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## How to investigate the local and global change potential of questioning sequences in executive coaching? A call for interdisciplinary research

Eva-Maria Graf University of Klagenfurt eva-maria.graf@aau.at

Frédérick Dionne University of Klagenfurt frederick.dionne@aau.at

Thomas Spranz-Fogasy Leibniz-Institute for the German Language spranz@ids-mannheim.de

Abstract * : Coaching outcome research convincingly argues that coaching is eff  ective and facilitates  change in clients. While coaching practice literature depicts questions as key vehicle for such change, empirical fi  ndings as regards the local and global change potential of questions are so far largely missing in both (psychological) outcome research and (linguistic and psychological) process research on coaching. Th e local change potential of questions refers to a turn-by-turn transformation as a result of their sequentiality, the global change potential is related to the power of questions to initiate, process and fi  nalize established phases of change. Th is programmatic article on questions, or  rather  questioning  sequences,  in  executive  coaching  pursues  two  goals: fi  rstly,  it  takes  stock  of  available  insights  into  questions  in  coaching  and advocates for Conversation Analysis as a fruitful methodological framework to  assess  the  local  change  potential  of  questioning  sequences.  Secondly,  it points to the limitations of a local turn-by-turn approach to unravel the overall change potential of questions and calls for an interdisciplinary approach to bring both local and global eff  ectiveness into relation. Such an approach is premised on conversational sequentiality and psychological theories of change and  facilitates  research  on  questioning  sequences  as  both  local  and  global agents of change across the continuum of coaching sessions. We present the TSPP Model as a fi  rst result of such an interdisciplinary cooperation.

Keywords:  Coaching;  questioning  sequences;  Conversation  Analysis;  local and global eff  ectiveness; interdisciplinarity; TSPP Model;

* We want to thank the anonymous reviewer for valuable comments on the earlier version of this paper as well as Melanie Fleischhacker for her most appreciated support in the revision process.

## 1. Setting the stage: Questioning sequences in executive coaching

Executive coaching is a burgeoning professional helping interaction between a trained  coach  and  a  client  with  managerial  responsibility  set  in the organizational world. Th e overall goal of coaching is to facilitate change and  transformation  in  and  for  the  client  as  regards  work-related  themes such as high performance or leadership issues. Th e international spread and growing relevance of coaching have, however, not been met with a heightened empirical  interest  in  coaching  in  the  academic  world.  Unlike  neighboring professional helping formats such as psychotherapy, (executive) coaching is still  underresearched.  While  the  overall  eff  ectiveness  of  executive  coaching (i.e.  its  global  change  potential)  has  by  now  been  verifi  ed  in  psychological coaching outcome research in the context of established phases of change, there  is  little  research  on  the  coaching  process  itself  and  on  what  makes coaching eff  ective, that is, what allows for clients' change and transformation on the local level of the concrete interactions between coach and client. Th e latter is  the  focus of a more recent process research paradigm in coaching, which targets, among other objectives, the microanalytic sequential process of coaching. Th e linguistic or conversation analytic perspective on coaching forms part of this paradigm (Graf 2015, 2016, 2019). With its focus on what coach and client do together verbally (and non-verbally) on the interactional level  on  a  turn-by-turn  basis,  such  a  conversation  analytic  perspective addresses discursive practices in their sequentiality as the local building-blocks of coaching and as facilitators of its local eff  ectiveness. Up to this moment, research on this sequentiality and on the global eff  ectiveness of coaching have not been brought into relationship. Th erefore, while executive coaching is the particular professional helping interaction under scrutiny here, questions, to be more precise questioning sequences, are the discursive practice we target.

Executive  coaching  practice  literature  and  training  manuals  insinuate that questions are omnipresent and omnirelevant in coaching, which means questions are portrayed as key agents of the overall eff  ectiveness of coaching. Yet, their claims have so far not not been empirically corroborated. Whereas questions have already been established as omnipresent across mundane and professional  formats  and  as  carrying  out  important  tasks  on  the  thematic, interactive and format-specifi  c levels in Conversation Analysis, questions in coaching have so far received little empirical attention. More specifi  cally, while the (local) change potential of questioning sequences has been conversation analytically  assessed  for  neighboring  helping professional interactions such as  psychotherapy  (see  e.g.  various  publications  by  Peräkylä  and  Worsøe  & Jensen, this issue), hardly any research exists on the transformative power of questions in executive coaching.

Our research interest was sparked by the discrepancy between the attested importance of questions in coaching due to their change potential and the unsatisfying research situation (Graf & Spranz-Fogasy 2018a). First empirical results from a purely quantitative perspective show that questions represent a central steering element in coaching (Deplazes 2016), and isolated studies with  non-authentic  coaching  data  evince  diff  erences  between  solutionoriented  and  problem-oriented  questions  (various  publications  by  Grant and colleagues). However, there are hardly any insights into questions as a naturally occurring discursive and sequential practice in executive coaching, how this practice unfolds within and across the professional interaction-type and how questioning practices in their sequentiality contribute to the local and, consequently, the overall global eff  ectiveness of executive coaching.

In  order  to  fully  unravel  the  transformative  potential  of  questioning sequences  as  local  and  global  agents  of  change  across  entire  coaching processes,  that  is,  to  close  this  research  gap,  we  suggest  that  linguistic  and psychological analyses must join forces. Th is programmatic paper advocates for  such  an  interdisciplinary  approach  based  on  insights  from  psychology and its  normative-theoretical  focus  on  phases  of  change  and  insights  from Conversation Analysis and its descriptive-phenomenological focus on transformative sequences. It presents  the  Turn-Sequence-Phase-Process (TSPP)  Model  of  Coaching  (Deplazes,  Graf  &  Künzli    2018)  as  a  fi  rst interdisciplinary  product  of  such  a  linguistic-psychological  cooperation  in the context of coaching research. Focussing on turns, sequences, phases and processes  in  coaching  (conversations),  the  model  can  serve  as  a  matrix  to empirically assess the local and global transformational potential of discursive practices such as questioning sequences in coaching. On a more general level and beyond its current purpose in the context of investigating questioning sequences, the model allows to address both, eff  ectiveness and sequentiality in coaching and thus advances our understanding of the coaching process at large.

Th e  article  is  structured  as  follows:  Section  2  introduces  the  helping format  'executive  coaching'  as  the  professional  interaction-type  we  target. Th e state of the art in coaching (outcome and process) research in psychology and linguistics is outlined with a particular focus on insights into its global and local eff  ectiveness  across  turns,  sequences,  phases  and  entire  coaching processes. Next, Section 3 details how coaching practice literature portrays questions as omnipresent and omnirelevant phenomena and as key agents of change. It also aggregates fi  rst fi  ndings on questions from coaching outcome and  process  research.  A  stark  contrast  between  the  idealized  claims  and hypotheses in coaching practice literature and the existing empirical fi  ndings on questions as local and global agents of change emerges. In light of such a meager research situation, Section 4 turns to conversation analytic research on questions in surrounding professional (in particular therapeutic) interactions. While practice literature and outcome research focus on isolated questions or  question  types,  Conversation  Analysis  stresses  the  inherent  sequential organization  of  questions  in  the  context  of  questioning  sequences.  Th eir formal, functional and interaction-type specifi  c characteristics are discussed focusing  particularly  on  the  local  transformative  power  that  emerges  from the sequential organization of questioning practices as adjacent turns across a  conversational  continuum.  Yet,  while  analyzing  such  a  turn-by-turn organization of questioning practices allows to unravel locally successful (i.e. change-inducing) sequences, existing conversation analytic research does not go  beyond this  level  of  eff  ectiveness.  It  does  not  allow  to  assess  the  global eff  ectiveness of questioning sequences spanning the continuum of sessions in the context of established phases of change. Section 5 thus brings the various lines of argumentation together and calls for an interdisciplinary approach. Th e article ends with presenting the jointly developed TSPP Model (Deplazes et al. 2018) for coaching research, which integrates relevant psychological and linguistic insights into the morphology of change and thus allows to address the local and global change potential of questioning sequences in executive coaching.

## 2. Coaching. Research into its global and local eff  ectiveness

Coaching  is  an  umbrella  term  for  widely  diff  ering  counseling  activities situated in the larger terrain of (organizational) development tools, techniques and services, which are at times hard to discriminate. In its current practice, coaching has many conceptual and professional roots such as social psychology, learning theory or theories of human and organizational development and applies  a  great  variety  of  interventions,  oft  en  originating  in  psychotherapy, management theory and counseling (Bachkirova et al. 2018).  Yet, despite its internationally growing popularity and acceptance, 'the concept of coaching as profession is still relatively new' (Bachkirova et al. 2018:xiv). According to Stein (2007) and Drath (2012), the most widely practiced types of coaching are  'life  coaching'  and  'personal  coaching'  on  the  one  hand  and  'business coaching' or 'executive  coaching'  on  the  other.  While  the  fi  rst  pair  focuses on personal and life issues, the second addresses work-related issues such as leadership performance; the article is concerned with executive coaching.

Executive coaching transpires in and through a series of conversations and coaching sessions between a coach and a non-clinical client with managerial responsibilities  and  tackles  clients'  work-related  issues.  It  is  (linguistically) conceptualized  as  a  professional  and/or  institutional  helping  interaction (Drew  &  Heritage  1992,  Mondada  2013,  Graf  et  al.  (eds.)  2014,  Graf  & Spranz-Fogasy 2018b) and more specifi  cally as a type of counseling located in the organizational realm (cf. Kallmeyer 2000, Graf 2017, Pick (ed.) 2017). Th e  overall  goal  of  coaching  is  to  allow  for  change  in  the  client:  '(p)eople come to coaching for lots of diff  erent reasons, but the bottom line is change' (Whitworth et al. 1998:xix). Th eoretical models of change thereby predispose an action logic, that is, clients have to pass through specifi  c (developmental) stages  or  phases  such  as  the  pre-decisional,  motivational  phase,  the  preactional, volitional phase, the actional phase and the post-actional evaluation phase as elaborated in the Rubicon model (cf. Greif & Benning-Rohnke 2015). Th e observable part of a client's (overall) change process is the conversation with their coach, whose local utterance-by-utterance transformation underlies this global process of change.

While  coaching  research  has  recently  picked  up  momentum,  coaching still lacks a sound academic foundation with signifi  cant gaps in the available research. Particularly when juxtaposed with the research situation in other helping  professions  such  as  psychotherapy,  research  on  coaching  is  (still) less established and prominent; reasons for this lie in its practical origin and multidisciplinarity (Fietze 2017). Due to certain parallels between coaching and  psychotherapy,  existing  research  designs  and  questions  oft  en  replicate available  therapeutic  research  paradigms.  In  this  vein,  coaching  research exists in the forms of outcome research and process research (Fillery-Travis & Cox 2018, Wegener et al. (eds.) 2018). Particularly in the fi  eld of quantitative outcome studies, coaching research has recently gained considerable ground (Kotte  et  al.  2016,  Fillery-Travis  &  Cox  2018).  Five  meta-analyses  prove its  eff  ectiveness,  that  is,  coaching  facilitates  (global)  change  in  and  for  the client across the entire coaching process (De Meuse et al. 2009, Th eeboom et  al.  2014,  Jones  et  al.  2016,  Sonesh  et  al.  2015,  and  Burt  &  Talati  2017) (see  Graf  &  Dionne  under  review  for  a  current  overview).  Eff  ectiveness  is defi  ned  and  assessed across these meta-analyses as individual learning and development, improvement in clients' performance and skills, positive results for  the  organization,  but  also  an  improved  well-being  and  coping,  general improvement in work- and career related attitudes as well as goal-directed self-regulation. However,  distinct research gaps exist, particularly as regards to how and where this global eff  ectiveness emerges or is co-constructed locally along the coaching process. As De Haan and colleagues state, in order

…  to  understand  the  impact  and  contribution  of  executive coaching  …  it  is  not  enough  to  just  understand  general eff  ectiveness  or  outcome.  One  also  has  to  inquire  into  and create  an  understanding of the underlying coaching processes themselves, from the perspectives of both clients and coaches (2010: 110, see also Th eeboom et al. 2014:14).

Coaching process research has more recently started to engage in this 'how/ where' of coaching eff  ectiveness (see Wegener et al. (eds.) 2018). Developed in  analogy  with  psychotherapy  process  research  (see  Elliott's  2010,  2012 'change-process  research  paradigm'),  coaching  process  research  is  fed  by various  disciplines  such  as  psychology  and  linguistics,  applies  quantitative and qualitative methods and exists in the settings: 'process-outcome design' , 'helpful factors design' , 'signifi  cant event research design' and 'microanalytic sequential process design' . Psychological coaching process research investigates the  interaction  or  process  as  such  and  addresses,  for  example,  signifi  cant events (Wegener 2019) or interventions in coaching (Deplazes 2016). Most prominently, it targets success factors in coaching within the process-outcome design  (see  Künzli  2013).  Success  factors,  theoretically  and  normatively developed  in  established  models  of  change  in  psychology,  explicate  how clients  proceed  eff  ectively  from  realizing  a  desire  for  action  to  taking  such action, evaluating the action and maintaining the action (e.g. Greif & BenningRohnke 2015). Th e empirical focus is on assessing frequency and intensity of success factors across recognized process phases of change as a measure for coaches' responsiveness regarding the theoretical underpinning of coaching (Behrendt  2006,  Greif  et  al.  2012,  Tertocha  2016).  However,  psychological coaching process research does not look into the local, sequential organization of these phases of change.

Linguistically based coaching process research in its descriptivephenomenological stance forms part of the 'microanalytic sequential process design'  and  addresses    how  coaching  as  interactive  and  communicative process emerges  from  the  verbal,  sequentially  organized,  turn-by-turn interaction.  Premised  on  insights  from  conversation  analysis  in  more established professional helping formats such as psychotherapy, it investigates the local and processual co-construction of the coaching interaction by coach and client (see e.g. the Basic Activity Model of Coaching (Graf 2015, 2019)). As a professional helping interaction, it is based on an endemic asymmetry between coach and client that primarily centers on notions of 'knowledge' and 'expertise' (Heller 2007, Koester 2010): While coaches dispose of expert knowledge as regards professional theories and models (e.g. models of change and  transformation),  clients  dispose  of  subjective,  experiential  knowledge about their lives and their concerns (Sarangi 2001). Th e knowledge asymmetry between coach and client, the ensuing diff  erences regarding problem solving capacities as well as perspectives constitute the essence of coaching and its raison  d' être  (Kallmeyer  2000,  Deppermann  2015).  Knowledge  asymmetry emerges  on  the  level  of  the  concrete  (coaching)  conversation  in  diff  ering epistemic authorities, rights and obligations of the participants (Heritage 2018, Raymond 2018). Linguistic coaching process research looks into the varying degrees of thematic and interactive control over the coaching conversation via agenda setting and interaction orchestration in general and, more concretely, via applying discursive practices such as questions with specifi  c communicative intentions  (Spranz-Fogasy  1992,  Tiittula  2001,  Mönnich  2004,  Mayes,  this issue) that contribute to the local, utterance-by-utterance process of change (Peräkylä 2019). How coaches locally dominate and guide the conversations is  molded  by  their  professional  agenda  that  underlies  how  the  goal  of  the interaction  (i.e.  clients'  global  change)  is  accomplished.  Th e  professional agenda  predetermines  and  underlies  the  conversational  development  of coaching alongside its internal tasks and action logic; due to the systematic asymmetries and diff  ering dominance as endemic components of professional interaction, the coaches have the power to ensure the compliance with the professional agenda (Tiittula 2001:1362), that is, to exploit the local change potential. As will be argued in Section 4, questioning practices serve as central local steering elements and thereby contribute to the local, but also the global eff  ectiveness of coaching.

To sum up, while outcome research documents that the coaching process is  eff  ective  (i.e.  allows  for  clients'  change  across  pre-established  phases  of change) and that certain success factors contribute to this global eff  ectiveness, coaching process research adds insights into the intensity and frequency of such success factors as well as into the sequential organization of the coaching conversations  (in  its  turn-by-turn  organization)  and  its  local  eff  ectiveness. A necessary next step in coaching research is to integrate eff  ectiveness and sequentiality of coaching. Th is is, however, empirically challenging given that coaching resides in a complex reciprocity of the participants' communicative actions. Kramer and Stiles (2015) refer to this challenge with the concept of 'appropriate responsiveness' (AR). AR, originally discussed in psychotherapy research, means that professional helpers such as coaches aim to do what is best for clients in each and every moment of their interactions with them. What is currently the best, that is, the most appropriate and eff  ective, is decided both in response to the underlying professional theory (e.g. theory of change) and in response to the client on a moment-to-moment basis. Examples for appropriate responsive behavior include active listening, adjusting interventions already in progress and - at the core of this paper - asking appropriate questions. Th e latter entails engaging in questioning practices that allow for clients' change both on the global level as regards the overall eff  ectiveness and on the local level regarding the turn-by-turn sequentiality of the coaching conversation. In Section 5, the paper therefore presents the TSPP Model as a solution to empirically integrate eff  ectiveness and sequentiality of coaching. Th e model, based on turns, sequences, phases and entire coaching processes, is premised on interdisciplinary insights from psychology and linguistics and can serve as a matrix for analyzing the local and global change potential of questioning sequences.  More  generally,  it  allows  for  addressing  appropriate  responsive behavior by coaches.

Before Section 5 further describes the TSPP Model, the next two sections showcase  questions  and  their  relevance  for  the  eff  ectiveness  of  coaching. While coaching practice literature claims that questions are omnipresent and omnirelevant, empirical fi  ndings that illuminate the local and global change potential of questions are largely missing in coaching research (Section 3). A fi  rst  step  to  close  this  research  gap  is  to  use  insights  from  Conversation Analysis into the local transformative potential of questioning sequences from other helping professions (Section 4). However, their global change potential, that  is,  their  contribution  to  global  eff  ectiveness,  is  beyond  the  scope  of conversation analytic research. Th e need to combine both and possible ways to do it will be addressed in Section 5.

## 3. Questions in executive coaching. Practical claims and empirical fi  ndings of their change potential

Questions represent the most widely discussed intervention across professional and institutional formats (Tracy & Robles 2009:131). Coaching, too, has a myriad of books and manuals off  ering advice to coaches as to what types of questions to ask. Questions are portrayed as a guarantor for successful coaching (i.e. for global change potential) and as the central and most powerful intervention tool (i.e. for local eff  ectiveness): Loebbert and Wilmes (2013:38) frame  questions  as  the  silver  bullet  for  client's  explorations,  Fischer-Epe (2012:60) argues that questions are a central steering element of the coaching process, and Schreyögg (2012:269) characterizes asking questions as a coach's most  important  task.  Accordingly,  these  books  and  manuals  on  coaching off  er  extensive  lists  of  question  types,  categorized  via  decontextualized functions and illustrated via invented examples in a monological form. It is implied that good coaching means asking many questions and making use of such variety (Wehrle 2012, Geißler 2016). Practice literature also advises practitioners on how to do questioning, for example, to ask one question at a time or to concentrate on questions that start with 'what' (cf. Bungay Stanier 2016). Replicated across practice literature and training manuals is a positive assessment of open-ended questions as inviting detailed answers, while closed questions are disfavored as they are supposed to close down the conversation and leave the client no space for refl  ection (e.g. Fischer-Epe 2012, Schreyögg 2012).  Such  evaluations  regarding  the  relevance  of  questions  in  coaching practice literature is based on the respective authors' practical experiences as coaches and/or their personal assessment, but not on empirical fi  ndings. A similar picture emerges from professional coaching trainings.

Moving away from coaching practice literature and training manuals to coaching  research,  a  very  diff  erent  picture  emerges.  Questioning  practices have so far received hardly any academic attention (cf. Graf & Spranz-Fogasy 2018a)  and  neither  coaching  outcome  nor  coaching  process  research  have systematically  investigated  the  authentic  use  of  questioning  practices  in their diff  erent forms, functions and specifi  cities. Coaching outcome studies exclusively address solutionvs.  problem-oriented  questions  and  their infl  uence on the (global) eff  ectiveness of coaching. While research by Wehr (2010),  Grant  and  O'Connor  (2010),  Grant  (2012),  Neipp  and  colleagues (2015), Braunstein and Grant (2016) as well as Grant and O'Connor (2018) has revealed that solution-oriented questions in contrast to problem-oriented questions enhance clients' positive aff  ect,  Th eeboom and colleagues (2016) as  well  as  Grant  and  Gerrard  (2019)  could  show  that  solution-oriented questions  or  a  combination  of  problem-  and  solution-oriented  questions also decrease clients' negative aff  ect and positively impact clients' cognitive fl  exibility. Th ese studies relate pre-established and isolated types of questions, whose exact wording is laid out in coding schema, to certain eff  ects on clients' aff  ect,  cognition or behavior. Th ey apply quantitative methods in the realm of psychology, focus on question types in coaching, but do not consider the processual and sequential character of questioning in coaching, which means they  treat  questions  as  isolated  linguistic  strategies  applied  by  coaches.  In addition, they all work with students instead of 'real coaches' and 'real clients' . While all authors agree that 'eff  ective questioning lies at the very heart of the coaching  conversation'  (Grant  &  O'Connor  2010:102;  see  also  Th eeboom et  al.  2016:461),  psychological  outcome  research  faces  other,  up-to-now unanswered questions such as '(b)ut what constitutes 'eff  ective' questioning in  coaching?'  (Grant  &  O'Connor  2010:102).  Besides  such  isolated  studies dedicated  exclusively  to  questions  in  coaching,  there  is  some  research  that focuses on certain questions next to other interventions. For example, Newsom and Dent (2011) analyze coaching behavior and coaching actions of executive coaches and thereby investigate - inter alia - asking open questions. As the most frequently named actions in their interviews with around 130 coaches, the authors list 1) establishing trust, honesty, and respect, 2) using open-ended questions, and 3) clarifying and understanding client concerns and challenges (ibid:18). Th e study treats questions as one (important) intervention among other  interventions,  and  thus  aims  to  draw  a  realistic  picture  of  coaches' overall  activities.  Y et,  a  retrospective  report  on  what  one  (presumably)  has done - in addition to exclusively focusing on the coach and thus proposing a monological perspective on coaching - must be considered a major drawback from an interaction-based understanding of coaching. Overall, the empirical situation  of  questions  in  psychological  coaching  outcome  research  is  not satisfying and does not refl  ect the signifi  cance and presumed eff  ectiveness of questions as claimed in the coaching practice literature. Large-scale fi  ndings on questions in their naturally occurring variety and complexity are missing so far.

In the context of psychological coaching process research, only Deplazes (2016) addresses questions and off  ers fi  rst empirical insights into authentic questioning in  her  video-analysis.  Her  analysis  on  interventions  and  tools, which draws on, among other methods, qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2010) of authentic coaching, evinced that questions indeed represent a central intervention  and  that  responses  to  closed  questions  do  not  signifi  cantly deviate in their response length in comparison to open questions. By including responses to the coded questions in her analytic procedure, Deplazes does touch  upon  the  sequentiality  of  questions.  Nevertheless,  given  that  her analysis aims at interventions and tools in coaching in general, the treatment of  questions  necessarily  remained  on  the  surface.  In  linguistic  coaching process research, so far only two studies looks into questioning practices in coaching:  Spranz-Fogasy  and  colleagues  (2019)  compare  the  local,  in-situ construction  of  'requesting  examples'  in  psychodiagnostic  interviews  and coaching interactions and carve out interaction-type specifi  c diff  erences with regard to the use of requesting examples across the two helping formats (for details see Section 4). Besides their focus on only one particular questioning type, Spranz-Fogasy and colleagues (2019) are interested in the interactiontype  specifi  city  of  requesting  examples  rather  than  their  local  (and  global) change potential.  Graf  and  Kabatnik  (in  prep.)  and  Kabatnik  and  Graf  (in prep.) investigate diff  erences  and  commonalities between solution-oriented questions in coaching and psychotherapy and address their respective local change potentials.

In  sum,  despite  their  omnipresence  in  coaching  practice  literature, questions  in  coaching  are  still  largely  neglected  in  both  psychological  and linguistic coaching research. In particular, it has never been investigated how questions in their sequential organization contribute to the local and global eff  ectiveness of coaching. As stated in a recent overview article by Graf and Spranz-Fogasy  (2018a),  neither  coaching  outcome  nor  process  research address vital issues such as the co- and con-textual embedding of questions in the ongoing coaching process or interaction. A similar critique is found in McGee (1999), McGee and colleagues (2005) and James and colleagues, who argue that '(w)hile we feel it is helpful to examine question types, it is relevant to note that examining single questions in isolation is overly simplistic due to  their  impact  being  a  feature  of  how  they  are  combined  and  sequenced' (2010:83).  To  begin  closing  the  aforementioned  research  gap,  we  advocate to avoid a decontextualizing, monological perspective on questions. Instead, we  suggest  Conversation  Analysis  as  a  fruitful  methodological  framework to  investigate  both  the  natural  occurrence of questioning practices in their sequential  set-up  of  'question  -  response  -  follow-up'  within  a  coaching conversation and the local change potential of questioning sequences entailed in  such sequentiality (Peräkylä 2019). Regarding questions as part of turnby-turn  sequences  is  concurrently  a  fi  rst  step  to  bring  them  into  relation with larger units such as phases and the entire coaching process, which is the underlying objective of the current endeavor.

## 4.  Questioning  sequences  in  Conversation  Analysis.  A  focus  on  local change potential

Against  the  background  of  our  linguistic  understanding  of  coaching  as  a co-constructed professional helping conversation, analyzing discursive practices  such  as  questions  requires  considering  them  in  the  co-text  of their  preceding  and  following  turns.  Th e  empirical  focus  then  shift  s  from ' questions'  to  'question-answer-third  position  reaction  sequence'  -  in  other words, to questions in their sequential set-up (Schegloff   2007, Stivers 2013, Graf  &  Spranz-Fogasy  2018a).  Sequentiality  represents  a  core  tenet  of Conversation Analysis (Schegloff   2007, Sidnell & Stivers (eds.) 2013): each turn has a retrospective and prospective dimension, which is thematically and interactively linked to its prior turn and to the turn that immediately follows due to the underlying axiom of conditional relevance. As Stivers formulates it (2013:191), 'turn-constructional units, and the actions produced with them, are proff  ered by reference to what came before and aff  ect what comes next. ' Th e  entailed,  local  turn-by-turn  transformation  contributes  to  the  process of change in more macroscopic time, spanning the continuum of coaching sessions  (Peräkylä  2019),  i.e.  the  sequentiality  of  turns  functions  as  a  local agent of change, that is as a local agent of the eff  ectiveness of the professional interaction both within and across sessions (e.g. Muntigl 2013, Voutilainen et al. 2018). However, what has not been pursued in Conversation Analysis is whether and how such sequentiality and its local change potential contribute to patients'/clients' global change.

Conversation Analysis has widely researched questioning practices across both mundane and professional settings, with a particular focus on helping formats (see e.g. Barthesagi 2009, Weatherall & Gibson 2015, Mack et al. 2016 on  questions  in  therapy;  Spranz-Fogasy  2005,  2010  and  Heritage  2010  on questions in doctor-patient interaction; and Peräkylä 1995 and Sarangi 2010 in counseling). In what follows, we will summarize their insights and fi  ndings on  questioning  sequences  in  their  formal,  functional,  and  interaction-type specifi  c  morphologies.  Th is  knowledge  underlies  the  missing  conversation analytic (process) research on questioning practices in (executive) coaching in terms of their local eff  ectiveness or change potential.

Questions are linguistically defi  ned according to formal aspects such as lexical criteria (wh-questions) and syntactic criteria (verb-fi  rst and declarative questions) (Tracy & Robles 2009, Stivers 2010, 2018). Th ese diff  erent question types entail an inherent asymmetry according to diff  erent stocks of knowledge in  and  epistemic  rights  of  the  participants  (Heritage  2010,  Spranz-Fogasy

2010,  Hayano  2013).  In  doctor-patient  interaction,  Spranz-Fogasy  (2005), for  example,  established  the  question  types  'precision  questions' ,  associated with the patient's thematic control and knowledge, and 'completion questions' , associated with the doctor's knowledge. Th e formal construction of questions also  manifests  a  preference  organization  for  the  construction  of  answers (Pomerantz  &  Heritage  2013,  Clayman  &  Loeb  2018).  Preferred  reactions follow the progressivity principle of interactions (Stivers & Robinson 2006), but  there  are  also  various  types  of  dis-preferred  responses  according  to MacMartin  (2008),  Lee  (2013)  and  Stivers  (2018):  non-answer-responses, answer-like  responses  such  as  refocusing  and  transformative  responses. Dis-preferred answers/responses can attest to unsuccessful question-answer sequences, and the set-up of the third position determines the further process of the interaction. Both the varying levels of knowledge and understanding addressed with the help of wh-questions, verb-fi  rst questions and declarative questions as well as their varying strength to elicit a specifi  c response in the client infl  uence the local change potential of the respective question types.

As regards the functional dimensions of questions or questioning practices, Steensig and Drew (2008:7) generally claim that '(a)sking a question is not an innocent thing to do. ' According to Köller (2004:662), questions originate in the human aptitude to initiate hypothetical imagination processes prone to transform into self-refl  ection processes; questions allow for new experience given  that  they  entail  a  change  of  perspective  and  a  possible  change  in one's  point  of  view.  Questions  help  to  localize  knowledge  gaps,  to  express knowledge requirements, to articulate one's interest in reasons, to relate to the present as well as to the past or to do repair-related actions in the context of aided communication (see Mayes, this issue). In so doing, questions perform moment-by-moment informational and relational management, given that the epistemic authority to ask a question and the obligation to respond originate in  and  mold the relationship between the communicative partners (Stivers 2018). Th ese general characteristics of questions are particularly pronounced in professional helping formats such as counseling and psychotherapy, where questions characterize core interventions as they invite self-refl  ection and thus induce (global) change (Bercelli et al. 2008, Muntigl & Zabala 2008, Stokoe & Sikveland 2016, Spranz-Fogasy et al. 2019). Muntigl and Zabala (2008:188) state,  '(a)dequate  refl  ection  on  one's  experience  is  oft  en  seen  as  a  stepping stone to change because refl  ection can allow the client to construe his or her life  and  social  relationships  in  additional  and  alternative  ways' .  As  shown by  Peräkylä  and  colleagues  for  psychotherapeutic  interactions  in  various publications, the sequential set-up of questioning practices ensures their local eff  ectiveness and also initiates and underlies change on a more global level: it helps experts to pursue their professional agenda by setting a specifi  c kind of reply as conditionally relevant (Heritage 2012) and allows the participants to co-construct intersubjectivity. Due to their nature as necessary adjacency pairs, question-answer sequences are paradigmatic for the dictum of the local eff  ectiveness:  New  knowledge  and  insights  are  co-constructed  for  patients/ clients on the conversational micro-level of interaction. In other words, (local) change  results  above  all  from  the  sequential,  turn-by-turn  organization  of helping conversations via questions (and other communicative practices such as interpretations or (re)formulations; see Marciniak et al. 2016). Individual refl  ection processes as well as the status of mutual understanding as traces of new or transformed knowledge thereby show in all forms of responses when the follow-up reaction in third position is considered (Schegloff   2007, Peräkylä 2011,  2019).  Given  that  questions  function  as  a  principal  communicative steering  practice  in  (professional)  interactions  (cf.  Tsui  1992,  Freed  & Ehrlich (eds.) 2010, Heritage 2010, Spranz-Fogasy 2010, Hayano 2013, Drew & Couper-Kuhlen 2014), they must be considered key agents of local (and global) change (but see Worsøe & Jensen, this issue on the client asking the therapist questions and how such reverse questioning aff  ects the ecology of therapeutic practice).

Finally,  Conversation  Analysis  is  concerned  with  the  interaction-type sensitivity of questioning practices (Tracy & Robles 2009; see typologies for psychotherapy in Mack et al. 2016 and for doctor-patient interaction in SpranzFogasy 2010 and Heritage 2010). Specifi  c  question  types  are  used  more  or less frequently in distinct sequential contexts and with distinct functions even in  relatively  'close'  interaction  types  such  as  psychoanalytic  conversations, cognitive psychotherapy or resource-oriented counseling (Weiste & Peräkylä 2013). A case in point is the study by Spranz-Fogasy and colleagues (2019) that  contrasts  requesting  examples  -  understood  as  retrospective  requests from  the  therapist/coach  to  the  patient/client  to  elaborate  their  directly preceding utterance via an exemplary concretization - in psychotherapy and executive coaching. Th e fi  ndings attest to similarities, but also to interactionspecifi  c diff  erences as regards the thematic, sequential and interactive design of  this  particular  questioning  practice  between  the  two  types  of  helping conversations:  Both  helping  formats  make  use  of  requesting  examples  as  a way to invite and sketch a more specifi  c picture of patients'/clients' (so far only generally or vaguely described) situation and of patients'/clients' manner of emotional and cognitive engagement with such examples; in both formats, patients'/clients'  choice  of  a  particular  event  as  an  exemplifi  cation  of  some general behavior invites and initiates a further exploration and refl  ection upon this event and related topics. As a result, the proff  ered examples lead towards developing  alternative  ways  of  feeling,  perceiving  and  possibly  acting  and thus entail transformative potential. However, Spranz-Fogasy and colleagues' results also attest to signifi  cant diff  erences regarding local change potential: fi  rst of all, psychotherapeutic interactions substantially thematize facets of the patient's personality, whereas coaching conversations only do so in passing and rather concentrate on clients' professional role. Secondly, while patients'

Position 1

Position 2

Position 3

Position 4

Position 5

...

OPD

insufficient an event Coach requests an example subjective  experience  has  yet  to  be  carved  out  in  the  therapeutic  context, coaching clients 'come equipped' with a readiness to change. Th e sequential trajectory  of  requesting  examples  in  both  formats  refl  ects  such  initial resistance in therapy and fundamental willingness to change in coaching, thus attesting to an interaction type specifi  c diff  erence in local change potential (see Table 1 below): responses (second-turn position) to requesting examples are tackled diff  erently on the interactive level by patients and clients in the sense that clients show more readiness to exemplify (problematic) behavior, and, consequently, achieve their goal to change more quickly. Due to executive clients'  general  greater  willingness  to  engage  in  example  work,  the  study evinced more requesting examples by coaches and more responsive behavior in clients in the form of concrete examples than Spranz-Fogasy et al (2019) found in the psychotherapeutic data.

Table  1:  Comparative  sequential  layout  of  'requesting  examples'  in  psychotherapy and coaching (adapted from Spranz-Fogasy et al. 2019)

Such interaction-type specifi  c behavior of formally and functionally similar question  types  justifi  es  our  argument  for  a  close-up  empirical  analysis  of questioning sequences in executive coaching irrespective of existing research in closely-related interaction types.

To summarize, conversation analytic research on questions has revealed how  crucial  the  practice  is  in  orchestrating  talk-in-interaction,  managing power, and co-constructing (new) knowledge. It has also shown how formal, functional  and  interaction-type  specifi  c  morphologies  infl  uence  the  local change  potential  of  questioning  sequences.  Studies  on  questions  in  other helping professions such as psychotherapy have evinced that the sequential nature  of  questions  entails  a  transformative  potential  to  enable  change  in patients on the local level of the concrete interaction. Yet, although (some) recent CA research has shift  ed the scope of analysis to 'supra-session courses of  action'  (Bercelli  et  al.  2013),  more  longitudinal  investigations  of  (local) change in interaction, that is, research on processes of change taking place over several sessions, awaits further elaboration (Peräkylä 2019:277). Concurrently, the  link  between  such  locally  and  sequentially  emerging  change  (possibly spanning the continuum of sessions) and global eff  ectiveness in the sense of passing through established phases of change cannot be established within Conversation Analysis. Th is  approach does not allow to go beyond insights into the turn-by-turn eff  ectiveness of discursive practices such as questioning sequences. Nevertheless, the following section will off  er fi  rst solutions how the relation between their local and global change potential can be investigated.

## 5. Questioning sequences as local and global agents of change in executive coaching. A call for interdisciplinary research

As has materialized from the previous sections, psychological outcome research argues for the global eff  ectiveness of coaching through established phases of change, while linguistic process research focuses on the local eff  ectiveness of coaching in its turn-by-turn co-construction and the ensuing thematic and interactive constraints entailed in each turn. In their respective normativetheoretical and descriptive-phenomenological perspective on coaching, psychology and linguistics address diff  erent aspects of coaches' appropriate responsive  behavior  towards  their  clients.  As  regards  questions  and  their hypothesized and idealized relevance for coaching and its eff  ectiveness, only Conversation Analysis provides detailed formal, functional and interactiontype specifi  c  information  on  questioning sequences in professional helping formats. Questioning sequences have thereby been empirically established outside of coaching - as local agents of change in their turn-by-turn sequential organization.

However,  as  has  already  been  indicated  in  Section  2,  up  until  now, established phases of change (i.e. global eff  ectiveness) and the sequential coconstruction of coaching conversations (i.e. local eff  ectiveness) have not been brought into relationship. In order to investigate the interaction-type specifi  c local  and  global  change  potentials  of  questioning  sequences  (spanning  the continuum of coaching sessions), linguistics and psychology must join forces. As a fi  rst step, Deplazes, Graf and Künzli (2018) developed the TSPP Model of Coaching. In a nutshell, this model serves as a tool to better understand the structural components of coaching interactions and aids researchers in their quest to investigate the change process along the levels of turns, sequences, phases and entire processes. To this end, it integrates the predisposed action logic of change and the predisposed action logic of verbal interactions.

As the name indicates, the Turn-Sequence-Phases-Process Model builds from the smallest conversational unit to the largest in accordance with the chronological and action logical development of the coaching conversation (Deplazes et al. 2018:77). While the turn makes sense on its own, it is also part of a sequence as a result of the principle of conditional relevance and of the thematic connection between turns. Several sequences then form complex phases,  which  are  determined  by  the  structural  organization  of  coaching Initiating th dialogue Concluding the dialogue Conversational lead conversations. Th ese phases, which represent the content-related components of the coaching process and which relate to the established phases of change, include: 'Initiating the dialogue' , 'Formulating the concern' , 'Defi  ning goals' , 'Co-constructing  change' ,  'Generating  measures  of  action  and  securing transfer' , 'Evaluation' , and 'Concluding the dialogue' (see Figure 1).

securing transfer

Figure 1: Th e TSPP Model (adapted from Deplazes et al. 2018)

<!-- image -->

Whereas  both  interactants  participate  in  the  construction  of  the  content, coaches hold the professional responsibility to steer the coaching conversation and thus to initiate, process and fi  nalize the phases along the coaching process in concordance with their professional agenda. In the model, this is refl  ected in  the  'Processual  lead'  and  'Conversational  lead'  components,  respectively (Deplazes et al. 2018:75ff  ). Questioning practices are central in serving this conversational and processual steering purpose (see Section 4). At the same time, participants actively co-construct a working alliance, which serves as the basis upon which the entire coaching interaction relies (Graf & Spranz-Fogasy 2018b).

For  the  current  research  interest  in  questioning  sequences,  the  TSPP Model allows to carve out  their coaching endemic functions as well as their occurrences  and  frequencies  in  the  course  of  phases,  sessions  and  entire coaching  processes.Th e  model  is  particularly  helpful  in  the  endeavor  to address and relate the research foci 'what' (questions in coaching), 'how' (the sequential character of questioning in the unfolding coaching conversation), 'where'  (question-answer  sequences  in  the  context  of  specifi  c  phases  of coaching) and 'how oft  en' (how oft  en do certain question-answer sequences occur in the various phases) and relate these to the global assessment of the eff  ectiveness of the analyzed coaching process.

Indeed, the model allows to explore which types of questioning sequences occur  within  a  coaching  process  as  well  as  which  questioning  sequences initiate, process, and fi  nalize the various above-mentioned phases. It can also provide  insights  as  regards  frequencies  and  functions  of  question-answer sequences  by  investigating  how  oft  en  the  various  types  occur  within  and across phases and what their interaction-type specifi  c change potentials are within and across phases, individual sessions and entire coaching processes. A particular focus when applying this model will be on the relationship between frequency of (un)successful questioning sequences and the local and global eff  ectiveness of the respective coaching process. On a more general level the TSPP Model also gives insights into the appropriate responsive behavior of coaches, as it allows to address both their responsive behavior regarding their professional agenda and their responsive behavior on the interactive microlevel with their clients.

Yet, to eventually put this model into practice, a mixed-methods research design will be necessary that integrates qualitative and quantitative methods from the realms of psychology and linguistics. It must be applied to authentic coaching processes that are video-taped and linguistically transcribed and  whose  overall,  global  eff  ectiveness  has  been  assessed  with  the  help  of accompanying questionnaires for both coach and client. Th e development of such an interdisciplinary, mixed-methods research design is currently under way.

## 6. Conclusion and Outlook

Coaching is eff  ective, coaching is professional talk-in-interaction and coaching relies on questions as a core intervention. In order to truly understand this powerful communicative tool in executive coaching and how it contributes to the eff  ectiveness of coaching, we need to move from the decontextualized, monological and idealized portrayal of question types in practice literature and from coding pre-defi  ned and isolated question types (in staged coaching conversations) towards analyzing the authentic use of questioning sequences across  coaching  conversations  as  practiced  by  Conversation  Analysis.  Still, while such turn-by-turn analysis of questioning sequences allows to carve out the utterance-by-utterance transformation that contributes to the local process of change, the approach is limited as regards analyzing how such questioning sequences functionally, formally and numerically relate to phases of change that span the continuum of coaching sessions.  To overcome this restriction, this article argued for an interdisciplinary cooperation between psychology and  linguistics.  Combining  knowledge  about  established  phases  of  change and about how such phases are locally and sequentially co-constructed on the conversational micro-level allows researchers to provide a more detailed description  of  how  eff  ectiveness  emerges  in  coaching  conversations.  More specifi  cally argued, concerns about 'how' , 'where' and 'how oft  en' of the target action 'questioning sequence' can thus be addressed and both its contribution to the local turn-by-turn and the global process eff  ectiveness can be unraveled. As a fi  rst  concrete  product  of  the  envisioned interdisciplinary cooperation, our programmatic article lead up to the presentation of the TSPP Model by demonstrating the omnipresence of questions in practice literature, indicating the  existing  research  gap  and  arguing  for  the  need  to  focus  on  sequences instead of isolated questions. Yet, while this model serves as a matrix against which authentic coaching data can be analyzed, a concrete research project must be built on both qualitative and quantitative methods assembled in a complex mixed-methods research design. It goes without saying that such an endeavor of joining forces is challenging due to diverging theories of science and  research  logics;  still,  we  are  convinced  that  nothing  but  such  a  joint endeavor allows for truly unraveling the local and global change potentials of questioning sequences in helping interactions such as coaching.

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