The Coaching Habit

In The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier argues that managers default to giving advice too quickly and should instead build small, repeatable conversational habits. Drawing on his work with the coaching training company Box of Crayons, Stanier distills coaching into seven core questions: the Kickstart Question ("What's on your mind?"), the AWE Question ("And what else?"), the Focus Question ("What's the real challenge here for you?"), the Foundation Question ("What do you want?"), the Lazy Question ("How can I help?"), the Strategic Question ("If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?"), and the Learning Question ("What was most useful for you?"). The book is organized into seven short chapters, each built around one of these questions, plus an opening chapter on taming what Stanier calls the "Advice Monster" and a chapter on "the Coaching Habit" itself, which explains how to turn a question into an automatic routine using a cue, a shorter behavior, and a reward. Stanier also presents the "3P" model for reframing a problem: Projects, People, and Patterns. Rather than offering a theory-heavy treatise, the book uses brief workplace scenarios, self-deprecating anecdotes from Stanier's own experience, and end-of-chapter sections titled "Question Masterclass" and "The Book That Changed Everything." The central argument is that staying curious a little longer and staying on your own agenda a little less can transform everyday management conversations. The book has sold over a million copies and remains widely used in corporate coaching and leadership training programs. Stanier co-founded Box of Crayons, and the book grew out of its "Great Boss" workshops.