Good Question

Having Influence and the ability to ask good questions are valuable life skills. The good news is these skills can be learned.

GoodQuestion™ and the E4™ model offer insight into communication and influence styles & ideas to improve on your non-preferred styles. Also included are lots of good questions for 4 situations: coaching, career development, negotiation and appraisal/performance management.

The app is aimed at life coaches, business coaches, career coaches, sports coaches, HR professionals, counsellors, psychologists, negotiators and line managers who want to improve their question and influence skills to be more successful in life and work.

Each person tends to have their own one or possibly two preferred influencing and conversational styles - the way they interact with and engage other people in conversation and discussions. Unless they are very self-aware or have been trained, each person tends to use just one style (their preferred style) in all situations. [Think of a friend or colleague who is calm and unemotional. Think of another friend or colleague who is excitable, loud and expressive. 

Ask yourself how often do you see either of them behave exactly like each other? 'Probably not very often' is the most common answer.]

That's because people tend to stick to their own preferred style, and it is likely to be one of the four E4 styles: EXPLAIN, ENGAGE, EXCITE or EXERT.

But one single influencing and conversational style does not fit all situations. For example, in some situations it is better to be quieter, calm, rational, measured and factual... while in other situations a more kinetic, excited, expressive, motivational style is appropriate.

E4™ shows which styles are more appropriate to the situation. Once we've understood the differences, there is the opportunity to tweak our normal preferred style and deploy other least-preferred styles more effectively in order to get the best joint outcomes for us and the people we interact with.

We are still ourselves whichever style we use... it's just that we can learn to be the best of ourselves, more appropriate to each situation.

In short, if we learn other ways to communicate and influence we can be more effective and succeed in getting better joint outcomes - for others as well as ourselves. Be yourself with more skill™.