Mike Pulsifer sent me a link to the post Are you answering questions or questioning answers, by Scott Ginsberg.
Scott’s post makes excellent points about the power of questions. Too many times we focus too much on the answers, but asking the right questions at the right times will open our brains to explore other possibilities.
I don’t recall where I got this other piece of advice, but it stuck with me. What if, instead of asking Can I questions, you ask How Can I?
Questions like How Can I or What If stimulate our brain to look for multiple solutions and alternatives
For example, let’s examine what happens when you ask a team member for a technical solution (after all, she is your technical resource) about checking your email from your smart phone while on vacations (and, hopefully, you are NOT checking your work email at all while on vacations).
If you ask her:
Can I check my email from my smart phone while on vacations?
You only give her two options: She can either say yes or no. Probably she will say no, as there is not an open port in the firewall to reach the internal email server.
On the other hand, if you ask her:
How can I check my email from my smart phone while on vacations?
Now her mind is rushing to find a solution to the problem.
By simply adding the word “How” to the same question, we have given this person the chance to find a solution. You just expanded her possibilities, it is not a Yes/No question anymore, it is not a binary scenario (after all, most of us are not computers, right?) but we just gave this person the freedom to look for alternatives and provide more value than a simple “No, it can’t be done.”
Give it a try. Next time you find yourself asking a “Can I” question, think for a moment and rephrase it as “How can I”. I am positive you will get better answers, and, who knows, this person could surprise you by giving you an extra solution that you never thought of. That is the power of human interaction.
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