68 Improve your Communication Skills Asking quality questions Questions are the most obvious way to enquire into other
people’s thinking. Yet it’s astonishing how rarely managers ask
quality questions.
Questions, of course, can be loaded with assumptions. They
can be politically charged. In some conversations, the most
important questions are never asked because to do so would be to
challenge the centre of authority. To ask a question can
sometimes seem like revealing an unacceptable ignorance. In
some organisations, to ask them is simply ‘not done’.
‘Questioning,’ said Samuel johnson on one occasion, ‘is not the
mode of conversation among gentlemen.’
Benefits:
• can support the speaker without interrupting them;
• demonstrate your interest;
• encourage the speaker to continue;
• show appreciation of particular points: successes, ideas
the speaker finds important;
• indicate recognition of emotion or deep feeling.
Potential problems:
• can be used to direct the course of the conversation: a
subtle form of influence;
• can reinforce the speaker’s behaviour in a particular
direction: they may start to say things in the hope of
receiving the ‘prize’ of a minimal encourager;
• if unsynchronised with other behaviours, may indicate
impatience or a desire to move on;
• can become a ritualised habit, empty of meaning.
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69 The Skills of Enquiry Questions can also be used in ways that don’t promote
enquiry. Specifically, managers sometimes use questions to:
• emphasise the difference between their ideas and other people’s; • ridicule or make the other person look foolish; • criticise in disguise;
