Improve Your Communication Skills, 2nd Edition

medieval castle, a mission to Mars, a kindergarten – 
how would I deal with it? 
• How would a different kind of person manage the issue: 
a gardener, a politician, an engineer, a hairdresser, an 
actor? 
• What does this situation feel like? 
• If this problem were an animal, what species of animal 
would it be? 
• How could I describe what’s going on as if it were in the 
human body? 
Explore your answers to these questions and develop the images 
that spring to mind. You need to be in a calm, receptive frame of 
mind to do this: the conversation needs to slow down and reflect 
on its own progress. Finding metaphors is very much first-stage 
thinking, because metaphors are tools to help you see reality in 
new ways. 
You will know when you’ve hit on a productive metaphor. 
The conversation will suddenly catch fire (that’s a metaphor!). 
You will feel a sudden injection of energy and excitement as you 
realise that you are thinking in a completely new way. 
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.

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The skills of enquiry are the skills of listening. And the quality of 
your conversation depends on the quality of your listening. 
Only by enquiring into the other person’s ideas can you 
respond honestly and fully to them. Only by discovering the 
mental models and beliefs that underlie those ideas can you 
explore the landscape of their thinking. Only by finding out how 
they think can you begin to persuade them to your way of 
thinking. 
Skilled enquiry actually helps the other person to think 
better. Listening – real, deep, attentive listening – can liberate 
their thinking. 
I’ve summarised the skills of enquiry under seven headings: