2024 Human Potential Summit prep Flashcards
Stephen what do you do?
I run a coaching & consulting practice called The Questions Company. We provide training workshops and coaching sessions to teams and individuals.
What are some examples of your work?
Our programming helps clients to use question-asking and question-answering to communicate more effectively.
for example:
- I’m working with a company in Texas right now. They have 75 managers, many are new to management, and we’re building a program that will give them the essentials.
- next month I’m leading a workshop with a group of therapists to help them design better questions to use during their sessions with clients.
conceptually:
- we help managers to be better at leading their teams
- we help executives to think more clearly and strategically
- we help therapists, doctors and lawyers to ask better questions to their clients
- we also help individuals that want to be more confident in social settings
What’s your company’s mission?
We help our clients develop the conversation skills and the confidence to connect with the people they work with.
And we help our clients develop the composure to think clearly and act courageously and compassionately.
What are you looking for at this conference?
We’re continually building out new programming, and I want to learn more about what companies need help with.
I’m also looking for ideas about how technology might help us deliver our work more effectively. (virtual reality, training videos, AI conversations, etc.)
I’m also looking for collaborators and innovators, people I can swap ideas with to learn & grow.
What are you working on right now?
We’re building online courses and designing interactive workshops.
What’s something you’re really passionate about?
integrating storytelling into the training
What are some of the biggest challenges facing your industry right now?
there are so many coaches & trainers that it’s hard for companies to tell who can really help them, and it’s hard for people like me to stand out, especially online
What are you testing out right now?
I’m testing online courses with a lot of different segments to see what lands
also testing various marketing channels (LI, email newsletter, etc.)
How did you find out about this conference?
Do you know the organizer Taylor McLemore? he and I studied together at Davidson College for undergrad.
How did you get into this field?
I spent 15 years as a consultant doing business analytics. But the idea for the Questions Company came up while I was at jury duty. I was in the courtroom listening to the attorneys on each side make their arguments and talking to the witnesses. And I realized that they were asking lousy questions. Their job was to make a compelling argument and organize the facts in a compelling story. But they were asking questions that had obvious answers. Rather than engaging the jury and inviting us into their story, they made it incredibly boring. And I realizing that question-asking and question-answering are an important access point in business settings, in social settings, in education and beyond. And I knew I had the skills and experience to contribute a lot.
What do you mean, asking better questions?
We’ve all been in the room when someone asked a question that made everyone stop and go ‘uh - good question. you just nailed the issue’. Those questions are not random. They are generally short, they typically begin with the word ‘what’. they are followed by silence.
this is just one example: we use questions for everything from digging into a complex issue, to connecting socially with colleagues and friends. There are techniques and principles to asking questions in each of those situations, and that’s the training I provide.
how many times have you been in a meeting, and you ask a team member something, and instead of answering your question they start telling a story. There’s a time for that, but most of this time this will derail the meeting or the conversation. Instead it needs to be an opportunity to coach your team to say ‘look I had a line of thought, but you hijacked the conversation and ran off with it. if I ask a yes/no question i need you to first answer yes or no, then if you have something else that’s important you can ask me if I’m ready to hear it.’
Other examples:
1. Ask WHAT question instead of guessing
2. Ask a specific question - narrow the scope.
How did you land on the name Questions Company?
I was sitting in a courtroom for jury duty…
What are you hoping to walk away with this week?
Information and introductions
I’d like to meet some people I can collaborate with for ideas and feedback.
could be another consultant, or researcher, or someone at a company that is looking for a solution for their own team.
What’s coming up for you in the next few months?
Designing and delivering our programming, and testing our marketing channels.
Why is question-asking important?
If a manager doesn’t have good question-asking skills, they end up micromanaging, or taking on too many tasks.
If a doctor doesnt ask the right questions they’re liable to miss important information.
If a 25-yr old knows how to hold a conversation they’re more likely to hit it off with their date.
