You've thought about who you are and how you want your career to be. You have some soft skills to deal with situations that could cause problems. What about the team around you? How do you build functional and constructive professional relationships? How can you add value? What do employers look for when they are promoting? Skill-building in this course will include asking questions, listening, developing likeability (you’d better be stellar if you’re difficult), identifying cognitive bias, apologizing, receiving apologies, and the basics of whistleblowing. After this course, you will be able to: - assess your own listening and reactions and retune them in advance or on the spot for a more constructive outcome - add value at work by keeping situations easy instead of difficult - manage your own approach - be prepared when things go wrong The prerequisite for this course is Course One of the Specialization "Professional IQ: Preventing and Solving Problems at Work".
1.4.3 Formulating Questions
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From the course by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Shaping Your Professional Brand
21 ratings
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
21 ratings
Course 2 of 4 in the Specialization Professional IQ: Preventing and Solving Problems at Work
From the lesson
Week 1: Being Valued at Work
You will work on building your professional brand by learning the importance of listening and crafting effective questions.
Meet the Instructors
C. K. GunsalusDirector of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE), Professor Emerita of Business, and Research Professor at the Coordinated Science Laboratory
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I knew someone once who was really really upset because he had spent a lot of
time on a report that was scheduled to be sent to some higher ups, and he really
wanted to shine because he thought he would might be up for a promotion soon.
And then the report came out and he found his contribution wasn't included.
His first reaction was to go to his direct supervisor and complain.
What happened?
You promised, what's, and then he had one of those professional moments where he
thought, click wait, and instead of going and reacting he turned into a question.
And the question he asked was,
can you help me understand why my report wasn't included?
Did it arrive on time, was there something wrong with it?
Can you help me understand?
Turned out that he'd closed his mail before it have ever finished sending.
His supervisor had never gotten it.
Now imagine what would've happened if he had gone in all barrels blazing,
acting like it was his supervisor's response and upset.
So when you feel some of those feelings related to the tragedies or
when you feel neglected, insulted, blamed, shorted in some fashion,
have one of those, click wait moments and start asking questions.
One of the most important things about asking questions is simply to get out of
your own head and start thinking about others, because we are all too much in our
own heads, and sometimes that can really lead you astray.
Asking questions is a habit.
It's a skill and a habit.
It's a skill that you develop, and then it's a habit that you build at work.
The skill of asking questions is very closely related to having some personal
scripts.
So some of the personal scripts that you might consider developing to help you
become more value added at work include a set of questions you can ask.
Can you help me understand?
Is an old, reliable fallback that hardly ever fails.
If something is going on that you disagree with, somebody says something that
upsets you, something happens that is not what you expected,
having that click wait, and saying, could you help me understand?
Can you help me understand?
Will make a big difference in the professional constructive.
Unfolding of the next piece of the interaction.
>> So I think, in a professional work space,
when you're dealing with difficult people or difficult situations.
It's really important that you take the time to listen and really ask questions,
so that you're able to determine the cause of the issue, or
whatever it is that you guys are not agreeing on.
It really allows you to get a full scope of the issue,
but also have an understanding of where this person stands with the issue.
And then be able to determine where the level of expectation lies.
>> One of the places that this is particularly valuable is asking for
feedback.
One of the things that's really difficult in this world, and
it may be hard to understand in your position, is how many managers, or
supervisors, or bosses are truly uncomfortable giving negative feedback.
And so in consequence one of the things that happens is that you may be doing
something your boss doesn't like.
And because the boss isn't comfortable giving you the feedback,
the situation goes on and on and on.
You're not getting any feedback.
You think what you're doing is fine.
The boss is getting more and more and more unhappy.
And then what you see is a pattern where the boss suddenly explodes with
frustration, reach their tolerance point and either fires you, worst case.
Or starts sidelining you and moving the better work to other people.
Some of this is your responsibility to ask questions.
So if you start to sense there is some unhappiness with your work or
even before that happens, if you have the habit of asking for
feedback and how you ask for feedback is really important.
It's a personal script.
If you're already sensing that something is wrong, pick your time.
Don't walk in when feelings are high.
I'm sensing that maybe something I've done has disappointed you, or
has not met your expectations.
Could you help me understand how I could do better?
I care about doing a good job.
Or, just as a habit, if every time you finish a major project or
a big project, or an assignment that your boss directly has given you.
Circle back a little bit later and say, now that that project is done,
could you help me understand, did I meet your expectations?
And how could I have done a better job that would have made your job easier
and better?
They're going to be the questions that cause people to say,
I want that one on my team.
>> I think the biggest difference between going from college,
to the work place is that in college you got your feedback through a grade.
You got a score, and
you really understand, okay, these are the things that I missed on this test.
And it's not really as clear cut,
I think in a professional work place there are many companies who do formal reviews,
and we have our own formal review practices here at PWC.
But more importantly than that, I think, it's important to have
continuous feedback, and just to be asking for it, to be frank.
So, as a new hire, and even as a new manager,
I think it's important to ask the people you're working with, how am I doing?
After you wrap up a meeting, did that go well?
After you wrap up a big presentation.
What are some things that I could had done better and maybe just taking five minutes
with your team afterwards to ask each other for a feedback.
It doesn't necessarily always have to be me as a manager giving you feedback but
also, can be me as your manager asking, hey, how or did that presentation go?
Do you have any tips for what I could be doing better and so.
The first step to getting feedback is really just to ask for it and
since as students we weren't used to having to ask for
it because you always just got it on your midterm or your grade or your report or
whatever, just get in the habit of asking for feedback continuously.
>> Note that you may need a personal script for the response too.
If you ask someone for a response and your reaction is I did not, that's wrong.
That's probably the last time they'll ever answer that question.
So it's pretty important to be prepared if you do give feedback to say something
non-defensive, quiet, thank you.
I care about doing a good job.
Or wow, may I have some time tho think about that and
come back to you with a plan for doing better?
Those are personal scripts too.
Bear in mind, that if something doesn't make sense to you,
you probably don't have all the information.
Asking questions is a key tool for helping you resolve problems.
The other thing is asking the right questions can help you stay on track
with your values.
If somebody asks you to do something that you are not comfortable doing,
asking questions, asking the right questions is really critical.
If you ask the wrong question,
you're almost always going to get the wrong answer.
So if your boss asks you to do something you're uncomfortable with and
your question is how do I keep my boss happy?
That may lead you a place you don't want to go.
If instead, if when your boss asks you to do something, you're uncomfortable,
you start asking different questions.
Can you help me understand?
Or even to yourself privately.
Where could this lead down the road?
Do I set a precedent, is this who I want to be?
Is this an action that could come back and get me later?
Asking questions to yourself and
to others is a critical professional skill for being value-added at work.
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