ASKING EFFECTIVE QUESTIONS Effective Questioning for Effective Communication, Leading and Coaching

Asking versus Telling: Main Benefits

Establishing rapport: don't try to impress people with your ideas, rather establish rapport and trust by eliciting ideas from them and thus expressing how much you care about them
Better listening, deeper understanding: all too often, while you are talking, your prospect is not listening but thinking about what he/she is going to say. When you ask questions, you make your prospect think in the direction you propose.
Higher motivation, better follow-up: the right answer will not be imposed by you, it will be found and owned by your prospect, who, thus, will be more motivated to follow it up

Your People Skills 360

Getting Response You Need

Types of Questions

Open: Question does not invite any particular answer, but open up discussion or elicit a wide range of answers for creative problem solving.
Closed: Question is specific and must be answered with a yes or no, or with details as appropriate.
Fact-Finding: Question is aimed at getting information on a particular subject.
Follow-Up: Question is intended to get more information or to elicit an opinion.
Feedback: Question is aimed at finding the difference that makes the difference.

8 Key Entrepreneurial Questions

How To Ask Learning Questions³

What went well and why?
What went less well and why?
What would we do differently now?
What would we do the same way?
What went unexpectedly well and why?
What went unexpectedly badly and why?
Are there new assumptions/rules to be made?
Why did we not foresee what happened?
How can we improve learning in the future?

Ask Yourself

By James Allen, the Author of As a Man Thinketh

For true success ask yourself these four questions:

Why?
Why not?... More

12 Active Listening Tips

Ask questions, but do not answer questions with questions... More

5 Strategies for Creating a Culture of Questioning

Educate: Train people to ask effective open-ended searching questions; promote coaching by questioning... More

Inspiring Culture

Searching for New Opportunities

"Why?" and "What If?" Questions

Why we always do things this way? What if we do it differently?
Why should we limit ourselves to getting better in what we are doing? What if we change things radically?.

Discover much more!

Effective Communication

The Tao of Communication

The Tao of Achievement

4 Questions To Ask Yourself

Challenging Assumptions

Asking Searching Questions

Competitive Strategies

5 Strategic Questions

Creating a Culture for Innovation

5 Strategies for Creating a Culture of Questioning

Inspirational Leadership: 10 Roles

Inspirational Business Plan: Successful Innovation

Risk Management Strategy: "It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question." – Eugen Decouvertes... More

10 Great Communication Quotes

The Art of Effective Questioning

How you ask questions is very important in establishing a basis for effective communication.

Yin and Yang of Communication

Effective questions open the door to knowledge and understanding. The art of questioning lies in knowing which questions to ask when. "Address your first question to yourself: if you could press a magic button and get every piece of information you want, what would you want to know? The answer will immediately help you compose the right questions."²

Choosing Questions

Ask a specific question if you want to hear a specific answer. Open – as opposed to leading – questions are those that cannot be answered with a straight "yes" or "no". Use open questions to gain insight into the other person's character, and to invite the response.

Zen Proverbs, Sayings, and Quotes

Only the crystal-clear question yields a transparent answer... More

10 Rules of Listening

By: Linda Eve Diamond

Ask open questions. Open questions encourage the speaker. They elicit a more detailed response than closed questions. "What" and "Why" are usually helpful starts to open questions... More

Yin and Yang of Effective Listening

Pretending Ignorance: Smart Is Dumb

Socrates used this technique more than 2300 years ago. He pretended ignorance in order to encourage others to express their views fully.

Today, many world's smartest and fastest businesspeople have perfected this art – consciously or unconsciously – of paying dumb. "People who try to impress by pretending to be smart generally aren't. Truly smart people know that by playing dumb and asking the other party to repeat or explain things several times, asking lots of questions, they'll be better prepared to respond and then make a fast decision."⁶

Socratic Questions

Socratic questioning is at the heart of critical thinking – they enhance your critical thinking skills.

Socratic questions challenge accuracy and completeness of thinking in a way that acts to move people towards their ultimate goal... More

Five Steps for Declaring Independence from Negative Thinking

By: Stephen Kraus

Learn to argue with yourself. Go on the counter-attack. Fight back against the negative thoughts by asking yourself a series of questions that will reveal the Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) as false and counter-productive. Try asking yourself these seven kinds of questions:
- Evidence: What is the objective evidence for this ANT?
- Exaggeration: Am I over-reacting? Am I over-generalizing?
- Utility: Is this belief empowering or counter-productive?... More

Searching Questions

Searching questions can help you discover new opportunities, uncover the roots of a problem, and find creative solutions to it.

Asking searching questions starts with challenging assumptions. If you do not check assumptions you cannot be good at asking searching questions. Don't ask one or two questions and then rush straight towards a solution. With an incomplete understanding of the problem it is very easy to jump to wrong conclusions.

Ask open-ended questions that elicit a wide rage of answers:

'Why' questions to discover the roots of the problem

'How' questions to discover different routes to significant improvement.. . More

Yin and Yang of Entrepreneurial Creativity

Coaching Questions

Being the core component of the coaching ask/tell repertoire, coaching questions are "to prompt the learners into exploring issues in depth either by direct questions or by implied questions – even a raised eyebrow – so that they become more aware of what is going on and can eventually coach themselves and other. Feedback can then be used to discuss progress and provide guidance, but still by using questions and the main vehicle for progress whenever possible."⁴ ... More

Inspirational Leadership: 10 Roles

Make relentless innovation a religion. Lead innovation, emphasize opportunities, not problems, and encourage innovative behavior. Establishing the culture of innovation requires a broad and sustained effort. Questions are critical to innovation, so start with creating a culture of questioning. Exploration of possibilities, discoveries, innovation, and progress start with challenging assumptions, asking searching “Why?” and “What if?” questions, and plying “What if” scenarios. Encourage your people to challenge assumptions, and run “The Best Question” contests. Reward both individual and collective contributions. Celebrate success.... More

Case in Point 25 Lessons from Jack Welch

To Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of General Electric, business leadership is all about knowing what questions to ask of his subordinates. That's all managing is, says he: just coming up with the right questions and getting the right answers.

To understand the strategic issues within each of GE businesses and to see where these business units were going Welch asked the five questions:

What does your global competitive environment look like?... More

Selecting a New Corporate Leader: 3 Questions to Answer

Lessons from Peter Drucker

Leadership is not rank, it is responsibility. It is the lifting of a subordinate’s vision to higher sights – the raising of a subordinate’s performance to a higher standard. It is the building of a subordinate’s personality beyond its normal limitations. A leader must set strict principles of conduct and responsibility, high standards of performance, and respect for the individual and his work... More

6 Creative Questions To Move From HOW Are You To WHO Are You

By: Scott Ginsberg

There comes a time in every conversation with someone you’ve just met when you must cross the chasm between “HOW are you?” and “WHO are you?” A helpful technique for doing so is by asking creative, open ended questions. These questions function as front porches, inasmuch as their ability to build rapport, spark creativity and invite people to share their experiences and preferences. What’s more, they show an interest in people’s opinions and insights... More

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