CoachAGories: The Art of Using Questions to Build Connected Teams

There are many dif­fer­ent beliefs and strate­gies to build healthy, high per­form­ing teams.

Every­one has their own pref­er­ences. We’ve seen peo­ple invest heav­i­ly in team-build­ing events and pro­grams, out­ings and events, psy­cho­me­t­ric assess­ments, seri­ous inter­ven­tions with out­side facil­i­ta­tors or soul-expos­ing, issue-clear­ing retreats in far­away places.

Depend­ing on the com­pa­ny, the cul­ture and the stage of the team, any of these can range from high­ly effec­tive to just cor­po­rate enter­tain­ment and a good time.

But the one thing that we have seen con­sis­tent­ly help, time after time, to enhance work rela­tion­ships – even exter­nal­ly with cus­tomers or part­ners – is one of the simplest.

And that’s the art of the excel­lent question.

Just last quar­ter, after a retreat with one of our clients, we had din­ner at the home of one of the exec­u­tives. The evening was spec­tac­u­lar because the CEO was a mas­ter at ask­ing inter­est­ing, com­pelling ques­tions that helped us to get to know each oth­er bet­ter. Because this CEO is so open with his respons­es, he cre­ates an envi­ron­ment for every­one to do the same.

Tak­ing turns, around the table, we had robust and insight­ful con­ver­sa­tions that led into a‑longer-than-expect­ed evening, and it was well worth it.

CoachAGories

Ask­ing a bet­ter or dif­fer­ent ques­tion can help you to find bet­ter answers, and unlock amaz­ing sto­ries and experiences.

So, the Lawrence & Co team cre­at­ed a seri­ous of pow­er­ful ques­tions, in dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories for Work, Self and Life – and a sec­tion just for fun — we call CoachAGories.

These can be used to get to know a group of peo­ple who work togeth­er to pri­or­i­tize and solve problems:

• In coach­ing sessions
• To kick off meet­ings and strate­gic plan­ning sessions
• For team devel­op­ment and align­ment events
• To reen­gage peo­ple after a break
• To stim­u­late a great din­ner or social conversation
• When some­one is stuck, or a con­ver­sa­tion or strate­gic ses­sion stagnates.

Dur­ing COVID, espe­cial­ly when new team mem­bers came on board and we could only meet vir­tu­al­ly, CoachAGories ques­tions became part of our week­ly meet­ing check-ins, brought some lev­i­ty and helped us to get to know each oth­er better.

We’ve kept it going, ever since, and now want to share them with you.

So, here are, free to down­load, links to:

• The first release of our CoachAGories questions
• And our just-released sec­ond round

The Chal­lenge

Where might you use smart ques­tions to enhance your team’s con­nec­tion and understanding?

Addi­tion­al Growth Whis­per­ers Podcasts

• Jim Collins’ Three Rules of Engage­ment for Healthy Teams
• 4 Ques­tions Lead­er­ship Teams Need to Ask Their Customers
• Build­ing a Peo­ple Mag­net Machine

Addi­tion­al Blogs

• Team Build­ing: Devel­op­ing an ​“A” Team That Deliv­ers Bet­ter Results Than You, With­out You
• Build­ing an Exec­u­tive Team that Kicks Ass
• An Amaz­ing Team Retreat