Many people go through life making demands, stating their point of view, expecting others to agree with them… then wonder why they find it tough holding on to relationships, why they get overlooked for promotion and why they find it hard keeping clients. If this applies to you, then spend a week asking questions, as your initial tactic when communicating with others and see what a difference it makes!

In writing this post, I’m making 3 key assumptions about the reason for asking questions:

• Questions should be genuine, ie where the answer is unknown or needs bringing out into the open
• The motivation for asking questions is a genuine desire to know
• The intention of questions is positive ie not to show how clever one is, nor to dominate or intimidate or to prove the questioner right.

Typically, when things go wrong, managers, leaders, parents, lovers, all ask questions that place them in the role of ‘critic’, questions that focus on the problem such as:

• Whose fault is it?
• What’s wrong with me?
• What’s wrong with them?
• Why does it always happen to me?
• Why can’t I ever win?
• Why are people always so stupid?
• What’s the point?
• How can I prove I’m right?
• How am I going to mess this up?

If they really want to learn from the situation, and focus on solutions rather than problems, they might like to think about ‘discovery’ questions such as:

Inward focus
• What do I need to ask in order to understand?
• What do I want from this situation?
• What are my choices?
• What am I responsible for?
• What assumptions am I making?
• How else can I think about this?
• What am I missing or avoiding?
• What can I learn from this?

Outward focus
• What is the other person thinking, feeling, needing and wanting?
• Am I genuinely listening?
• What are their options?
• What assumptions are they making?
• What are they responsible for?
• How can I allow them to contribute?
• How can I contribute to them?
• What action step(s) make most sense?
• How can I ensure a win:win?
• What is possible?
• What would happen if we were to ……. ?

If you want to empower other people, if you want to create understanding rather than fear, I try experimenting with ‘discovery’ questions. Ask yourself the ABCD –

• Am I in Critic Mode?
• Breathe – take a step back, pause, take a deep breath and reflect
• Choices – what choices are available to me/us?
• Do I have all of the facts? What’s going on here?