Ask Better Questions to Build Better Connections
[Applause]
as many parents of school-aged children
can probably relate to
i was once lost in the land of good with
my nine-year-old daughter
when she started elementary school i was
so excited for her
for us and she was embarking on this new
journey
and every day with that excitement in my
eyes i pick her up and i say so
how was your day today and without fail
she shrug her shoulders and say
good and then i’d say
okay what was good about it i don’t know
it was just good
naturally i wanted to know more i was so
curious about what was happening in her
little life
how was she liking her teacher and was
she getting along with her friends
and what was her favorite subject and
looking back on it now i don’t know how
i thought i was going to get all of that
by simply asking how was your day
but ultimately i was in search of an
opportunity to
connect with her an invitation of sorts
to join her
on this journey of big girl school as we
called it
that she was embarking on
but i wanted to do that in a way that
didn’t feel like a daily interrogation
so i sat with it for a while and then
one day it all just kind of changed
we are driving home and i say
tell me what was the best part of your
day today
she said oh my best part i said yeah
your best part like what made you smile
the hardest
today she stops and she thinks about it
and she says oh i know
the best part of my day was getting to
play handball after school with my
friends
really i said i didn’t know you knew how
to play handball she said oh yeah it’s a
fun game you throw this ball and you do
like this
now she’s giving me instructions from
the backseat on how to play handball not
knowing that her own mama
played handball tetherball and dodgeball
when i was a kid
and i share that with her and she’s so
surprised she can’t believe it
and we have a short but riveting
conversation on after school activities
and that kind of became a new thing
between us and it’s something that we
still do to this day and i ask her
what was the best part of your day today
and it has ranged from eating cinnamon
rolls in the cafeteria
to practicing violin to going to the
computer lab which she loves to do more
than anything
and just like that that invitation i had
been longing for into her life
i finally received all by asking a
better question
and it’s that interaction that i
consider to be the path to
connection real connection with real
human beings
through real conversation as a
communication expert and certified life
coach my life’s work is built around
this idea
that the quality of your life is
directly influenced by your ability to
communicate with confidence
and with clarity part of being a good
communicator
requires that you are an active listener
part of active listening requires that
you ask questions
but i want us to go deeper i want us to
ask
good questions the juicy kind that
can help us go deeper faster with the
people in our lives
in the 15th edition of their textbook
looking out looking in authors adler and
proctor state that
questioning helps us to do more than
just gather information
like data and facts and details it can
also
help us learn what people are thinking
how they’re feeling
and in some cases what they want and
that
i consider to be the secret sauce to
developing relationships that add value
to our lives and fulfill us
to be clear i define a better question
simply as one that demonstrates
genuine curiosity but without being too
intrusive and when we can strike that
balance
that’s when we can shatter the
perceptions that we have of other people
and that in some cases people might have
a bias
take my former student khalid for
example
i was an adjunct professor in
communication studies for about eight
years
and over the course of that time i
realized that a good number of my
students had never had a black teacher
before
in their lives ever let alone a black
female professor
in college so it wasn’t lost on me that
by me showing up in all of my glory
on the first day of class would impact
how some of them perceived me
and in some cases how they experienced
me
as was the case with khalid a young
black male
this night in class we are brainstorming
persuasive speech topic ideas
and it’s his turn to share with me what
he’s going to give his speech on
so he comes to my desk and he pops down
in the chair and i said so tell me what
are you thinking about
your topic for your persuasive speech
and he says
i think i’m gonna do my own recycling
and i said oh
okay um tell me more about that why
recycling
and he says because everybody should
recycle
and i said uh yeah you are right about
that
but tell me more is this something that
you’re really interested in
is are you really passionate about
recycling
and he says uh i mean not really i guess
so clearly he wasn’t sure what he wanted
to give
his speech on so we take a moment and i
noticed that he’s wearing a maroon
colored hoodie
with the letters tde printed on it in
white
and i recognize that to be the logo of
top dog entertainment
the record label that puller surprise
winning rapper kendrick lamar assigned
to and this sparks an idea in me
and so i asked him
do you think that you could write a
speech that argues that
tde is the most important label to west
coast rap since death row
and he looks at me and says i’m sorry
what
i began to repeat the question and he
said nah i heard you
but how you know that how do you know
what tde
is and i said well first of all it’s on
youtube
and second i listen to hip-hop i love
rap love kendrick you know
don’t kill my vibe he couldn’t believe
it
his whole accountants changes and he
smiles wide
and he says see miss amber that’s why i
like you because you like you oh and you
young at the same time
i never had a professor like you before
and i just smile and say thanks i think
but in that moment a perception was
shattered and a connection was made
we weren’t just teacher and student we
were two hip-hop fans and we talked
about everything from
snoop to tupac to kendrick and i’ll
never forget the look on khalid’s face
as he was walking back to his desk
brimming with new ideas on how he could
possibly construct that argument
because it was the face of someone who
had just felt seen
and that’s the benefit that comes from
asking better questions i could have
left it at recycling
but by taking it a step further we were
able to engage in a more thoughtful way
some of you might hear this and say okay
girl this just sounds like small talk
which i already don’t like doing now you
want me to do more of it
by asking people questions i don’t think
so and
that’s not exactly what i’m saying
asking better questions isn’t about
meaningless chatter it’s actually quite
the opposite
it’s about communicating with intention
with the people
around us we see this play out in our
romantic relationships for example
a 2013 study found that couples rate
communication
as the most important deciding factor to
relationship success
more than sex and passion
and to me when we can get good
at learning how to engage in a
thoughtful way around us
that’s when we can really see a change
happen
in our relationships
so think about that for a second and
let’s merge these two ideas
how would you feel if your partner
the one you have the one you want or the
one you
had on a regular basis looked you in the
eye
and said how can i show you that you’re
a priority
in my life or
how does this relationship contribute to
your happiness
wouldn’t you feel seen by that person
and appreciated and loved
don’t you feel that way now just by
hearing me say that out loud and we’re
not even in a relationship together
that’s the gift that we all have the
power to give the people
in our lives when we train ourselves to
be thoughtfully
curious to further demonstrate what i
mean let’s play a quick round of ask
this
not that say you’re at a networking
event
and you meet somebody new instead of
asking so what do you do
you can ask what about your work
inspires you
or say you’re on the phone with a friend
who’s going through a hard time
instead of how you hanging in there you
can ask
how can i support you in this moment i
see this in my line of work as a
consultant and trainer at the start of
every engagement i ask the client
what does success look like for you when
all of this is said and done
it gives them a chance to think about
their goals and articulate them to me
and then we can have a conversation
about how we can work together to meet
those goals and i feel like it’s a much
more effective question than
how can i help now this
whole thing of asking better questions
can take a little bit of time and
practice but
you can get it i believe in you
it’s important for me to note feral that
asking questions is only half the
process
the other half of it is being mindful in
how we respond to people
a 2010 study published in the journal of
social psychology found
that questioning has benefits to both
the questioner
and the person responding and i think
that one of those benefits is providing
someone with the opportunity to show up
as their more authentic selves because i
think that ultimately that’s what we’re
all searching for is an opportunity to
just
be ourselves or a space to be ourselves
so it’s important to note that we also
have to make sure that we
answer authentically and honestly
how this played out in my own life is i
used to be the kind of person that was
really good at convincing people that i
was doing much better than i was
i think we all are good at that when
someone says how are you doing you say
good i’m how are you
and then we will keep walking but
there was a time in my life when i
wasn’t doing that good i was working two
jobs one that had a two-hour commute
each day
raising a small yes thank you
raising a small family and trying to get
a small
business off the ground i was so tired
and overwhelmed i didn’t know how to say
that
and one day at the full-time job i had
a co-worker and i were just having a
conversation and she could tell that
something
wasn’t quite right with me and so she
asks me she looks me in my eye which is
always important and she says amber
are you okay
finally someone noticed i thought
that was so much of a better question
than how are you doing because i could
have said i’m great
she knew better than that and because
she
noticed i decided to answer honestly and
i said no
i’m not okay and with that admission
i began to cry and i cried so long and
so hard i left work early that day
and i didn’t come back for two weeks the
question unraveled me
and i realized how much of a disservice
i had done to myself
and to my loved ones by not just telling
the truth and say yo i’m tired and i
need a break
so i made a commitment to myself to
always answer that question honestly now
when people ask me how i’m doing
typically it’s the first interaction the
first time i hear that question
of the day i’ll stop and i’ll think
about it
and i’ll say i’m doing great today thank
you for asking
but if i’m not doing well i’ll just say
you know
i’m not doing my best today but i’m
trying my best
my friend noticed that i do that and she
said would it i noticed
you always say today now when i ask you
how you’re doing what do what does that
mean is something going on i said no
no nothing’s going on i answer this way
because
today is all i have today i could be
doing great feeling productive
getting my steps in drinking my water
but tomorrow i could be in my car crying
in the target parking lot like i was
last week
this gives me a chance to honor this
space and the truth of where i
am and speak that truth but without
telling everybody all my business
she said i like that amber i think i’m
going to try that i said you know i hope
you i hope you do
and that moment with her gives me a
chance to see how
impactful this process can be so
again it’s a transaction i believe that
relationships are life’s
greatest currency and communication is a
transaction
whereby we build our interpersonal
wealth so if you want to be wealthy in
your relationship
i encourage you to think honestly and
critically
about how you engage with the world
around you and train yourself to be more
thoughtfully curious
and make the effort to ask better
questions and answer those questions
honestly
because you never know you might learn a
thing or two about handball
hip-hop or how a friend is really doing
thank you
[Applause]