How to inspire your team to ask the right questions?

Life is full of questions. Questions, for some of which we are able to find answers, and for some we are simply unable to.

You want to know when is the next flight to Paris. But you are asking at airport’s help desk about all the flights going to France. In such a case, you cannot expect to get the correct answer. Can you?

Maybe this is the reason in life sometimes we are unable to find answers as we are asking the wrong questions.

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That’s why they say asking question is not important. It’s important to ask the right question.

And just like everything else you can make it a habit to ask the right questions by practice. How can you do that? Here are some tips that might help -

Understand the problem first

You cannot use a key to unlock the door as long as you know the right lock where it fits in. same is the case with solution. You can never reach to a solution unless you understand the problem first.

To ask the right question, you must first ask yourself whether the problem is clear to you or not? That’s what they call as probing in tele-calling industry. The tele-callers are trained on how to ask the right questions i.e. how to probe. And, the first step in doing that is to rephrase the problem told by the caller. And, then begin with the probing.

Probing narrows down all the possible wrong directions in which you might head before getting to the real problem. This can save you from not just hassle, but a lot of time wastage as well.

Put yourself in other person’s shoes

I’m a big fan of the movie series Pirates of Caribbean. And an even bigger fan of Captain Jack Sparrow. Whenever someone asks me how am I able to handle problems at office so well I refer them to this quote by Jack Sparrow in the movie - ‘The problem is not the problem, it’s your attitude about the problem.’

Half of the problems get solved in an automatic manner, if we put our self in the other person’s shoes. Just because you are the the manager doesn’t mean you can boss around people and ask questions. If you do, trust me it won’t be long when you will be at the receiving end of those questions.

Before scolding someone for a mistake or delay, try to understand the whole point of view. Rather than blasting off go for a gentle alternative like ‘Is everything fine? Why did you make the mistake?’

Become an active listener

One big reason why we are not able to understand the problem is because we don’t listen actively. Communication is a part that involves two actions - speaking and listening. But, majority of the people have a preconceived notion about things. The added pressure of getting things done quickly does not help either. As a result of this, we don’t listen and respond. We just talk.

This leaves the person at the receiving end of your question flabbergasted. And that’s not a good sign. This only shows your lack of interest in that person’s point of view. It reflects that you are not paying heed to what he/she has to say. This can lead to situation of misunderstanding and personal disapproval within the team.

Before you start questioning your team members, be sure to listen what they have to say first.

When in trouble, asking wrong questions may land you deep in trouble. If you inculcate the habit of asking the right ones, you can avoid getting stuck in troubles in the first place.

Try out these three simple steps and be sure to see a positive change in your life!

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Vartika Kashyap runs the marketing team at ProofHub — a project management software for teams of all sizes. She is a seasoned marketing professional who is an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. She’s been featured among LinkedIn’s Top Voices for the year 2016. Connect with Vartika on LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter.

Also follow our company page @ProofHub to get the recent updates about our tool, published articles, motivational quotes & presentations.

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