Empowering Your Employees through Question-only Conversations * Incedo Group

Empowering Your Employees through Question-only Conversations

One of the best tools great leaders use to help their staff grow is questions. Yes, questions, not just trivial questions, but questions that matter. Many of the best discoveries started with a curious question in the inventor’s mind that sparked interest to create something. Asking questions that get employees thinking of new solutions, new products, and strategies is one of the best business communication skills you can master.

A great leader is one who does not control an employee’s every move and decision; instead, he asks questions to help lead people to a solution. Through a set of question-only conversations, a manager may be able to get an employee thinking of how to go about a task or how to perform his role better. During meetings, managers may do well to gather important, relevant information from employees by just asking a series of questions that will slowly refine the way employees think. This will help front liners come up with a concrete action plan on their own, without top management dictating what should be done. By doing this, leaders are promoting healthy business communication skills in the workplace.

When a leader begins asking questions, he is acting like a coach in a team. One critical area a manager must also master, while asking questions, is the art of listening. After every question is asked, managers must listen intently to every answer so that he can ask relevant follow-up questions. If you think about it, asking and listening are two important business communication skills every leader must develop.

Empowering employees to think critically and to find solutions for their needs creates great, passionate workers. Someone who is always just told what to do and how to do it will never grow and mature in his role. He will never be 100% ready to take on bigger responsibilities.

Below are some quick tips for leaders in learning the art of asking questions.

Prepare the set of questions ahead of the meeting time; this will help you stay focused on a given subject.

Ask follow-up questions based on employee responses. Are there areas you want clarification? Does a certain response merit need more thinking time or research? Build your questions based on the responses you get, not on other stuff you were thinking during the meeting.

Practice the method of asking relevant questions. Build this skill by practicing with a random subject, take sports as an example, and then list down 10-15 questions all about that topic.

Listen intently. The entire question and answer exercise will be useless unless you listen to your employee’s answers and really absorb what he is saying. Take important notes.

Actions speak louder than words, watch out for body language that may send more answers than the actual responses.

Learning how to ask the right questions is critical in learning business communication skills. The amount of knowledge a manager has will help lead an organization to success, and that knowledge could only be gained by listening. Stop dictating things to your employees, help them instead to find solutions to their challenges by asking the right questions.