Skip to content

Learn to ask hard questions.

Clive Griffiths
Clive Griffiths

Learn to ask hard questions; there’s often more underneath.

A lesson I’ve learnt coaching consultancy business developers.

What do hard questions look like?

↳ Simple.
↳ Sharp.
↳ Risky.

Once asked, the listener can’t unhear them,
even if they don’t reply out loud.

And if they do answer honestly,
neither of you can go back.

⇥ What if you’re wrong?
⇥ What are you afraid of?
⇥ What do you really want?

The risks?
Challenging bias.
Changing a limiting belief.
Someone getting angry - or silent.

The advantages?
Confronting reality and truth.
Stripping away comfort zones,.
Getting beyond pretence, and ego.

Hard questions don’t have to be clever,
but they do cost something to ask.

Are you prepared to pay the price?

#cgll #microblog11

LinkedIn PostsLI-2025

Related Posts

Members Public

Proposing value, not activity.

What inspired yesterday’s post about value? Well... I’d just been reading a proposal. Actually it was more like a situation diagnosis report and statement of work with a price at the end. Nothing like the investment business case it needed to be. That's something I’ve

Proposing value, not activity.
Members Public

Structural Tension

What inspired yesterday's post? It's great when your LinkedIn post gets some interaction. People not just saying "attaboy" but adding and deepening the dialogue. Thanks to those who took time and did. Here's some background. Perhaps explaining why it's difficult

Structural Tension
Members Public

The part-time, poor relation.

In the majority of consulting firms the people who do the work are the ones who have to sell it too. That dual role creates an advantage and a tension. The advantages The advantages make consultants attractive to clients. Insights based on experience. The consultant can talk about the reality

The part-time, poor relation.