Episode 129: Better Questions create Better Thinking creating Better Results
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Warren Hammond 01:10
Welcome back Podcats, to this episode on Questions. Now To be or not to be' obviously, the big famous question. We won't be touching on that one. But this is a little bit bigger, as usual, than I thought it was going to be. I'll give you a clue. When I said to Stephen, give me the definition of a Question, he said, is to elicit a challenge or to inspire a response. Immediately that helped me to move into a higher gear. Again, it makes so much sense. We get taught at a young age, especially in sales, or we see it in the classroom, that the person who's asking the question is controlling the conversation, is controlling the room. So don't you want to be the one asking the questions. So there is that element of control, as discussed. And then also this idea that questions determine the thinking, which determines the results. So if you're not getting the results you want, dont question the thinking. Go back to your original question. And this also takes us on to the idea that the bigger question, gets you bigger results, bigger outcomes, more powerful. This is the basic idea to first of all, be aware of this, and how can you do this better? How can you manage this? And how can you use this to your benefit? How can you help this knowledge of how questions can work and their impact, they can have, how can you use this and turn it to your advantage? We spend a lot of time on this. Stephen goes through lots of different examples of questions, type of questions you can ask. And the sort of impact they can have. Questions are at the heart of so many of the different conversations we've talked about. And so you'll see so many things that we touched on before coming back. I've genuinely had this one resonating my head ever since we did it. I hope you enjoy this one too. Any thoughts or questions, please get in contact podcast@coachpro.online is the coach pro site, loads of information on there. Please take a look at that. There's going to be a full transcript on mine as well. Rhino consulting.nl. Any thoughts? Any questions, any feedback? Do let us know. We'll be back at the end with a quick piece of admin.
So today, as always, is a great topic: Questions. Now Questions is something we talked about pretty regularly, it came up a lot in the solution focused one, we spoke a lot about it there. And even in our tagline is we talk about the importance of questions. So this one's probably way overdue. So as always, let's get started. You always make the subject a lot more interesting than it sounds when we start. If we say to people, we're going to talk about questions, people aren't going to understand how deep and wide and important this is going to be. So let's start with the first question. What is a question? Lets start there. What is a question? What's the definition of a question, Stephen?
Stephen Gribben 04:34
Technically a question is a method to elicit challenge or inspire a response.
Warren Hammond 04:42
elicit a challenge or inspire a response. Okay. So you've already made it bigger. Just not just to get an answer. It's to elicit a challenge or inspire a response. Okay.
Stephen Gribben 04:56
It could be to get an answer, but it's a powerful method to elicit challenge or to inspire a response. So it's a method of communication. It's a strategy of influence. It's a demonstration of your value. And it can be a catalyst for greater impact and outcomes. So a question is to get an answer. But it can be used to communicate, to influence to demonstrate, and also to make things happen.
Warren Hammond 05:27
But even just using words like challenge and inspire in the definition, this is a weapon. This is a useful tool. And I don't think of questions as necessarily always being a part of my armory. But I should be.
Stephen Gribben 05:44
Questions are one of the most important things to have,to connect and to have impact, is having the questions. You will have more influence from the questions you ask, than the answers that you give. One of the most important things about questions is that long after the answer has become redundant or irrelevant. The question is still standing. The answer may change. But really good questions stand the test of time, even though the answer to that same question in a year's time may be different.
Warren Hammond 06:20
That makes sense. So we talked about in these difficult times, for example, as a leader, what your team want to hear is that you're asking the right questions, even if the answers aren't available yet, or as you said, things will change. How people get confidence is knowing that you're asking the right questions. So as always, now I start to understand that I should be taking my questions more seriously, or how I use questions more seriously. Where do I start in building out my awareness of my questioning technique? Or is it about how many questions I ask? Or is it how I ask the questions or to whom I ask the questions? What's the first things I should be thinking about when it comes to my questioning approach?
Stephen Gribben 07:07
Well, the first thing is, once you're starting to understand the value, and the potential of having the questions, and it's one of the most common requests that I get is, can you just write down all those questions and give me them? And I have done that a couple of times, but finding your own questions is the most effective way of doing this. But there's the why you're asking this, the types of questions you're going to ask, there's the when to ask, there's the whom to ask. There's a whole number of areas and aspects of questioning that will determine how effective it is, and we're going to cover them all. So we're going to look at why questions are so important. And then we're going to look at the different types of questions to ask, we're going to look at how you're best to ask them. And then so we are fulfilling that popular request is we're going to give you some good questions at the end of this, in particular categories, that are going to help experience the value of those questions.
Warren Hammond 08:02
That's great. It's good. We're getting the list at the end as well. But I think as we go through this, it's just understanding that questions can take you into so many important places, isn't it? This is what you've explained and taught me before, is about this importance of better questions. But as you said, it isn't just the question itself is, when you're asking it, how you're asking it to whom you're asking it, because there's a lot of different things isn't it isn't just going to be, as you said, rattling off your list is understanding the importance of a questioning strategy. Okay, so what are the important things that I need to be thinking about when I'm asking questions? Where do I start? What's my starting point,
Stephen Gribben 08:43
Important to be first of all motivated to ask questions and so understanding the reasons why you ask questions, and particularly now, why you need to be more aware and more conscious of the questions that you're asking not just to yourselves. But the questions you're then asking others. Questions are hugely, hugely powerful. And they can have a massive impact, positively or negatively. And so it's really important. You and I are big exponents of self development, about taking ownership of your growth and fulfilling your own potential. So being more consciously aware of the quality of questions that you're asking. There's a fundamental to that, that you're asking positive questions. Otherwise, you can start asking negative questions, or questions that are neither positive or negative, and just get you to stand still. And this isn't about saying they're right or wrong. It's about being more conscious of making a choice. Am I asking the question I really need to be asking at this stage.
Warren Hammond 09:49
And this is asking yourself is pretty much what you're starting with here. And this is really powerful. So we talked a little bit about this in Affirmations, about the importance of those powerful statements to yourself to help, not drown out, but at least balance out all of the noise around you.
Stephen Gribben 10:07
Yeah, well takeing ownership is really important Warren than and it starts with you. You will never ask better questions of other people with any credibility than you're asking of yourself. So that personal leadership of you going first. If you're not asking great questions of yourself, you'll not know the great questions to go and ask other people. So it starts with you. And we are all the sum and substance of the question that we ask. And we've touched on this in a number of the sessions is that the quality of the question you ask, is the cause of the quality of thinking that you then have, which then we'll culminate in the quality of the result you produce. So the question is the cause the thinking is the symptom, the result is the consequence. So big questions, you'll have bigger thoughts, you'll have bigger outcomes; smaller questions, smaller thinking, smaller outcomes.
Warren Hammond 11:06
This is great. I love the idea of practicing on yourself as well. I mean, one, because then practice asking yourself bigger questions, and you'll get bigger results. But yeah, of course, you should start with you that makes total sense, doesn't it? Starting with you?
Stephen Gribben 11:22
Even more so now Warren because if you're not asking the question, then who's questions are you listening to? And we are consistently bombarded with other people telling us the questions that we should be asking. And the person who's asking the questions is the person who is in control. So if you're not asking yourself questions, then who's controlling your thinking and your results? So it's about taking ownership and being aware that the question you ask is what's driving your thinking and leading to the result. If you want the result to change, rather than criticizing or beating yourself up for the quality of thinking, go to the cause which was the quality of the question, you want a better result? Ask a better question, the thinking will follow.
Warren Hammond 12:12
This is good, isn't it? Because when I was thinking of questioning, I wasn't thinking of the internal questioning as well and so it's good to get that straight out. This is your starting point. Get used to asking better questions to get better results for yourself, which feeds into the purpose, their habits, their confidence, self confidence, so many of these things. Being able to ask yourself, the right questions, is a key tool in this sort of toolbox that you refer to regularly. This is important.
Stephen Gribben 12:44
However, like everybody else, and particularly if you're doing something you run as a business, the first time I sit down with some really important people. And for me, everybody I sit down with is really important. My emotions can kick in. I'm from a broken home from Linwood just outside Glasgow, and I'm sitting in the 72nd floor of a high rise with some global CEO in New York, and I'm selling the thinking, I'm from a broken home and wondered, What am I doing here? That question comes in, what am I doing here? Now, if I gather myself together, my question might not necessarily be how can I help this person? My emotions come in and the question could be, how do I impress this person? How can I justify myself to this person? How can I show this person that I'm good at what I do? How can I win some work? Those questions now they're all kind of positive questions. And then global CEO might not notice the difference. But I know it's slightly off, and I can tell that it's slightly off because if the question I'm asking is how can I help this person I'll really listen. But if the question my emotions are asking is how can I impress this person? I tend to jump in too quickly. I tend to give too many answers, end up saying too much, because I'm trying to impress. Now the result is I might have impressed them, but not necessarily have helped them. And so having that conscious awareness of your question means that you can move to the questions that work best for you to get your best thinking, and therefore your best result. But what I've got to do is try and grab on to that core success question. Before I step into the room before going to the call, before I stand on a stage before I sit down across from somebody, otherwise, my emotions can sometimes choose other questions, which aren't quite as optimal And its having that conscious awareness. Otherwise, you get the situation where all your emotions are determining the question. So as an example, I've been doing one to one, group and team sessions and conference sessions. for 23 years, it's always live TV, You don't always know what you're going into. And I've got a belief that we've all got within us a 'Core Success Question'. So there's a question, we start from there, we tend to have the best quality thinking and produce the best available result. You tend to discover that most when you're going through a real crisis or trauma situation, where all the kind of preferential questions go away and you get to the core question. So my core question in the work I do is, how can I help this person? And I know if I'm connected to that question, how can I help this person? My thinking becomes a bit like Google search, and it starts connecting with things. And the result, is I'll have been of help. Because the results been designed by the question. The QTR that you talked about before with the question, the thinking and the result. If your thinking is not right, it's deal with your question first. You're saying I wasn't connected to my normal core question, which is why my thinking was off, which is why the result wasn't there. And I love that idea, again, of you being the one asking the question to yourself, not somebody else asking it, because we see it in all the TV detective movies, it's the person asking the question, who's controlling the room? And you see people try and deflect questions and ask the questions themselves. And then that guy says, Hey, I'm the one who asked the questions, not you. And you're right, the moment that person is asking the questions, they're in control. So in terms of yourself, why wouldn't you want to be that person who's asking that question? And then secondly, as you said, why wouldn't you ask yourself the best possible question you could ask yourself to get the best possible thinking? Yeah, and look I've been coaching for a long time, as you know, and two of the fundamental things that was told to you at the beginning was, as a coach, you're not supposed to ask why. (I was always kind of confused by that). Never stuck to that rule, by the way. But I was told you're not supposed to ask why. And the second thing was you never give an answer. And so if someone asks you a question, you answer it with a question. And I get the gist of that. But if you're asking the question of yourself, and if that question is, in my instance, how to help this person, if just giving them a question back isnt helpful, I'll give them an answer that is because what I'm there to do is to help the person, not just stick to a process.
Warren Hammond 17:38
This isn't how do I stick to the coaching protocol? It's how do I help this person? I like that.
Stephen Gribben 17:44
That's a bigger question. So when you first start out on these things, which, it's about learning to drive or learning to do anything, your question is how to make sure I don't get this wrong. And sometimes you're just so focused on not getting it wrong, you never get it right. But as you start to progress and ask better questions, then you'll get better thinking, you'll get better results. And my job, in its simplest form, is to invite people to ask better questions than they currently asking. Not to jump to the ultimate question, but to give them a handrail of what the next best question might be. Because I can normally tell when you look at the results someone's producing, you can take a really good guess at the question that they currently asking.
Warren Hammond 18:29
I mean, why is it then that we don't ask questions? What you've just said, as always with these things which is why it's so powerful, when it's put in front of your face of course that makes total sense. We should all be doing that. But why don't we then automatically, when we think about questions, think about the questions we're asking ourselves. I was thinking immediately about the quality of questions I asked in my family setup, with colleagues and with people I work with. But what is it that stops us thinking more about the questions we ask ourselves. Why isn't this part of our normal set, get up? Or is not part of mine?
Stephen Gribben 19:09
Well, asking questions is a logical and obvious thing to be doing until your emotions get in the way. And then your emotions create barriers to asking questions. And the emotions are all wrapped around the answer. So the main reasons why we don't ask questions. We don't ask questions, because we don't know what the answer is. Or we don't ask questions because we think we know what the answer might be but we don't like it. We don't ask the question because we think everybody else already knows the answer and so it's going to look kind of stupid to ask a question. We don't think the other person has an answer. So we don't want them to feel foolish by not having an answer. So we don't ask the question. We don't ask the question because we don't want to let people know that we don't know the answer. And we don't ask the question, because we're still working off the answer that we've always had.
Warren Hammond 20:06
We think we've already got the answer, you mean, so we don't need to ask again. Okay?
Stephen Gribben 20:13
And questions are a great way to communicate and connect. So 23 years worth of traveling all over. And, Tracey and I have been married for all those years. And we could be literally at opposite ends of the planet. But be connected, because we send a text or make a phone call, or we go on a zoom or FaceTime. And we say 'how are things?' Now, to be absolutely honest, neither of us really want to know how things are because we the opposite ends of the earth, there's nothing we can really do about it. But what we're wanting to do is to connect. Yet there are times when the two of us can be sitting on the same sofa. And Tracy will be sitting there thinking, do I ask him that question? And she'll think, no, because he's gonna say yes. And I'm sitting at the opposite end of that sofa, saying, I'm not going to ask because I know she's gonna say no. So we all know the answer to get in the way of that connection. Because asking questions, is not because of the answer. Asking questions. The value of asking the question is what you communicate by asking. If anybody can remember the kind of first date they went on. And if it was a good date, they asked each other a lot of questions. But if it was one of those dates, where neither was asking each other questions, they knew this wasn't going to go far.
Warren Hammond 21:43
You're right. In the shows they say 'they never asked about me, they didnt seem to be interested. And that comes from questions. If you ask questions, you're expressing interest. that's great. And so we don't ask them because of the fear of the answers, but actually isn't about what the answers are going to be is the fact that you've asked the question, which is the important piece.
Stephen Gribben 22:07
It's what you communicate by asking. So by asking questions, you communicate that you care, that you're interested, that it matters, that it's important, that you want this to become something, that you're genuinely connected, that you want to hear what that person's opinion is, what view they may have, you're wanting to communicate that we're in this, this could go somewhere. So if you think of all the things you communicate by not asking those questions, you don't really care, you're not really that interested, it doesn't really matter. You've got other things on your mind. Those are all the things you communicate by not asking. So if you're just sitting there wondering, just ask the question. It's not about what the answer is. It's what you communicate by asking.
Warren Hammond 22:55
You've got these obvious examples of this all around us all the time, you know, we've been to those parties with small talk. And sometimes you've been the guy who can't be bothered to ask the questions for whatever reason, and other times you are, and the response is fantastic. You've been in the team meetings, and you've asked the questions, and the response is fantastic. You're right, it isn't the quality necessarily of the conversation that followed. It was the fact that you went and you expressed an interest and a value in the other person. So questions are not only about getting good answers, getting good information. It's a way of communicating to other people, you are of value you are recognized, I'm acknowledging you, I'm interested and curious. It's not give me the right answer to the problem. So I can go and fix something.
Stephen Gribben 23:45
Now it's a method of communication, a method of connection, and you can only influence if you're connected. So it's a great strategy for influence. And also, demonstration of your value on both parties, not just your value, you're someone who's interested, but value in the other person that they are of interest. Now, by asking questions, you communicate a lot about the other person, you communicate a lot about yourself, and you also communicate about the value in that relationship. Once you stop asking questions, those three elements are already started to be devalued
Warren Hammond 24:20
Thinking of other people, but also to yourself just what you said, If you stop challenging yourself and asking questions of yourself, you're almost giving up on your own self development, on your own personal development is why aren't you asking yourself and pushing yourself for different results? You know, the answers are going to change. Naturally, they're going to change as you change as your environment changes as what your desires change, relationships change. We should definitely be asking more questions to ourselves and to those around us. Regardless of how we feel about answers or lack of, or quality or quantity of this is about better questions. What are some examples of the sort of questions we should be asking ourselves and others
Stephen Gribben 25:07
There are types of questions to ask and then we'll go into how we should ask them but first of all is the type of question. They're positive questions and there's negative question. There's some questions that give us confidence. And there are questions that we ask that take that confidence away. And those are very subtly different to begin with, but then they head off in very different directions. They spiral in opposite directions. One is virtuous one is extremely negative very quickly, in a downward spiral. So first of all, it's having that conscious awareness. Is the question I'm asking a positive question or a negative question. So for instance, what am I good at? or Why am I so rubbish at that? Or what do I need to do to be better at that? Why do I always fail when this happens?
Warren Hammond 26:10
From a simple sales perspective, you are taught quickly to try to ask more positive questions of others, is what I'm thinking. When you're talking to clients, you want confident clients, you want them to feel good. But maybe we're not always so generous with ourselves. What you're saying is, is that this is important that we consciously choose to do this for ourselves. Because it's going to mean better thinking and then a better result by asking that better question up front. And it doesn't feel like a huge difference. But it is.
Stephen Gribben 26:44
Well, the question is the cause, the thinking then is a symptom of that question. You're thinking doesn't differentiate between positive or negative. It just responds to the question you have asked. So when your thinking becomes negative, and the result is you feel worse, that's because of the question you asked in the first place. You want that result to change, change the question. But it's just having a conscious awareness because your brain will not differentiate, it will just work on what you've put in. So it's having that is this a positive, or a negative question. Is this a confidence building question, or confidence taking away type question. You have choice, You can choose right or choose kind? Choose kind.
Warren Hammond 27:43
That's a good one. That positive? And we talked a little bit in affirmations and in habits as well, is that importance of getting that the better question will reinforce you to move towards the desired outcome better? That, again? Sounds so obvious. But I get what you mean about it can start off paperthin difference. But then really quickly, you find it goes in massively different directions. Yeah,
Stephen Gribben 28:13
We've covered this in previous ones about solution focus questions and problem focus questions. How do we make this work is a very different question from Why is this not working? It depends on whether you want to be an expert in the problem or whether you want to be an expert and what the solution is, because your thinking will just follow the question.
Warren Hammond 28:34
I loved that idea of solving being different than fixing a problem. I found the solve can be bigger and better than just you said, patching up the boat sometimes, and fixing the problem was taking it back to zero. But solving it could mean that you come back with something bigger than the (w)hole, so to speak.
Stephen Gribben 28:57
And the key point and we have illustrated this in the solution focus session is that a lot of people will assume that if I fix the problem, it will automatically flow into becoming a solution. No fixing a problem is minus one minus two minus three getting it back to zero. The problem solving question is how do I fix this? How do I get it back to zero? Now, unless you change that question, the thinking doesn't change unless you change that question to 'How do I now create a solution? How do I now get us to plus one plus three plus five? Without that change of question, the cycle just keeps going back to bringing it back to zero every time. Still plugging more holes in the boat. Eventually you'll got more plugs than boat.
Warren Hammond 29:48
And what's good about this session, which we did recently, and it ties in so well here is this works because of that power of that question that you're asking. So we're talking about that difference So we've got solution focus and problem focus questions as well.
Stephen Gribben 30:04
Yeah. And part of our solution and problem on a very personal level? 'Why dont they like me' is a problem focused and negative question. 'What do people tend to like me for' is a more solution focused and positive question. So even in it's more practical, and your deeper inner thoughts, those questions are really, really important,
Warren Hammond 30:25
You can see how that changes someone's confidence, their outlook. And these are the sorts of questions that you're instilling in others as well, you hope. Obviously Iimmediately think of your own kids, is, are you helping them ask the right questions to themselves, but this comes from me, if I'm not asking these, myself better, I'm not going to be able to pass this on.
Stephen Gribben 30:49
we've also got the, the option and the choice between questions of purpose or questions of ambiguity.
Warren Hammond 30:57
I don't know what you mean.
Stephen Gribben 31:01
So there's a lot of people who will continually ask questions, which leads to ambiguity. How am I supposed to survive this? How am I supposed to get through the day? How am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to be able to do that? No intention of actually looking for an answer to these questions, just using the questions to emphasize and create more ambiguity. Purposeful questions are questions where the purpose is to find a response. Why this affects a lot of people is that when you ask questions of ambiguity, eg'what am I supposed to be able to do here?' With no intention of an answer it's a downward spiral to ambiguity. So the flip side of that, is that people assume well, surely, if I'm then asking questions of purpose, I'll get to certainty, because surely certainty is the opposite of ambiguity. But the opposite end of ambiguity is uncertainty, which is why people don't ask those questions as consistently. But the uncertainty is just in the last 4%. And it's just a different tone on that question. What am I certain of? What could I do? What could help me get through this day? What could help me break out of this groundhog feeling? What could make a difference? And you know that will make a level of difference, it might not make 100% of a difference, but you're heading in the right direction, you're certain of how much it can make a difference. What you're not fully certain of is whether that will take you 100% where you want to get to, but you're heading in that direction with a purpose.
Warren Hammond 32:49
This feels like the difference between intelligent and emotional which we talked about on other stuff, is that as you said that ambiguity and we've all had that question given to us, and you know that they don't really want to have an answer it's almost a way of using itself emphasizing a particular situation or particular frame of mind. But you're right, the other one is there is understanding that there is no clear answer, but you're seeking to get it how much of this can we make clear,
Stephen Gribben 33:15
You're specifying steps, even though the final destination isn't guaranteed. So having purposeful questions rather than questions of ambiguity, also, whether there are forward focused questions or past focus questions, past focus questions are there to analyze, possibly even to be aware of where you are. But those forward looking questions are there to be creative. So again, different types of questions. Now, this is not to say 'Positive is right, negative is wrong, solution is right, problems is wrong. It's just understanding when you ask these questions, your thinking follows that instruction. And then it will give you a result and an output designed by the question. So if you want the result to change, you need to look at the question.
Warren Hammond 34:11
Yeah, that's our understanding and awareness. Is this getting you towards the outcome you want? If it isn't, maybe you need to change the type of question you're asking yourself and here's a description of that Question Landscape. Makes sense. So a past question can sometimes be fitting and a forward question can sometimes be fitting as you said to it's not necessarily one's better than the other. Depending on the circumstance you need to decide which is the type of question you should be asking yourself to get to the right result.
Stephen Gribben 34:41
It depends on the result you want to produce. It depends on what you want to happen next. The quality of decisions typically is measured by whether it results in what we want to happen next. Rather than it becomes just a personal preference, the question. It is the question I'm more comfortable with, A question I've always asked. If it's not getting you to the right place, then you need to change the question because if you keep asking the same question, you may get different answers, but the results going to be more or less the same. Be aware of it because bear in mind, if you do not ask the questions, someone else is going to present those questions to you. Just have a dangerous scroll through your social media feed, and your brain will be filled with the questions that everybody else wants you to be asking on their behalf.
Warren Hammond 35:39
Yeah, as we said, we see this. We know this. Controlling the room is the person asking the question, why wouldn't you want to be the guy controlling your head? Why wouldn't you want to be the one? So if being the one asking the questions is the first step then understanding these different types of questions you can ask yourself is a step up from that.
Stephen Gribben 35:57
And the last area of types of questions is a very interesting type of question. And these are paradigm questions. These are kind of game changing questions. These are the ones you can have some really good fun with. These are catalyst questions. And a lot of people who will say I need to be more of a game changer or this team needs to be more game changing. The game change is based upon the questions they ask. And this isn't just about asking positive, solution focus, forward based questions. This is about paradigm questions. These are the what if questions? What if you had less time? What if you had more time? What if you really had to? What if it couldn't be you? What if you had to find the solution by 12 o'clock on Friday? What if you had no resources. What if you had all the resources in the world
Warren Hammond 37:02
These ones which really generate the creative thinking, isn't it? I mean, I've been party to a few of these. And when you do them in teams, when you're doing the goals and the strategies, this is when everyone kind of smiles when you do these paradigm shifts, and sometimes it's grimaces. But I feel that a bit of your brain suddenly switches on, whether it's a panic mode, or creative mode, or happy mode or dangerously busy mode. But a different bit of your brain is engaged with these paradigm shift questions, isn't it? It's great.
Stephen Gribben 37:36
But the thinking just follows. I mean, it just responds to the question. And just by inputting a more dynamic question, a disruptive question, 'what would be ridiculous success?' You know, if I met in five years time, and you're about to tell me what you were doing and you just burst out laughing and said, You're not going to believe what I'm doing now. What would you then go on to describe? Those are just those paradigm shifting questions. catalyst, disruptive, dynamic questions that really shake up the thinking. And like everything else too much chili in the stew burns your mouth. But a little bit of chilli in the stew makes it into something special. So these are to be sprinkled with care. And following the recipe that you want to know as to your taste. But paradigm questions make it special.
Warren Hammond 38:31
It makes me think when you talked about before with Gestalt. Once in a while adding these things is just getting your brain to be thinking about different, incredible goals or incredible dreams that you want to have happen. Your brain is going to be working on these, your lizard brain is going to be working on ways of doing this. And you'll get closer to those results because you've asking all of these different types of questions to yourself. As you said, I guess we can't all have our brain full of what if questions, but there is space for them.
Stephen Gribben 39:06
There's two sides to those questions. And the one that everybody tends to go automatically to is the disruptive side of it. What if you had to? you know, what if this what if that. There's also the calming side of it. what if you knew everything was going to work out okay. What if you knew he was going to be fine. What if she knew this is what she had to go through to get to a better place? What if this turned out to be the most important corner for that couple to turn? What if this had to happen to get to a special place? So it can have that paradigm shift both on a disruptive or a calming level. What it's doing is shifting that state of mind. Because what if this was exactly where you were supposed to be,
Warren Hammond 40:02
What if it had to be you is one I hear from you. Okay. Well, that's quite exciting, isn't it? I mean, imagine everyone's just sitting there now thinking of interesting fun, crazy. What if ones. I know you've also told us, it's calming, but I think everyone's busy sticking chili in their stews. Nobody's got the cream fraiche out at the moment.
Stephen Gribben 40:28
Maybe you've just got an appetite for chili.
Warren Hammond 40:32
Okay, I love that. I love this breakdown of questions as well. Because you wouldn't think about I mean, negative positive, I think Yeah, okay, we get that. And then solution and problem in a way is, I sort of see how they evolved from it. But things like the paradigm shift and, and the forward and the past, these actually can dramatically shift what you're thinking about and how you're thinking, isn't it? The options we've got in front of us are incredible. So these are the types of questions that we can ask them. So before we get to some of the list, I know before we touched on this is the how to ask the questions. The importance of especially, I'm thinking of teams, but now I'm also thinking, your own internal questioning dialogue, how you ask these questions to yourself, then is also going to have an impact isn't only going to be the question,
Stephen Gribben 41:24
it's really important that you're aware of how you're asking both internally and externally. Just asking the right question, whatever you term to be the right question isn't going to be enough? The how you ask it has an impact. So if I am with somebody, and I can ask them the same question two different ways. So I can sit with someone and say Okay, why as a senior person in the business, who professes to take themselves seriously in their career, who proclaims how diligently they are in taking care of their team. And is seen as an industry leader, and also who will say they want to do their best for the family in all ways and a positive influence and contributor to the community.
Warren Hammond 42:18
I'm feeling for this person already. I dont want to hear the question. I want to get that person out of the room already. Be gentle Stephen.
Stephen Gribben 42:27
Why is it they have continued for so long, and only now decided that it was good enough for them to improve the questions that they ask? So by asking the question in that way, 'What am I impressing upon them?
Warren Hammond 42:46
I think you're impressing your power it feels over them. Your view of them, your opinion of them. Even though at the end, it comes back up again quite nicely. You know, you kind of like cut the legs off from a bit, you're not really giving them a chance to, to shine
Stephen Gribben 43:05
They're going to feel judged, criticized. And they're going have the feel that I have taken a view already and passed judgment on them. By asking it in that way 'why when you take yourself so seriously, you claim to be such a good professional person. Why oh why have you waited until now to actually start thinking, maybe I should be asking better questions.
Warren Hammond 43:28
You're just going to be incredibly defensive back in response to this. Yeah.
Stephen Gribben 43:32
What happens in that relationship when you have communicated that question in a way to impress, because you're impressing upon someone your judgment. You know,it might be based on 'why did you think that was in any way a good idea?' You're impressing upon someone your judgment. And therefore, what happens in that relationship is that that person is either going to get defensive, or they're going to detach, or they might step forward and get aggressive. Either way, that relationship has just got a bit more distant. So they might also just rationalize 'You clearly don't know who I am by asking the question in that way, therefore, I'm detaching, and therefore you have no connection, that relationship is a bit colder, and you're too far away to be of any positive influence. And that is now no longer a question that has any positive connotation or interpretation.
Warren Hammond 44:33
And just going back to when you said at the start about a question being about the challenge? I mean, what you've elicited in that response is almost a flight, freeze or fight. I mean, those three different versions, you said, I mean, it's throwing down a challenge to this person in a way isn't it? You're asking them either, as you said to, switch off or disappear or literally fight you in aggressive.
Stephen Gribben 45:01
Or you could ask exactly the same question in a different way? 'It's great, you've now engaged with this 'Why now?'
Warren Hammond 45:09
And so you're giving them now a chance to say, the good things that changed what they've realized, some inspirational story that has happened to them, how excited they are about what's going to happen next, you're giving them a chance to shine.
Stephen Gribben 45:22
And what this is a difference of as you can ask the question in the first way to impress your opinion on someone, or you can ask the question in a way to be impressed by that person. Now, if that person's got a wonderful answer, you're going to be impressed. But what if the answer is quite poor? What if the answer is 'Well, my boss told me I had to so I'm here anyway. What could you still be impressed by?
Warren Hammond 45:54
Their honesty, their courage, their understanding of the politics and the situation. But you're right, but at least you're eliciting a better quality of answer,
Stephen Gribben 46:08
You can still be impressed. You can still be impressed. Even if it 'I've just stepped into the wrong room, I'm in the wrong meeting' you can still be impressed with their honesty and sense of humour. You can still be impressed, and therefore that relationship gets that little bit closer, the understanding is a little bit tighter, and you're in a stronger position then to be of influence. And the questions that you ask will have a more positive connotation and connection. Because that's a good experience, every time I have a conversation with you, I get an opportunity to impress.
Warren Hammond 46:45
I love that. And this comes back to this idea of it being this communication tool, as you said it is a tool because you want to get closer to people so you can positively influence them and change and get things to the outcome that you want. And one way you do that is by influence. So by asking the question in the right way, you either push them away, or you bring them closer, so you can affect the changes you want.
Stephen Gribben 47:13
It's really important that you understand the 'how to ask'. You're questioning to be impressed rather than questioning to impress. You will know if you're questioning to impress if you're asking a question to what you already have the answer. So what time do you call this?
Warren Hammond 47:36
You can see this, I mean, I can hear myself doing this externally. But internally, it feels harder to ask yourself questions to allow yourself to impress yourself, if you see what I mean, you know, you've got the questioning you. What an amazing way of asking yourself questions that you're trying to allow yourself to come up with a quality of response that actually impressives the Questioning You, if that makes sense. And that sounds crazy. But it would work. This comes back to that confidence cycle then you're talking about is the moment I start asking myself these better questions. I'll get this more inspirational answer, impressive answer, which will give me the confidence to keep doing that. And then that's how I go up. Is that Is that how it works?
Stephen Gribben 48:28
One small examples of that. There's times when I ask people questions, and they go, I don't know. And there's a temptation to say. 'Why don't you know?', but that's impressing upon them that they should know. So when I ask someone a question, they say, they don't know. I'll say to them, what if you did know? And it's amazing how they can come up with an immediate answer. And so when you even do that with yourself, 'what if I did know?', you actually then get answers
Warren Hammond 49:02
so when would I use that then as a question to myself, because obviously, I'm now sitting here running through all the questions.
Stephen Gribben 49:09
Lets go back to that purposeful questions or ambiguous questions, 'how am I supposed to know this' well what if I did know?
Warren Hammond 49:21
All these things keep tying up and I keep seeing all these different connections. This almost links back to the solution focus and the idea of having enough information, This is all you know, you know enough you need to make a decision based on this not using it to paralyze you to not move and make a decision.
Stephen Gribben 49:39
The thing is, as well as a lot of occasions whether you know, or don't know, you probably best to approach it the same way anyway.
Warren Hammond 49:46
Yes, exactly.
Stephen Gribben 49:49
Particular if you're in a role in a supervisory, managerial executive type role as an example, or as a parent which is probably the highest level of executive work we can get. Just because you know how to make the bed doesn't necessarily mean to say that's what you should be doing. So knowing the answer or not knowing the answer, probably going to be the most effective strategies are the same. And that's going to be again, the questions you ask of the people you want to ask. This taps into 'Who do you ask?' And this is about fairness in terms of questions. A lot of people hold back from asking the question because they think it wouldn't be fair to ask because I don't expect you to have the answer. What's not fair is pre judging that people won't have an answer. Most of the growth we've all went through started when we were asked a question we didn't think we knew the answer to so we went and found out
Warren Hammond 50:53
Great. And I think the capacity for your own improvement is if you're asking questions to be impressed. It means you can almost go into any circumstance, any situation, you don't need to be any expert apart from asking the questions and listening back to the answers. It feels that it opens up whole new avenues and whole new floors for you in terms of your own career development. But just in any types of development, you're going to be allowed access to places you didn't think you were able to get to before because you're asking the correct questions. And that's enough value for you to be in that room, isn't it?
Stephen Gribben 51:37
You know, and a lot of times, I'll ask people questions, big questions. Now, what's your vision? What's your long term aims? And I'll be absolutely honest with them all in time, I wasn't really paying too much attention to the first answer. What I was really looking forward to was the third, the fourth answer to it. The answer that they came up with after they've been away and continued asking the question for a while, the more genuine thought through, considered answer because they now own the question, as opposed to, what's the answer that I think you want to hear? Or what's the first answer that comes to mind. Your best first attempt is always fantastic as your best first attempt. But the really good questions, they're worth working with.
Warren Hammond 52:24
I get that. As you practice asking yourself these really good big questions, the quality of your answers is only going to improve, which is going to encourage you to keep asking better questions.
Stephen Gribben 52:36
And then gives you the confidence to go and ask bigger questions of other people, because you can look at their blank face and say, that's how I looked at first time asked that question as well. But here's what I did. And so don't give me your first answer, go and work on it but ask a few times, let's see what you come up with, no right or wrong, let's just see where you get to with it. But if you haven't put yourself through that experience, if you're only ever asking yourself the questions that you already know answers to, then you won't know to help anybody else through their growth if you're already standing still. On a business level with this, which is really important, I was working with a professional services company, who was all set up in partnerships. And they wanted to expand to become this global organization because they have this Regional Partnership structure. And so I introduced them to someone a client of mine at PwC, because they've went through a big, large upscale and they said, if you could introduce us, we would love to know how they got to where they got to. So the three senior partners sat down with the other three senior partners, and I was able to see them a couple of weeks later and ask 'how did you get on? they spoke really highly over you, how did you get on? And then thy said 'it's not gonna work for us? What do you mean it's not going to work for you? Well, their answers, they're a different business to us, you know. So we don't think we can come up with their equivalent because they decided to do this, this and that. And that doesn't fit in with our structure, though. We are working with a different business, different industry. So what questions did they ask to get to those answers? Their answers are their answers. It's the questions that are transferable. So when you look at what someone else is doing, and you're inspired by what someone else is doing, or you admire what someone else is doing, what's not transferable is what they're doing, or what the answers are. What is transferable is what was the quality of question they asked.
Warren Hammond 54:47
And this takes us to their personal development where we were talking about like the Guru's and the self help books, it's actually then understanding, not what the result is, which is what they tend to list Here are the 20 things you need to do to be a billionaire. Six Pack. Presenting, I think those are the examples that we talked about last time. It's actually digging deeper and understanding, what were the questions that they asked themselves that got them to this fantastic set of results for them. But by taking those results, you're not necessarily going to be getting the thinking and the questions, you need to ask them for yourself.
Stephen Gribben 55:29
You end up wearing someone else's clothes. If you're going on what their answers are, I'm not cynical, but I'm healthily skeptical of people who sell me answers. People who will point me in the right direction of better questions, I find it easier to trust. Because then I can use those questions. And wear my own clothes as opposed to imitating someone else.
Warren Hammond 55:55
There. You're I mean, when we think about dressing as someone else, we all love the idea. If I put on a tuxedo, I'm going to act and feel like James Bond, but actually most people just look more like Worzel Gummidge. But there we go. So talking about then the good questions, I'm guessing this isn't really a cheat sheet, obviously, and part of me thinking of this, but this is going to be like a useful guide.
Stephen Gribben 56:23
You and I are big proponents and promoters of self development, as opposed to self improvement. And one of the differences is that self improvement points at gaps, what self development does is allows you to define the space as opposed to the gap. So rather than saying there are loads of great questions out there, and leave it as a gap, then what's helpful is for us to define the space, to give a framework, to give some examples of what good questions look like in specific categories. These aren't the questions, these are indicative questions for you to say, 'well, what's my version of that?' There's four categories, and what we'll do is we'll look at the four categories, asking of yourself, and then we'll look at the 'how do you then ask these questions of others', and why that's important. So first of all, in the four categories in self development, the self awareness, which is you knowing who you are, and connecting with what you're about, then there's self confidence so you understanding where your strengths lie, again not looking at weakness, look at your strengths, then there's self management, and that's the quality of things that you do in making sure you do your best and making the right conscious choices, then the last element of self development is self determination. You taking ownership of the outcomes that you want to get to. So self awareness, really good self awareness, questions are along the lines of from the sort of right out there to Who am I? Which is a real big question. But if you wanted to define the space there it's a kind of 'what makes me happy. What's important to me? What do I value most? And how do people who know me best describe me', so that what you're doing is you're creating that strong sense of identity. So being self aware, who I am, what matters to me what's important, what makes me smile? What makes me laugh? What makes me proud? What makes me feel good within myself, when do I feel I'm being most like me, being genuine and authentic. And those are good questions to help you develop that level of self awareness that's required. You then move on to self confidence, really good self confidence questions are on the basis of what am I good at? And if that's a difficult question for you, then 'what would others say I'm good at? That's maybe an easier question for some people to ask. What do I really enjoy doing? Because you typically enjoy things that you're confident at doing? So what difference can I make? When have I overcome challenges successfully? What have been my biggest achievements? What have I been most proud of? What difference do I make, what value do I bring? What experience do I have? What is the expertise I have developed? What do I know for sure. What am I able to do for a situation or someone or for myself or people who matter? And what qualifies me to do what I do?
Warren Hammond 59:31
I love that. And I love how this angle of really sticking it in the positive bucket. This is all about those good things. And you talked about the challenges you've overcome, it's really saying out that this isn't standard. It's forcing you to almost uncover those things which you take for granted, but actually, are your unique abilities.
Stephen Gribben 59:54
Let's just put this into context. There may be some bits you want to change or improve. This isnt about painting a Picture Perfect. This is building upon your strengths so that when you look at the areas you do want to improve, you're looking at those areas with confidence. So self awareness questions, self confidence questions, self management questions is more that conscious ownership. Self management questions - Am I asking a problem focused question or solution focus question? Am I asking on the positive or negative? Am I asking on the future base or past base? Am I asking questions that work for me or work against me? Am I choosing right or choosing kind?
Warren Hammond 1:00:38
This is a really deep understanding that you are, as you said, self management, you are in control, you have a degree of control and taking it back almost from all the other external influences and time and chance. This will fill it out if you're not deciding to own that space.
Stephen Gribben 1:00:56
So self management is about taking that ownership, conscious awareness of ownership. Then you get self determination and self determination is you taking a real strong stance in the outcome that you want to get to, the result you want to produce. So what would success look like? What would a ridiculous outcome be for me? What would be an amazingly brilliant outcome to get to? What would be ideal for me? What would make me really happy? What would make me so fulfilled? What would it be for me to be me and get to where I want to get to? What difference would that make for me? Or what difference would that make for the people who matter most to me? It's you determining that outcome, and not just waiting to see what other people decide is good enough for you.
Warren Hammond 1:01:47
And so that's helping determine the what exactly is your ideal state for future self would be? And also with that, why that whole vision, that impact, as well, it's asking yourself all of these questions. So this becomes that compelling story that gives you the energy to go back to the motivations and move momentum models as well. If you do this for yourself, and then immediately I can think if you're really good at doing this for yourself, how much easier that would be to translate outside of yourself. If you're not doing this for yourself. If you're not practicing this for yourself, you're almost not being a fraud, but it's not as authentic then if you take it outside.
Stephen Gribben 1:02:26
If you look at the positive aspect of this. With that self awareness, self confidence, self management and self determination. What you have is that unshakable authenticity, that sincerity, that consistency, that conviction, far more sustainable, and for you greater happiness, which is being successful for being the best version of you, rather than generating successful results, pretending or hiding who you are, and being trapped within that. So with that base, that gets us to the last piece of this is therefore the if you're asking yourself these questions, then it's how do you then start to set these questions for other people. And this is therefore being able to say the question I want you to ask is. Because if you present something to three people, and the first person asks, How do I get through this? The second asks, How do I avoid this? And the third asks how do I turn this into a life changing opportunity. Even though it's the same presentation, those three people head off in three very different directions. For you really to have that positive influence, rather than putting it there then just letting people scatter. It's your ability to say here's the information. But here's the question I really want you to ask, How do I, how do you, how do we, change this into a life defining opportunity? And what that does is get everybody to work on the same question. They may come up with different answers. Their thinking may be on different levels, but the question is consistent. Otherwise, you're dealing with a variety of questions, a miriad of thinking, an uncontrollable range of results. And unfortunately, people then think 'oh those people get it but all those people just dont. But what they were getting was the question they were asking. But if you are more consciously aware of the question you're asking, then you can share the question you want others to ask. If you're not consciously aware of the question you're asking, you will assume there's only one question. So surely, they're asking the same question. So when you are on the receiving end of someone who's responding, reacting, or creating a result that you think is way off, rather than criticizing them for their thinking and what they said, or didn't say or did or didn't do, invite them to ask the question you're asking, then you're on the same page.
Warren Hammond 1:05:11
As you said, if their thinking is wrong, then it's the cause, you don't tackle the thinking, you go back a further step and just try to understand what was the question you were asking yourself? Let's get that right, let's get on the same page on that. And then the rest is going to be easier.
Stephen Gribben 1:05:26
The thinking is never ever wrong. The thinking has been designed by the question. So the thinking is always right. But if that's not the thinking you're looking for, you need to change the question, not ask people to think differently. And this is where there's a big opportunity for influence through questions, and you will influence far more through questions than you ever will by telling people stuff.
Warren Hammond 1:05:53
Yeah, you're right. It makes so much sense, doesn't it?
Stephen Gribben 1:05:56
Answers have a very short shelf life. Questions have greater longevity.
Warren Hammond 1:06:03
This is good. This is powerful stuff. There's a lot. So we've just gone through some questions like a simple Q&A. It almost just feels a flippant thing. But actually it is one of the most powerful communication tools we've got in our locker.
Stephen Gribben 1:06:18
If you choose to use it. As you said before, it's a sharp tool. And it can do good if you know what you're doing with it and it can also hurt yourself and others if you don't. So it's really important that it's something that we value, appropriately, so that we can then learn to use it to its full positive advantage. On an operational level, it's being more aware of questions, their value, their power, their impact, the opportunity they create. On the management level, it's starting to look at what are really good questions for you. What are better questions for you? And at a strategic level, it's what questions do you want to start setting so that those around you can be on the same page. And therefore, you've been far more influential towards bigger output, bigger results. And on the CoachPro platform, there are 1000s of questions it is built on questions for this very purpose.
Warren Hammond 1:07:26
I think the phrase is, you know, sometimes there are more questions than answers. That's actually sometimes given out as a bad thing. Actually, that's a good thing. The answers are the questions. Rather than there are more questions than answers. All of the questions are the answers. But there we go. You've given us a taste. CoachPro platform has loads more, but I love this idea. It's incredibly powerful. You start with yourself, make sure you're asking better and better questions of yourself. And immediately you're want to start sharing this with other people. It's going to happen like that, isn't it? That's gonna make such a powerful difference to you. And the impact is gonna have on everyone around you. This is great.
Stephen Gribben 1:08:11
And as you've always said, Warren, in all these sessions, we already do it. There are some questions you're already asking of yourself, which are fantastic questions. That gets you thinking at its best and produces for you fantastic results. There are some questions you already ask that work really well for you. But it's just been more aware of them, treating them with their appropriate value, and seeing if there are other areas where better questions will be available.
Warren Hammond 1:08:37
As you say, we do this, just choose to do better questions more often than happy days. Thank you. This is good. Stephen. Once again. Talk again soon. I told you this was a good one. Questions. As usual, so much of this makes so much sense so quickly. It seems so simple. We know that the person who asks the questions controls the conversation, sets the tone. But who is asking us those questions of ourselves. If we're not owning it, then who is who is asking us these question. And then once we understand the power they can have surely therefore we have to treat it with respect, with care, with consideration ourselves and others around knowing that they can help us get to where we really want to get to this using good care, a powerful making difference, the impact, they're long lasting, this is a good one. I hope you enjoyed it. Going to put this all online. I hope you all enjoyed it. I know there'll be a lot of questions about it towards you again soon.