Hbr what was the question

Answering questions requires making a choice about where to fall on a continuum between privacy and transparency.

Should we answer the question? If we answer, how forthcoming should we be? Each end of the spectrum has benefits and pitfalls. Keeping information private can make us feel free to experiment. In negotiations, withholding sensitive information can help you secure better outcomes. At the same time, transparency is an essential part of forging meaningful connections. People too often err on the side of privacy — and underappreciate the benefits of transparency. Before a conversation takes place, think carefully about whether refusing to answer tough questions would do more harm than good.

In our negotiation classes, we teach strategies for handling hard questions without lying. There are few business settings in which asking questions is more important than sales. A recent study of more than , business-to-business sales conversations — over the phone and via online platforms — by tech company Gong. Consistent with past research, the data shows a strong connection between the number of questions a salesperson asks and his or her sales conversion rate in terms of both securing the next meeting and eventually closing the deal.

This is true even after controlling for the gender of the salesperson and the call type demo, proposal, negotiation, and so on. These broader questions also communicate that you have a sense of ambition, that you want to take the organization way beyond where it is today.

And you can bolster your credibility by providing evidence of those long-term trends that underlie your question — for example, emerging technologies that are likely to offer new opportunities, or demographic shifts that will create some significant unmet needs among your customers. These questions also invite collaboration. Instead, broadcast them throughout your organization and even beyond it. Reaching out beyond the institution to connect with expertise and perspectives from a broader set of more diverse sources will help your company learn faster.

Many organizations might have tried to hide this information or work behind the scenes to correct the problem. They made public the feedback they were receiving and asked for suggestions on how they could improve the quality of their pies. This open question generated an avalanche of suggestions that proved very helpful in improving the pizzas. But beyond an open innovation success, the impact was even more fundamental: by expressing vulnerability, I believe that the company built trust with customers.

Here was a company that was willing to acknowledge they had a problem and to ask for help in addressing the problem. The optimal order of your questions depends on the circumstances. During tense encounters, asking tough questions first, even if it feels socially awkward to do so, can make your conversational partner more willing to open up.

Leslie and her coauthors found that people are more willing to reveal sensitive information when questions are asked in a decreasing order of intrusiveness. Of course, if the first question is too sensitive, you run the risk of offending your counterpart.

There are few business settings in which asking questions is more important than sales. A recent study of more than , business-to-business sales conversations—over the phone and via online platforms—by tech company Gong. Consistent with past research, the data shows a strong connection between the number of questions a salesperson asks and his or her sales conversion rate in terms of both securing the next meeting and eventually closing the deal. This is true even after controlling for the gender of the salesperson and the call type demo, proposal, negotiation, and so on.

However, there is a point of diminishing returns. Conversion rates start to drop off after about 14 questions, with 11 to 14 being the optimal range. The data also shows that top-performing salespeople tend to scatter questions throughout the sales call, which makes it feel more like a conversation than an interrogation.

Just as important, top salespeople listen more and speak less than their counterparts overall. Taken together, the data from Gong. If the goal is to build relationships, the opposite approach—opening with less sensitive questions and escalating slowly—seems to be most effective.

The pairs who followed the prescribed structure liked each other more than the control pairs. Asking tough questions first can make people more willing to open up. Good interlocutors also understand that questions asked previously in a conversation can influence future queries. However, when the same questions were asked in the opposite order, the answers were less closely correlated. People are more forthcoming when you ask questions in a casual way, rather than in a buttoned-up, official tone.

The control group was presented with a neutral-looking site. Participants were about twice as likely to reveal sensitive information on the casual-looking site than on the others. For example, if they are told that they can change their answers at any point, they tend to open up more—even though they rarely end up making changes. This might explain why teams and groups find brainstorming sessions so productive. In a whiteboard setting, where anything can be erased and judgment is suspended, people are more likely to answer questions honestly and say things they otherwise might not.

Of course, there will be times when an off-the-cuff approach is inappropriate. Participants were told either that most others in the study were willing to reveal stigmatizing answers or that they were unwilling to do so. In a meeting or group setting, it takes only a few closed-off people for questions to lose their probing power.

The opposite is true, too. As soon as one person starts to open up, the rest of the group is likely to follow suit. Group dynamics can also affect how a question asker is perceived. But when third-party observers watch the same conversation unfold, they prefer the person who answers questions. This makes sense: People who mostly ask questions tend to disclose very little about themselves or their thoughts.

To those listening to a conversation, question askers may come across as defensive, evasive, or invisible, while those answering seem more fascinating, present, or memorable. Leslie K. Howe and Leslie K. Fernandes, Siyu Yu, Taeya M. Kilduff and Nathan C. Milkman, Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, Heather N.