“IT’S THE QUESTION, STUPID!”

Years ago the political frame that sealed the election for George H. Bush was, “It’s the Economy, Stupid!” I don’t know who came up with it, but with just those few words, he was able to set a frame and keep his campaign focused on the economy. Perhaps we could do a similar thing with this one for the focus of coaching, “It’s the Question, Stupid!”

[Now there’s no need to take offense at the little meta-comment at the end—“stupid.” That was added, I think, not so much an insult as a way to grab attention and highlight the blinding obviousness of the statement.]

In Meta-Coach training you heard us say over and over, “You coach best by asking questions.” “If you don’t know that the heart of coaching is asking questions, you have missed the heart of coaching.” And on Day 2 of ACMC training, I always enjoy the first twenty minutes because we always read from the manual a half dozen very powerful quotations from coaching books on the power of questions. We then present whole sets of questions— primary questions and meta- questions; well-formed outcome questions, matrix questions, Meta-Model precision questions, and so on.