Narrator: Imagine you’re an inexperienced hiker, determined to prove your grit on a three-day solo trek through the rugged Australian wilderness. You overpack, your backpack groaning under the weight of a first-aid kit designed for a small army. Within an hour, you’re hopelessly lost. Instead of backtracking, your pride convinces you to forge a new path straight up the side of a mountain. You spend the next five hours scrambling over mossy boulders and fighting through dense, thorny bushes. Exhausted and bleeding, you finally stumble back onto the main trail, only to meet a cheerful hiker who informs you he’s only been walking for fifteen minutes. You’ve worked incredibly hard, only to end up exhausted and barely past the starting line.

This frustrating ordeal, a real story from author Michael Bungay Stanier, is a powerful metaphor for how most managers lead. Conversations with their teams are often just like that ill-fated hike: overburdened with complexity, quickly straying off course, and resulting in exhaustion with little real progress. In his transformative book, The Coaching Habit, Stanier provides the map and compass for this difficult terrain, arguing that by building a simple habit of asking seven key questions, leaders can work less, have more impact, and fundamentally change the way they lead forever.

Narrator: At the heart of most managerial dysfunction is a creature Stanier calls the "Advice Monster." This is the deeply ingrained reflex to jump in, provide solutions, and fix problems for others. While it comes from a good place, this impulse creates three vicious cycles that trap leaders and their teams. The first is a cycle of overdependence. A manager, wanting to be helpful, constantly provides answers. Soon, the team learns that the fastest way to a solution is not to think for themselves, but to ask the manager. They become disempowered, and the manager becomes a bottleneck, slowing everything down.

This leads to the second cycle: being overwhelmed. As the single source of answers, the manager’s own work piles up. They are buried in operational details, unable to focus on the strategic work that truly matters. Finally, this creates a cycle of disconnection. The manager becomes so busy "helping" that they lose sight of the impactful, meaningful work they are supposed to be doing. By constantly giving advice, they inadvertently train their teams to be less autonomous, while simultaneously ensuring their own burnout. The first step to breaking these cycles is not to work harder, but to tame the Advice Monster by learning to ask more and advise less.

Narrator: Changing a behavior as ingrained as giving advice requires more than just willpower; it requires a system. Stanier draws on the science of behavior change to offer a simple but powerful framework he calls the New Habit Formula. It follows a clear structure: "When this happens, instead of my old habit, I will do this new thing."

The key is to first identify the trigger—the specific situation that awakens the Advice Monster. For example, a trigger might be, "When a team member comes to my desk and asks, 'What should I do about this?'" The old habit is the automatic response: "I immediately tell them what to do." The new habit is the conscious replacement: "I will ask one of the seven essential questions." By clearly defining the trigger, the old pattern, and the new, desired action, a leader can begin to systematically rewire their brain. The seven questions in the book become the arsenal of new habits, ready to be deployed the moment a trigger is identified. This formula transforms coaching from a vague concept into a concrete, repeatable practice.

Narrator: The first and most fundamental question is the Kickstart Question: "What's on your mind?" This simple query is a masterclass in efficiency and effectiveness. It's open enough to invite honesty but focused enough to get straight to the point, bypassing the time-wasting dance of small talk. It signals to the other person that their concerns are the priority, immediately fostering a sense of trust and autonomy.

The power of this question is not just theoretical. Stanier points to the evolution of Facebook's status update prompt. After experimenting with different phrases, the social media giant landed on "What's on your mind?" for a reason. They discovered it was the most effective prompt for encouraging millions of people to reflect and share what was most important to them in that moment. For a leader, asking this question acts as a pressure-release valve, allowing an employee to surface the thoughts that are consuming their mental energy. It ensures the conversation starts with what truly matters, setting the stage for a productive and meaningful interaction.

Narrator: Once someone has shared what's on their mind, the Advice Monster roars to life, eager to offer a solution. The second essential question, the AWE Question, is designed to keep it in its cage: "And what else?" This question is deceptively powerful for three reasons. First, it generates more options. The first idea is rarely the best one. By asking "And what else?", a leader pushes for deeper thinking and a wider range of possibilities. Research by Paul Nutt on organizational decision-making found that when managers considered only one alternative, their decisions failed 52% of the time. However, simply adding one more option dropped the failure rate to 32%. More options lead to better choices.

Second, it tames the Advice Monster by forcing the leader to stay curious. And third, it buys time. When a leader is unsure how to respond, "And what else?" provides a valuable moment to listen and process. Asking it three to five times can uncover layers of insight that would have been missed if the leader had jumped in with a premature solution.

Narrator: Conversations, especially about problems, can quickly become foggy. People might present a dozen issues at once, complain about a third party who isn't in the room, or speak in vague abstractions about "culture" and "strategy." To cut through this fog, Stanier introduces the Focus Question: "What's the real challenge here for you?"

The wording is deliberate. It pushes past the noise to identify the core issue. The final two words, "for you," are the most critical. They shift the focus from external circumstances or other people to the individual's role and responsibility. For instance, a manager might find themselves in a 45-minute complaint session about a difficult colleague. This is what Stanier calls "coaching the ghost." The conversation is unproductive because the person who needs to change isn't present. By asking, "I understand the issues with John, but what's the real challenge here for you?", the manager masterfully reframes the conversation. It moves from gossip to a productive coaching moment about how the employee can navigate the situation, empowering them to act instead of just complain.

Narrator: One of the biggest traps for managers is the desire to be a hero. This impulse often lands them in what psychologist Stephen Karpman called the "Drama Triangle," a dysfunctional model of interaction with three roles: the Victim (who feels helpless), the Persecutor (who blames), and the Rescuer (who jumps in to save the day). Managers are often addicted to the Rescuer role. To break this cycle, Stanier offers the Lazy Question: "How can I help?"

This question may sound simple, but it's strategically "lazy" because it stops the manager from immediately assuming they know what's best and doing the work themselves. It forces the person asking for help to make a clear and direct request, and it puts the manager in a position to respond thoughtfully. A more direct version of this question is, "What do you want from me?" It stops the Rescuer in their tracks and puts the responsibility back on the other person to articulate their needs, fostering an adult-to-adult relationship rather than a parent-child dynamic.

Narrator: Most conversations end abruptly, with no clear conclusion. To ensure that an interaction leads to lasting change, Stanier presents the final and crucial Learning Question: "What was most useful for you?" This question serves as a powerful bookend to any coaching conversation. Neuroscience shows that we don't learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience. This question forces that moment of reflection.

It works because it creates a positive final impression, a principle known as the "peak-end rule." Research on medical procedures, like colonoscopies, found that patients' memory of pain was shaped less by the duration of the procedure and more by its peak and its end. Patients who had a few extra minutes of a less painful experience at the end rated the entire procedure as less unpleasant. Similarly, ending a conversation by asking someone to identify a valuable takeaway ensures they leave with a positive, useful insight, cementing the learning and reinforcing the value of the interaction.

Narrator: The central message of The Coaching Habit is that the single most impactful behavioral change a leader can make is to stay curious a little longer and rush to give advice a little slower. The seven questions are not just a list to be memorized; they are tools for rewiring the fundamental managerial instinct to control and solve. They are a pathway to working less hard and having more impact.

The ultimate challenge presented by the book is not merely learning to ask these questions, but un-learning the deep-seated habit of being the one with all the answers. Its real-world impact lies in a simple, profound shift: from a leader who creates dependence to one who builds capability. The final question it leaves us with is not for others, but for ourselves: are we brave enough to let go of being the expert and instead become the catalyst for discovery in others?