5. Don’t ask “Why?” Here is a major exception to the suggestion that you ask open-ended questions: Avoid queries that start with “Why?” People who come from a problem-solving orientation tend to love this word. But in a discussion about what your partner is feeling, “Why?” will almost always sound like criticism. When you ask, “Why do you think that?” the other person is likely to hear, “Stop thinking that, you’re wrong!” A more successful approach would be, “What leads you to think that?” or, “Help me understand how you decided that.”
