Create Your Personal Questioning Style

Terry J. Fadem

There is a single unanimous recommendation from all sources on questioning: If you are asking in person, speak clearly. Include voicemail in this recommendation, too. Although you might not be physically present, your electronic residue is, and it represents you.

These are basic and commonsense recommendations. Yet, due to habits or lack of attention, they are not always practiced. Consider, for example, this case of the CEO of a new business.

Whenever she was about to ask a member of her staff a question, any question, she folded her arms—literally, every single time. Her staff automatically braced themselves. She asked good questions, and they were highly skilled. However, the arm-folding ...