How to Ask Good Questions to Influence Your Audience

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When you're having a conversation and asking good questions to influence, ideally, you are trying to influence an outcome that is good for both parties. And so I'm talking about genuine curiosity versus strategic curiosity. So if I'm asking leading questions where my intent is more selfishly driven, people won't feel safe enough to truly be vulnerable and open while answering those questions. We have to be humble in our approach. And we also have to be collaborative. Just changing your mindset will improve the quality of your questions in your next conversation.

Kwame Christian: American Negotiation Institute Kwame Christian is a best-selling author, business lawyer, and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Following the viral success of his TED talk, Kwame released his best-seller Finding Confidence in Conflict: How to Negotiate Anything and Live Your Best Life back in 2018. He’s also a regular Contributor for Forbes and the host of the number one negotiation podcast in the world, Negotiate Anything, which currently has over 5 million downloads worldwide. Under his leadership, the American Negotiation Institute has coached and trained several Fortune 500 companies on applying the fundamentals of negotiation to corporate success. He's also the author of the book How to Have Difficult Conversations About Race and the creator of Negotiable, an Online Community to Learn to Negotiate Anything. We often think about questions as a way to discover more — but have you also considered how your questions might influence? Kwame Christian and I discuss three key steps in order to persuade better through your intentional questions. Key Points Rapport questions help you make a connection with the other party and establish a baseline for how they communicate. A helpful place to begin on rapport is noticing something that you genuinely admire or are curious about in the other party. When gaining information, start broadly and then pull the thread when the other party leads you down a path. Beware that your role/positions can cause people to say more than they otherwise might. “What would it take?” is often a helpful way to illuminate a path forward. Even if you ultimately are more directive, laying the foundation through questions allows the other party to be heard and understand. Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes These Coaching Questions Get Results, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 237) How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet (episode 454) The Way Out of Major Conflict, with Amanda Ripley (episode 529) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.