Coach Ken Offers A Strong Communication Tip

February 17th, 2010 | Posted by Debra Simpson in Sales

Open Ended Questions

Ask Open-Ended & Clarifying Questions

Don’t work so hard on your next presentation, client meeting, or employee conversation. Certainly come prepared. But start by asking open-ended questions to target the needs of your listener or audience. It allows for multiple responses in the listeners owns language.

Repeat back what you heard using similar words from what what expressed. Then ask “Is what I said what you meant?” and adapt your style and response to meet their expectations. It will encourage a meaningful response that targets results without judgment, instead of driving, strong-arming, or pushing your own agenda. It will also demonstrate active listening skills while avoiding projecting, fixing, or telling.

Examples of open-ended or clarifying questions:

• “What’s the most important thing you’d like to get from me, or this meeting?”
• “How would you like me to provide you with feedback or information?”
• “Describe for me how you did….”
• “Tell me a time when you demonstrated….”
• “What would it look like if… (you tried the opposite)?”
• “What if the opposite were true?”
• “How can I support you?”
• “What would success look like?”
• “What did you intend as the outcome?”
• “How much time did the project work take?”

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Ken Sergi, Ken Sergi Coaching and Consulting, is who brings unique talents & diverse experiences to provide a broad range of client services.

As a Business Coach, Ken brings more than 25 years of diverse local and international experience that business, visionaries and individuals trust to help achieve amazing success. He has helped small to mid-size business, and has managed large scale organizational shifts for Fortune 500 companies.