What If?

Standing at Fisterra, the End of the World, where people once believed the earth simply stopped, Bernhard Kerres reflects on what it takes to question a deeply held belief. He turns that into one of coaching's most powerful moves: the "what if" question, and shows why asking it before examining a client's belief system is what makes real exploration possible. First published in Coach Magazine Global, Issue 5, 2023.

Published 2023-10-01 by Bernhard Kerres

I was recently hiking to the End of the World in Spain: Fisterra, or Finisterrae in Latin, a beautiful peninsula southwest of Santiago de Compostela. It is where the Camino begins for some and ends for others. Until a few hundred years ago, people believed the world simply stopped there, that beyond the horizon was the abyss.

They did not know better. Widely held belief stood against the first scientific breakthroughs. Even into the 18th and 19th centuries, the shape of the earth was still debated. And standing at that cape, I found myself asking: what does it take to go against a strong, commonly accepted belief? What does it take to set sail and explore? That question brought me back to coaching, and to one of the most powerful questions we can ask.

Beliefs that carry us, and beliefs that hold us back

All of us, our clients included, carry a well-established belief system. It comes from where we grew up and from the influence of family, society, religion, school, and friends. It helps us navigate the world and make decisions. It shapes our moral and ethical behavior.

Those beliefs can support us. They can also hold us back. If the early explorers had not questioned the belief in the end of the world, we would never have discovered the beauty and diversity of the planet. Their question was simple: what if this is not the end of the world?

The power of "what if"

"What if..." is a powerful coaching question. It helps clients reflect on their beliefs and tell the supportive ones from the limiting ones. When we open a safe space for them to explore their thinking, unprotected from their belief system, they start to unpack it. It frees them to experiment with options they would otherwise never allow themselves to consider.

The order matters. Inviting someone to step into a thought experiment first, before examining the belief system that constrains them, is often what makes the experiment possible at all. Question the belief too early and the client cannot let go of it, even for a moment.

Since I walked to the End of the World, I ask more "what if" questions than before. I also ask them of myself. I am fascinated by the space this simple question opens.

The full article works through a real client case, a distinguished scientist weighing an academic career against an entrepreneurial leap, and shows why the sequence of the questions determines whether the thinking space ever opens.