The upshot of the distinction between closed and open questions, is that it can tell us if we are actually coaching our people to explore their own ideas and solutions, or if we are feeding them answers they can try, through closed questions.
When the problem is the solution – taking the counterintuitive path.
Getting the best out of others is not an easy task. Helping your team members to be more effective, more productive, and more engaged is not always as simple as asking them to be so, or equipping them with the skills or support to be so. In fact, sometimes it’s not even about the very problem that’s causing the problem. To be an effective leader of people requires us to be flexible in the way we approach and support our people. Sometimes it even calls on us to allow the problem to get worse before it gets better.
