The One Conversational Tool That Will Make You Better At Absolutely Everything

How can you glean more value from your meetings?  What about being able to utilize coaches, mentors, and peers to maximize their value to you?  Headlines such as these grabbed my attention in this Fast Company piece.

According to writer Shane Snow, most people are terrible at asking questions. His article provides insights that may be able to move your career, business, or organization forward.

• Good questions can move your business, organization, or career forward. They squeeze incremental value from interactions, the drops of which add up to reservoirs of insight. Of all the skills innovators can learn from journalists, the art of the expert Q&A is the most useful.
• We talk too much and accept bad answers (or worse, no answers). We’re too embarrassed to be direct, or we’re afraid of revealing our ignorance, so we throw softballs, hedge, and miss out on opportunities to grow.

Here are some additional bullets that Snow points out.  See full article here for details

• Don’t Ask Multiple-Choice Questions
• Don’t Fish
• Interject With Questions When Necessary
• Field Non-Answers By Reframing Questions Later
• Repeat Answers Back For Clarification Or More Detail
• Don’t Be Embarrassed