Using Open Questions in Coaching

What is open questioning?

Open questioning is common practice in teaching and a great way to get the most out of our students. Open questioning or open-ended questioning cannot be answered simply by a 'yes' or a 'no' but requires more elaborate responses to answer the question. They prompt students to think more deeply, answering in their own words, and can be a great way to start a dialogue or conversation. 

The same is true in coaching relationships. Open questions demand more engagement with the whole process than asking for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and are an excellent way of helping the coachee develop thoughtful responses.

Can you make coaching more effective with open questions?

Through the use of open questions, a coach can elicit more in-depth information, gather more detail and, importantly, get a deeper insight into individuals’ feelings and opinions. A skilled coach can prompt and guide someone through a thought process which will lead them to better understand challenges they face and find workable solutions to these challenges.

How can we use open questioning successfully for coaching?

Here are 5 top tips for successful open questioning:

1. Use ‘what’, ‘if’ or ‘how’ and you can’t go wrong

Why? Starting questions with 'what', 'if' and 'how' make it easier to create a question this is not closed and can be answered with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. 

2. Questions should be short and to the point – always twelve words or less

The nature of open questioning should already invoke longer answers from from coachees, so making a question long or overly complicated can cause cognitive overload. 

3. Don’t focus on the barrier, focus on the solution

For example. if your colleague says they’ve got a problem, don’t focus on the problem but focus on how they can overcome the problem. 

4. Brain before mouth

Pause and think about what the most helpful thing you can say is before saying anything at all. 

5. ‘If’ gets around the ‘I don’t know’ response.

The idea of open questioning is to help someone find the answer themselves, ‘if’ is a great start!

Open Questioning Examples for Coaching

1. If your students reacted differently next time, how would you respond?

2. What worked well in your lesson?

3. What didn't work so well, and how could you improve?

4. How might you achieve this?

5. How do you think these changes would improve student outcomes?

6. What would you like to see happening during this activity?

7. How might these changes impact the students' behaviour? 

8. How did you decide to use this strategy over alternatives?

9. What surprised you about this response?

For those of you who are using IRIS Connect, why not build a form on the platform and use these criteria to reflect on your use of opening questions with your colleagues?