January 31, 2024 • 28 mins
Have you ever wondered why some conversations leave you feeling invigorated while others feel like a dead end? Tune in as Brandon and I dissect the art of asking questions that aren't just fillers but gateways to deeper connection and understanding. Our latest episode of Uncommon Communicator podcast peels back the layers of communication, emphasizing how a blend of curiosity and the right questions can transform dialogues from mundane to meaningful.
In a candid exchange, we revisit the nuances of curiosity, examining how a sprinkle of information can entice interest, while too much can douse it. Drawing inspiration from the thrill of a TikTok scroll, we discuss strategies to strike that delicate balance, ensuring we keep our conversations as engaging and stimulating. We hone in on the art of listening intently, stressing the significance of comprehending responses to craft thoughtful follow-up questions. It's not enough to simply ask; caring about the answers is the cornerstone of rich communication.
Wrapping up with a deep dive into the craft of open-ended questions, we share tales from our own experiences where conversation dominance led to missed opportunities. By learning to embrace the unpredictability of responses and adapting our approach accordingly, we open ourselves to a world of meaningful interactions. We leave you with three key takeaways: nurture your curiosity, sharpen your listening skills, and become adept at asking open-ended questions. These insights will arm you with the tools to invigorate your everyday conversations and forge connections that resonate.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to the Uncom communicator podcast, where we
bring enlightenment to the topicof communication.
Are you ready to take ownershipof your conversations?
Are you looking to possess theskills to navigate and
facilitate conversations to amutual understanding?
What are you waiting for?
Have your growth mindset andlet's go.
Welcome to this week's episode.
(00:31):
We are doing a bit of athrowback and going back to
episode 43.
Questions anyone.
In this episode, we talk aboutbeing curious, being a listener
and how to ask some open endedquestions, and we go into some
of the brain science.
So sit back and enjoy thisepisode.
How are you today, guys?
Good, brandon.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
The voice is getting better.
The voice is getting better,although you have admitted that
you openly enjoy your cigarettevoice.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So we're all going to be very upset when James picks
up cigarettes.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, no, that's not going to happen.
I actually heard that there wasa guy who had….
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The sacrifices he will make for this… it's for the
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
There was a guy at the Toastmasters convention that
was doing the announcing andthis guy had golden voice.
He had to go up and shake hishand, which I did.
I went up and met him and Imade some comment to somebody
else about him smokingcigarettes or cigars and they're
actually… that's actually worsefor your voice.
Guys like that really take careof their voice and that's, I
think, a big key for me overthis this has been now almost
(01:34):
three weeks is that I'm probablynot taking care of it like a
professional voice guy, becauseI got work to do.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You should go get tips from who….
Yeah, chris Collinsworth hadthe issues with his voice.
Yes, first weekend of football.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
He made his annoying voice even worse.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Anyway, so both of us have our tea, and you can maybe
count the amount of times thatwe sip our tea throughout this
episode.
We're going to get through it,though, but today's… there's so
many questions to ask.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
First of all, Well, is that your first time you've
had tea?
Have you had tea before?
Did you make the tea yourself,and what flavor of tea do you
like to use?
And did you put honey in yourtea?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So no, it's not the first time I've had tea.
Yes, I did make the tea myself.
I do enjoy tea and yes, I doput a lot of honey in my tea
because I have to, otherwiseit's just poorly flavored water.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Nice, well played.
You answered all of myquestions, killed it.
But what really stirred me tohave this discussion today to
talk about questions is I was ina situation where there was
somebody posing questions almostrhetorically, I don't know, but
they were asking so… they werejust shooting out so many things
at once.
I don't know if they wanted meto answer them or if they were
just being rhetorical, and thenat the end of that I wasn't
(02:43):
taking notes very well.
So you pick and choose the onesthat you want and then am I
perceived as only doing the onesthat…?
Did I… was it a no when Ididn't answer some of his
questions?
But it made that idea of whenasking questions you got to be
pointed at.
Asking that and askingquestions is absolutely a skill,
and it's a skill of theuncommon communicator.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah right, the point of asking a question is to get
a result.
Right, like you're trying toget information from somebody.
You're trying to get somebodyto think a certain way, to
create….
You know that is what questionsare, and if you're not… If
you're not going to wait for theinformation or wait for the
(03:27):
question to be answered just ingeneral, or the process to occur
after the question has beenanswered, because it's
necessarily… With a rhetoricalquestion, you're not looking for
, you know, an answer.
You're just looking for thatkind of like a thought to impact
the people in the room.
So you need to….
Just like when you saysomething out loud, like if I
looked at you and I said screwyou, james, I'm probably waiting
for that kind of a reaction.
(03:48):
You should do the same thingwith your questions.
You don't want to just keepasking a bunch of questions.
Like you want your….
Just like any other form ofcommunication, you want your
words to have an impact, justlike you want your questions to
have an impact.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, and I've also worked around somebody else who
would hey, I want to get James'sopinion, james, what's your
opinion on this?
Because….
And then they went on and toldthis whole other thing, never
gave me an opportunity to givemy opinion.
So clearly it wasn't a questionor an interest.
And I think that's what'sreally going to come down to our
key as we talk aboutcommunication today Is you
(04:23):
really have to care, you reallyhave to be concerned for an
answer?
Because that person just saying, okay, I'm going to include you
, come on in.
So I started listening and atthat point my opinion didn't
really matter.
But for today, I think we'regoing to cover three really
important things today, andthere's lots of things that we
could cover on the idea ofquestions, but the first one is
(04:44):
you have to be curious.
You genuinely have to have acurious mindset to be a good
question asker and, in general,if you're a curious person,
you're also going to make yourlisteners feel, you know,
engaged and open to answer toyou.
If you're genuinely curiousabout it.
Are you asking questions justto get them talking, so you can
(05:06):
check your phone and your mail?
That's not curiosity.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I was like are you asking questions that you
already know the answer to?
Just so that way you can sayhaha, you know the purpose
behind these questions areimportant, but what's number two
?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Number two is be a listener, and I think that part
is important.
If you're really a goodquestion asker specifically
follow up questions you got tobe engaged in that person and
listening.
Are you really listening to itto come up with your point or
are you listening to be able tocome up with more interest, more
questions that are going tohappen?
(05:39):
So you really need to be a goodlistener.
And the third one is really howto ask questions, because there
are ways to ask.
Are there good ways and badways to ask questions?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, and we've been over how there are.
There's no such thing as dumbquestions, right, like we've
discussed that on this podcastbefore and we've openly admitted
that, yes, there are suchthings as dumb questions.
However, as teacher, I think wewent over it in the teacher Yep
.
So, but as a teacher or a rightyou need to create an
(06:08):
environment where thereshouldn't feel like there is any
dumb questions, because youwant everybody to be heard,
Because if they ask a question,as a teacher you need to be able
to, number one, probably answerthe question and number you
know, you know.
Number two, you need to be ableto facilitate them getting to
that answer.
So, asking open any questionsand you have to be able to allow
them to elaborate, because youneed them to have that thought
(06:30):
process that that question hasnot created.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, and that's, I think, really the key.
Going beyond just being youknow a teacher and asking those
open, any questions, just youand I having a conversation.
You, if I ask you yes and noquestions, you're going to stop
it.
Yes, you're going to stop it.
No, you're going to give a factand that's the end of the
conversation and if you'refortunate, that person might
elaborate on it.
But a lot of times, especiallyif they're a closed person,
(06:55):
they're not going to elaborateon those on that question at all
.
So you have to word yourquestions differently.
So today we're going to talkabout those things, three things
.
You got to be curious and thatwas quite a rabbit hole to go
down for the both of us.
Be a listener, ask open endedquestions.
So I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Okay, I'm just saying no, you're just making a
statement.
Yeah, does it sound like?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
a question.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Well, yeah, no, so you, you, you.
You said this on like aquestion.
You're curious about what James.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
See now, they didn't see that that's two questions I
don't know.
Yeah, and now I'm confused.
I wasn't taking notes.
We slow it down, but beingcurious really is something that
drives our listeners.
It drives, it should be drivingus, and I think I have,
especially over the last threeor four years, maybe longer.
I've always been curious, soI'm always asking questions
(07:43):
because I want to know, I'malways wanting to learn, I want
to learn new things, and indoing that it creates that.
But going back to my moments ofsilence that I had when I lost
my voice, I found that even as alistener, I wasn't getting all
the information that my mindwanted and even though I
couldn't really communicate withwords, I had these follow up
questions I want more.
(08:03):
You're not giving it to me.
So that's kind of that spiritof curiousness, curiosity,
curiosity.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Which, so we found some legit science on curiosity.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
We love brain science .
We really do love some.
We really do love some Uncommoncommunicator.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Brain science yes, we do.
This gentleman's name is GeorgeLoewenstein I apologize if I
got it wrong.
Described curiosity as acognitive induced deprivation
that arises from the perceptionof a gap in knowledge and
understanding, saysLoewenstein's information.
Or Loewenstein's informationgap theory holds that curiosity
(08:38):
functions like the driver's seat, such as hunger, which
motivates eating, right, likewhen you can activate curiosity
in some way.
So like if you have a speech orif you're training somebody, or
just something in general, likethat where you're going to ask
a question, sparking thatcuriosity in that individual is
the key because, much likehunger, right, you have to go
(09:01):
eat.
That's what he's equating.
Like you get hungry, you go eat.
When your curiosity isactivated, you go find the
answer.
And our ability to find answershas changed.
You no longer like oh, I wonderwhat that actor was in that one
movie that I'm trying to thinkof.
It was the plane, right, andyou used to have to sit down at
(09:21):
the dinner table and have thatconversation with, like
everybody, sometimes youwouldn't come up with the answer
.
Now everybody just pulls outthe phone and you come up with
the answer right away.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
But there is a quick response to that now.
Right, so there is no more ofthat.
How do you call it?
Just stirring the curiosity,because there's been lots of
times where I'm like it'll cometo me, right and as my brain is
processing it, and then usuallyit's in the middle of the night,
three days later I got it, itcomes out.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah.
So it just goes on to say letme finish this up real quick.
Says building on this theory,loewenstein's time suggests that
a small amount of informationserves as a priming dose.
Right, like I'm over here, likeyou, when you prime a lawnmower
, right, you got to prime itbefore he gained the chain to
get it going.
So we're just priming that,which greatly increases
(10:08):
curiosity.
Now here's where it gets alittle bit tricky.
Consumption of information isrewarding, but eventually, with
enough information is consumed,saturation occurs and
information serves to reducefurther curiosity.
So you can reach a limit, right?
So just kind of how you weredemonstrating with all your
questions, where you could ask67 questions in a row, fine,
(10:29):
you've maybe peaked my curiosity, or now I, because you seem
curious, right, I'm intrigued,so now I have to answer your
questions.
We've created that deprivation,but in asking so many questions
, you've, like, oversaturated myability to answer those
questions.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So there's two things that really stick out.
I love that idea of priming.
If I look at, say,presentations or conversations,
I've had plenty of those whereyou're like this is going, it
lost my interest, Maybe it wasnever primed either.
I love that idea that you gotto prime it with a little
curiosity, Like I'm listening to.
I'm always drawn to like reallyintelligent people.
(11:07):
I love hanging out with peoplethat I know that are smarter
than me Just a lot of people.
Huh, I should look at that.
But thinking about people thatare smarter than me, I'm always
wanting to learn.
So there's that prime andthey're going.
I know I'm going to get somemore information when he yanks
my chain.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's kind of a weird analogy that you had, but
just a rope, but you know, Imean you get revved up right.
Like you get going and then youstart hitting the books and you
get the knowledge and you dothe thing.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But that well, but that satiation idea kind of fits
in our cognitive load theorythat we talked about the other
day too, is you can hit a pointwhere that that's all you got
right.
You've hit your point, you.
You peak that level ofcuriosity.
Maybe there's nothing new inthere, but the whole idea kind
of wrapping this around to youknow, being an uncommon
communicator and the idea ofquestions is you've got to have
(11:57):
that spirit of curiosity to askthose questions from people so
you can know, you know, knowmore about them.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah Well, and like I said, and just as you were
discussing right, he equates itto hunger, and hunger is a great
example because sure, you canbe hungry, you can ask the
questions, you can find theinformation, but after a certain
period of time there's only somany of the bacon rat flaming,
young from Texas state of Brazil, that we can eat.
There is a saturation point.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
There is, there is apparently a limit to our eating
, and I think for me it's theamount of salt I just consumed.
But there we, you hit the meatsweats right with that, and so I
think this is kind of that sameidea.
You get that saturation point,you get the information sweats.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Maybe that's exactly it.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
See, we're creating science here, the information
sweats and just to kind of wrapup the idea of being curious, I
think there's probably a wholeepisode probably tied up as we
dive into this idea of curiosityand our communications.
But the idea that there'sactual dopamine that is released
when you are satiated bygetting, by gaining your
(13:01):
curiosity, your answers, andthat dopamine, which I hadn't
really thought about it to now,is a lot like the TikTok where,
as you're scrolling throughthese videos, there's a
curiosity about it, but there'sshort little hits of this
dopamine.
I knew that that was hitting, Iknew they were called, you know
hits of dopamine, but I neverthought about it being that
curiosity level where this isnew, this is unique.
(13:24):
You know, there's times whenyou see videos for the second
time you're like I've alreadyseen it.
Right, you don't want to see itagain, Even if it was a good
one.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
But you scroll up and you find out what the next
video is.
Yeah, so you move on, causeyou're curious to see what the
next one is.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Exactly, and you know they used to be 15 second
videos.
They've moved on to be longerones and when I've watched on
TikTok even if I'm enjoying itlike a comedian will put on two,
three minutes in there.
I'll get to the end.
I'm like that's it, let's moveon.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, so let's discuss this.
Be a listener.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So be a listener.
We've talked about this inother podcasts and we'll put a
link into our show notes to golisten to our episode 37, which
is on epithetic listening.
And if you go back and it wasprobably early on in episode two
, three or four somewhere inthere, when we were talking
about negotiation skills, that Iloved that book by Chris Voss
never spoke the differencebecause it was really about
(14:14):
listening.
To be a good negotiator, yougot to be a listener, but with
that, really the key is activelisteners need to avoid at all
costs interrupting people.
If you're going to activelylisten, don't interrupt.
Summarize, repeat back that'skind of that.
Labels, the mirrors, things wetalked about in our earlier
episodes, and then reallyobserve body language All of
(14:38):
these things really give you abetter level of understanding.
So you really need to be alistener as well too.
Don't just listen to have yourprepare your next statement.
You're genuinely listening tosomebody.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Cause you like.
So you need to be able to getthis seek, this information
right.
So the the function of aquestion is to bring up this
information and then, regardless, you can ask the question and
then not listen to the answer,and then your question served no
function, or at least yourquestion failed at its function.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It failed at its function, and I think a lot of
times they fail at its functionbecause there's not a genuine
curiosity to begin with and thenyou're not genuinely listening.
Sometimes we're just asking aquestion, for I've seen that
before.
Somebody's asked me a questionjust so they could get a break,
so they can go check their phonewhile I'm talking.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, so nice.
And the other bits of this is istoo, because we did discuss
leading questions, right, causethere are people that will just
ask you a question but they'vealready Either a got their mind
made up or be like, know theanswer that they wanted, the
answer that they're looking for.
And and this is a tough one forme because I Ask a lot of
(15:46):
leading questions when I try toteach somebody something or when
you try to explain something tosomebody, right, because a lot
of the time Excuse me a lot ofthe time you need them to think,
you need them to come up withthe answer on their own Right,
like you need to give them theinformation, maybe with a couple
of questions, but you needtheir brain to Chug along with
(16:06):
you, right, as much as you cantell some other, the answer is
be if they don't learn what theactual answer be is, then they
did, probably didn't learn whatit was well, and you hit a great
point in that in regards toBecause I've got kind of mixed
emotions on that one as well too.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
But I think it's twofold Really.
The leading question idea isjust that you want to help.
You know the answer, but youwant to help that person develop
that answer and then they'regonna own it.
You want them to make thosedecisions, let their brain, you
know synapses fire and thenconnect with it.
But the other side, which Ithink is the dark side of it, is
(16:43):
the leading questions to kindof lead somebody into a trap,
and I think that's why we ashumans or I know myself I'm kind
of of put off by those peopleasking questions that they
already know the answer to,because they're doing it in a
way that they're trying to setyou up.
So those type of leadingquestions I don't think are
great uncommon communicatortraits, because you're doing
(17:05):
that to really set somebody up,and I know people that do it
actively that is their form ofLeading questions, are always
going to do that.
But you really want to leadwith questions, especially if
you're coaching and mentoring,to not just give the answer away
, let them lead into it, andsometimes leading somebody
through those aha moments cantake days or weeks.
You're planting stuff in therewithout feeding it to them,
(17:27):
because when they get it,they're gonna get it.
They're gonna be able to teachother people right and minutes.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
It's important to because, especially let's just
say that you're asking aquestion out of, like you know,
pure lack of knowledge as well,right?
So I think we've talked a lotabout the teaching aspect of
questions.
Because it's hard, becausewe're here on a podcast,
apparently, you know, attemptingto teach communications or to
teach the uncommon communicatorway, so we swear teaching.
(17:52):
So it's hard for us to putourselves into the seat of a
learner sometimes, and it seemsreally, really stupid.
Right, you can have all thesequestions, but if you don't
actually listen to the answer,then you're not gonna get there.
So, as a learner, from alearning perspective, if you're
gonna ask the question, you needto wait for the response.
(18:14):
Right, like you, there's beentimes where I've asked a
question and then, like, afterI've verbalized it, obviously
your brain's thinking about it,right?
Sometimes, after verbalizing it, I go through and I'm like, oh
wait, that's the answer.
But, like you know what, maybeif I would just shut up, james
is gonna tell me more than whatI originally would have.
So then, so I'd be a listener,because if you're gonna ask the
(18:34):
question, you're probably gonnaget a response, and the response
is probably going to be theanswers to that question.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And on that listening idea that I know for me I've
changed, I think, as I've become, in my mind, a better
communicator and I haveinformation that I want to share
with the world.
I really enjoy coaching andmentoring.
I've been out a couple of times, you know lunch or something
and realize that I was doing allthe talking right, like hearing
my voice Right, so I'm justgoing along with it.
When I realized at the end ofthat I missed opportunities to
(19:06):
ask about somebody's wife, askabout their dad was going
through stuff.
I'm missing those things.
So those are things that evenas we develop as better speakers
, communicators, we we changethat method and then not
necessarily in a good way and Ifound myself having to go back
to basics, which is really thatgenuine curiosity.
I lost it when I just felt likemy information was that
(19:30):
important and it never is.
Maybe this for the moment thatperson needs to hear something,
but if you're losing people,then that's because you've lost
that level of curiosity.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Mm-hmm.
All right, so let's discussopen-ended questions, and or do
you want to discuss rhetoricalquestions as well?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, I think we should, because those tie in to
Really the process of askingquestions and I think we're
gonna you know, we can talkabout that at the end as well,
too is there's more than justthe open-ended questions, but
let's start with open-endedquestions really, and oh, it's
really simple.
An open-ended question is aquestion that can't be answered
(20:09):
with a yes or no.
It's that simple, and we askedthem a lot.
I've been involved in even somepanel discussions where the
moderator would ask a questionhey, you really like you've been
in construction, you've reallyenjoyed it, right, I mean, these
were supposed to get me toelaborate about my career, where
in reality, that was yes.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
You need.
I was like can we, can you geta different example of an
open-ended question?
Because the way that you phraseit, with a Right at the very
end, completely undermined theentire thing that you're your
entire question, because it'slike you like construction,
right?
Yes, that was the question, sorephrase that one for me, and
we'll try again.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Which that would been a good point of taking
ownership of it.
But you don't necessarily wantto do that in a panel discussion
with somebody who I should havehad that discussion with
earlier.
But that's exactly right.
You have to ask those questionsappropriately, open-ended
questions.
Typically I use a lot of housewhat do you think Asking
(21:10):
open-ended questions about?
What do you know about thetopic?
What do you think about thosetopics?
It's all in that phrasing andyou can, and for me it's a
practice.
You have to learn how to askthese questions the right way or
they come across as those kindof close-ended questions.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Mm-hmm, right, and that's so.
I mean open-ended.
The hard part about open-endedquestions are you never truly
know the response you're goingto get.
Right, yes or no questions.
You got a 50-50 shot of whatanswer you're going to get.
You can ask an open-endedquestion.
It's kind of like askingsomebody how their day is.
That's a can of worms that youcan open up and you have no idea
(21:48):
what's in that can.
Heck, it could be snakesinstead of worms.
We don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, and that's one of the worst questions that we
ask almost every day how are youdoing?
What's everybody going toanswer, fine, good, what if you
said, hey, I like that shirt.
Or, even better, where'd youget that shirt?
That engages a conversationabout whatever shirt that
they're wearing, or hat, orwhatever they're doing.
Those become the open-endedquestions, even though how is
your day becomes such aplatitude of response.
(22:15):
But examples are why, how, whatdescribe?
I really like that one.
Describe to me what you'rethinking there.
So then it creates this.
All right, I'm going to createa narrow.
I'm now required, as a speaker,from your question to be more
descriptive.
Tell me about what do you thinkabout?
I think those are a lot of theones where I want to get out of
(22:36):
just the facts and really getinto the opinion of that person,
the thoughts of that person onsomething, because those do
become those very open-endedquestions.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And then it helps to get you and said individual on
the same page as well, wheresometimes it's, you can be like
all right, there have been timeswhere I've been at work and I
have seen the actions of otherindividuals and I'm like, bro,
what was the I'm doing, the maththat you're doing right now?
And absolutely zero of my mathgot me to that conclusion that
(23:09):
you had there.
And so then you have to youhave to add, you're like, bro,
what you're doing right, likeyou ask the question of what you
ask for, the thought process,what are you doing, how are you
doing it?
Why did you do it this way?
And then again, going back tobeing a listener, after you ask
that open-ended question, youthen have to listen to their
response and ideally theirresponse should give you
(23:31):
insights of what it is, but notall the time.
But you do have to listen.
You can't just like ask thequestion, turn your brain off
and be like, no, you should havedone this instead.
Absolutely not, because youneed to try and understand where
they're coming from.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And you have to be prepared that they're not gonna
answer your question because itwas so open-ended.
In your mind you're thinking ofsomething more specific.
I've had that happen a lot too,and then, especially if
somebody is a talker notnecessarily communicator they
might go off into left field onyour open-ended question, not
even getting close to where youwere headed.
So the recommendation there ismaybe narrow it in.
(24:03):
Narrow it's actually narrow.
Yeah, I'm not.
Yeah, I do have family fromOklahoma.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
It's too narrow.
You got a narrow in thequestion.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So shout out to Uncle Bobby, shout out to Uncle Bobby
in Oklahoma.
Now those things.
Sometimes you have to maybe bemore specific if that person
kind of goes off on that kind oftangent because they're just
filling it in with words.
But one thing I like is tospecifically ask if you're
really asking a question, askone question.
(24:34):
Sometimes we feel like we'reunder this pressure to ask two
questions or three and you'regonna lose where you're going.
And this goes to RFIs, requestfor information.
When we're talkingcontractually or on projects.
We will look at the drawingsand we'll have a question.
We have to go ask a clarifyinginformation and we're taught on
(24:54):
how to do that as well.
And if you ask three things ofan architect or four, they're
only gonna answer one.
And now you've taken this onestep process of getting
information from them.
They're gonna pick the one thatthey got the easy answer to and
then your other three didn'tget answered.
Then there's these back andforth.
So what's the same with ourconversations is ask one
question, get your answer.
(25:14):
If you need a follow up, youkind of move on.
Now one thing that I thoughtwas kind of interesting I never
really thought about this inregards to teaching is having
that kind of two stepquestioning.
It's really fine to do.
It's fine to do this and thisis kind of the question that
came up.
As a teacher you know kind of ateacher example but is it ever
(25:35):
right to tell a lie?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Right, so open-ended question.
Oh, very open-ended question,and I would say that just to
answer the question.
For example, say because Iwould say yes that it is okay to
tell a lie under certaincircumstances.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Why do you think that ?
So that follow-up question, sothat was a, yet it was an
open-ended but easily can createthat yes or no, and that's kind
of that slippery slope of ifthat person is willing to share
and communicate, then you mightget stuck with the yes or no.
Well, actually it's true, butat least, from there you're
prepared for that follow-upquestion.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
So I think the first question is a yes or no question
and then the follow-up is anopen-ended question because you
need their explanation for theoriginal yes or no answer.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, I would agree, except I think there are people
who, like myself, like that's atough, that's a very much a
morals, open-ended moralsquestion.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I think it is a morals question that can be
answered with a yes or no, and Ishould have.
I missed an opportunity to dothis because I should have
answered it with yes or no, andthen you can ask the follow-up
question, which I hate yes or noanswers or questions that
result in a yes or no.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
But the other side of that is if that person is
really willing to justify, thenthey're going to say yes, but
yes, and you know those type ofthings and then immediately go
into their case of defendingthemselves.
But it gives you thatopportunity to do that follow-up
question and these can fit witha multitude of different types
of questions to kind of give abeginner question, get the mind
(26:59):
thinking, and that's one thingthat I think has been one of the
most important things that I'velearned in communication is
allowing people to process andthink.
I tend to think out loud, Itend to just go and sometimes I
don't allow listeners to processthat, and everybody listens
differently as well too.
I've got a friend at work whohe's like to slow it down.
(27:20):
You know you're saying a lothere, so give those pauses and
don't give so much that.
You know thinking out loud isgive the thought, let the
listener kind of process it.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
You've sparked their curiosity, you've primed their
curiosity and now you need tolet them either go give you the
information and be engaged, orbe you know, give them the
answer slowly, because you can'tjust overpower them with all
the information at once.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
At that point you lose them, right.
It's that cognitive overload.
They're done, they're satiated.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Exactly Alright.
So what were the three keystoday, james?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So the keys today have been one be curious.
Be curious in nature, be alistener and learn to ask
open-ended questions.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Okay, and what do you think?
A UC moment for the day isgoing to be.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I think I just said it.
I think the UC moment is becurious.
Be a listener and askopen-ended questions.
Hey, that worked out perfectlyWell.
There you go.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
That's all I got.
That's all I got, james, seeyou.
Welcome to the Uncom communicator podcast, where we
bring enlightenment to the topicof communication.
Are you ready to take ownershipof your conversations?
Are you looking to possess theskills to navigate and
facilitate conversations to amutual understanding?
What are you waiting for?
Have your growth mindset andlet's go.
Welcome to this week's episode.
(00:31):
We are doing a bit of athrowback and going back to
episode 43.
Questions anyone.
In this episode, we talk aboutbeing curious, being a listener
and how to ask some open endedquestions, and we go into some
of the brain science.
So sit back and enjoy thisepisode.
How are you today, guys?
Good, brandon.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
The voice is getting better.
The voice is getting better,although you have admitted that
you openly enjoy your cigarettevoice.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
So we're all going to be very upset when James picks
up cigarettes.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, no, that's not going to happen.
I actually heard that there wasa guy who had….
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The sacrifices he will make for this… it's for the
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
There was a guy at the Toastmasters convention that
was doing the announcing andthis guy had golden voice.
He had to go up and shake hishand, which I did.
I went up and met him and Imade some comment to somebody
else about him smokingcigarettes or cigars and they're
actually… that's actually worsefor your voice.
Guys like that really take careof their voice and that's, I
think, a big key for me overthis this has been now almost
(01:34):
three weeks is that I'm probablynot taking care of it like a
professional voice guy, becauseI got work to do.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You should go get tips from who….
Yeah, chris Collinsworth hadthe issues with his voice.
Yes, first weekend of football.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
He made his annoying voice even worse.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Anyway, so both of us have our tea, and you can maybe
count the amount of times thatwe sip our tea throughout this
episode.
We're going to get through it,though, but today's… there's so
many questions to ask.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
First of all, Well, is that your first time you've
had tea?
Have you had tea before?
Did you make the tea yourself,and what flavor of tea do you
like to use?
And did you put honey in yourtea?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So no, it's not the first time I've had tea.
Yes, I did make the tea myself.
I do enjoy tea and yes, I doput a lot of honey in my tea
because I have to, otherwiseit's just poorly flavored water.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Nice, well played.
You answered all of myquestions, killed it.
But what really stirred me tohave this discussion today to
talk about questions is I was ina situation where there was
somebody posing questions almostrhetorically, I don't know, but
they were asking so… they werejust shooting out so many things
at once.
I don't know if they wanted meto answer them or if they were
just being rhetorical, and thenat the end of that I wasn't
(02:43):
taking notes very well.
So you pick and choose the onesthat you want and then am I
perceived as only doing the onesthat…?
Did I… was it a no when Ididn't answer some of his
questions?
But it made that idea of whenasking questions you got to be
pointed at.
Asking that and askingquestions is absolutely a skill,
and it's a skill of theuncommon communicator.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah right, the point of asking a question is to get
a result.
Right, like you're trying toget information from somebody.
You're trying to get somebodyto think a certain way, to
create….
You know that is what questionsare, and if you're not… If
you're not going to wait for theinformation or wait for the
(03:27):
question to be answered just ingeneral, or the process to occur
after the question has beenanswered, because it's
necessarily… With a rhetoricalquestion, you're not looking for
, you know, an answer.
You're just looking for thatkind of like a thought to impact
the people in the room.
So you need to….
Just like when you saysomething out loud, like if I
looked at you and I said screwyou, james, I'm probably waiting
for that kind of a reaction.
(03:48):
You should do the same thingwith your questions.
You don't want to just keepasking a bunch of questions.
Like you want your….
Just like any other form ofcommunication, you want your
words to have an impact, justlike you want your questions to
have an impact.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, and I've also worked around somebody else who
would hey, I want to get James'sopinion, james, what's your
opinion on this?
Because….
And then they went on and toldthis whole other thing, never
gave me an opportunity to givemy opinion.
So clearly it wasn't a questionor an interest.
And I think that's what'sreally going to come down to our
key as we talk aboutcommunication today Is you
(04:23):
really have to care, you reallyhave to be concerned for an
answer?
Because that person just saying, okay, I'm going to include you
, come on in.
So I started listening and atthat point my opinion didn't
really matter.
But for today, I think we'regoing to cover three really
important things today, andthere's lots of things that we
could cover on the idea ofquestions, but the first one is
(04:44):
you have to be curious.
You genuinely have to have acurious mindset to be a good
question asker and, in general,if you're a curious person,
you're also going to make yourlisteners feel, you know,
engaged and open to answer toyou.
If you're genuinely curiousabout it.
Are you asking questions justto get them talking, so you can
(05:06):
check your phone and your mail?
That's not curiosity.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I was like are you asking questions that you
already know the answer to?
Just so that way you can sayhaha, you know the purpose
behind these questions areimportant, but what's number two
?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Number two is be a listener, and I think that part
is important.
If you're really a goodquestion asker specifically
follow up questions you got tobe engaged in that person and
listening.
Are you really listening to itto come up with your point or
are you listening to be able tocome up with more interest, more
questions that are going tohappen?
(05:39):
So you really need to be a goodlistener.
And the third one is really howto ask questions, because there
are ways to ask.
Are there good ways and badways to ask questions?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, and we've been over how there are.
There's no such thing as dumbquestions, right, like we've
discussed that on this podcastbefore and we've openly admitted
that, yes, there are suchthings as dumb questions.
However, as teacher, I think wewent over it in the teacher Yep
.
So, but as a teacher or a rightyou need to create an
(06:08):
environment where thereshouldn't feel like there is any
dumb questions, because youwant everybody to be heard,
Because if they ask a question,as a teacher you need to be able
to, number one, probably answerthe question and number you
know, you know.
Number two, you need to be ableto facilitate them getting to
that answer.
So, asking open any questionsand you have to be able to allow
them to elaborate, because youneed them to have that thought
(06:30):
process that that question hasnot created.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, and that's, I think, really the key.
Going beyond just being youknow a teacher and asking those
open, any questions, just youand I having a conversation.
You, if I ask you yes and noquestions, you're going to stop
it.
Yes, you're going to stop it.
No, you're going to give a factand that's the end of the
conversation and if you'refortunate, that person might
elaborate on it.
But a lot of times, especiallyif they're a closed person,
(06:55):
they're not going to elaborateon those on that question at all
.
So you have to word yourquestions differently.
So today we're going to talkabout those things, three things
.
You got to be curious and thatwas quite a rabbit hole to go
down for the both of us.
Be a listener, ask open endedquestions.
So I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Okay, I'm just saying no, you're just making a
statement.
Yeah, does it sound like?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
a question.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Well, yeah, no, so you, you, you.
You said this on like aquestion.
You're curious about what James.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
See now, they didn't see that that's two questions I
don't know.
Yeah, and now I'm confused.
I wasn't taking notes.
We slow it down, but beingcurious really is something that
drives our listeners.
It drives, it should be drivingus, and I think I have,
especially over the last threeor four years, maybe longer.
I've always been curious, soI'm always asking questions
(07:43):
because I want to know, I'malways wanting to learn, I want
to learn new things, and indoing that it creates that.
But going back to my moments ofsilence that I had when I lost
my voice, I found that even as alistener, I wasn't getting all
the information that my mindwanted and even though I
couldn't really communicate withwords, I had these follow up
questions I want more.
(08:03):
You're not giving it to me.
So that's kind of that spiritof curiousness, curiosity,
curiosity.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Which, so we found some legit science on curiosity.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
We love brain science .
We really do love some.
We really do love some Uncommoncommunicator.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Brain science yes, we do.
This gentleman's name is GeorgeLoewenstein I apologize if I
got it wrong.
Described curiosity as acognitive induced deprivation
that arises from the perceptionof a gap in knowledge and
understanding, saysLoewenstein's information.
Or Loewenstein's informationgap theory holds that curiosity
(08:38):
functions like the driver's seat, such as hunger, which
motivates eating, right, likewhen you can activate curiosity
in some way.
So like if you have a speech orif you're training somebody, or
just something in general, likethat where you're going to ask
a question, sparking thatcuriosity in that individual is
the key because, much likehunger, right, you have to go
(09:01):
eat.
That's what he's equating.
Like you get hungry, you go eat.
When your curiosity isactivated, you go find the
answer.
And our ability to find answershas changed.
You no longer like oh, I wonderwhat that actor was in that one
movie that I'm trying to thinkof.
It was the plane, right, andyou used to have to sit down at
(09:21):
the dinner table and have thatconversation with, like
everybody, sometimes youwouldn't come up with the answer
.
Now everybody just pulls outthe phone and you come up with
the answer right away.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
But there is a quick response to that now.
Right, so there is no more ofthat.
How do you call it?
Just stirring the curiosity,because there's been lots of
times where I'm like it'll cometo me, right and as my brain is
processing it, and then usuallyit's in the middle of the night,
three days later I got it, itcomes out.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah.
So it just goes on to say letme finish this up real quick.
Says building on this theory,loewenstein's time suggests that
a small amount of informationserves as a priming dose.
Right, like I'm over here, likeyou, when you prime a lawnmower
, right, you got to prime itbefore he gained the chain to
get it going.
So we're just priming that,which greatly increases
(10:08):
curiosity.
Now here's where it gets alittle bit tricky.
Consumption of information isrewarding, but eventually, with
enough information is consumed,saturation occurs and
information serves to reducefurther curiosity.
So you can reach a limit, right?
So just kind of how you weredemonstrating with all your
questions, where you could ask67 questions in a row, fine,
(10:29):
you've maybe peaked my curiosity, or now I, because you seem
curious, right, I'm intrigued,so now I have to answer your
questions.
We've created that deprivation,but in asking so many questions
, you've, like, oversaturated myability to answer those
questions.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So there's two things that really stick out.
I love that idea of priming.
If I look at, say,presentations or conversations,
I've had plenty of those whereyou're like this is going, it
lost my interest, Maybe it wasnever primed either.
I love that idea that you gotto prime it with a little
curiosity, Like I'm listening to.
I'm always drawn to like reallyintelligent people.
(11:07):
I love hanging out with peoplethat I know that are smarter
than me Just a lot of people.
Huh, I should look at that.
But thinking about people thatare smarter than me, I'm always
wanting to learn.
So there's that prime andthey're going.
I know I'm going to get somemore information when he yanks
my chain.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's kind of a weird analogy that you had, but
just a rope, but you know, Imean you get revved up right.
Like you get going and then youstart hitting the books and you
get the knowledge and you dothe thing.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But that well, but that satiation idea kind of fits
in our cognitive load theorythat we talked about the other
day too, is you can hit a pointwhere that that's all you got
right.
You've hit your point, you.
You peak that level ofcuriosity.
Maybe there's nothing new inthere, but the whole idea kind
of wrapping this around to youknow, being an uncommon
communicator and the idea ofquestions is you've got to have
(11:57):
that spirit of curiosity to askthose questions from people so
you can know, you know, knowmore about them.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah Well, and like I said, and just as you were
discussing right, he equates itto hunger, and hunger is a great
example because sure, you canbe hungry, you can ask the
questions, you can find theinformation, but after a certain
period of time there's only somany of the bacon rat flaming,
young from Texas state of Brazil, that we can eat.
There is a saturation point.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
There is, there is apparently a limit to our eating
, and I think for me it's theamount of salt I just consumed.
But there we, you hit the meatsweats right with that, and so I
think this is kind of that sameidea.
You get that saturation point,you get the information sweats.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Maybe that's exactly it.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
See, we're creating science here, the information
sweats and just to kind of wrapup the idea of being curious, I
think there's probably a wholeepisode probably tied up as we
dive into this idea of curiosityand our communications.
But the idea that there'sactual dopamine that is released
when you are satiated bygetting, by gaining your
(13:01):
curiosity, your answers, andthat dopamine, which I hadn't
really thought about it to now,is a lot like the TikTok where,
as you're scrolling throughthese videos, there's a
curiosity about it, but there'sshort little hits of this
dopamine.
I knew that that was hitting, Iknew they were called, you know
hits of dopamine, but I neverthought about it being that
curiosity level where this isnew, this is unique.
(13:24):
You know, there's times whenyou see videos for the second
time you're like I've alreadyseen it.
Right, you don't want to see itagain, Even if it was a good
one.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
But you scroll up and you find out what the next
video is.
Yeah, so you move on, causeyou're curious to see what the
next one is.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Exactly, and you know they used to be 15 second
videos.
They've moved on to be longerones and when I've watched on
TikTok even if I'm enjoying itlike a comedian will put on two,
three minutes in there.
I'll get to the end.
I'm like that's it, let's moveon.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, so let's discuss this.
Be a listener.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So be a listener.
We've talked about this inother podcasts and we'll put a
link into our show notes to golisten to our episode 37, which
is on epithetic listening.
And if you go back and it wasprobably early on in episode two
, three or four somewhere inthere, when we were talking
about negotiation skills, that Iloved that book by Chris Voss
never spoke the differencebecause it was really about
(14:14):
listening.
To be a good negotiator, yougot to be a listener, but with
that, really the key is activelisteners need to avoid at all
costs interrupting people.
If you're going to activelylisten, don't interrupt.
Summarize, repeat back that'skind of that.
Labels, the mirrors, things wetalked about in our earlier
episodes, and then reallyobserve body language All of
(14:38):
these things really give you abetter level of understanding.
So you really need to be alistener as well too.
Don't just listen to have yourprepare your next statement.
You're genuinely listening tosomebody.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Cause you like.
So you need to be able to getthis seek, this information
right.
So the the function of aquestion is to bring up this
information and then, regardless, you can ask the question and
then not listen to the answer,and then your question served no
function, or at least yourquestion failed at its function.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It failed at its function, and I think a lot of
times they fail at its functionbecause there's not a genuine
curiosity to begin with and thenyou're not genuinely listening.
Sometimes we're just asking aquestion, for I've seen that
before.
Somebody's asked me a questionjust so they could get a break,
so they can go check their phonewhile I'm talking.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, so nice.
And the other bits of this is istoo, because we did discuss
leading questions, right, causethere are people that will just
ask you a question but they'vealready Either a got their mind
made up or be like, know theanswer that they wanted, the
answer that they're looking for.
And and this is a tough one forme because I Ask a lot of
(15:46):
leading questions when I try toteach somebody something or when
you try to explain something tosomebody, right, because a lot
of the time Excuse me a lot ofthe time you need them to think,
you need them to come up withthe answer on their own Right,
like you need to give them theinformation, maybe with a couple
of questions, but you needtheir brain to Chug along with
(16:06):
you, right, as much as you cantell some other, the answer is
be if they don't learn what theactual answer be is, then they
did, probably didn't learn whatit was well, and you hit a great
point in that in regards toBecause I've got kind of mixed
emotions on that one as well too.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
But I think it's twofold Really.
The leading question idea isjust that you want to help.
You know the answer, but youwant to help that person develop
that answer and then they'regonna own it.
You want them to make thosedecisions, let their brain, you
know synapses fire and thenconnect with it.
But the other side, which Ithink is the dark side of it, is
(16:43):
the leading questions to kindof lead somebody into a trap,
and I think that's why we ashumans or I know myself I'm kind
of of put off by those peopleasking questions that they
already know the answer to,because they're doing it in a
way that they're trying to setyou up.
So those type of leadingquestions I don't think are
great uncommon communicatortraits, because you're doing
(17:05):
that to really set somebody up,and I know people that do it
actively that is their form ofLeading questions, are always
going to do that.
But you really want to leadwith questions, especially if
you're coaching and mentoring,to not just give the answer away
, let them lead into it, andsometimes leading somebody
through those aha moments cantake days or weeks.
You're planting stuff in therewithout feeding it to them,
(17:27):
because when they get it,they're gonna get it.
They're gonna be able to teachother people right and minutes.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
It's important to because, especially let's just
say that you're asking aquestion out of, like you know,
pure lack of knowledge as well,right?
So I think we've talked a lotabout the teaching aspect of
questions.
Because it's hard, becausewe're here on a podcast,
apparently, you know, attemptingto teach communications or to
teach the uncommon communicatorway, so we swear teaching.
(17:52):
So it's hard for us to putourselves into the seat of a
learner sometimes, and it seemsreally, really stupid.
Right, you can have all thesequestions, but if you don't
actually listen to the answer,then you're not gonna get there.
So, as a learner, from alearning perspective, if you're
gonna ask the question, you needto wait for the response.
(18:14):
Right, like you, there's beentimes where I've asked a
question and then, like, afterI've verbalized it, obviously
your brain's thinking about it,right?
Sometimes, after verbalizing it, I go through and I'm like, oh
wait, that's the answer.
But, like you know what, maybeif I would just shut up, james
is gonna tell me more than whatI originally would have.
So then, so I'd be a listener,because if you're gonna ask the
(18:34):
question, you're probably gonnaget a response, and the response
is probably going to be theanswers to that question.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And on that listening idea that I know for me I've
changed, I think, as I've become, in my mind, a better
communicator and I haveinformation that I want to share
with the world.
I really enjoy coaching andmentoring.
I've been out a couple of times, you know lunch or something
and realize that I was doing allthe talking right, like hearing
my voice Right, so I'm justgoing along with it.
When I realized at the end ofthat I missed opportunities to
(19:06):
ask about somebody's wife, askabout their dad was going
through stuff.
I'm missing those things.
So those are things that evenas we develop as better speakers
, communicators, we we changethat method and then not
necessarily in a good way and Ifound myself having to go back
to basics, which is really thatgenuine curiosity.
I lost it when I just felt likemy information was that
(19:30):
important and it never is.
Maybe this for the moment thatperson needs to hear something,
but if you're losing people,then that's because you've lost
that level of curiosity.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Mm-hmm.
All right, so let's discussopen-ended questions, and or do
you want to discuss rhetoricalquestions as well?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, I think we should, because those tie in to
Really the process of askingquestions and I think we're
gonna you know, we can talkabout that at the end as well,
too is there's more than justthe open-ended questions, but
let's start with open-endedquestions really, and oh, it's
really simple.
An open-ended question is aquestion that can't be answered
(20:09):
with a yes or no.
It's that simple, and we askedthem a lot.
I've been involved in even somepanel discussions where the
moderator would ask a questionhey, you really like you've been
in construction, you've reallyenjoyed it, right, I mean, these
were supposed to get me toelaborate about my career, where
in reality, that was yes.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
You need.
I was like can we, can you geta different example of an
open-ended question?
Because the way that you phraseit, with a Right at the very
end, completely undermined theentire thing that you're your
entire question, because it'slike you like construction,
right?
Yes, that was the question, sorephrase that one for me, and
we'll try again.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Which that would been a good point of taking
ownership of it.
But you don't necessarily wantto do that in a panel discussion
with somebody who I should havehad that discussion with
earlier.
But that's exactly right.
You have to ask those questionsappropriately, open-ended
questions.
Typically I use a lot of housewhat do you think Asking
(21:10):
open-ended questions about?
What do you know about thetopic?
What do you think about thosetopics?
It's all in that phrasing andyou can, and for me it's a
practice.
You have to learn how to askthese questions the right way or
they come across as those kindof close-ended questions.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Mm-hmm, right, and that's so.
I mean open-ended.
The hard part about open-endedquestions are you never truly
know the response you're goingto get.
Right, yes or no questions.
You got a 50-50 shot of whatanswer you're going to get.
You can ask an open-endedquestion.
It's kind of like askingsomebody how their day is.
That's a can of worms that youcan open up and you have no idea
(21:48):
what's in that can.
Heck, it could be snakesinstead of worms.
We don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, and that's one of the worst questions that we
ask almost every day how are youdoing?
What's everybody going toanswer, fine, good, what if you
said, hey, I like that shirt.
Or, even better, where'd youget that shirt?
That engages a conversationabout whatever shirt that
they're wearing, or hat, orwhatever they're doing.
Those become the open-endedquestions, even though how is
your day becomes such aplatitude of response.
(22:15):
But examples are why, how, whatdescribe?
I really like that one.
Describe to me what you'rethinking there.
So then it creates this.
All right, I'm going to createa narrow.
I'm now required, as a speaker,from your question to be more
descriptive.
Tell me about what do you thinkabout?
I think those are a lot of theones where I want to get out of
(22:36):
just the facts and really getinto the opinion of that person,
the thoughts of that person onsomething, because those do
become those very open-endedquestions.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
And then it helps to get you and said individual on
the same page as well, wheresometimes it's, you can be like
all right, there have been timeswhere I've been at work and I
have seen the actions of otherindividuals and I'm like, bro,
what was the I'm doing, the maththat you're doing right now?
And absolutely zero of my mathgot me to that conclusion that
(23:09):
you had there.
And so then you have to youhave to add, you're like, bro,
what you're doing right, likeyou ask the question of what you
ask for, the thought process,what are you doing, how are you
doing it?
Why did you do it this way?
And then again, going back tobeing a listener, after you ask
that open-ended question, youthen have to listen to their
response and ideally theirresponse should give you
(23:31):
insights of what it is, but notall the time.
But you do have to listen.
You can't just like ask thequestion, turn your brain off
and be like, no, you should havedone this instead.
Absolutely not, because youneed to try and understand where
they're coming from.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And you have to be prepared that they're not gonna
answer your question because itwas so open-ended.
In your mind you're thinking ofsomething more specific.
I've had that happen a lot too,and then, especially if
somebody is a talker notnecessarily communicator they
might go off into left field onyour open-ended question, not
even getting close to where youwere headed.
So the recommendation there ismaybe narrow it in.
(24:03):
Narrow it's actually narrow.
Yeah, I'm not.
Yeah, I do have family fromOklahoma.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
It's too narrow.
You got a narrow in thequestion.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So shout out to Uncle Bobby, shout out to Uncle Bobby
in Oklahoma.
Now those things.
Sometimes you have to maybe bemore specific if that person
kind of goes off on that kind oftangent because they're just
filling it in with words.
But one thing I like is tospecifically ask if you're
really asking a question, askone question.
(24:34):
Sometimes we feel like we'reunder this pressure to ask two
questions or three and you'regonna lose where you're going.
And this goes to RFIs, requestfor information.
When we're talkingcontractually or on projects.
We will look at the drawingsand we'll have a question.
We have to go ask a clarifyinginformation and we're taught on
(24:54):
how to do that as well.
And if you ask three things ofan architect or four, they're
only gonna answer one.
And now you've taken this onestep process of getting
information from them.
They're gonna pick the one thatthey got the easy answer to and
then your other three didn'tget answered.
Then there's these back andforth.
So what's the same with ourconversations is ask one
question, get your answer.
(25:14):
If you need a follow up, youkind of move on.
Now one thing that I thoughtwas kind of interesting I never
really thought about this inregards to teaching is having
that kind of two stepquestioning.
It's really fine to do.
It's fine to do this and thisis kind of the question that
came up.
As a teacher you know kind of ateacher example but is it ever
(25:35):
right to tell a lie?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Right, so open-ended question.
Oh, very open-ended question,and I would say that just to
answer the question.
For example, say because Iwould say yes that it is okay to
tell a lie under certaincircumstances.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Why do you think that ?
So that follow-up question, sothat was a, yet it was an
open-ended but easily can createthat yes or no, and that's kind
of that slippery slope of ifthat person is willing to share
and communicate, then you mightget stuck with the yes or no.
Well, actually it's true, butat least, from there you're
prepared for that follow-upquestion.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
So I think the first question is a yes or no question
and then the follow-up is anopen-ended question because you
need their explanation for theoriginal yes or no answer.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, I would agree, except I think there are people
who, like myself, like that's atough, that's a very much a
morals, open-ended moralsquestion.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I think it is a morals question that can be
answered with a yes or no, and Ishould have.
I missed an opportunity to dothis because I should have
answered it with yes or no, andthen you can ask the follow-up
question, which I hate yes or noanswers or questions that
result in a yes or no.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
But the other side of that is if that person is
really willing to justify, thenthey're going to say yes, but
yes, and you know those type ofthings and then immediately go
into their case of defendingthemselves.
But it gives you thatopportunity to do that follow-up
question and these can fit witha multitude of different types
of questions to kind of give abeginner question, get the mind
(26:59):
thinking, and that's one thingthat I think has been one of the
most important things that I'velearned in communication is
allowing people to process andthink.
I tend to think out loud, Itend to just go and sometimes I
don't allow listeners to processthat, and everybody listens
differently as well too.
I've got a friend at work whohe's like to slow it down.
(27:20):
You know you're saying a lothere, so give those pauses and
don't give so much that.
You know thinking out loud isgive the thought, let the
listener kind of process it.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
You've sparked their curiosity, you've primed their
curiosity and now you need tolet them either go give you the
information and be engaged, orbe you know, give them the
answer slowly, because you can'tjust overpower them with all
the information at once.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
At that point you lose them, right.
It's that cognitive overload.
They're done, they're satiated.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Exactly Alright.
So what were the three keystoday, james?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So the keys today have been one be curious.
Be curious in nature, be alistener and learn to ask
open-ended questions.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Okay, and what do you think?
A UC moment for the day isgoing to be.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I think I just said it.
I think the UC moment is becurious.
Be a listener and askopen-ended questions.
Hey, that worked out perfectlyWell.
There you go.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
That's all I got.
That's all I got, james, seeyou.
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