Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Learn to Question!

Ever wondered, why do we find asking the right kind of questions at the right time to the right person so difficult in our lives- personal and professional alike?
That's the reality we face as WLP (for uninitiated, Work Place Learning and Performance) professionals day-in and day-out while training, coaching and facilitating. In sales, asking the right open questions to customers, in managing people, asking questions to people and in parenting, asking the questions to kids all have a common thread running through them... difficulty in asking that perfect question!
Let's analyze the genesis traced back to our cultural patterns... since childhood, we are taught to Answer questions (read, properly) to our parents, teachers, relatives, neighbors and you name it. Seldom we hear ourselves saying to our kids, 'Sonney, you must see that you ask a good question to your teacher today.' Instead, on innumerable times we ask kids how have they answered questions in tests, quizzes and on casual conversations even.
It's time we as a society,family and community start asking ourselves, Is it something that we could teach our kids on so that they don't face the same ineptness. 
We must ask...Ask we must!

1 comment:

  1. Important fact to be focused upon. Many factors contribute to this dilemma. Facts get changed when we evaluate same for the issues we are interested in sincerely.
    Having said this I would also like to re-emphasis your point of developing Q'ng skills since childhood.

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