. One of my people and I were discussing the need to plan a more effective on-boarding process for new staff into our department. We had thrown a number of ideas around and she was keen for it to happen, although not to get too personally involved. I asked her a bunch of closed questions: “You agree that our on-boarding could be better?” “Our current rather poor on-boarding process particularly impacts your section?” “You have some ideas as to how we could improve things?” “That would make life easier for you when we have new staff because then you won’t be continually interrupted by people asking questions?” “Given all this, wouldn’t it make sense for you to design at least the part that affects your section?”
Sam: Mmmm…I can think of a few instances where I could make use of some closed questions like that.
Coach: And how might you use closed questions to confirm what has been agreed and to wrap up the discussion?
Sam: That’s another thing I wanted to talk about. I often think my team members and I have agreed what is going to happen before we meet again, but then at our next session when I ask what has been done, all I get is a blank look or a comment that the person didn’t know that was what I was expecting.
Mary: I end every session by running through exactly what has been discussed in terms of the next steps, including who will do what and by when. I say something like: “So my role here is going to be the following…and you are going to…Are we in agreement?” Or I say “Would you like to recap the next steps for us both?”
Sam: I think I’ve been simply assuming that there’s a commitment, when in fact we haven’t made it formal enough. And it’s easy to forget if things are agreed at the beginning of the meeting and aren’t re-visited at the end. I think the idea of using closed questions as well as open ones is going to help my coaching sessions.
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