mackay090709
On the homepage
Petters
Out There
Burning
Cameron Coffee
Harvey Mackay: Just any old query isn't enough
Print this story
E-mail this story
Save to del.icio.us
Share on Facebook
Share on Digg
Minnesota business by the numbers
See Minnesota's top earning companies, CEOs and non-profits
More from Harvey Mackay
- Harvey Mackay: All of us can learn from a special group of athletes
- A little corporate genealogy can help to fill in the big picture
- Harvey Mackay: Probing questions deserve smart, savvy answers
- Harvey Mackay: Strategies help make innovation an ongoing process, not an event
- Harvey Mackay: To grab your audience, make your pitch personal
When I was a kid, one of my favorite games was "20 Questions."
Is it animal, vegetable or mineral? Living or not? Famous? Male or female? And so on, until you guessed the correct answer or exhausted your 20 questions. Answers only could be yes or no, so the better the question, the better the chance of getting the answer.
Alan Freitas, president of Priority Management, challenged me with this question: What kind of questioner are you? Asking questions will get you information, but asking the right kind of questions will get you better information sooner and will help establish rapport and trust.
Freitas doesn't like the "20 Questions" method. He counsels by asking open-ended questions. They invite the other person to participate and get involved, increasing the likelihood of securing a commitment. And the answers provide information you must have if you are to get the other person to do what you want.
Because open-ended questions require more than a yes-or-no answer, they create a conversational tone and avoid sounding like you're conducting an interrogation.
I recommend an approach that any journalism student learns the first day of class: the who/what/when/where/why/how approach. Those questions work for any project and can't be answered with a simple yes or no. It's a perfect checklist to cover all the bases: the purpose, goals, details, timelines and staffing.
The "why" questions are the first that need to be answered: "Why are we doing this?" "Why didn't we do this before?" "Why should we change something that is working so well?"
My favorite business conversation starters begin with "how" and "what": "How do you recommend we proceed?" "What will be our biggest advantages as we work on this project?" "What is the worst thing that can happen, and how can we best handle it?" "What is our best possible outcome?"
I also like "when" questions: "When do we review our progress?" "When do we roll out our plans to our customers?" "When do we need to involve more people on the team?"
The "who" and "where" details will follow; they deserve complete answers as well. "Who will coordinate?" "Where will we see the most improvement?" "Who will be involved?" "Where do we go from here?"
Each project will present its own set of questions, and the time to start asking them is before work begins.
And please, dear manager, adopt the attitude that there really are no stupid questions. I can't tell you how many times a seemingly innocent question has led to a whole set of possibilities, which sometimes have changed the scope and direction of our work.
Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz said: "You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions."
Mackay's Moral: The person who asks may feel like a fool for 5 minutes, but the person who does not ask remains a fool forever.
Recent Business stories
Atwood Oceanics reports tumbling 4th-qtr profits, sales - September 6, 2009
Atwood Oceanics reports tumbling 4th-qtr profits, sales - Offshore drilling contractor Atwood Oceanics Inc. reported its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings fell 35 percent drop as its revenue tumbled and companies in its industry faced weak energy markets. More
- 2 charged with running $190M Ponzi scheme
- No verdict; Petters jury to resume deliberations Monday
- China executes 2 for role in tainted milk scandal
- Minnesota's banks are bruised, but they're healing
- Holiday gift: Amazon-Wal-Mart price war
- Fed: super-low rates could fuel speculative bubble
- 'Good Morning America' cancels Lambert
Blog: Patent Pending
Lights out at U energy conference. Irony police notified.
Just as Lawrence Kazmerski, a top official at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was about to give the keynote address at the University of Minnesota's annual E3 conference at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, the lights went out, bathing the audience in darkness and a deep sense of irony.
Comment on this story | Be the first to comment | Hide reader comments