Ask… differently!

We love our children. The pandemic has made our oldest daughter could not come home to have her birthday with us for two consecutive years. This year, we want to celebrate her birthday together, so we asked her to help us to plan for that trip. That conversation took place in September, and after six weeks with many conversations between my wife and her, nothing is done yet. She gave us so many excuses and potential issues that slow the process down. Losing patience, I decided to involve to the next conversation.

It was a beautiful Sunday and we just got back home from church. Our daughter called and wished us a good Sunday (we always thankful for her doing that). So, I took charge and asked her about her school and upcoming plan as usual. Then I moved back to ask about her trip. Here came again with excuses and reasons why things were yet concluded. I bombarded her with questions, and they would sound as good ones when listening at first. Who did you talk to? What did you ask? How did they respond? What are next steps? Those kinds of questions. But what did I receive from her? Same old answers she has been giving in the past six weeks. In frustration, I asked myself this question: “What am I missing here?”. My wife was ready to help to take over the conversation. Then I remember a very good one introduced in the book “The coaching habit” by ??Michael Bungay Stanier . What is it in your mind? I asked. That question changed the outcome for good. In a few days, we sorted out her trip home this Christmas. As her mentor and coach, I have learned a valuable lesson for me again in asking the right kind of questions.

That week, I gave a lot of thought about that incident. I realized the importance of asking questions long ago. I have been reading many books to help myself getting better at doing that. I have been interviewed many great people around the world. And I always thought I was good at asking questions. But in this case, it clearly shows me the other way around. I was lucky to change to the right question and it worked otherwise neither of us would end the conversation with good feeling. At that moment, I remembered my interview Carlo Mahfouz , a tech-guy in deep passion to bringing forward the power of leveraging capabilities and teams to accelerate the adoption and deployment of innovative technologies in the healthcare ed-tech space. He is the author of the book “Reality Check, In Pursuit of the Right Questions”. There I was, I forgot to have my reality checked and that’s where I did not come up with the right kind of questions, the ones that give real results. For us to ask good questions, we must have good preparation. If we let our assumptions leading the way and jumping to ask so quick, we might miss small but critical points here and there that will prevent good outcomes.

I was first introduced about the concept of ten-year plan by Mrs. Truc Huynh who is the current Vice President, Country Head of People at Coca-Cola Vietnam when I interviewed her early 2022 in our #InsightsSharing show. It was new and my head was like: “Cool but how do we think ten years in advance though?”. Fast forward, early September 2022, I invited a gentleman by the name David Dressler to our show. You know what? He wrote a book about ten-year plan and the title is “Ten Year Plan: How the Founders of Tender Greens Scaled Their Heart-Centered Brand”. This book follows the journey of three young chef entrepreneurs who opened a radically fresh, disruptive restaurant concept in the heart of Los Angeles. Defying the worst economic downturn in a generation and the already long odds stacked against everyone in the food business, they built and scaled Tender Greens from inception to 30 restaurants and $100 million in revenue, winning multiple awards and recognitions. “How did this amazing journey start?”, you may ask. It all happened because these people asked questions differently on an informal performance review. David Dressler told me in the interview that the whole intention was to complete the performance review task and Erik, one of the founders of Tender Greens later on, asked him: “Can we talk about something else and keep it off the record?” That conversation after that changed everything for good.

Here is the old and still an effective catch: if you want something, ask for it. My recommendation is to ask differently. If you think you are good at asking questions, you might be wrong already. There are so many ways we can look at each situation and the more we open ourselves to that, the better questions we can generate. Here are some tips to help you:

• Get your reality checked: Make sure you do your homework well before you ask questions.
• Give no room for assumption: Assumptions alter our thinking which impacts the questions that we would ask. ?
• Pay attention to feelings: A conversation gets better when people in it feel good. In that space, you will have better chances to ask better questions and ask them differently.
• Be weird: There is nothing new under the sun. If you want to have different outcomes, sometimes asking weird questions can lead to a whole new path.
• Practice, practice, and practice more: Just like many other skills, you get better at asking questions differently by asking questions differently.
• Evaluate your questions: Ask yourself how well you are in asking questions? Then, ask for feedbacks.

The next time you ask someone a question, try something new would you?