Showing Interest

Reasons to Show Interest

To get people to like you
To build a relationship with a potential friend, partner or client
To influence them to share your interests or way of thinking
To gain agreement to a decision
To persuade them to change their minds
To convince people to hire you
To sell a service or product

Showing interest can help you influence people. Even if it's just to get them to like you or share your interests or thinking. Influence isn't restricted to selling something. Good interest questions may be all you need to influence people if your goal is to build a relationship. If you want them to change their thinking, good questions help you learn what's most important to them. Showing people how your ideas help them meet their needs is a great way to influence people.

Showing interest in people, getting them to talk about themselves and their interests, can have a more lasting impact then talking about yourself. Avoid negative questions, such as about their problems. Better to ask them what they like doing or what makes them happy. Talk about yourself only after you have asked about them. Make sure there is a balance.

Focus of Questions

Business questions
Personal interests, values and experiences
Problem solving questions: What do they think will work?
Preference questions: What do they want to see happen?
Work questions: Career and organization
Empathy questions: How do they feel?
Leadership questions: How can we achieve more?

When asking questions, build on their answers by disclosing similar information about yourself. Just interviewing them is too one-sided.

Business Questions

How long have you been in your current role?
What are you enjoying most about it?
Which of your strengths are most useful in this role?
How did you come to obtain such a position?
What role do you have your eye on for a future move?
What attracts you to that role?
What are the key deliverables of your current role?
What are you working on at the moment?
What have you done over the past year or two that you've felt especially good about?
What are some satisfying successes you've had in this role?
What were the key things you did to get that done?
What are the key relationships (internal or external) you need in your role?
What are your organization's plans for short-term and long-term success?

Personal Interest Questions

Start with casual questions:

How do you like to spend your spare time?
What are your favourite activities?
What have you done lately that you most enjoyed?
What are some things you'd like to do?
What were some of your best times growing up?
What things are most important to you?
What do you most admire in your friends?
What sort of person do you get along with best?

Problem Solving Questions

Involving people in creating solutions shows interest in what they think and engages them better then telling them your solutions.

What do you think we could do to solve this problem?
What options can you think of?
What do you see as the pros and cons of your suggestion?
What are the implications of your idea for other things we're doing?
How do you see getting around any obstacles, risks or disadvantages?
Who else do you think we should involve?

Preference Questions

What would you like to be different about this situation?
What would you like to see happen?
What option would work best for you?
How does this fit with your main priorities?
What is so important about this issue for you?

Work Questions

What do you like best and least about your job
What does it take to succeed in your work?
What have you done that you're most pleased about?
What would you like to do more of or less of?
What are some things you'd like to learn more about?

Empathy Questions

What are your feelings about this?
How did this make you feel?
How are you coping with this?
What can you do to keep your spirits up?
What do you think would help you feel better about this situation?
What are some recent times when you've been really happy?
What useful things have you learned from this setback?
What form of support would be most helpful for you?

Leadership Questions

What connections do you see between your work and our strategy or vision?
How do you think we might improve our strategy or vision?
How do you think we can be more creative about this issue?
What can we do to show that we are the best team in the business?
How can we collaborate better in our team? Or with other teams?
For your individual success, how can you show you're a star contributor?
How is this work a leadership opportunity for you?
What could you handle such situations better?

Changing Someone's Thinking

What are some other options to your idea?
If we do what you suggest, how might we deal with x, y, z problems if they arise?
How else might we avoid those problems?
How do you think doing B instead of A might avoid those issues altogether?
What are some ways that B might meet your goals better than A?

The last 2 questions suggest doing something different but in the form of "What do you want?" questions. The goal is to get the other person to see the benefits of an alternative so they own it. If you have to push B instead of A, they might resent your pushing and stick with A anyway. If they can't think of any benefits of B over A, you can help them think differently by continuing to ask engaging questions: "What about this aspect of B? How useful would this be do you think?" If your engagement of them makes them seem receptive to a different approach, you can then list a few other benefits of B, but end by asking what they think of those benefits so they feel involved in the decision.

The point of showing interest is to show that you value the other person. Mostly talking about yourself or your own views misses this opportunity. Asking engaging questions creates two-way dialogue and shared ownership of any decisions made. What other engaging questions can you think of?