Open Up on the last words out of my mouth!

An extract from Rudyard Kipling’s poem in “The Elephant’s Child” literally OPENS up opportunities to practice a key skill as part of a communication skills course as well as allied skills in active listening and observation.

Here’s the extract I have in mind:-

I keep six honest serving-men

 (They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

 And How and Where and Who.

And here’s how I use the extract in a training activity in several courses.

The activity focuses on the use of Kipling’s six OPEN   questions rather than closed, hypothetical and supplementary enquiries. thus:-

1. What
2. Why
3. When
4. How
5. Where
6. Who

The training exercise works best with no more than 12 participants. It has transferable utility to a wide range of other training courses such as advocacy, assertiveness, influencing and anything linked to interview preparation.  

 Here’s what you do:-

• Assemble your cohort in a horseshoe -tabled or untabled
• Say you are going to practice the use of open questions which will test their listening and observational skills as well as the use of Kipling’s six open questions. Make sure you showcase the Kipling six  on a flipchart or power point-keep them on visible display throughout the activity
• Ask for a volunteer
• The volunteer has to leave the room and in their absence the group must decide something they want to know about the volunteer, e.g. favourite sport or last UK holiday. Something specific and within the bounds of privacy and decency!
• When the group are decided on their secret question, invite the volunteer back in to sit at the front. He or she must make then a statement-anything. So let's suppose the group want to know her/his favourite football club. Let’s say its Manchester United. The volunteer does not know this is the topic. He/She makes a statement, e.g. "On my way here today I saw a squirrel".
• The volunteer then turns to the first person in the horseshoe. That person can ask any OPEN question but it has to be based on the last thing that comes out of the volunteer’s mouth and any subsequent question must include any or all of the last words to come out of the mouth of the volunteer. So let’s imagine the run:-
• Volunteer - On my way here today I saw a squirrel
• First trainee - What colour was the squirrel?
• Volunteer  -Grey
• Second trainee - What other colours are there beside grey?
• Volunteer -Red
• Third Trainee - What other things are RED?
• Volunteer - Apples/Blood/Robins/Traffic Lights
• Fourth Trainee - (DISASTER COMING) Do you like Robins?
• Volunteer -YES! Disaster - a closed question has been put. Somebody was not listening  but help is at hand with Number 5
• Fifth Trainee- When you say YES, what do you mean-forcing Volunteer to open up
• Volunteer -I like red things, it's the colour of my favourite football club
• Number 6 - What is your favourite football club?
• Volunteer- Manchester United

Job done but...... 

It won't be as easy as this -it might go around the table twice.You might have to blow the whistle and declare the volunteer the winner. It can get competitive. Tons of industrial language. But you will soon see who is quick on the feet/deft/creative/active listener/observer etc.

Some simple rules:-

• The volunteer must always tell the truth but if they detect or suspect the content of the secret question they have a mandate to be as difficult as they like with evasive or short answers. This will further test the interviewer’s skills.
• People are not allowed to go out of sequence or confer. You will see people at one end of the table dying to jump in

 PS - I have set up a LINKED IN Group –QED Associate Freelancers. There are trainers and HR people in the group but also other self employed consultants AND people starting new career ventures. You are very welcome to join us. The members of the group -now over 2300  -- have produced something that no other LINKED IN group, to our knowledge has managed to date. We have produced as a result of postings some free resources. These include 6 ways to deal with difficult behaviour and 116 time management ideas plus 300 ideas for good public speaking. You can have any of them free when you join. The link is:- 

https://www.dhirubhai.net/groups?mostRecent=&gid=4070140&trk=my_groups-tile-flipgrp