As an action learning coach, how would you respond to the following situation:
A group member provides quite a bit of context before asking the actual question. As a coach you have intervened and asked “I might have missed it, but what was the question you are responding to?” the person then responds with “I’m getting to the question shortly but I needed to provide some context first”….
As the AL coach I will say Ok thank you and follow up immediately with “can you ask/rephrase your question now” I beleive the intervention will hel to cut further long speech and make the member ask his question at that point.
Supporting Nelojones comment, after asking the member to rephrase his/her question, I would ask the team to confirm their understanding of the question as the main focus of the question could have been lost within the long speech.
I would, politely, point out that ground rule one is, “Statements should be made only in response to questions.
I would ask the person – Whar question are you answering? when given the context response, I would ask – What is the first ground rule you agreed to? If the person pushed that folks really needed the context – I would ask “If they need additional context – what will they do?”
Happy Coaching
Bea