David J. Parnell’s Professional Series on Questioning Strategy | Part 1 of 5 | Energy Of A Question

Questions are one of the most powerful forms of verbal communication that a person has at their disposal. When you are in situations where you want or need to persuade someone, the saying really is true “you get more flies with sugar”. Well, in the delivery section of your communication tool box, questions really are the proverbial “sugar”. Gentle, tactful and skillful persuasion via questioning is MUCH more effective than anything other method available to you.

What about flattery you ask? What we are speaking about in this post is structure and form, not content. Flattery is content… But since you asked, flattery is nice in small and judicious doses, however too much places you into a weak and unappealing category to the other party. Brown nosing, sucking up, pathetic… what ever you would like to call it, it is traditionally not amenable to establishing a strong, egalitarian relationship between two parties. As such, this greatly limits the scope of flattery’s power. In any relationship, it is IMPERATIVE to have an equal footing with your partner as with out it you will not achieve your personal goals.

[amprotect=2, 3]

I want you to imagine your communication as residing in one of three directional “categories” in it’s delivery…

Making hard and definite “other oriented” (about the person your talking to) statements, orders, evaluation or observations are in fact a “PUSHING” communication. Imagine these types of conveyances pushing onto, and in some cases bowling over your communication partner. Examples are: “You are wrong when you say that X = Y…” or “I know that your outfit is not right for you…” or “You have to leave right now and go get that for me…” Directionally these types of communications are forward.
Making “self oriented” (about yourself) statements, orders, evaluation or observations are generally “NEUTRAL” communications. This means that they are neither pushing nor pulling on your communication partner. Examples are: “I know that you want to go to the party but I am not sure I am up for it…” or “I really don’t think I should wear this outfit.” or “I don’t know if I am going to be able to help you later.” These types of communication are directionally neutral.
Asking questions and making “other oriented” requests can be considered “PULLING” communication. In other words, you are pulling your communication toward your “side” of the fence rather than trying to push them. Directionally, these types of messages are backwards. Now, I realize that the term “backward” may have a negative connotation to it, however in this instance it is a powerful and effective tool.

I want you to imagine two people, standing upright and about 4 feet away from each other. The person on the left is “A” and the person on the right is “B”. I also want you to imagine that there is a rope that is running between the two that is tied around their necks. Let this rope represent the communication, and therefore the mobilizing “force of action” between the two of them.

When I say action, this may mean getting them to do something for you, understand your side of the equation, agree with you, persuasion, etc…

Now imagine that “A” is trying to get “B” to give them a ride to the store to buy a Twix candy bar… “B” agrees with “A”, Twix candy bars are indeed delicious but this doesn’t mean that “B” is automatically on board. Therefore “A” has some work to do…

Push – Now if “A” starts to make statements (“I know you don’t want to, but you should do it any way”), observations (“You are not a good friend if you don’t do this…”) or even demands (“Get off your ass and give me a ride.”) then they are leaning forward in their communication. What does this do to the rope? It only give it slack and thereby allows “B” to move further away from them and pit in harder on “their” side.
Neutral – Let’s just see what this does… “I sure am hungry…”, “I would love a Twix right about now”, “I am really happy when I am able to eat a Twix”. Well, you can see where this is going. The two of them are just staying put, the tension on the rope is not changing so neither is the position of “B”.
Pull – If “A” starts to ask questions or make requests, now “A” is using this rope effectively to “pull” “B” onto his side of the fence. “I am wondering if you can help me by giving me a ride…”, “Do you remember that time I helped you out when you needed a ride? Well I think I need you to help me…”

You may have heard the term, “like pushing a rope…” Communication and persuasion are exactly that. You really can’t push a rope, it will only bunch up. You can however pull it and by doing so you can go a long way toward reaching your goals.

Effective communication is a powerful rope… It can have an almost unlimited tensile strength. It’s power is in it’s ability to pull… not push. When using it to push, it can do very little… The most effective, efficient and potent delivery of “pulling” is in the usage of questions.

[/amprotect]

So how come you can’t push the proverbial string? Tomorrow we will talk a bit about freedom and personal validation to demonstrate what happens mentally when humans are presented with directionally “toward” communications and why questions help you to avoid this. To learn more about questions and other forms of effective communication, please peruse my blog, The Communication Expert Blog or try me on Skype.