7. Book | The Coaching Habit | Michael Bungay Stanier

Episode Description

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier — Books I Read with Rahul

If you have ever felt like you are doing everyone else's thinking for them, this episode is for you.

In this episode of Books I Read, Rahul breaks down The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier — one of the most practical leadership books written for managers, team leaders, and entrepreneurs who want their teams to think, grow, and stop depending on them for every single answer.

The book gives you seven simple questions that replace the instinct to give advice with the habit of asking better. And in the food, hospitality, and QSR world — where leaders are expected to have all the answers, all the time — these seven questions can completely change how your team operates.

In this episode you will learn what the Advice Trap is and why your instinct to help is quietly making your team weaker, all seven coaching questions with real examples from the kitchen, outlet operations, and franchise management, how to use the AWE Question — And What Else — to get to the real problem instead of the surface complaint, how to use habit stacking to build a coaching habit into your daily conversations without any extra time or formal sessions, and why saying less and asking more is one of the highest-leverage leadership skills you can build right now.

Whether you are running one outlet or leading a team across multiple locations, this episode will give you something you can use in your very next conversation — not after a workshop, not after a training programme, right now.

New episodes every week on Books I Read with Rahul — books that help you lead better at work, in the kitchen, in business, and at home.

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Books I Read

Transcript

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The coaching habit? Say less, ask more, and change the way you lead forever. Hi, this is Rahul, and you are watching Books I Read, where I share books that help us lead better. At work, in the kitchen, in business, and at home. Today's book is The Coaching Habit by Michael Bangay Stania. It has sold over a million copies and is one of the most practical leadership books I have read because it gives you something you can use in your very next conversation, not after a three-day workshop. Why this book works in India? In India, we are conditioned to see the senior person as the one who has all the answers. The manager who gives the most advice is often seen as the most capable. In food and hospitality, especially, leaders often micromanage every detail portion size, table setup, how staff greet a guest because they believe no one else will do it right. This creates three serious problems. You, the leader, are always overwhelmed and overworked. Your team never develops because they are never allowed to think. And the moment you are not there, the outlet either stops or breaks down. This book gives you a system to reverse that, slowly, question by question, so your team starts owning problems and you start leading at a higher level. What is the advice trap? The author opens with a brilliant and uncomfortable insight. The biggest obstacle to great leadership is not incompetence, it is the advice trap. The advice trap is our automatic urge to jump in with solutions before we have truly understood the problem. The moment we give advice, two things happen that we do not even notice. We take the problem off the other person's plate and put it on ours, and we signal to them subtly that they are not capable of handling it without us. Here is a typical Indian example. Your outlet manager calls you at 9 in the evening about a guest complaint on slow service. You immediately say, tell the kitchen to prioritize that table and assign one waiter only to that section. Done. Problem solved. But next week, when something similar happens, your manager calls you again because that is what works. You have trained them to escalate instead of solve. The promise of this book is simple. If you replace advice with the right question, at the right moment, your team starts thinking, your outlet runs without you hovering, and your leadership moves to the next level. The 7 Essential Questions. The author gives you 7 questions that cover almost every leadership conversation you will ever have. You do not need all seven every time. Even one or two used consistently will change how your team works. Question 1. The kickstart question. What is on your mind? Use this to open any one-on-one or team conversation instead of starting with, so how is everything which gets you? Fine, sir. Try saying, before I share my updates, what is on your mind today? Give them two full minutes. Do not fill the silence. You will get very different and very honest answers. Question 2, the AWE question, and what else? This is the single most powerful question in the entire book. AW stands for, and what else? Ask it after the first answer you get, and then again, and you will reach the real problem. Not just the first one they mention. Here is how a real conversation might go. You ask a commis, what is on your mind? He says, Sir, I am a bit stressed with the long hours. You say, and what else? He says, I am also not sure what my role is going forward in the team. You say, and what else? He finally says, Honestly, I feel like the head chef never acknowledges anything I do. Now you know the real issue. The first answer is almost never the real answer. Question 3, the focus question. What is the real challenge here for you? This cuts through the noise and asks people to identify what is actually bothering them, not just describe the situation. A manager comes to you complaining about a delivery partner causing repeated delays. Before you pick up the phone to escalate, ask, what is the real challenge here for you? The manager says, honestly, I do not feel I have the authority to push back on them without checking with you first. Now you are solving the right problem. Question 4. The foundation question. What do you want? One of the most underused questions in any workplace. A team member keeps saying the roster is unfair. Instead of defending the roster, ask, What do you want? A specific day off? A permanent change? Or just to be heard on this? That one question saves you 20 minutes of defending something that may just need one small tweak. Question 5. The lazy question. How can I help? This is called the lazy question. Not because it is easy, but because it does the work of three questions at once. It forces the person to tell you exactly what kind of support they need instead of you assuming and doing the wrong thing. Before you jump in to fix something, ask this. Your team member may just want you to listen, not to solve. You will save time and they will feel genuinely respected. Question 6. The strategic question. If you say yes to this, what are you saying no to? This is a question for yourself as a leader, just as much as for your team. Every yes has a hidden no that most leaders never see. If you say yes to personally handling every vendor call, you are saying no to developing your procurement team. If you say yes to running the daily briefing yourself every single day, you are saying no to building your assistant manager's confidence to lead it. Ask this before taking on anything new for yourself and for your team. Question 7. The learning question. What was most useful or valuable to you in this conversation? End every coaching conversation with this. It cements the learning, builds the habit of reflection in your team, and tells you what actually landed so you can do more of it next time. After a post-shift debrief where someone solved a guest recovery issue on their own, ask this. They will articulate their own learning, which is 10 times more powerful than you telling them what they learned. How to build the coaching habit. The author is clear that one great conversation does not change a culture. What changes culture is a new habit, the habit of asking before advising, every day, in small moments, not just informal reviews. Use habit stacking to make this easy. Attach one coaching question to a moment that already exists in your day. After a team member comes to you with a problem, ask, and what else? Before you say anything. After you open your daily briefing, ask what is the most important thing we need to focus on today before you share your own agenda. After you close any one-on-one, ask what was most useful for you in this conversation. Before you both walk out, repeat this enough times and your team stops bringing you problems to solve. They start bringing you decisions to validate, which is a very different and much healthier dynamic. How to start using this book this week. First, use only the AWE question for one full week. Every time someone comes to you with a problem after their first answer, ask, and what else? Just that. Do not give advice until they have answered at least three times. See how the conversation changes. Second, start your next one-on-one with the kickstart question. Instead of your usual opening, say, Before I share my updates, what is on your mind? Give them two full minutes. Do not fill the silence. What comes out will be more useful than your agenda. Third, end your next team meeting with the learning question. After your next briefing, before people leave, ask what was the most useful thing from today's conversation. Give it 60 seconds. You will be surprised what your team remembers versus what you thought was most important. Who should read this? Pick up the coaching habit, if you handle teams, outlet operations, or franchise partners, and often feel like you are doing everyone else's thinking for them. If you want to develop your people, but do not have time for long formal coaching sessions every week. If you are a founder or entrepreneur whose team needs to be more self-reliant, is the business scales. And especially if you often hear yourself saying, It is faster if I just do it myself. This book is written for exactly that feeling. 7 questions are easy to remember and immediately usable in your very next conversation. Storytelling and examples, 4 out of 5. Crisp and well written, with a few Western examples that translate very easily to the Indian context. India relevance, 4 out of 5. Hierarchy and the habit of doing everything yourself make this even more critical for Indian managers than the book originally intended. Re-rate value 5 out of 5. Revisit before appraisals, new team onboarding, or any time you feel you are becoming the bottleneck in your own outlet. If this episode of books I read on the coaching habit helped you, do like, share, and subscribe, and send it to one leader on your team who is working harder than everyone else and still feels like nothing is fully under control. This book is for them. Tell me in the comments which of the seven questions will you try first and with whom? The AWE question with your team, the strategic question with yourself, or the kickstart question in your next one on one. Drop your book recommendations in the comments too, especially anything around leadership, building strong teams, and the business of food.