BR21: What Questions Are You Asking?

The right questions can profoundly impact the outcomes of our discussions, negotiations, and even self-talk. But how much attention do we pay to how we frame our questions?

I could make this email particularly long but for the sake of the newsletter, I’m going to try and keep it as short and simple as I can. Here goes:

The right questions can...

Help you achieve better outcomes in negotiations.

For example, by asking open-ended instead of closed-ended questions such as:

“How do you propose to meet our interests on the pricing issue?” instead of “Does your company offer a discount for prepayment?”.

The former challenges the other party to consider how to meet your needs. The latter gives them a basic yes/no choice which can instantly end any further discussions on this topic.

You can read more about this example and others from Harvard’s Program on Negotiation.

Empower instead of discourage you

For example, by asking questions that focus your mind on solutions and risk mitigation instead of overwhelming it with negative thoughts:

Instead of asking “What if I fail?”, you can ask: “What’s realistically the worst thing that can happen if I fail? And what can I do to mitigate or limit my risk to acceptable bounds?”

If I’m thinking of starting a new project and ask myself, “What if I fail?”, that’s what my brain will be focusing on. All of the bad things that could happen if I fail. And our minds can be quite creative. We can come up with all kinds of bad scenarios, each less likely to happen than the last.

But if I change my question to something that makes me think more about risk mitigation and/or what can happen if I succeed, that’s a whole other story.

For more on dealing with your fears, this TED talk is excellent.

Help you tackle difficult or ambitious objectives in an efficient/ Agile-inspired approach:

For example, instead of asking “How could I possibly achieve that objective?”, try something more like this:

“What can I do now that brings me closer to my big objective?”

The former can feel quite overwhelming while the latter can feel both comfortable and rewarding.

Win you a new job or project

I once hired someone because the questions he asked me during the interview convinced me that he'd done the kind of work I needed in the past and knew what sort of challenges to watch out for.

I could go on and on. The point is that how we ask questions defines how our brains are going to think about the answers. This applies just as much when we’re asking questions of other people as it does when we are asking questions of ourselves.