↗️ Replace WHAT with WHY
“WHY did you do that?!”
The person ASKING this wants to know a reason.
The person RECEIVING it hears mostly blame.
‘Why’ questions have judgment built in.
Try to ask ‘why’ in a neutral way. It’s really hard!
Instead, we can ask the same thing using ‘how’ and ‘what’ with a neutral tone.
Below are some examples.
Please emphasise the capitalised words in your head 🙂
From
“WHY did YOU do that?!”
to
“What contributed to this outcome?”
From
“WHY did YOU break it?!”
to
“What caused this to break?” or “How did this break?”
From
“WHY do YOU want to do it this way?!”
to
“What makes this work in your opinion?”
You signal that you are after someTHING, not someONE.
We all have the power to take some unnecessary edge off our daily language!
Good luck!
Maik Frank
Maik is a PCC Executive Coach and the founder of IntelliCoach.com. He has coached and trained over 400 People Leaders to improve their communication skills and offers guaranteed measurable growth to his clients. He also hosts the Coaching Leader Podcast.
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