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Much of an executive's workday is spent Asking others for information--asking status updates from a staff leader, for instance, or

questioning a counterpart at a tense negotiation. Yet unlike professionals such as litigators, journalists, and doctors, that are

taught how to ask questions as an essential part of their training, few executives consider questioning as a skill which can be

honed--or consider the way their own replies to queries can make conversations more productive.

That is a missed opportunity. Questioning is A uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations: It hastens learning

and the exchange of thoughts, it fuels innovation and performance improvement, it builds awareness and trust among staff members.

And it can mitigate business risk by discovering unforeseen pitfalls and dangers.

For many folks, questioning comes easily. Their natural inquisitiveness, emotional intelligence, and ability to read people put

the ideal question on the tip of the tongue. However, most of us don't ask enough questions, nor do we present our queries in an

optimal manner.

We obviously improve our emotional intelligence, which in turn causes us better questioners--a virtuous cycle. In this article, we

draw insights from behavioral science research to research the way the way we frame questions and choose to answer our

counterparts may influence the outcome of talks. We provide guidance for choosing the best kind, tone, arrangement, and framing of

questions and for deciding what and how much information to share to reap the maximum benefit from our interactions, not just for

ourselves but also for our organizations.

Do not Ask, Do Not Get

"Be a Fantastic listener," Dale Carnegie advised in his 1936 classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. "Ask questions the

Other man will enjoy answering." More than 80 years later, most folks still Conversations at Harvard Business School several years

ago, she immediately arrived At a foundational penetration: Folks do not ask enough questions. In Reality, one of The most common

complaints people make after having a conversation, like an Interview, a first date, or a work meeting, is"I need [s/he] had asked

me more Questions" and"I can't think [s/he] did not ask me some questions."

Multiple questions and their relative information