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How to ask good questions
Knowing Why You Communicate
If you are distracted during a conversation or are asking ‘filler’ questions, the other person will lose interest.
Be genuinely interested and frame questions that help gather maximum facts and opinions about your interlocutor.
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The Little Known Skill Of Conversations
Asking good, effective questions is a powerful but little known tool to get the most helpful information, facilitate learning and improve interpersonal bonding.
In many cases, asking the right questions depends on complex dynamics and type of interaction, but there are some general guidelines that can commonly be applied to the conversation.
Knowing Why You Communicate
If you are distracted during a conversation or are asking ‘filler’ questions, the other person will lose interest.
Be genuinely interested and frame questions that help gather maximum facts and opinions about your interlocutor.
Number 1 Communication Rule: Listen First
Being a good listener is timeless advice, and it has been eighty years since Dale Carnegie mentioned being a good listener in his classic ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’.
The advice is still rock solid, telling us to listen with intent while asking interesting questions that the other person would love to answer.
Interrupting With Care
We often interrupt an ongoing conversation and say what comes in our mind, and have to be mindful of that.
Statements can also be detrimental to our purpose of building a relationship. It is better to end the sentence with a question and let the other person speak.
Choosing The Right Words
Works are like keys that can lock or unlock minds. Use a neutral tone combined with the right words, avoiding conflicting or loaded ones.
It is also a good idea to keep the questions open-ended. Closed-ended questions often sound loaded or biased to the interlocutor.
Build On The Information
Random questions should be avoided, and a hierarchy should be built that follows general questions with specific ones while asking only one thing at a time.
It helps to use the new information that you get from an answer to frame your next question, creating a natural flow.
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How to ask better questions
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Stressful Conversations
Human beings love to gossip, chatter and jest, but some conversations can be stressful, confusing, and even embarrassing. To avoid conflicts and the avoidable pain it can bring, we tend to dodge a ...
The Three Basic Stress-Inducing Conversations
- While giving bad news to others, like giving feedback or firing someone, one can find it difficult to strike the right note.
- When a small sentence or even a word can be taken as a negative provocation and trigger an adverse reaction. Suddenly the conversation becomes intensely charged emotionally.
- A conversation where one resorts to profanity, manipulation, shouting to thwart the other person.
Preparing For A Stressful Conversation
- Be fully aware of one’s own vulnerabilities and shortcomings.
- Anticipate any specific problem that may occur, and try to rehearse it if possible.
- Understand that words are key that can make or break your conversation, and try to fine-tune and neutralize your phrasing.
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Be Direct
During a difficult conversation, be quick and direct. This is not the time for feedback techniques, as they will mask the point of the conversation and lessen its impact making it more difficult.
Often, the person knows that a critique is coming, so rather than dancing around the subject, just get to it. It’s better for both parts.
Be Specific
Be honest and thorough with your feedback, give examples and fully clarify why you're having the conversation.
The more clarity you can provide, the better the critique will be received.
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"It's important to make the individual you are speaking with feel heard and understood. If you're not engaged in t..."
Julie Holmes - life coach
Technology And Conversations
Your environment affects your personal relationships. Technologies like social media are making conversations harder and less engaging. But getting rid of it isn't necessarily the cure-all for most of our social interactions.
If you have you've been feeling disconnected you can develop your conversational skills if you persist.
Become An Active Listener
Be engaged and listen to what they are saying. Show interest, ask questions and clarifications. This shows others that you care about what they are saying, and about them in the bigger picture.
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The Components Of Our Emotions
Emotions are useful tools while taking a decision, when utilized in the right way. The three components of our emotional experience are:
- Physiological: our bodily ch...
Emotions And Our Survival Mechanism
Emotions are not a disposable or unnecessary response, but are signals, giving us vital clues about the state of our mind and body, akin to pain. It is a neglected part of our survival mechanism.
Our natural reaction is to suppress our emotions, but it is increasingly apparent that repression of our emotions, especially the stronger kind, is psychologically and physically harmful to us.
Emotions In The Office
Showing emotion using empathetic and active listening is part of emotional intelligence and is greatly valued as a managerial skill set.
Studies show that empathic leaders enjoy more success and goodwill. Interpersonal communication is greatly enhanced when one is able to read someone's emotions and control one’s emotional reactions.
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