From the CQO
May, 2007
Politeness is a Two-Way Street
The focus in this issue of Sharper Minds is on the difference between Everyday Q&A and Precision Q&A in your workplace conversations. The differences in these modes of talking also translate into differences in perceptions of politeness that are important to keep in mind as you work with people who haven’t taken an introduction to Precision Questioning.
When we are following the protocol of Everyday Q&A, we tend to provide much more information than is literally requested in response to a question. By the rules of Everyday Q&A, answers that are extremely brief tend to confuse people and are easily misinterpreted as being rude.
When we shift into Precision Q&A, however, the logic of politeness is transformed. By the rules of Precision Q&A, it becomes polite as well as conversationally efficient to say less, rather than more, in response to a precise question. Novices often misunderstand the intentions of a questioner because they don’t yet understand this reversal in the rules for politeness.
The transformation of politeness that accompanies Precision Questioning is most evident in the boardroom. In the press of mountains of information and high-stakes decisions, executives see themselves as surrounded by dangerous complexity. To make matters worse, their time and attention are severely limited. When an executive asks a precise question that calls for a simple number or date as an answer, it becomes painfully clear that giving a long, rambling answer is impolite. In the rules of Precision Q&A, this inability to give a precise answer can become disrespectful.
From their side, executives who are accustomed to using PQ as a daily tool often fail to understand that most people genuinely believe they are helping the discussion by giving more information. To those who don’t understand PQ & PA as daily work tools, the executive’s irritability with a long answer can become incomprehensible.
By increasing the precision of questions and answers that everyone uses in the workplace, we can together raise the level of the thinking that facilitates important decisions. Using the rules of PA, the answerer is making it easy for the questioner to put their best thought into each question. In the same way, the questioner is making it easy for the answerer to put their best thought into each answer. Approached with this symmetry of politeness, the result of PQ & PA in action isn’t just efficient and mutually respectful; it’s also beautiful.
Dennis Matthies
Vervago Co-Founder and Chief Questioning Officer
dennis@vervago.com
click here to view Sharper Minds newsletter - Issue: 2 (May 2007)
