[teampractices] No questions allowed!

[Kevin Smith]

On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 5:30 PM, Jeroen De Dauw <jeroendedauw at gmail.com>
wrote:

> It seems like for such a policy to not result in disaster, everyone needs
> a good amount of empathy and willingness to cooperate.
>

​Agreed! It would probably also require everyone to have strong
communication skills, generally.
​


> At least assuming you can't say something like "I wonder why you think
> that" or "Tell me why", which while strictly are not questions, result in
> the "same" interaction (different tone though).
>

​Right. I didn't work at Dreamcorp long enough to find out whether it was
ok to exploit the loopholes. :)

There is an interesting difference between "What do you think we should
do?" and "I would appreciate if you could tell me what you think we should
do." Although the latter is more verbose, it actually ends up using an "I
statement"[1], as well as expressing appreciation at the same time. "It
would help me if you could..." would also work, as it empowers the other
person to provide you with help. ​On the other hand, "Tell me what you
think we should do" is a command, and I'm not fond of it.

"Why do you think that's best?" could become "I'm concerned about X", or "I
really thought we should do Y". Both of which would be more helpful in some
cases, but less helpful in others. Often, an open-ended question can
inspire people to address things you weren't thinking of, and can avoid you
biasing their response. But sometimes giving a framework can be helpful.

Thanks for helping me thing these things through even deeper.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message
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