Reaching for the next question at the right depth

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Additional Coaching Questions (PDF)

Their results are already open in front of them, so no question here lands on a blank page. This is a bank to dip into, not a script to read in order. Find the rung that fits the student in front of you, ask one question, and follow where it goes.

Two habits make it work:

• Pitch the depth to the person, not the plan. Lead a general class, or an unsure student, with Level 1 and Level 2, the rungs that get an unprepared eighteen-year-old talking. Hold Level 3 and Level 4, the "top one percent in the world" and "twenty-year legacy" questions, for a capstone room or a senior who's ready for them.
• Ask What and How, never Why. "Why did you pick that?" makes a student defend a choice. "What drew you to it?" and "How did that feel?" open it back up.

Each question is a lead line in bold with one follow-up under it. Ask the lead, and reach for the follow-up only if they stall.

The full question bank is ready to download and hand out.

Four ladders follow, one for each part of their results, and a short set of pull-it-together questions for the end.

1. Their strengths (from Discovering Your Strengths)

Level 1 | Recognition and surprise

1. What surprised you most about your top strengths? Was there anything you expected to see that wasn't there, or something unexpected that showed up?
2. Which of your strengths felt most familiar, like "yes, that's definitely me"? What examples from your life came to mind first?
3. Looking at your strength combination, what patterns do you notice? Do they complement each other, or do you see any interesting tensions?

Level 2 | Understanding and application

1. Think of a time you felt truly energized at work or school. Which of your strengths were you using? How did it feel different from working against your natural grain?
2. How do your strengths show up differently in different settings (work versus personal life, leading versus following, stress versus calm)?
3. Which of your strengths do others recognize in you easily, and which stay more hidden? What would happen if you made the hidden ones more visible?

Level 3 | Integration and strategy

1. If you could design your ideal work setting to draw on all your top strengths at once, what would it look like? What conditions, tasks, and interactions would be there?
2. How do your strengths work together as a system? For example, how does one of your strengths amplify another, and the other way around?
3. What problems in the world could be uniquely met by your specific combination of strengths? Think beyond the usual job descriptions.

Level 4 | Mastery and legacy

1. If you spent the next ten years developing your strongest talent into world-class skill, what would you become known for? What impact could you have that others couldn't?
2. Imagine you're mentoring someone twenty years from now who has strengths like yours. What would you tell them about the long road of mastering these gifts? What do you wish you'd known earlier?
3. What would it look like to become one of the top one percent of people in the world at using your combination of strengths? What legacy would you leave?

2. Their working style (from Understanding Styles, the four working styles)

Level 1 | Recognition and patterns

1. How did your working-style description land with you? What felt most accurate, and what surprised you?
2. Think about the times you've been most frustrated at work or school. How might that frustration relate to settings that don't match your style?
3. When you look at successful projects you've been part of, what role did your style play?

Level 2 | Dynamics and relationships

1. How do you think your style affects the people around you? When is that helpful, and when might it create tension?
2. Thinking about your best collaborations, what other working styles complemented your approach? What made those partnerships work?
3. In what situations are you most energized, versus most drained, working with others? How does that relate to matching or clashing styles?

Level 3 | Strategic positioning

1. What kinds of problems in an organization would benefit most from your style's perspective? Where are you most needed?
2. If you were building a dream team, what other working styles would you want around you, and why? How would you design how the team works together?

Level 4 | Mastery and influence

1. If you became known as one of the world's most effective [your working style], what would your signature approach be? What would make your contribution uniquely powerful?
2. How could you use your style's strengths to reshape whole organizations or industries? What systemic problems are you uniquely equipped to solve?

3. Their work types (from The Five Types of Work)

Level 1 | Energy recognition

1. When you read about your primary work type, which activities made you think "yes, I love doing that"? What examples from your experience came to mind?
2. How does your energy feel different when you're doing your primary work type versus other kinds of work? Can you describe the physical and mental sensation?
3. What surprised you about your secondary work type? How do you see these two types working together into your own approach?

Level 2 | Application and context

1. Think about your current role or studies. What share of your time goes to energizing work versus draining work? What would you want to shift?
2. How do your primary and secondary work types strengthen each other? Can you think of times you've used both together well?
3. What happens to your performance and satisfaction when the work doesn't match your energizing types? How do you get through necessary but draining tasks?

Level 3 | Strategic career design

1. If you could redesign your role to spend more time on your energizing work types, what would you add, remove, or change? How would you make that case to others?
2. Which settings or industries would give you the most chances to do your kind of energizing work? Where is this work most valued and rewarded?
3. How could you become known for the intersection of your primary and secondary work types? What value does that combination create that neither type does alone?

Level 4 | Mastery and innovation

1. If you became world-class at your combination of work types, what new solutions could you pioneer? What hasn't been done before?
2. How could you create work that doesn't exist yet but would be a perfect fit for your energizing types? What gap could you fill?
3. What would it look like to build a career, or an organization, entirely around your work-type preferences? How would you design it to bring out the best in people wired like you?

4. Their aligned work areas (from Aligned Work Areas)

Level 1 | Exploration and possibility

1. Which of the recommended paths excited you right away? Which felt intimidating or uncertain? What does that tell you?
2. Looking at the "why this work may fit" notes, which reasons landed hardest? Where did you think "I've never looked at it that way"?
3. How do these suggestions compare with what you used to think you wanted? What assumptions are they challenging?

Level 2 | Values and fit

1. Beyond your strengths, how well do these paths fit your values, your lifestyle, and your long-term goals? What trade-offs might you need to weigh?
2. Which path would let you have the kind of impact you want in the world? How do you want to contribute to something larger than yourself?
3. What worries or fears come up when you picture yourself in these roles? What would you need to learn or build to feel ready?

Level 3 | Strategic development

1. If you chose one of these paths, what would your three-year development plan look like? What experiences, skills, and relationships would you need to build?
2. How could you try out these directions without a major commitment? What small experiments could you run?
3. What would success look like for you in each of these paths? How would you know you were thriving?

Level 4 | Legacy and innovation

1. If you excelled in one of these paths for fifteen to twenty years, how might you reshape or revolutionize that field? What perspective would you bring that no one else would?
2. How could you build a career that combines pieces of several suggested paths in a way that's never been done? What new role could you invent?
3. When you think about the legacy you want to leave, which path would best help you become the person you want to be remembered as? What would you want people to say about your contribution?

5. Pulling it together (for the end of the conversation)

Integration

1. How do your strengths, your working style, your energizing work types, and your possible paths tell one coherent story about who you are? What's the central theme?
2. What's the biggest shift in thinking your results created for you? How might that change the decisions you make next?
3. If you could keep only three things from all of this, what would they be? Which insights are the most useful to act on?

Future visioning

1. Five years from now, if you've been living in line with these insights, what would your life and work look like? How would you feel different?
2. What's one small experiment you could run in the next month to move toward better alignment? What's the smallest step that would make a difference?
3. How will you keep developing this self-understanding? What questions will you keep asking yourself as you grow and change?