One of the benefits of working with the same team over a long period is the opportunity to see patterns in the way they interpret information and respond.

Recently, during a conversation with a Senior Leader, I commented on the common interventions they leaned on when a certain problem arose. There was nothing wrong with their ideas, but it occurred to me that, while they helped address the immediate challenge, they weren't necessarily recognising or addressing what might be creating the issue in the first place.

I started thinking about how we tend to build automatic, almost reflexive responses to situations that look familiar based on where we think problems live in the organisation. 

For example, 1:1 coaching assumes that at least some of the problem sits with the individual. Facilitation might assume it sits with the collective. Organisational design might assume it’s structural.

“He’s got charisma, but not charm”

It seems like an innocuous statement, a throwaway line. Still, it stopped me in my tracks during a client meeting last week.

I had to ask myself the difference and whether I had mistakenly been using them interchangeably. Turns out, I had been inadvertently combining two ideas into one. Where charisma is the way we draw people to us, charm is how interested we are in others.

The conversation came about as we reflected on the impact a new CEO was having on an organisation we both knew well. It had undergone significant change since they arrived, and we were analysing why.

On the surface, it was a conversation about CEO transition.

A few weeks ago, I asked a question I've asked many times before.

"Has the feedback been shared with the individual?"

The knowing glances around the room told me the answer before anyone spoke.

On the surface, it was another discussion about executive coaching. A briefing about a plan to support a senior leader through a significant development opportunity: it was a very well-intentioned, familiar conversation.

Over the years, I’ve learnt to trust my recurring observations before I can explain them.

This week, two seemingly unrelated coaching conversations kept colliding in my mind, but it took me a while to understand why.

I've noticed a shift in my coaching conversations.

Not with every leader, but often enough to make me think.

In the past, people have sought coaching for clarity, confidence or both (even when they name it something else). They have openly sought another perspective, a better question, or someone to challenge their thinking. Baked into that was an assumption that enough of the right information would make the right decision obvious.

Increasingly, I'm seeing something different.

I've been fascinated by questions for a long time.

Enough to write a book about them. Enough to create a deck of conversation cards. Enough that many people assume asking great questions is the heart of what I do.

They're not wrong.

A well-timed question can change the direction of a conversation. It can expose an assumption, surface something that's been sitting just below the surface, or help someone see a situation from a completely different angle. Questions create movement when people have become stuck in familiar ways of thinking.