IQ Coach: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For IQ Coach, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Practices that may help

1. Maintain a high question-to-statement ratio throughout GROW
   Ask questions far more often than you offer statements — the coachee’s thinking is the product.
   The GROW Model: Coaching Conversations That Actually Move People
2. Powerful open questions at every stage
   Ask questions that invite thinking, not ones that suggest answers — and ask more than you tell.
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
3. Use GROW in brief leadership conversations, not just formal coaching sessions
   Apply GROW structure to 5-minute hallway conversations and 1-on-1 check-ins — not only to hour-long coaching sessions.
   The GROW Model: Coaching Conversations That Actually Move People
4. Generate Options before evaluating any
   Brainstorm all possible paths before judging — then the coachee, not the coach, narrows them.
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
5. Obstacle anticipation before close
   Before ending, ask "what could get in the way?" and pre-plan the response.
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
6. The Coaching Habit: Seven Questions to Be More Coach-Like
   Michael Bungay Stanier’s seven questions — from "What’s on your mind?" through "What was most useful for you?" — are a practical system for coaching conversations that takes less than a minute to learn and a career to master. The framework is practitioner-derived from behavioral coaching practice; its mechanisms are grounded in autonomy support, self-determination, and the generation effect. The questions work because they shift the cognitive labor back to the person who owns the problem.
7. Create thinking space rather than filling every meeting with content
   The most valuable thing a coaching manager provides is protected time and space for reflection — which most teams never get.
   The Leader as Coach: A New Management Paradigm
8. Rewrite internal-focus coaching cues as external-focus equivalents
   Audit your coaching language and convert body-focused instructions to effect-focused ones.
   External Focus of Attention, Made Practical
9. Coached practice with targeted feedback
   Attempt the task yourself while a coach observes and provides immediate, specific feedback on process.
   Cognitive Apprenticeship: Learning by Making Thinking Visible
10. Close with "What was most useful for you?"
    The closing question turns the conversation into a learning that sticks — and teaches you what is actually valuable.
    The Coaching Habit: Seven Questions to Be More Coach-Like

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• When I replay my coaching conversations I’m talking way more than the other person→
• I think I’m asking questions, but they’re really suggestions in disguise→
• I only ever coach in the rare formal sit-down and then default to firing off answers in every quick hallway exchange→
• The moment the person I’m coaching names a couple of ideas, I jump in with "have you considered" and basically hand them my answer→
• The people I coach leave fired up with a plan, but the first ordinary snag throws them and the whole thing quietly dies→

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.