Have you ever been presented with painful uncertainty by career disruption?
Have you ever been confronted with a situation at work that you perceived threatened your security, refuted your established practices, upended your own understanding of your role and abilities, and created an environment in which you did not know how to participate or react – a circumstance to leave you confused and anxious? Have you ever wondered, if presented with such crisis – what class in college ever instructed me how to deal with such things? What do I do now, when the well-schooled professional methods, traditional philosophies, and my own personal career expectations with which I’d grown comfortably familiar – disappear?
But Lora learned to pivot her career by asking the kinds of questions nobody else was asking. What are our clients’ clients worried about? How do we help our clients connect with their customers more deeply and serve them more successfully? What should our organization strive to become, rather than remain satisfied being?
Learning objectives:
- Identify considerations in “how to” ask questions: “Soft skills” are critical.
- Learn how asking good questions can challenge assumptions, provoke thought, build ongoing relationships, create strategy, and eliminate barriers to understanding–while demonstrating your professional value.
- Discover readily available resources and opportunities exist that enhance your ability to make thought-provoking inquiries; good question-asking is likely not inherent.
- Realize well-considered and carefully posed questions trump “easy answers” or absolute solutions in information exchange: Ongoing “questions” are essential while solutions are subject to change.