The golden rule for asking great questions
As my last few articles have been a little ‘heavy’, I thought I would lighten things up this week and talk about communications. This can get ‘heavy’ very fast too, but communicating is a fundamental skill we all need and use every day, so tips and insights always help.
And the one person I can think of immediately when it comes to communications is a colleague of mine who is a communications specialist. Heather Campbell of CommsMasters is a veteran of communications and this week, I may ‘steal’ some of her nuggets to pass on to you. I know she won’t mind. 😉
As I am also preparing to embark on a culture change programme for a client of mine where communicating features prominently, writing this article is a good way for me to refresh my knowledge.
Last week, I attended a client meeting with my colleague. We had agreed to meet at the client's office. But because we were both early, I suggested catching up at a café beforehand. To cut a long story short, we ended up in two different buildings because of ambiguity in our communications. If I had to say whose fault it was, it was neither of our faults. Really. We both had images of the café, but they were just not in the same building. And for one of us, the café did not exist!
That is how complex communicating is. We both wanted to get to the same place but ended up in different buildings. Simply hilarious (now) and bizarre.
But here’s the thing, neither of us asked questions, to remove ambiguity, about which building we were referring to. We both assumed we were talking about the same building whilst visioning and talking about another building assuming it was the same building as in the other’s vision! I know, a tad complex.
When it comes to talking with people, it takes effort to remove all assumptions, judgments, and biases about the other person. Yet, we must.
But how?
This is where Heather comes in, and I love how simple she makes it. Typically, when asking questions we are taught to ask open questions (that don’t just elicit yes, no answers), as opposed to closed questions (yes, no answers) to keep the conversation going. This is where Heather simplifies it.
‘Don’t worry about open, closed, or probing questions’, she says. “The type of questions you ask doesn’t really matter because the response you get is not going to be dictated by these – it’s going to be dictated by how talkative the other person is and how much they want to talk to you right now about this subject. You’ll have experienced this for yourself on many occasions”.
There is only one golden rule to follow - ‘Be genuinely interested in what they have to say’.
According to Heather, when you follow this one golden rule:
Your genuine interest will shine through in your body language and your tone of voice.
You will find that you naturally follow up with more questions because you want to find out more.
You’ll have no expectations about the answer the other person will give so you’ll avoid interrupting or ‘re-directing’ the responses so that you hear what you want to hear.
You’ll avoid becoming judgmental because your focus is on what the other person is saying, not on what you are thinking.
You’ll remain focussed on the other person rather than on trying to figure out what question you should ask next – it will be obvious because you’re so intent on them.
That’s it.
If you are genuinely interested, the rest will take care of itself. Try it and see what happens in your next conversation. This applies to all forms of communications. Networking events, conflict resolution, collaborations, performance reviews, and more. The golden rule remains a potent one for getting super effective at asking questions.
You have now heard it from the expert! Happy communicating.
As always, you can reach me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com