Member to member coaching can also enhance the relationship between team members who would become more aware of each other’s issues and concerns. Your aim as a coach is to raise awareness and responsibility. A coach does not have to know the domain fully or know more about the problem than the other person. A coach must simply be able to ask the right questions at the right time, trying to focus entirely on awareness and responsibility.

As a coach, when asking questions, try not to focus on giving your own solution. Instead, get the other person to come up with the solution. This requires practice as we habitually fall into providing solutions as soon as someone explains their problem. Even if you have solutions in mind, ask guiding questions to get the coachee closer to these solutions, so that they finally discover it themselves. The reason is that if they come up with the solution, they are far more likely to follow suit and benefit from it.

As always there are good and bad ways of communicating with others and letting them know of your concerns, whether in the context of teamwork or coaching. The following examples help to raise awareness:

Here are some examples that help to raise responsibility: