What is your opinion of asking questions?
Does it make you nervous? Shy? Excited?
For many of my clients, this completely stresses them out, especially if they need to ask questions in English, which is generally the language they need to speak in at work during meetings, presentations, negotiations, etc.
Asking questions can feel daunting because doing so forces you to be vulnerable by showing there’s something you do not yet know. This causes some managers to feel afraid of asking questions because they don’t want to “look dumb” or “sound unintelligent”.
For other managers, they don’t ask questions during important business conversations simply because they aren’t sure what to ask or where to start, so just listening or saying nothing is the easier option.
Indeed, asking great questions is an art that takes practice to master, but it’s an art that can be mastered – And I’d say you’re sabotaging your chances of success in any business conversation when you don’t ask questions.
Asking solid questions creates the opportunity to gather strategic information, show that you know what you’re talking about, display your professionalism, judge the other party’s true motives, and even see if they say anything inconsistent. You leave so much on the table any time that you don’t ask questions.
So, how exactly can you ask more effective questions? Here are 3 simple steps:
1) Be genuinely curious to LEARN:
Don’t ask questions just for the sake of asking questions – That comes across as weird, insincere, and will give people an odd feeling about you. Be GENUINELY interested to learn something new about the person you’re speaking with each time you talk with them.
If you discover that your counterpart is working on multiple projects, ask them about what kinds of projects they are and what motivated them to get involved.
If you’re at a networking event, ask your fellow networkers what brought them to the event, what industry/company they work at, and where they plan to continue working and living next.
If you end up having lunch or a coffee with your boss, don’t just ask right away about getting a raise, ask them how THEIR work is going! Ask your boss what projects they’re working on, which ones are higher priority, and the end goals of these projects.
If you’re genuine and sincere when you communicate, you make it easier for other people to lower their defenses, open up more, and sometimes, share some very valuable information.
2) Ask open-ended questions often:
Open-ended questions are questions that leave room for more discussion: What? When? Where? Why? Who? How?
Closed-ended questions are questions that usually have a quick, straightforward answer: Yes/no questions.
While there’s a time and place for closed-ended questions, I constantly encourage my clients to use more open-ended questions during any business conversation:
What brought you to this event? How did you meet (person name)? What got you interested in the technology industry? Who do you know at company ABC? I’m very curious, why did you choose to develop your career here instead of back home?
These types of questions make it much easier to move a conversation forward in a very natural way without forcing awkward questions, weird answers, and unnecessary discomfort, while still building a stronger connection.
3) Ask follow-up questions to dig deeper:
Another common mistake many of my clients make is ending the conversation after the first question is answered: “Oh okay, that’s nice.”
The issue is that if that’s how you respond to every response given to you, you’re going to make many people feel like you weren’t really listening, that you weren’t really interested, or that your mind was simply somewhere else!
If you’re trying to become a better communicator and are trying to create career and business opportunities out of your discussions, you need to build connections out of your conversations, not just force answers out of somebody.
Follow-up questions are a great way to do this. For example:
If someone just answered your question about why they came to the same networking event as you: That’s a neat reason! I came to connect with fellow industry professionals. So how long have you been in this industry for?
If someone just answered your question about why they chose to work at company ABC instead of XYZ: That’s interesting. What do you think are some key skills/things you learned at each of these companies?
If someone just answered your question about why they chose a certain industry: I see, thanks for sharing. So how do you think AI is going to affect this industry in the next 5-10 years?
Asking follow-up questions are a powerful way to take conversations to the next level, dig deeper, and build connections that can turn into business opportunities (and sometimes, even friendships!).
There you go. These are 3 key areas to keep working on if you want to become better at asking questions during business conversations.
It doesn’t matter if you’re more introverted or extroverted (I’m quite introverted myself, but I don’t let this stop me from having great conversations with great people), the art of asking great questions is a skill anyone can master with enough practice and reps.
I know very extroverted people who are terrible at asking good questions and connecting with people (they often instead only talk about themselves), and I know very introverted people who have built successful businesses simply by building solid relationships one person at at time.
After reading this article, take some time to reflect about how you can keep developing the 3 areas we discussed today, practice one of those areas this week, and take some notes to observe your progress.
You can do this! That’s all for this week.
Carlos