John Whitmore Quotes

Coaching focuses on future possibilities, not past mistakes. We must see people in terms of their future potential, not their past performance.

A manager must be experienced as a support, not as a threat.

A manager’s task is simple – to get the job done and to grow his staff. Time and cost pressures limit the latter. Coaching is one process with both effects.

Blame evokes defensiveness – defensiveness reduces awareness.

I am able to control only that which I am aware of. That which I am unaware of controls me.

If there was only one right way to do something, Fosbury would never have flopped and Bjorn Borg would never have won Wimbledon. Our potential is realized by optimizing our own individuality and uniqueness, never by moulding them to another’s opinion of what constitutes best practice.

To tell denies or negates another’s intelligence, to ask honours it. Telling or asking closed questions saves people from having to think. Asking open questions causes them to think for themselves.

Coaching questions compel attention for an answer, focus attention for precision and create a feedback loop. Instructing does none of these.

When you are sure that you have no more ideas, just come up with one more.

We do not need to know how to do something to be able to do it. We learned to walk, run, ride a bike and catch a ball without instructions. 

The worst feedback is personal and judgmental. The most effective is objective and descriptive.

Coaching offers personal control. A primary cause of stress in the workplace is a lack of personal control. So often it is when we let go of the need to control that we gain control.

Coaching is a nicer way to do better business.