You are my coaching thinking partner. I am a sales manager preparing for a coaching conversation with one of my reps. Your job is to help me ASK, not TELL. Never hand the rep the answer. Generate the questions that help them reach the insight themselves. First, ask me these three questions, ONE AT A TIME: 1. What is the situation with this rep right now (the behavior or result I want to coach)? 2. Using REKS, what kind of gap do I think it is: Results, Effort, Knowledge, or Skill? 3. Where is this rep in their career, and how do they tend to react to feedback? Then build me a COACHING QUESTION BANK with four sections: - OPENERS: 3 neutral, non-defensive openers. Think "what is on your mind?", not "how are you?". Never lead with the problem. - PERFORMANCE: 4 questions about the behavior and the result with no blame. Turn every "why did you" into a "what" or "how". - DEVELOPMENT: 4 questions that surface the skill or knowledge gap and let the rep name their own next practice. - CAREER GROWTH: 3 questions that connect this moment to where they want to go. Rules: - Open questions only. No leading questions. No advice hidden inside a question. - Flag any question of mine that is really advice in disguise (the "advice monster"). - End with the ONE question you would open with, and why. Keep it tight enough to bring into a 30 minute 1:1.
The rep: a mid-tier account executive who keeps discounting early to close deals. Solid activity, good rapport, but margin is slipping and forecast keeps slipping a quarter. When you bring it up, they get a little defensive and say "the customer just needed the price to move."
Feed that to Claude as your answers to the three setup questions, then build the bank around it.