Episode 152 - Getting to the Bottom of Things

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To get to the bottom of things, it’s smart to ask probing questions.

Yesterday I lead a communication skills seminar for the engineering department of a Fortune 500 corporation. To solve challenges, they have to get to the root causes of why something does or doesn’t work. To demonstrate asking probing questions, I asked them to each write the answer to this question: “What’s the real reason you became an engineer?” When I asked for a volunteer to share with us the real reason, Jim said, “Because I like to build and control the outcome of things.” That’s a good answer and most people would be satisfied to stop right there. But I wanted to go deeper. I asked, “What do you mean you like to build and control?” Jim answered, “I like to determine how things happen.” “Why?” I asked. “Because,” he said, “it probably goes back to a time when I was controlled.” “How’s that?” I asked. He laughed, “Oh, I was raised by a very controlling person.” “What do you mean?” “I was VERY controlled,” he said as he both rolled his eyes and shook his head. Since this was getting personal I stopped right there. But if this was a business situation we were trying to get to the bottom of, such as, “Why didn’t your department reach its production goals last month?” I’d continue asking more thought provoking questions.

By asking probing questions, you are leading the person answering to go deeper. They might not even realize why they are answering the way they are. Your probing questions can help clarify the situation for both you and them. Don’t be surprised if the person answering says, “Gee, I never thought of that before,” in response to his own answer.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Episode 152 - Getting to the Bottom of Things

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