“I’d love to hear a little bit about what you’re noticing since our last session?”
“Where would you like to begin? What’s on your mind?”
“What are your thoughts?”
“What’s most important to you about this?”
“Where shall we begin?”
“What’s your perspective?”
“What else might be going on here, in case we’ve missed something?”
“How can I help?”
“What are your thoughts around the provocation Rob made around advocacy being a blocker in excellence?“
“Can you give me a picture of the current demands on you?”
The Inquire voice in its dysfunctional version:
“As per your homework from our last session, tell me all the things that you’ve been noticing.”
“What on earth possessed you to go with that idea?”
“What’s the problem with this particular situation? What’s challenging about it? I need you to explain it to me.”
“I’m really interested in the culture of your business, tell me about it. How do people behave? How do people speak? How do people show up? What do people do? How do you feel about being in the culture? What does it look like from your perspective? How do other people find it?”
“What are you up to?”
“Why would you do it that way?…What’s your excuse?”
“When exactly are you going to make time to finish that project?”
“Can you tell me exactly why you did that?”
“Be honest. What’s really going on here?”
“I need to know what happened. What was the first indication of the problem? And when was that? What was your first response? And then what did you do? Did you call anyone? If so, who, when, and what exactly did you say to them?”