The Art of Getting to YES: How Using Questions Correctly Inspires Action, Agreement, and Connection with Anyone

by Lynn Baber

Open questions are frequently used to gather information, gain perspective, or seek direction.

Closed questions can reveal truth, limit how much truth is revealed, or back someone into a corner by removing the opportunity to explain

Irritation and frustration are useless emotions that suck up your time and energy.

Effective questioning requires you to listen to answers (without interruption) and suspend judgment. That means resisting the urge to make assumptions. Do not skip over this point. It’s a biggie.

If Mom trained Richard from birth to consider her request sufficiently motivating, she would rarely have to go further.

If you aren’t able to get a yes, don’t issue the command. If you do, you’re no different from Richard’s mother. Don’t start a fight you can’t win. Go back and ask better questions.

Easy and simple are not synonymous.

Enforcement, or punishment, will never fix inability, and no amount of education will ever fix unwillingness.

Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.