The One Easy Shift that Will Improve Every Relationship at Home and Work

Let me describe a common situation. You’re home sitting down for a family dinner, and you want to start the conversation. You ask something like “how was your day?”

You get a short, one-word answer like “fine…”

In your mind, you feel a little disappointed. You think “here I am opening up and showing interest because I love this person, and they are shutting me down!”

I may be over-dramatizing the inner thought, but you’ve experienced something like it. The one-word answers come from people who care about you; they are your spouse/partner, they are your children, they are your teammates at work. So why does this happen?

How are you doing? …good

How was your day? …fine

How was school? …fine

What did you learn today? …nothing

How was your weekend? …great

Where are you going? …nowhere

Here’s a term that is probably new to you. It’s called the “Neutral Question.” “Neutral Question” is a term I’ve coopted from research and data collection. The original definition means to ask a question that doesn’t direct or bias the answer. But I’ve used the term with coaching clients in a very different way: to encompass the very open-ended questions that we ask as our default icebreaker. We think these questions open a universe of intimate possibilities. Our intent may be to get intimacy, authenticity, stories from the day, and a general update about the person for whom you care.

?What we don’t realize, is we have been conditioned our entire lives to respond to neutral questions in a certain way: with neutral answers. You see, we get neutral questions everywhere we go.

• ?You walk into a store: “Can I help you?” you’re asked.

“No thanks” or with the added “just looking.”

• You walk by someone in a hallway: “How’s it going?” “How you doin’?” or “what’s up?”

The response is a word or two: “pretty good” “fine thanks” or “nothin’ much”

• Your child putting own their phone for 2 seconds to eat dinner: “what’d you learn in school today?” (hint: the answer is always “nothing,” so you know where this is going)

Neutral Questions—what we think are icebreakers or intimate conversation starters—are nothing more than greetings. Therefore, the typical responses are like greetings.

?When we want to be a high-level communicator to build relationships at work and home, this is an important shift to understand.

A great communicator must not only try to be clear on their own intentions, but they must also put effort into thinking about what the receiver sees and perceives.

?Those two things are almost never the same.

?Neutral questions are basically greetings like “hello.” When the response is another greeting, we shouldn’t be disappointed. When you get answers that fall short of what you were looking for, remember this:

Neutral questions get neutral answers.

?The short & neutral answer isn’t “shutting down” or “rejection.” This is important to know. Instead of asking a neutral question and just fussing internally that your sentiment isn’t reciprocated, up your question game. Ask better questions!

?Want to know how school went? Don’t ask “how was school?” Ask instead “Tell me something weird that happened at school.” Use any adjective if weird is too weird for you.

?This is a basic coaching technique. Ask a question that is a little different to prompt a different thought pattern or behavior. Coaches use this to get their clients to generate new insights. You can use this to be a better leader, spouse, partner, friend, parent, etc.

?Instead of the painfully banal “how are you doing” ask one of these:

“what’s exciting in your world?”

“what’s really tough for you these days?”

“tell me something funny that happened today…”

“what’s the strangest thing you saw today?”

And I like either of these: “What keeps you up at night” (warning: maybe don’t ask this if you sleep with this person) or “what gets you up in the morning?” These are questions about what may be important; their passions or their anxieties.

?Here’s the point. We put in a mild effort to be intimate and ask questions and we think we’ve done our job. The we think we’re on the receiving end of some serious injustice (or what we call passive-aggressiveness, narcissism, etc.) when we get a one-word answer in return.

?I recently saw a short Anderson Cooper interview on CNN with a psychology expert. She suggested that instead of asking “how are you?” we should ask “how are you doing?” Let me be clear: to the listener, this is the SAME THING. I can’t emphasize this enough. You’ve replaced one neural question with another and gotten nowhere.

?I’d eschew both of those options for the non-neutral: “what are you doing for yourself these days?” and if you get the “nothing” response, follow with “what do you wish you could do more?”

An alternative: “so, the world is basically on fire these days, how are you handling all this?” I’ve gotten fantastic responses when I ask “What’s something you wish more people knew about you?”

?These questions are a little more challenging on purpose. It’s entirely possible that you may ask a non-neutral question and get a funny look or a little resistance in the form of “why do you wanna know?” What’s happening is someone is recognizing that you’ve asked a better question and they may not have been ready to answer. You can always respond with “take your time, I wanna know…”?

TAKE AWAY: start removing neutral questions from situations where you want more than a neutral answer.

?All the people you know who are the most respected, the most loved, the most charismatic, etc., they have this in common. When they talk to you, it’s as if they truly care about your answers.

?This easy shift is one way to do that. Ask questions that properly reflect your intentions. Pass this along to a new leader, a parent of teenagers, discuss it with your spouse.

?If you’ve gotten to the end of the article, comment with a song that always gives you good vibes no matter how dark your day is. (See what I did there?)

(Kris Mailepors is author of The Easy to Follow Leader and founder of Bushido Leadership. For free resources for leaders, text RNLEADER to 55444 to join our mailing list)

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