Most Managers Ask the Wrong Questions

Most people ask closed-ended questions without even realizing it. Are you? Can you? Did you? Do you? Have you? Will you? Would you?

It makes sense—this is how we’ve been asking questions our whole lives.

But when you become a manager and need to get your salespeople talking, those same habits hold you back. Closed-ended questions don’t do useful work for you, because they lead to short answers, surface-level conversations, and you doing most of the heavy lifting.

Making the shift to open-ended questions is challenging—it requires that you break a lifetime of habits.

This week, try this simple switch:

❌ Stop starting questions with Are, Can, Did, Do, Have, Will, Would.

✅ Only ask questions that begin with:

“What...”

“Tell me…”

“Talk to me about…”

The difference is like night and day.

Suddenly, your sales team will start talking.

They’ll share ideas.

They’ll reflect.

They’ll self-coach—and there is nothing more powerful than self-coaching.

Why? Because people always listen to their own ideas. They always take their own advice.

If you tell them what to do, or what you used to do, you have got more chance of seeing a one-legged dog burying a bone on a frozen lake, than of them doing what you say. People want to solve their own problems. They want to be the hero in their own story. You are now the guide. You are Obi-Wan-Kenobi to their Luke Skywalker. 

If they come up with the solution themselves? They own it. They act on it.

Try it this week. See what happens. 🚀