Ask, Not Tell

‘Ask, Not Tell’ – I wrote before in this blog such advocate is essential in presentation, training, facilitation and coaching.   I was in a negotiation class yesterday.   It highlights that by research skilled negotiators tend to ask 3 times more questions than average negotiators!   In negotiation, questioning can:

•    Expose problem
•    Reveal strategic information
•    Control the discussion
•    Be an alternative to disagreement
•    Buy thinking time

Asking good questions helps in a lot of aspects in life!!

I am writing this on the SQ flight leaving Chennai.   I just attended a 4-day Strengths-finder coaching class in Chennai last week.  This marks the start of my journey of professional coaching.   I am not sure how good I will be or whether it will become one of my professional pursuits.  But learning this new skill is exciting.   More importantly, I am amazed the similarity between coaching and consultative selling or facilitation.   The required mindset is similar.   In short, it is largely about ‘Ask, Not Tell’    Coaching is about empowerment.   A good coach should avoid telling his / her thought.  More importantly, it is about helping the coachees finding their own ‘solutions’.

Well, with this blog also named the same, well, how could I resist to know more about coaching!!

Following my learning from the William Rothwell’s session, I now incorporate a course-end quiz into most of my new courses.   There are all different test formats – essay, demonstration, fill-in-the-blank, multiple-choice…   Amongall, I prefer the multiple-choice question since it takes minimal time to check the answers.

I am drafting questions for a Train-The-Trainer course.   I want to test the learners on Adult Learning Principle.   I am thinking…   my question can be:

Option A – Which of the following is NOT an Adult Learning Principle?

1. Problem-Centered- Adults are motivated to learn so they can perform a task or solve a problem.
2. Association – Adults need to build on experiences.
3. Color – Adults learn more effectively when their workbooks contain more than 5 different colors. (Answer)
4. Variety – Adults learn more rapidly from a variety of instructional methods.

Or the question can be:

Option B - Which ‘Adult Learning Principle’ is NOT applied in the following learning experience?

‘The trainer broke the 1-day system training into 4 sessions covering the 4 major components of the new core banking system.  In each session, he first lectured for 45 minutes and then ran an activity.   In the 1st session, the learners were asked to present back the content in small group.  In the 2nd one about the enquiry function, the learners performed a task to find out information from the system as requested.  In the 3rd one about the transaction function, the learners were asked to construct wrong transactions on purpose and passed to the another small group for checking.  And in the final one, the learners challenges each other in small groups by composing their own questions on the content.’

1. Problem-Centered- Adults are motivated to learn so they can perform a task or solve a problem.
2. Association – Adults need to build on experiences. (Answer)
3. Self-Concept- Adults need to be autonomous and self-directing.
4. Variety – Adults learn more rapidly from a variety of instructional methods.

Which option is better?   Quite obviously option B is better because it pushes the learners to apply.   So, questions can  be asked differently to test different level of understanding.    In fact, I found something interesting from the internet – there are 6 levels of questions:

• Knowledge - Remembering previously learned material, e.g., definitions, concepts, principles, formulas
• Comprehension - Understanding the meaning of remembered material, usually demonstrated by explaining in one’s own words or citing examples
• Application - Using information in a new context to solve a problem, to answer a question, or to perform another task. The information used may be rules, principles, formulas, theories, concepts, or procedures
• Analysis - Breaking a piece of material into its parts and explaining the relationship between the parts
• Synthesis - Putting parts together to form a new whole, pattern or structure
• Evaluation - Using a set of criteria, established by the student or specified by the instructor, to arrive at a reasoned judgment

It gets more challenging to the learners as we go down the list.   Looking back at my example, option A is probably ‘Knowledge’ whilst option b is ‘Analysis’.   For ‘Comprehension’, I probably should ask them to define ‘Self-Concept’.   For ‘Application’, I would ask them to describe what to add in a particular training (e.g. one of their own) in order to make it ‘Variety’.   For ‘Synthesis’, I should ask them to construct a case where all 5 principles are present.   For ‘Evaluation’, I should show them a training video clip and ask them to criticise against the principle.

These 6 levels are very helpful for us to make the test more effective.   Well, it may sound quite academic.   And it would also be challenging to the trainers to make every question of the ‘Evaluation’ level.    I guess for the very least this model reminds us not to ask just ‘Knowledge’ level of question!!

I was one of the participants in a short group discussion session last week.   Like other facilitated sessions, there was a debrief session after some activities.  The facilitator asked a question verbally for us to discuss within individual table teams.   What the facilitator intended to ask is ‘How effective do we learn from our daily work?   Please indicate by a percentage of time when you really learnt something you want.’  Unfortunately, different teams understood differently about what was asked.   Read more

I spot an interesting analogy about question type raised in the book – Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono (though this book is not about questioning skills).

Questions are divided into 2 types. There is a fishing question, which is exploratory (like putting bait on a hook but not knowing quite what might turn up). There is a shooting question, which is used to check out a point and which has a direct yes or not answer (like aiming at a bird and hitting or missing).

When I read the above, I think of the difference between facilitators and trainers. I map them into the different questions which facilitators and trainers will ask respectively. The facilitators tend to ask fishing question. As they question, they do not have the answer in their mind at all. Anything can come up. On the other hand, the trainers tend to ask shooting question. They ask questions to convey the training content. They are targeting at something. They may however not simply ask a direct yes or no question like described by de Bono.

Interestingly, the Fishing Question and Shooting Question help to distinguish the facilitator and trainer role.

Related post:

Should I be the Trainer or Facilitator?

Presenter vs Trainer vs Facilitator

More about Trainer vs Facilitator

I always want to dig deeper the reasons why questioning is powerful. I find one of the reasons in the book – Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono. I am reading the chapter on the green thinking hat – the creative hat. Let me highlight the relevant paragraph:

“… The “expectation” aspect is also very important. People are very good at doing what is expected of them. People are good at playing the “game” which they perceive to be in progress. The result is that people who have never thought of themselves as creative start making a creative effort. Their confidence increases and soon they are as creative as anyone else….”

I agree on the claim that people are very good at doing what is expected of them. This logic works at home, school and work. An expectation given simply by another person is powerful. It is like an anchor. The same logic applies to questioning. When one is asked a question, he / she is given an expectation. He / she is compelled to think.

In the training setting, whenever the trainers ask questions, they fire away expectation which influences the learners!

This post is a bit off the blog topic i.e. Training / Facilitation / Presentation. It is more about communication in general, or communication in the selling environment to be more specific. Do allow me to share it here cos what happened was really interesting.

Other than being an in-house trainer, I manage the overall personal / soft skills training offerings for the Bank in China. Recently, I was asked to meet up with an external vendor together. I heard about the firm before. They are expensive but feedback from their learners has been very positive. In particular, I heard from the others that the one we were going to meet was a wonderful trainer and coach. Let’s call him Ken (a fake name) . I looked forward to meeting up with Ken a lot.

From my observation in the meeting, Ken is real strong in his communication skills. He is very articulated when he speaks – clear both in terms of voice and mind. Very professional and convincing appearance. Strong background as well. I learnt quite a bit from his strength in the meeting. On the other hand, I also learnt from something which he could have done better: Read more

It is now the 1st break time on Day 1. Learners rush out to enjoy their break and you now some quiet time. You probably want to reflect a bit on the progress. The natural question to ask yourself is whether I have delivered as planned. Specifically, you may check whether you have covered the content in the facilitator guide e.g. activities, debrief or just lectures.

But strictly speaking this is WRONG! Read more