Here are a couple questions reporters asked (the wrong way.
- Reporter (to football QB): Do you think other teams have figured you out?
- QB (rolling eyes): Based on one game? It’s the only game we’ve lost all year.
- Reporter (to President Trump): Why have so many more Black people been killed by police than White people?
- President (correctly answering the question that was asked): More White people have been killed by police than Black people.
In the sports Q&A the reporter made an assumption based on (at the time) an isolated incident (and the future showed it was an isolated incident). He should have asked an open-ended question like, “What happened today (to cause the bad performance)?”
In the political case, the reporter meant to ask about why a higher percentage of the Black population versus the White population, not about an absolute number. But she didn’t phrase it correctly. She got the right answer to the wrong question.
When I teach my class on growing a consulting business at the Seattle SBA/SCORE office I make a point that sales is asking questions, and asking the right questions is an important component of the process. Sales is not what we imagine happens when we think of a used car lot.
Good lawyers, good consultants, good interviewers all ask good questions. On the flip side, those being interviewed for a job need to ask as good or better questions about the position and the company. Business buyers and sellers both need to ask the other party good questions, open-ended ones to get insights.
Asking the right questions is just one of the topics in my upcoming book, Getting the Deal Done, which is now at the designer. It is 61 short chapters, each a strategy to get a buy-sell deal successfully closed. I wrote 50 of the chapters and 11 deal making friends each provided their expertise via a chapter.
“All humans are stupid, but the smarter ones at least have a handle on their own ignorance.” John Cleese
