How to ASK BETTER QUESTIONS - Business English lessons

Asking questions in English is something that we all do, but how good are yours? In this podcast we'll learn how we can ask better questions that our colleagues, clients, and customers will find interesting and engaging. We'll look at some natural and native sounding English vocabulary that we can use to do this, and we'll heard some great examples of question structures that you can use.

If you speak English at work and want to sound more native and natural when talking to colleagues, customers, or clients, then I hope that the vocabulary, grammar, and communication tips in today's episode will be useful for you. 

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Also, if you're studying for the IELTS, TOEFL, ICAO or Cambridge English tests and exams then you might find some of the vocabulary in this episode really useful.

This podcast is all about helping you to communicate better, in English, at work. I work with international English speakers from around the world who use English, at work, as a second or third language and I hope that I can bring some of the ideas, vocabulary, and grammar, from those sessions, to you in this podcast.

Don’t forget that my full time job is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills. So, if you need English to do your job but don’t speak it natively then maybe we can work together to help you to achieve your language goals. 

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Transcript

Welcome back to the Breakout Business English podcast. My name is Chris and I'm a business English and communication coach. And I've personally worked with over 1000 international professionals, likely just like you. To improve the way that they communicate at work, in English Thank you so much for listening and of course for your time. And our topic today. Is how to ask great questions. At work. I spend hours every day having conversations with professionals around the world to help them improve their English and communication skills. Which means that I spend a lot of time Answering questions And even more time. Asking questions. Okay, maybe the same amount of time asking questions. And over the past few years of doing this, I've come to realize that asking questions is a skill. Building great questions that give your conversation partner the best chance of giving you a great answer. Is challenging. It takes time to learn. And there's a lot of trial and error involved. By which I mean you try something, and if it doesn't work, then you try something else. You trial your ideas, you have errors, you make errors and make mistakes, and then you try something else. One thing that I've talked about on YouTube before, but maybe not on the podcast, is making questions specific. And hypothetical. Hypothetical question. Is one that asks us to imagine a possible situation a situation that is not actually happening but perhaps could. When I say that your questions should be specific, I mean that you should make them feel like Real questions. Give detail. And set restrictions on the answer. Set conditions for what you want the answer to be. And this can help you to guide your conversation partner to their answer. With that said... I want to start today by giving you a couple of my favorite hypothetical questions. Listen to these and see what you think. 
If I took one hour from your day, and I made your day one hour shorter. What would you stop doing? What do you think you could stop doing and still be productive? If I took away one hour from your day, And I made your day one hour shorter. What would you stop doing? What do you think you could stop doing and still be productive? Okay, let's say that you have a young colleague. Who is going to give their first presentation ever. They get into the elevator to go to the meeting room, and you realize that you should probably give them some advice. As the elevator doors are closing, what do you shout through those doors to them? What's that one short piece of advice that you think could really make an impact? Usually I read all of these lines twice, but that was quite a long one, so I'll ask you to skip backwards and listen to that again if you need to. The first example here. Is a question structure that I like to think of as adding or removing. We can ask about removing 10% of a team's budget. Removing one hour from their day or even removing a member of their team. On the other hand, a nicer, more positive way to think about this is adding something. 
Something like, if I gave you the budget for one more team member. Who would you hire and what position would that be? Or if you magically had one more hour in your workday. What would you spend it on? Figuring out how to apply these hypotheticals to your questions and the information that you are trying to get can be a really powerful way to build questions. This can be a really useful tool if you're having trouble understanding someone. 
So let's say, for instance, that you ask someone a question and you don't really understand the answer. Maybe they've used some vocabulary that's new for you, or it's just a very complicated explanation that they've given you. Giving them a hypothetical like this, finding out what that hypothetical idea is, and encourage them to narrow their answer down. And it can help you to know what to expect from that answer. 
So. If, for instance, you have a colleague who is managing an underperforming team member, And they're telling you about that underperformance. They're telling you about what is going wrong. Then Maybe you could ask. Let's say this team member came in tomorrow. And They changed one thing about their behavior. They improved one thing. What would that be and what would that change look like? This can encourage the other speaker, the person you're speaking to present the information in a slightly different way. In a way that you are expecting and a structure that you understand. This can help you to understand that information. The last example there is one of my favorite questions to ask. I use this often when I'm discussing tips and methodology and best practices with people. This is our question about the closing elevator doors and yelling, shouting a piece of advice to a young colleague who is just going maybe into their first meeting or to their first negotiation or to have a meeting with their boss, what is that one piece of advice you would yell? I'm not just asking for advice here. I'm talking about a colleague who is young and just started in the industry. Their presentation is in 10 minutes, so what piece of advice would make the difference? This question is much more specific than give me some advice on this topic. Tim Ferriss. That's F-E-R-R-I-S, is the author of a book that you might have heard of called the 4-Hour Workweek. And he's the host of one of the most popular business podcasts in the world. He says that we should think about how easy our question is to answer. An example that he gives, for instance, is about books. He says that if you ask someone the question, What's your favorite book of all time? Or maybe which book has most impacted your life. Then this might take the other person a long time to think about. There's so much information on the other side of that question. 
So much information that you have to filter through. That building an answer could be really challenging. It actually puts a lot of pressure on the person answering this question. And it's not something we can answer easily. How can we make this more specific and more hypothetical? In order to make it easier to answer. 
Well, If we just take the specificity element, then maybe we would say something like, Do you ever give books as gifts? And can you tell me a book that you've given as a gift? That you think really helped someone out? That's nice because there are fewer ways to answer that question. It doesn't take you long to search for the information that you need. Personally, however, I would think about making this more hypothetical. Which can make it more fun. Let's say that you and I went to a bookstore right now. And you decided to be really kind and buy me a book that you think might help me out in life. Which book do you think you might buy? And if you want to work on your ability to ask great questions at work, then maybe we can work together. My full-time job. Is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills. 
So, if you need English to do your job, but you don't speak it natively, then I would love to meet you. If you'd like to book some time to meet with me through one-to-one video calls, just you and me, then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglish.com. That's the title of the podcast, breakoutbusinessenglish.com and find out more. Starting on our very first call, we can focus on the specific opportunities that you personally have to improve your English and communication skills and the mistakes that you make most often or cause the biggest problems with your communication. And right now, you can use the code PODCAST30 to get started. That's podcast three zero at checkout to get a 30% discount of your first booking. Of 30, 45 or 60 minutes. 
Sometimes my calendar gets a little busy, so if you have trouble finding a time that works for you can always send me a message through the contact page on the website and ask if I have any time to fit you in. I've worked with over 1,000 non-native English-speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you. Now, If you've done any reading on how to ask questions before, then you might have come across the idea of closed questions and open questions. Closed questions are very often yes-no questions. They don't give y'all. Interlocutor, that's a very fancy word that means the other person in the conversation. They don't give your interlocutor many choices. These aren't discussion questions. They have very short answers. How old is your brother? He's 27. There aren't many ways you can take that answer, many directions you can go in. Open questions, however. Are the kinds of questions that give the other speaker a lot of space to move around. A lot of room to talk about well, often many different things and take the answer in many different directions. And for this reason, Open questions can be really great ways to encourage your colleagues to elaborate on their ideas Let's talk now about some great ways to ask very open questions and give the other person a lot of options for how they can answer. 
I wonder if you could chip in your thoughts on this. I wonder if you could chip in your thoughts on this. It would be great if you could elaborate on where you think this project is heading. It would be great if you could elaborate on where you think this project is heading. Dave. I know that you have a lot of experience in this industry. Would you mind giving us your two cents? On what's happening here. Dave, I know you have a lot of experience in this industry. Would you mind giving us your two cents on what's happening here? In the first example, we heard "I wonder if you could chip in your thoughts on this." I wonder if you could chip in your thoughts on this. To chip in. Is to contribute something. To offer some kind of value. Now, this is often money or time. But it can In this context, be your thoughts, your opinions. For instance. If a colleague is retiring, Then everyone on the team might chip in to buy them a nice gift. 
So instead of everyone individually buying someone a $20 gift, so they get lots of $20 gifts, you bring all of your money together and you buy them one nice $200 or $300 gift, for instance. Or maybe your friend is moving house. And you take the day off work to chip in and help them with all of the lifting and carrying. 
Well, you would first of all be a very good friend. It's very generous of you to chip in a day of your maybe vacation time. And in this context, the thing that we're chipping in is our money. Time. 
Well, in our example, the thing that we were chipping in would be our opinions and our thoughts. In the second example, we heard the verb to elaborate. To elaborate. This is a word that we often see used as both a noun and a verb. And they mean very similar things with very similar definitions. If I describe something as elaborate, then I mean that it's complicated. It's got lots of detail. And it's very complex. For instance, my colleague could have an elaborate 20-step plan for how to convince their boss to increase their salary. However, when it's a verb This is pronounced. Elaborate. Elaborate. 
So at the end we get: Eight, there. Elaborate, like the number eight. That's the same spelling, E-L-A. B-O-R-A-T-E. But it's a different pronunciation. 
Kind of like the way read and read are the same spelling and different pronunciations. If I ask you to elaborate on something, then I want you to add more detail. I want you to make your explanation more complicated and more complex. Dumb. If you tell me that you think you can increase our company's revenue by 20% over the next year, then I might, of course, ask you to elaborate on this. I definitely need more details on this great idea. And by this, I would mean that I want you to tell me exactly how you're planning to achieve this. That third example there uses one of my favorite question asking structures. This one is especially good for bringing a colleague into the conversation. After you've contributed something. After you've given your opinion or maybe added some value. It can be great for managers and people running meetings to encourage people to contribute who might be a little quiet. This is a simple three-part structure. You can think of it as name, compliment Question. Name, compliment, question. That's your structure. 
So we start by using the name of a specific person. We say the name of the specific person we're addressing, we're talking to. In order to get their attention. And to make sure that they're listening and paying attention. 
The next thing is to give the person a compliment. This compliment should be a reason that you're asking them the question. This might be as simple as talking about how much experience they have. Or it could be mentioning what a great job they've done on a project. Or even simply that you know that they are very interested in something. Then, after you've set the stage for your question. You can actually ask it. In the example, We heard the phrase, your two cents. Your two cents. As in... Would you mind giving us your two cents on what's happening here? Would you mind giving us your two cents on what's happening here? Remember, using those modal verbs. Would you mind? Could you tell us? Might you tell us? This makes these really formal, really polite sentences because When we're formal and polite in English, often we're just less direct. And that's what modal verbs allow us to do. Your two cents is an American English phrase that probably originates from the game of poker. Actually, we had another one a moment ago that probably came from poker. 
Yeah, to chip in your thoughts. So to chip in. And to give your two cents to likely originally poker terms. It's a very poker heavy podcast episode today, I think. 
So. When we talk about our opinion... We can talk about our two cents. 
So you can ask people for their two cents. Or you can say, for instance, this is my two cents. Can I offer my two cents? Or maybe I'd love to offer my two cents, if that's okay. 
So don't forget that if you would like to discuss any of the ideas, vocabulary or grammar, etc. In today's episode or work on your question asking skills, your question building skills for work, then you can book a session with me to work on your English communication skills by going to www.englishcommunications.com. Breakoutbusinessenglish.com, that's breakoutbusinessenglish.com, or clicking the link in the show notes and use the code PODCAST30 to at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking. I've worked with over 1,000 non-native English-speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you. Between episodes of the podcast, you can get videos every couple of days on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Just search for Breakout Business English. Awesome. If there's a topic that you'd like to hear me talk about on the podcast, then I'd be excited to hear your ideas. Leave me a message or comment on one of my YouTube videos and I look forward to hearing from you. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, then I invite you to leave a review. Every review really helps me out and helps to push the podcast to new listeners and to grow the show. 
So if you found this podcast useful and you think that there are some valuable things in here, then feel free to write a couple of kind words. And I thank you in advance. That's another great place to request a topic for a future podcast. That is it for today. Thank you so much for listening and of course for your time. I know how valuable it is and I really do appreciate and respect your choice to spend some of your time with this podcast. I hope you have a great rest of the week and I'll talk to you again next time. On the Breakout Business English podcast. Thanks a lot, everyone. Talk to you soon.