[MUSIC] Last year I set myself a goal, not to tell any white lies. I'm not saying that this year I am telling white lies, I was just interested in what answers we give people when they ask us questions. What I noticed is that it's rare to hear the whole truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth. Most people only partially answer any question that they are asked. Is it because they are bad people? Is it because they want to lie? Is it because they are not honest? Usually no, it's not, it comes down to the fear of not being good enough. In order to be seen as good enough by our peers, colleagues, clients, and superiors, we often tell part of the truth. This we hope will stop us from being rejected. Apart from changing the culture in every organization so that people can feel safe to tell the truth all the time, how do we find out the real answer to our questions? First of all, it's important to look at the different answers you'll receive when you ask a question. Our greatest hope is that when we ask a question, we'll receive a direct, honest answer. However, this is very rare. Usually, we'll get one of the following, an outright lie, avoiding the answer, out of context, partially answering, a distortion, generalization, stalling and point blank refusal. Again, all of us do this. Neurologically we have to this as we cannot objectively report the facts of any situation. It is always seen through our own filters. Remember your RAS, your Reticular Activating System, it only processes 2,000 things per moment instead of 20 million. We then have to choose which part of that experience we're going to tell the other person. So we often delete or distort, or generalize our answers. [MUSIC] How should you ask a question to get the real answer, or the answer you need? First of all, you should expect the truth. I know that sounds contrary to what I've just said. But if you walk around being suspicious of everyone, you won't achieve anything at all. However, you can also expect that that truth is a version of the truth. So if you really want to be influential, you really need to find out what's really going on. [LAUGH] Here are the types of questions you can ask. I'll also give you some specific examples of excellent questions that work in all scenarios. You've already heard of open questions and closed questions. Yes, closed questions are when you ask a question that requires a yes or no response. Quite simply you may ask do you want to go ahead with this project or not? A closed question is a very effective way of getting a quick answer. It works in specific scenarios where a yes or no doesn't matter, what matters is having an answer. Then you have the open questions. You'd use an open question when you want to find out what is important to that person, what they value. Earlier we agreed that people make decisions based upon their values. So the more you can find out about what they value, the easier it will be to make a suggestion or a proposal that fits within their values. And when you do that, they cannot refuse. Here are five open questions which you can use to find out what they value. The first is a leading or a loaded question. This is where you want to influence the response in some way. You are loving this new role, aren't you? You don't need help, do you? You find the new CEO difficult, don't you? As you can see in each of these questions, the response is already assumed. Yes, you do love this new role. No, you don't need help. And yes, you do find the new CEO difficult. These questions can be seen as manipulative. If you are asking a leading or a loaded question, make sure you have rapport with the person. Recall questions. This is where you're asking the person to recall something from the past. For example, if you're selling a service to someone, you might ask them to recall what their last experience of this service was. What was your experience with your last IT provider? What did you like about your past role? Or how did you find working in a boutique firm? Any question which asks you to recall something in the past, is a recall question. Process question. As the name suggests, these questions are asking you to recount how you do something. When you have an issue at work, how do you resolve it? When you're putting together a pitch, what is the process you follow? When you're innovating in a certain area, what do you do first?. These are great ways of finding out what the process is at that point in time. Funnelling questions. These questions are looking for more and more detailed data or information. What department were you working in before this one? What role were you doing? What part of that role did you enjoy? Out of those things that you enjoyed, what is your greatest strength? You can see from this that you are getting more and more specific with each question. Finally, repetition questions. This is when you ask the same question over and over. You may have heard of the five whys. Your team members says they have issue with the new organizational structure, why? Because it's difficult to get the work done. Why? Because now I've taken on two people's roles. Why? Because I haven't had time to sit down and look at it. why? Because I've been consumed with my major account. When asking why so many times, we've got down to this specific issue which is that they are consumed with the major account and need help with that major account. [MUSIC] Now, for the advance questions, here are three of my favorites. The first one is, how is that a problem? Often when someone tells us there's a problem, we assume we know what the problem is without asking for enough detail. If you assume what the problem is, you may be finding a solution to a problem that is not really the problem. Say for example someone tells you that the network is down for your team. Ask, how is that a problem? Because we have a major pitch to do tomorrow afternoon. How is that a problem? We need to get the design braced on for the pitch. Now you have a very specific task or problem to solve, to get help for the design briefs. Next, for what purpose? What is your intention? This is when people have got too specific about what they're doing, and you need them to see the overall outcome or goal. If you're absorbed in the details, your options become very limited. When you look at the overall picture, there may be many different ways to achieve that goal. Two people for example may be arguing over which supplier to go with. For what purpose? For what purpose are we selecting the manufacturers? To get the best quality product out to the market as quickly as possible. For what purpose? So that we can sell our product and make a profit. For what purpose? So that we can rival our competition. For what purpose? To be number one in the market. Okay, so if you want to be number one in the market, does it matter how we get there? Does it matter which supplier we go with? Do we have to go with the local supplier? What do we need to do in order to be number one in the market? That is the real question. That question helps you discover the big picture and the overall goal that you're going for. And finally, what specifically? If you have the big picture and you want to get more specific or get to more detail, you simply ask what specifically. What specifically do we need to do? What specifically needs to happen right now? Who specifically needs to do that? These three questions structures are phenomenal. One more, okay. You can always follow the 5W 1H rule who, what, when, where, why and how structure. This is great for deciding who's going to do what by when, and how they'll do it. Remember to always have rapport when questioning anyone on anything. You can do that easily by repeating their words and phrases back to them. And no more white lies, you don't need them. [MUSIC]
