Last week we checked out why you would ask questions to kick butt. This week we’ll examine how you might go about this.

Remember the old acronym KISS? Most people say it means, “Keep it simple, stupid.” Well, I prefer “Keep it short and simple”.

Short and simple, there are two main types of questions. What are they?

Right – open and closed.

A closed question can be answered by using a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or by providing a simple piece of information. Examples:

Question: “Are you going to the kitchen?”  Answer: “No”
Question: “What’s your name?”  Answer: “James”

An open question gives the person answering it much more opportunity to provide information they feel is relevant. It can, to some extent, force a person to provide more information then they would have otherwise. Examples:

Question : “What’s the book you are reading about?
Question: “What did you do on your holiday last week?

There’s a bit of a common theme to open questions with which you’re no doubt already familiar. Mostly the first word begins with ‘w’. ‘What’, ‘why’, and ‘where’. The other word is ‘how’.

In addition, a statement starting with, “Tell me about….” can also be used in place of an open-ended question. Examples:

Statement: “Tell me about the book that you’re reading.”
Statement: “Tell me about your holiday last week.”

Last week I suggested there were a number of beneficial reasons why you would kick butt by asking questions. The key to achieving those sorts of benefits is to get the other person talking. To get the words out of their mouth.

I’ve discovered that if your coaching (or corrective feedback) conversation seems just like a two-way conversation, it is likely to be productive. If it seems more like a one-way monologue, with you doing all the talking, you’re not likely to get the level of buy-in and commitment to change for which you’re hoping.

So what type of questioning is likely to be the most productive way of getting the person whose behaviour you are correcting to talk? Open or closed? Exactly, open questions create much more space, opportunity and incentive for people to talk.

But what do most frontline managers do when they are seeking behaviour change from a team member? They kick butt and take names. They tell people what to do and ask closed questions. As a result they get the opposite of what they are seeking – low motivation, no buy-in and little improvement.

Next time you need to kick butt, do yourself a favour. Ask open ended questions and get your team member talking. See where it leads.

Next week you’ll discover the final secret to using questions to get behaviour change from your team members. And you’ll get examples of the sorts of open questions you can ask.

Image by Lenzstudios
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lentzstudios/ / CC BY-ND 2.0