Team vitality – nudges masterclass

Preparation

Asking open questions

While asking and answering questions is part of everyday conversation, we wrongly assume that effective questioning is a natural skill we all possess. We often tend to ask closed-ended questions, yielding a yes/no answer. Yet if you want to engage your team and make your people feel that their contribution counts, it’s best to use open questions. Asking open questions is a learned skill.

This brief article (PDF) examines the usefulness of open-ended questions and offers plenty of practical examples for their everyday use.

You are further invited to evaluate your current question-asking skills and see if you can improve them in real-life situations. What effect would this have on your team and on your decision-making?

We sincerely hope this article will help you open the door to deeper and more engaging discussions with and within your team.

Listening

Good listening skills are essential to build connections and building a highly engaged team.

This brief article (PDF) looks at the four different levels of listening, from pretending to empathic engagement.

You are invited to evaluate your own listening skills. Employees who feel seen and listened to are more likely to be engaged, motivated and proactive, so you may choose to act on certain aspects of your listening style.

We sincerely hope this piece will help you reflect on and possibly further develop the valuable leadership skill that listening is.