Words Are Rudders – Questions Are Guides
“The quality of your conversations is determined by the quality of your questions.” David Brooks
Questions:
Name a quality and ask how they developed it. You seem like a caring person. Who showed you how to care? What did they do?
Ask about energizing things. What’s the best part of your job? What about that makes you say it’s the best part?
Ask about values. What’s important to you about …? Ask them how that came to be important for them.
Ask about responses. What was that like for you?
Focus:
What do you want people to focus on?
Your questions establish, limit, and maintain the focus of others. When you ask about problems, people focus on what’s wrong. When you ask about getting better, people focus on improvement.
Tip: Ask questions people love to answer.
How do you invite conversations that build healthy relationship?
“The quality of your conversations is determined by the quality of your questions.” David Brooks
As a former public school teacher, this is so true. It wasn’t until my last couple of years that I began to see the importance of open-ended questions. Most students do like to give their opinion…but sadly, it is rarely asked for by most teachers.
Thanks for adding your experience, Travis. It’s easy to neglect curiosity. You have too much to do to slow down and ask open-ended questions. But curiosity helps us go faster in the end AND enjoy it more.
I like to ask:
1. What did you learn from the experience?
2. What would you do differently next time?
3. What is your goal and plan?
4. How do you define the problem?
5. What motivates you to perform at your best?
6. What questions do you have for me?
Thanks, Paul. One of my favorites is “What would you do differently next time?” That question is useful when things go well and when they don’t.
Ask the employee what they think their strengths are and then ask how they think they could better utilize those strengths in their work. There might be new opportunities for that employee that you had not thought of.