If you asked these questons, you’d be making your own biases plain. If someone disagreed strongly, they may raise objectons, but most
people like an easy life. Consequently, open questons can encourage poor decision making at both home and work, which can be
disastrous.
This is even more likely if you have a strong personality, because not many people will be willing to tackle your assumptons and challenge
your thinking.
Let’s look at a beter way to ask those questons:
“What does everyone think we should do with regards to the department’s structure?”
“Where do you think we should spend Thanksgiving this year?”
“When do you think we should put this plan into acton?”
5. Don’t force people to pick between two or three optons. This approach assumes that you have already thought of all the available
optons. There might be viable alternatves, but you will never know if you ask questons in this format. It’s more efectve to simply ask
someone for their suggestons, or open with a broad statement like, “How would you handle this situaton?”[22]
6. Prepare for the unexpected. Never assume that you know in advance what someone is going to say. Give them your full atenton and be
ready with a few phrases you can use if they share some shocking informaton. “Thank you for telling me – I need tme to process that,”
“This is a surprise, can I have a minute to take that on board?” and “I’ll admit this has shocked me a litle, but I’d like to talk about it
further,” can all help smooth over an awkward situaton.
Put It Into Practce
Today, you are going to put the above principles into practce when asking questons. If you have been meaning to get some clarifcaton on
an issue for a while and haven’t goten around to it, now is the perfect tme! These questons don’t have to be of great signifcance.
The objectve is to practce getng the informaton you need and to have a positve conversaton at the same tme. Remember to put your
listening skills to good use whenever the other person provides an answer.
Thanks all for learning communicaton.