“Seven Questions That Get You Out of Firefighting Mode”
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Title: The Coaching Habit
Author: Michael Bungay Stanier
Category: Leadership & Team Building
What if the most useful thing you said in a meeting today was a question you already knew the answer to — and you stayed quiet anyway?
Sam and Sophie walk through Michael Bungay Stanier's seven coaching questions, starting with the kickstart question, "What is on your mind?", and the three-word follow-up he calls the most underrated move in the book. They cover the real challenge question, the lazy question, and the sharpest one — "If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?" — plus the three drivers behind the advice trap and the difference between coaching and mentoring.
If you're a manager who ends every day buried in other people's problems, this episode names the habit underneath it and gives you actual sentences to try tomorrow. The takeaway: your job isn't to have the answers, it's to ask the questions.
The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. If you want the full written summary, the whole library is on 7minutebooks.com/app — over 6,000 fiction and nonfiction titles you can read or listen to in any language, with infographics on many titles. Unlimited access from $2.99 a month, $9.99 a year, or $19.99 lifetime.
Chapters
00:00Why Managers Are Drowning00:56The Kickstart Question And Silence02:14The Real Challenge And What You Want03:21The Lazy Question And Saying No04:47The Advice Trap And Curiosity06:10Coaching Vs Mentoring And The Identity Shift
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