Making the Connection: Strategies to Build Effective Personal Relationships (Collection) by Jonathan Herring & Sandy Allgeier & Richard Templar & Samuel Barondes

Author:Jonathan Herring & Sandy Allgeier & Richard Templar & Samuel Barondes [Herring, Jonathan & Allgeier, Sandy & Templar, Richard & Barondes, Samuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Self-Help, General, Business & Economics, Psychology
ISBN: 9780133346138
Google: 854bBQc0F6cC
Publisher: FT Press
Published: 2012-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

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How Good Are Your Questioning Skills?

While I was traveling around the world on a business assignment that I discuss later in this chapter, I noticed that many managers asked similar questions and got amazingly different results. The way questions were asked appeared to be as important as the question itself. I looked around for a book to serve as a good training guide for myself on how to ask questions. The resources I found fell into two categories: professional training guides (such as for lawyers, teachers, and market researchers) and self-help books designed to enable the individual to get ahead (such as with interviewing skills, or improving a person’s thinking processes). These are all excellent resources. A number of them are referenced later. However, my goal was to find a basic skills book. I was unable to find one that met my criteria.

When I started studying questions, I started with the assumption that I knew nothing about them. So, I built this book as a personal reference because I was unable to find what I needed.

After I embraced my own ignorance about questioning, I started to see questions in a new light. I found that even experienced, successful managers run into problems with their questions on occasion. They fall into traps such as habit questioning, posturing, or putting answers in their questions. Other managers, particularly new ones, commit a number of errors, such as asking prejudicial questions or leveling complex questions about interesting but unimportant or even unrelated details. Fixing these mistakes early in a person’s career can lead to better personal performance over time. Fixing them among all managers can often lead to improved business performance.