22
2008
What’s in a Question?
As the new year kicked off I was reminded in a newsletter about reviewing and tuning up your skill set. I took this to heart and came across a book that everyone, not just sales people, can benefit. I was even more encouraged when I realized that one of my favorite authors, Jeffrey H. Gitomer, is one of the reviewers of the book. The book is The Seven Powers of Questions by Dorothy Leeds. Now I do not intend for my piece to be a book review and will try hard not to make it such. What made me decide on this topic was what Dorothy brings out about the power and purpose of questions.
We in the training world spend our time building and delivering training to others and to do that requires us to really understand clients objectives both short and long term, obstacles, values, and any other information important to the success of the project. Questions, properly used, are the tools to determine that. They are also the tools by which everyone is able to understand new information, clarify existing information and uncover the right information. Ms. Leeds does a wonderful job of demonstrating the value of good questioning in all that we do in our personal and professional lives. Questions are the most powerful tool discovered right after the written language.
In the world of training we ask lots of questions because that is what we are trained to do. How often do we miss out on things because we either did not ask enough questions, the right questions or no questions at all? Just as important is how often does the student miss out on information because they do not ask a question at all.
What do you get by asking questions? You get information and information is what is most valuable. Training Departments are the first and last line of blame for inefficient employee performance however; how much of that could be attributed to the fact that the employee did not ask questions during the training session to either clarify a point or get additional information thus walking away with ineffective training? I don’t know the stats but I do know that we have developed a product in order to help companies ask better questions in order to get the right information. I doubt this would be necessary if both instructors and students were asking questions. The question is the keystone.
So my question to you is: How are you going to improve your questioning ability?
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