Tag: followup

On the Other Side of the Table: When You Ask and it Doesn’t Happen

Post author By jrlsage
Post date September 4, 2016

Tell a story, follow-up, understand

When I had my first startup, I would bark orders at people. This method didn’t work. I didn’t follow up. I just punished people when it didn’t happen.

When I worked at my corporate job, I would type friendly emails to people as requests.This method didn’t work. I didn’t follow up. I just resented people when it didn’t happen.

Now, when I talk to people I work with, I make a request with a story. This method works for me. When it doesn’t, I follow-up and learn about the situation. I don’t punish, I don’t get resentful, I try to understand.

Three takeaways:

Include a piece of yourself, along with the why connects people to your ask.
Ask, instead of punishing or become resentful, opens up the insight that allows a connection. People start to like working for and with you. They give more.
You calibrate for the future. You know a bit more, so you know when to ask for more or less.

Those takeaways are indispensable when you delegate.

Tags ask, delegate, follow up, followup, understand

Blog Post

Follow-up Questions – Intriguing, Cynical, Fearful :-)

Post author By jrlsage
Post date February 14, 2016

I love asking follow-up questions.

Part of me gets intrigued when someone goes deeper.

Another more cynical part of me hopes the person can’t answer.

Another part of me gets scared that I pushed them too far.

I think all three parts create the balance in conversation, and more specifically, in follow-up questions.

What is the intriguing part?

Asking questions is a skill, one that takes time to develop. Each time I get the opportunity to ask a follow-up question, I get a chance to work on it. It’s a small window that lets me test how I ask questions. It is usually successful, because people love to talk about themselves.

There is also a chance that the conversation takes a turn I didn’t expect. I love these moments, because they increase my knowledge base and add some fun to any conversation. Those unforeseen turns make dinner conversation exciting.

What is the cynical part?

I’ve learned that follow-up questions lead to interesting answers. In some cases, they lead to no answer at all. My inner cynic is waiting for that moment, to confirm his main thought, that “no one knows anything.”

There is a purpose for this, though: The most deft in conversation use that inner cynic to know when to move on, and not to press. If I don’t let it go, it presses me towards the third part of this post.

What is the fear part?

Fear is everywhere. I have a ton of fear in conversations, but when it concerns follow-up questions, sometimes I hold back because I don’t want to go too far. When someone loves what they talk about, they love nothing more than a follow-up question. However, if someone doesn’t know, is posturing, or is having a slow night then there is nothing more terrifying than the follow-up question.

The cynic pushes me here sometimes, and I often regret it. Nobody wins, so watch the ego.

Follow-up questions need to exist.

Even with the fear of exposing yourself, conversation gets better, generally, with follow-up questions. They give you a chance to get to know the people around you, continue conversations, and dance with some internal daemons*. When it comes to conversation and building relationships, do more, not less.

*Not demons 😉

Tags conversations, cynic, cynical, fear, followup, intrigue, pushed, questions, talking, writing

Blog Post

Don’t Fail. Follow-Up.

Don’t fail, follow-up – Anthony Frasier

This resonated with me. There are a few things I am neglecting to get after. I want to avoid failure. By not following up, I can avoid the active no and spare my ego by creating any story I want to dream up. “Did she just not get it” or “Maybe I am bothering him” or “They don’t want to work with me”. I take myself out of the game.

Ego is a fragile thing. It hurts to have it pushed around. Being uncomfortable hurts.Being around the unknown hurts. Yet, it is those things that enhance our view of the world and makes us better.

It is easy to write to just get up and go and things will be alright. The truth is it is a daily struggle. Each day is another opportunity to get in the ring and feel that punch of the unknown. I hate how I flinch(clock out mentally) when it gets uncomfortable.

Even coming to terms with how I flinch is uncomfortable. I realized that I am not a victim all the time, that I too influence things to shield my ego. I’ll say things that make people feel empathy. I’ll create a story that makes sense. Those mean people, that awful job, that unfair conversation. With a few of these I can generate sympathy. It becomes an out. I get to flinch. If I do it really well, I can take my internal guilt and flip it into external shame on people.

It is an ongoing process, but I concluded that those last paragraph is now part of my definition of failure. The easy way to avoid all that is to follow-up. It helps to mitigate that part of failure.

Follow up and the steps ahead become clearer.

Tags failure, followup, write