NLP Email Training 18

Quote

“The quality of our questions determines the quality of the answers we receive.”

Questioning Techniques

In the following lessons, we will deal with various questioning techniques. This lesson is intended to build on what is already known and serves as an introduction. Surely you have experienced that questions are a crucial prerequisite for the success of a conversation. In the first contact, your counterpart does not know what they can offer you. And you do not know what your counterpart wants. Therefore, you need to ask about it. If you ask the right questions, you will receive the desired answers from your conversation partner. However, be careful of an interrogation style. If your conversation partner feels like they are sitting across from you, a 100-watt light bulb shining on them, and they have to answer uncomfortable questions, you will certainly not achieve the desired goal. Approach the matter casually. If you know exactly what you want and have a clear structure in mind, an open communication with a question-answer exchange will automatically develop.

You are certainly already familiar with various questioning techniques. Below are some of them summarized briefly:

Open Questions
The open question often begins with: what - why - how - when. An open question allows for various answer possibilities and can be, for example: What did you have for lunch today?

Closed Questions
Here, the answer is usually yes or no. The closed question is used to determine preliminary and/or additional information.
Example: Is this your bicycle?

Alternative Questions
The alternative question helps the counterpart to make a decision.
Example: Would you like to go shopping today or rather tomorrow?

Information Questions
The information question is often associated with a benefit for the conversation partner, e.g. To advise you optimally...

Suggestive Questions
The goal of the suggestive question is to learn about opinions and needs. The answer is suggested in advance, e.g.: You surely want a solution for your problem, right?

Why Questions
Especially in critical conversations, avoid asking 'Why?' too often. Just as there are a thousand answers to a thousand WHYs, there is no answer to the one Why. And both lead to a bad feeling and conversation. If you want to ask about the causes of an incident, rather use the following 'softer', more objective formulations:
What do you attribute that to?
For what reasons?

Exercise for this week

It's best to do this exercise with a partner. Imagine you are a salesperson in a bicycle shop and they are the customer. The customer wants to buy a bicycle from you. Try to find out, based on the presented questioning techniques (or those you know), which bicycle the customer, i.e., your partner, desires. It’s best to take a piece of paper. Try to get by with few questions!

If you have a sales, consulting, or employee conversation coming up, you can of course try it out directly there!

Metaphor of the Week

The Introduction
Whenever a new student came to the master to learn from him, the master would sit down with him on the floor and ask him some questions. “Do you know who the only person is that will never leave you in your whole life?” he asked the newcomer.
“No master, who is it?”
“You.”
“And do you know the answer to every question that will ever come to your mind?” the master continued.
“No, I don’t know. What is it?”
“You.”
“And can you guess the solution to all your problems?” the master asked as a final question.
“No master, I give up.”
“You.”

Book Recommendation

The Magic of Asking
Authors: Klaus Grochowiak & Stefan Heiligtag

Short Description:
This comprehensive work is dedicated to the art of asking questions in a therapeutic and communicative context. In over 500 pages, the authors show why there are no 'innocent' questions and how targeted questioning techniques influence thinking, emotions, and change processes.

In addition to a theoretical introduction, the book offers numerous practical examples, illustrating different therapeutic approaches and their application in everyday life. An indispensable reference work for coaches, therapists, and anyone who wants to understand and shape communication at the highest level.

Here the book can be ordered.

General Information

NLP Practice Groups
If you are still looking for someone for an NLP practice group near you, then take a look here: www.nlp-peergruppen.de

Archive
We have created a Archive with the past lessons and links created. There you will also find this lesson again as a webpage in HTML. There are always some email programs that display strange characters and do not receive clean emails in either our text or HTML format. In this case, use the online archive to read the lessons. Also use the archive if you quickly need a link, have lost one of the previous lessons, or have not received a lesson.

Advanced NLP Seminars
Of course, we also offer real seminars with personal encounters. This starts with our free NLP Evening Seminars in various cities in Germany and goes up to complete, twenty-day trainings: Practitioner, Master, Trainer and Coach.

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Live your dream!
Stephan Landsiedel