🎙️ EP 11 : 3 questions – 3 surprising impacts

Episode Show Notes

Today’s episode focuses on some of the very basics. It has in fact greatly influenced the way how I personally ask questions.

Imagine this scenario: You had a discussion with your team members. You shared something, and now at the end of the discussion, you want to understand the degree of usefulness of what you shared.

How would you ask?

1. Was it useful

This is a closed question. Usually leads to a clean YES by those who don’t want to talk much. Trust also has an influence here in how much a person might take this closed question as an invitation to engage or not.

2. How useful was it?

Seemingly an open question, its impact is that of a closed question. Most people won’t talk much based on this question and reply a simple ‘Good’. Especially with low trust and/or high power distance, this type of question will not yield a lot.

3. What was useful? What was the one thing that was the most useful?

Small change, big impact. Very often, questions starting with ‘What’ are the most powerful. They are on fact level non-judgmental and content-driven.

We explore the different aspects of these three different question types in the episode and understand their impact.

Listen in for more detail!