Fred Rogers, the well-known “Mr. Rogers,” was a great example of The Coach Approach. The Coach Approach can be described as “Making a practice of frequently using within conversations those powerful coaching questions that are based on curiosity with the goal of building connection and demonstrating care for the people around us.”

Fred would have resisted being described as a coach. He would describe himself as “just a person, doing what people are supposed to do with other people.” That is, caring, connecting, being curious, and asking questions in order to build relationships.

The recent movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, stars Tom Hanks in the role of Fred Rogers. The movie uses the relationship between Fred Rogers and Tom Junod (called Lloyd Vogel in the movie), a magazine reporter, assigned to write a profile of Mr. Rogers. Through the developing relationship between the magazine reporter and Fred Rogers, we get to see the character, lifestyle, and beliefs of Fred Rogers. While some parts of the movie are fictionalized for dramatic effect, the character of Mr. Rogers and the development of the relationship with Junod/Vogel seems to be very close to reality.

As we defined The Coach Approach through this series of articles, we developed a model in which the “Four C’s” interact with each other as part of building a real relationship, one that is deeper than the normal surface relationship based on facts and clichés. The movie demonstrated these Four C’s in the life of Fred Rogers. (For more on the relationship between Junod and Rogers, see the article in Esquire magazine, Can You Say…Hero, that resulted from the assignment. Also of interest is the later article that Junod wrote for Atlantic magazine, My Friend Mister Rogers, discussing the movie and the reality that was Fred Rogers.)

Care

It is always difficult to separate caring from connecting because they seem symbiotic. In the movie we see one short scene where Mr. Rogers is praying for a long list of people. Anyone who requested prayer quickly went on Rogers’ list. One of the most telling scenes was when Rogers showed up unannounced and uninvited at the death bed of Junod’s father, just to be with Junod/Vogel and their family during that time. And the basic premise of the Neighborhood television show was to provide quality, caring programming for children, driven by Rogers’ values.

Connect

Fred Rogers was driven to connect, so much that the production company made special efforts to limit the people that might be allowed to interact with Fred Rogers, knowing that every interaction was likely to lead to connection and connection takes time, and time for connection means delays in program production. “We make so many connections here on earth. Look at us—I’ve just met you, but I’m investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can’t help it.” Fred Rogers to Tom Junod/Lloyd Vogel, as quoted in the movie. The movie is largely about the growing connection between Rogers and Junod/Vogel.

Curiosity

As Rogers built connection, he wanted to know more and more about the person on the other side of the connection. And he used that curiosity to then see deeply into the other person.

Coaching Questions

Curiosity by itself is useless unless it comes out in the form of questions. Fred Rogers was full of questions. Some of them seemed like trivial, simple questions while others were the types of questions that made a person stop in their tracks and think deeply.

If you haven’t seen the movie, take the time to do so. Even if you have seen it, perhaps you may want to watch it again with the Four C’s of The Coach Approach in mind. It could be considered a tutorial for building the habit of the Coach Approach and asking Powerful Questions.

Then, ask yourself this coaching question, “How can Fred Rogers be a model for me in building relationships with the people in my life?”

This article is part of a series regarding the use of questions to create meaningful conversations and build relationships. To read the whole series, go back to the Intro article.