I was fortunate to be among the 14 selected sessions out of 127 to speak at Big Apple Scrum Day in May of 2019. It was a sold out event ran by the great community of New Yorkers, for the community. I presented a topic that is very close to me. The title of the talk was “It All Starts with a Question, a Powerful One”.
My talk was scheduled right after the keynote speaker: Gitte .She talked about “Are you brave enough to be Agile?” My talk was at “Penne south”, a room that could fill in 100 people. I was so humbled that I saw it packed.
You can find the talk abstract below.
We enjoy having conversations. Who doesn’t? We are social animals after all. We like to know more about each other’s stories. It is a feature built-in by default. As coaches, it is vital to use this basic instinct to our advantage. The easiest way to influence people is to have a conversation with them. You can use it coaching, mentoring, transformation, or just building a relationship with them. Can you imagine any of the above not to start with a conversation? I can’t!
Conversations are two-way streets. The easiest way to have a two-way communication is to ask questions. Questions can be dumb, unrelated, out of ordinary, crazy, or even beautiful. Can they be efficacious too? They can! An excellent communicator knows how and when to use Powerful Questions to make any conversation a mighty one.
Powerful Questions generate curiosity in the listener and stimulate thoughtful conversation. They are usually thought-provoking and challenges the underlying assumptions. Powerful Questions, if asked in the right tone and body language, generates creativity and new possibilities.
Is it hard to ask Powerful questions? It might be. It is not that easy, and indeed not natural for everyone. The good news is that it is something that can be learned, and relatively very easily.
I invite you to join me for a workshop on Powerful Questions. In this workshop, I am going to help you build your muscle to ask more Powerful Questions. I will give you an easy tool to make your questions more powerful, and conversations more enriched. Asking powerful questions will help you build bridges with people, you would become more empathetic with them, and do not be surprised you are going to listen more. Some of the characteristics of a great coach, one might say! Don’t you agree?”