Resisting The Urge To Jump In

You know, I was racking my brain thinking what to write about asking questions that hadn’t already been said. My fellow bloggers have pretty much echoed what I would have said from my own experience – that questions (the right questions) are integral to forming relationships and solving problems.

What I would like to share, I came across while listening to Shane Gibson’s ‘28 Days to Better Selling’ series. I assure you I wasn’t approached to recommend Shane’s podcast here, but in day 11 of the series Shane does go into depth about ‘Needs Analysis’ and a great discussion on question types and moving discussions along.

On listening to this podcast discussion I particularly empathised with a certain scenario, mainly because I have to resist the urge on every occasion to fall into the very trap being discussed. Picture the scene; you are at a networking event and you meet a great contact and spark up some rapport, you ask some great questions and develop quite an instant friendly discussion. There are certain questions that you know you ask that will instantly qualify a situation as a lead… it goes with the territory; you’ve asked these questions thousands of times before. You ask the question and three words come out of the other person’s mouth and you already know what issue that person has.

Inwardly, you are cackling with glee, you are an expert at this and know the solution. You are dying to spread the news and inevitably it is taking so long for the other person to finish. Like a primary school child who knows the answer to a maths question and strains to extend their arm up an extra foot above his classmates to prove his knowledge – the restrain finally breaks and you interrupt the other’s flow to gift wrap them the knowledge they so require. You fail.

No matter how much you want to help, sometimes the answer is not in the result but by the way the result is achieved. No matter the temptation, interrupting another person is against common courtesy and risks alienating yourself not only for being rude but for not listening – it’s obvious that while the other person is talking that you are already forming a different conversation. Besides, it’s incredibly arrogant to jump in assuming you already know the answer – you may not…

…that is unless you let the other person finish what they are saying. What exactly is the rush? Don’t be afraid to ask further questions, go over things again, think, ponder.

Be present in the moment and not looking forward to the next.

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