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The Problem with asking ‘Why?’
Posted by Colin Wilson
In Mar 08
If you have young kids, or remember when your kids were young, then I’m sure you must have experienced the ‘why’ phase of their development… during this time the word ‘why’ was the most overused word in their vocabulary… it’s the inquisitive stage of their development and the word is used to gain information… to help put context and understanding to different situations. The overuse of the ‘why’ word comes about because the child would follow your answer to the ‘why’ with another “why?” and keeping going with this drilling down to the point of mental annoyance for the parent!
As we grow older we will still use the ‘why’ word but not as frequently as we did during those development years. If we take a career in sales then we will need to bring back those inquisitive times in order to gain information… to help put context and understanding to different customer situations… as sales professionals we need to understand why certain things are done they way they are… we therefore need to ask the customer… “why?”
However, asking the customer why they do things in a certain way is not good. The ‘why’ word is not very good at all, unless of course you wish to interrogate someone and put them under pressure. Asking someone… “Why do you do it that way?”… can come across as a form of interrogation, a form of criticism, a personal attack and all things considered… it’s not a friendly approach.
The problem is the word ‘why’. Using the child analogy again… if you have kids then you should know that you should never ever criticise your child… no matter what they have done wrong… no matter how bad it is… never criticise them, because if you do you will be helping destroy their self esteem, helping destroy their self confidence. Instead of asking why they did this or that… ask them “what was the reason for doing this or that?” Replace the word ‘why’ with ‘what was the reason’ and you no longer attack the child, but instead question their behaviour and you leave their self esteem intact!
It’s the same with your customer, never ask ‘why they do this or that’ only ever ask ‘what is the reason for doing this or that?’ It’s a much friendlier approach, it’s a safe approach and you will get a better answer rather than a defensive answer and you will leave their self esteem intact… which can only be good!
3 Comments
Why do you consider asking a child why they did something to be criticism?
Douglas
Interesting question… you have asked me “why” rather than asking “what’s the reason”.
Asking “why did you do that?” can be taken more personally than asking “what’s the reason for doing that?” The bigger the problem the more personally asking ‘why’ can be taken. Therefore, if there is a chance that a question about asking ‘why’ can be taken personally, it would be better to rephrase the ‘why’ into ‘what’s the reason’. You would want to do this because you want to avoid any direct (intended or non intended) criticism of the child and therefore by asking ‘what’s the reason’ you only focus on the child’s behaviour. As you don’t know how the child will internalise the ‘why’ then play safe and only ask ‘what’s the reason.’
Putting it to the test… let me ask you two questions…
“Why did you ask me the question?”
“What’s the reason for asking the question?”
Which of the two questions do you feel comes across as more threatening?
Colin:
You’re so right. I’ve always considered my ability to probe and get to the prospects real motives to better than most of my peers and then I discovered a more effective approach that removes any chance for defensiveness.
Instead of asking a question starting with “why,” I now begin the inquiry with the phrase, “what’s important about _______ to you?”
More importantly, the question actually changed my perspective from a covert agent trying to uncover the prospect’s guarded secrets to an effective consultant with a duty to help the prospect discover what they really want.