I want to tell you about a moment I'm not proud of, and then a second one I almost missed.
A few weeks ago I was coaching a client. Smart, self-aware, generous. She came in wanting help giving a piece of feedback to someone on her team, and within about ninety seconds I was off to the races. Helping her build it. Sharpening the wording. Running drafts. By the end she had a much better script and she felt good and I felt useful.
Here's the part I'm working on. The whole session was about her tendency to over-function, to jump in and fix things instead of sitting with them. And I had quietly done the exact same thing right back at her. We built a polished thing together because building a polished thing was easier than sitting in the harder question underneath it.
I only saw it afterward, listening back.
Two Kinds of Coaches, and the One Most of Us Default To
I trained at the Coaches Training Institute (CTI) in a model called Co-Active. One of the ideas that has stuck with me for years is the distinction between "Doing" and "Being." Doing is the driving, task-focused, let's-solve-this energy. Being is the slower, more spacious, let's-just-stay-here-a-second energy. Most coaches, and I will put my hand up first, skew heavily toward Doing. It feels productive. It feels like help.
But the research-backed heart of good coaching is the opposite instinct. It's the belief that the person in front of you is already creative, resourceful, and whole. They usually have the answer. Your job is not to hand it to them. Your job is to ask the question that helps them find it, and then to stay quiet long enough for them to actually go looking.
That staying quiet is the whole game. And it is so so much harder than it sounds.
What I’m Good At, and What I’m Working On
I think there's value in a coach being honest about this, so here it is.
What I'm good at: I can hear the threads in a tangled situation and lay them out clearly. I build real safety, so people tell me things. I keep a conversation on track.
What I'm working on, and have been for a while: staying in the question. Not rescuing. Not reaching for the framework the second things get uncomfortable. Not filling the silence because the silence is awkward for me.
I name this because I think the growth edge itself is the lesson. The most useful thing isn't that I've fixed this. It's that I know exactly what my reflex is, I can feel it firing in real time, and I'm learning to treat that urge as information instead of acting on it. That kind of clear self-awareness is available to anyone, in any role. You don't need to be a coach. You just need to know your own reflex well enough to catch it mid-swing.
Why This Matters Today
We now have tools that will hand us an answer to almost anything, instantly. Ask, and you receive a confident, well-structured response in three seconds. Answers have never been cheaper.
Which means the answer is no longer where your value lives.
The scarce skill now is the human one that no AI tool does for you. It's listening at a deeper level. Not listening for your turn to talk, and not even listening just to the words, but listening to the whole field of a conversation. The thing that isn't being said. The contradiction the person doesn't notice they're holding. The moment their energy shifts. CTI calls this Level 3 listening, and it is the listening that lets you catch the one question worth asking.
And then comes the part that takes actual courage. Asking that hard, sticky question. And not jumping in to answer it yourself.
Because the temptation will be enormous. You'll have a tool in your pocket that can produce a plausible answer faster than the other person can finish their sentence. Resisting that, staying in the question, letting another human sit in the discomfort of not-knowing long enough to find their own way through, that is going to be one of the most valuable things you can do at work. Maybe the most valuable.
Answers are cheap. The right question, held open, is rare.
Try This With Your Own Conversations
You don't need a coaching certification to practice this. Pick one conversation this week, a 1:1, a tough chat with a teammate, even a conversation at home, and try one of these.
Notice the reflex. The next time someone brings you a problem and you feel the pull to solve it, just notice the pull before you act on it. That's it for round one. The noticing is the skill.
Ask one more question before you answer. When you're sure you know the fix, hold it for ten more seconds and ask "What do you think you'll do?" or "What's really going on here?" instead. Then stop talking.
Let the silence sit. After you ask something real, count to five in your head before you rescue it. Most people break the silence because it's uncomfortable for them, not because the other person needed them to. The answer is usually forming in that pause.
A simple rule of thumb I teach: the bulk of a good coaching conversation should run on "what" and "how" questions. They open things up. Save "why" for when you really need it, because it tends to put people on the defensive.