Tony StoltzfusCoaching Questions: A Coach's Guide to Powerful Asking Skills

This guide provides a plethora of new questions for the coach to have ready for their coaching session. It also covers the coaching process and offers advanced asking skills with lots of examples as sample questions. As a coach, I use this guide often. And if a coach knows beforehand what the clients wants to talk about, this guide can help with sample questions for the coaching session.

This is the second time that I've ordered and read this book - and by read, I mean that I keep it handy and review it prior to my coaching sessions. I gifted a friend/coach with the first copy because she could not put it down when she came to visit me. I've also recommended it for a group of Coaches in Training (CITs) who were thrilled to have a book of questions for any coaching situation.The book is easy to read and the table of contents leads you right to where you want to go. Of course, that is usually just a starting place; you'll find yourself flipping through the rest of the pages every time!The book is a primer and the question types are handily categorized under headings such as: Life Coaching and Destiny Discovery (e.g., Dream Barriers), Advance Asking Skills (e.g., Motivation/Habit Change) and Coaching Niches (e.g., Organizational Coaching, Career Coaching, etc.).In addition to offering great questions, the author provides side-bar tips for setting up the coaching scenario and hints and tips for asking the questions effectively.Great value for a great coaching resource! Buy it!

Most new coaches (and even some experienced ones) have a strong tendency to want to help the client solve their problem(s) by showing/telling them the answer. The better method is to let the client discover the answer. And the most effective method for the client to discover the answer is to ask the right questions.Tony Stoltzfus and created a very helpful guide with his Coaching Questions. The first section of the book covers the groundwork. Why ask? He gives you five great reasons why asking is so important and effective.1. The answers lie within the person being coached.2. Asking creates buy-in3. Asking empowers - it gives the client confidence and encourages them4. Asking develops leadership5. And it creates authenticityHe then moves to the top ten asking mistakes. We tend to ask closed end questions, we lead the client or we ask rambling questions. There is lots of additional very helpful information in the first section of the book.In section II, he goes over the coaching process which is a mini course in effective coaching. He spends time on the different conversation models, the coaching funnel, the coaching agenda and the life wheel assessment. Again he covers lots of additional material in this section.In section III, he covers life coaching and destiny discovery. Here the question are designed for the client to get a clear picture of who they are, what motivates them, their dreams and desires, the obstacles holding them back.Section IV is coaching in action, creating a better life today. Again the coaching is built around powerful and probing questions. Section V is about advanced asking skills. In section VI he covers the different coaching niches.There are question presented in each section. The questions are powerful and well organized. They are not meant to be asked mechanically, but used as a reference prior to a coaching session.There are plenty of sidebars in the margins of the book. They fall into three categories: applications, hints & tips and for more.If you follow the information in this book you will bring much more structure to your coaching sessions. More structure will bring more effectiveness. Follow his advice and guidance and you will become a better coach.

This book is great! It's exactly what I was looking for. I'm a student currently getting my certification in Life Coaching and found this book very helpful. It is broken down into easy to read sections and provides great insight into the coach/ client relationship. Once you start learning to become a life coach you start thinking in questions, and this book has great questions throughout that are designed to enhance the conversation and bring out hidden meaning for the client. It can really can lead to some transformational thinking! I feel it's a must-have for every coach.

I really enjoy using this book in my coaching and training business. I like the layout of the paperback book and the tons of questions that can be adapted to any coaching subject area. It is evident that the author has experience in coaching and I love that I have access to such a powerful resource to add to my library. As a coach it is important to differentiate between asking and telling. This book presents great methods for listening and asking to enhance your coaching skills and your client's overall experience. I would highly recommend this as an added resource for anyone interested in coaching or anyone who is currently coaching. The book arrived as scheduled and I have no cons related to this purchase.

In my experience, the use of "powerful questions" is the key to exceptional executive, personal, and/or employee performance/development coaching . Mr. Stoltzfus has done an outstanding job of providing a resource to help coaches use more powerful questions and has done so in a succinct and useful fashion. I personally like how he starts at the beginning of coaching with questions to help the person being coached (coachee) set specific and relevant goals and moves through the coaching process with questions designed to help address obstacles, probe deeper, etc. Other topics such as models for coaching (e.g., Whitmore's [Coaching for Performance, 4th edition[ASIN:185788535X Coaching for Performance, 4th Edition: GROWing Human Potential and Purpose (People Skills for Professionals)] GROW model and Stoltzfus funnel model), coaching process, SMART goals, life coaching, and coaching niches.Whether an experienced coach and in training, this can be an extremely useful, practical, and valuable resource.