Ask Great Questions

I'm a student of the art of asking questions. My experience is that the quality of the questions you ask can make an amazing difference in your professional and personal discussions.

I was thinking about this after meeting with someone for the first time this week. At the beginning of the conversation, he mentioned that he had just attended a professional conference. I asked what were his three biggest takeaways from the conference.

He answered thoughtfully, and the passion for his work became obvious as he shared his observations. Our conversation took a different and more meaningful direction as a result of his response to my question.

When you ask someone a question like this, it demonstrates sincere interest. In many cases, you can bypass some of the small talk that is almost inevitable when becoming acquainted.

In this case, we built rapport faster because of my curiosity in what interests him. It provided me with different ideas on how to follow up. And, as a bonus, I learned something new as well.

One idea is to take a theme and drill down into more questions based on the initial answer. As an example, you might start with, "Which industry trends currently have the most impact on your business?" After the person answers, you ask successive questions, such as these:

• Tell me more about trend X.
• How did this trend first influence your company?
• How does it affect your competitors?

As you can see, one question spawns three others that can elicit some rich comments.

Your questions can lead to great ideas, new connections, and fresh insights. The art of asking great questions is a skill worthy of ongoing practice.

By the way, although this was a business example, this technique works just as well with family or friends (even teenagers, heaven forbid!). Try it, and let me know how it works for you.

Have a great week!