The art of good questions

Good morning, good day. Good evening, wherever you are in the world, this is David Sammel. Again, and I hope you're enjoying my Nuggets. Each week, I just hope to bring you a little something that can bend your mind a little bit and make you possibly think slightly differently about a topic that you haven't considered before. And even if you had, hopefully, it's a good reminder. Today I'm going to talk about the art of great questions. When speaking to people, it's good to ask questions, because you find out more about them. And it's a great way to break the ice in starting any relationship or at work, it's a good way to dissolve, or certainly lessen the impact of conflict, when you ask good questions, rather than defending yourself, or attacking the other person. I'm going to give you some examples here of what I think are good questions that bend the mind. First question that I like is,what do I need to know that you're not telling me? So you want questions that kind of get to the heart of the matter and it's very helpful if you can come up with some interesting questions, rather than bland ones. So another one is:What challenges are coming our way at the moment?How, why, how might we meet them together?What conversation, if began early, could ripple out in a way that creates new possibilities for the future of this company?What has become clear since we last met?Where are you not looking?What is it that you're assuming?What will free you up? That's a good one if somebody is stuck.Where are you being inflexible? Very good in a negotiation to come out with that question. Or what are you willing to change? Again, very good in negotiation.What might you be overlooking?Or what might we be overlooking?Or what do you think I'm overlooking. So if you can just, you know, in your head break out and start to think of good questions that you need to ask. And after you've had some discussions with people, and you've asked questions, look back and say, was there a better question I could have could have asked, because in the moment, I know, it's very, very difficult. But with practice, you can get very good at asking the right questions, incisive questions that really move things forward. So going forward, I hope this helps. Just consider that questions are great way of making the other person think and also gives you a greater understanding of what they're thinking, rather than assuming what they're thinking. Take care, and I will be speaking to you again next week. Thank you very much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices