Q+A…

We’ve all seen that expression at the bottom of the agenda for a business event of one type or another. Two innocuous looking letters that allow your guests to pose their favourite questions or allow the organisers another chance to reinforce their message.

What on earth could be wrong with that, you might wonder? It all sounds very fair and democratic and should surely lead to a more balanced event with no-one feeling left out. All well and good but the danger is of course that the whole issue of Q&A is treated exactly how it appears on that agenda – an afterthought, tagged on at the end!

Questioning is a vital part of life. As we’ll all know if we’ve witnessed the incessant questions fired relentlessly at a tired mother or father by a single-minded and demanding toddler. It’s also a very deep-seated and instinctive phenomenon capable of arousing strong feelings! As the harassed parent will no doubt testify, questions are in themselves an issue and one which literally demands a strategy if it is not all to go horribly wrong.

So, just as no parent would deny the offspring the right to pose questions, equally there will always be guidelines and rules of engagement. Pointless or repetitive questions will be discouraged and questions with a purpose, aim or direction encouraged.

In business, some of the same rules should probably apply. Despite, or maybe because of the imbalance of knowledge levels that may well still exist between the person asking and the person answering, care needs to be taken over the questioning.

Whether in a Q&A session, or as part of a relaxed catch up over a cup of coffee, why not concentrate a little more on the question rather than the answer, for a change? Obsessed as we often are, indeed trained as we are in certain professions, to extricate an answer from someone – just ask yourself occasionally, is my question the right question?

If you get the “right” answer to your question but the person you are talking to refuses to agree to a second meeting to carry the business relationship forward, then you have failed. As the harassed parent with the excessively inquisitive toddler knows all too well, we can say one thing and then do the exact opposite – think before you question, even if it seems like low-priority stuff at the end of the agenda!