It’s our fault that the person we are talking to doesn’t answer the question we really want answered.
Whether that’s our spouse/partner, a peer, a direct report, or a buyer, we are at fault when we ask more than one question at a time.
Typically, the recipient of our questions will choose the one that they are most comfortable answering and ignore the rest. We end up frustrated because we’re emotionally attached to getting a response to a question that they ignored so our interaction disintegrates from there.
For example, picture a Seller talking to a Buyer.
- Seller – so who else is going to be involved in selecting a vendor? (the real question) What criteria are you using to select?
- Buyer – price will be a major selection factor as will technical expertise.
When we legitimately need a question answered it does us and the other person a disservice to not ask the question on its own no matter how uncomfortable the question makes us.
We may be wildly uncomfortable asking for feedback on our performance in a presentation and we are doing a disservice to our growth and development if we say to our colleague, “so how did I do – good, bad, ugly? Did you want to grab lunch?” Our colleague may give us some half-hearted comments but is more likely to take the comfortable path of responding to our question about lunch.
It’s true we may have a lot of questions that need to get answered and we may feel like we need to get them out on the table, so we don’t forget one. Ultimately dumping questions out on our conversation partner reduces the quality of the interaction and our productivity.
Until next time… go ask one question at time 😊.
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