Page 207 - Effective Communication Skills Mastery Bible 4 Books in 1 Boxset by Tuhovsky, Ian

that is intended to discover how they are going to act in a

variety of different situations, what you are going to do is to

use this simple process: first of all, you need to ask them about

a specific situation that happened in the past. Then, you want

to ask them how they reacted initially to this situation. Lastly,

you need to ask them how they resolved this situation.

So, for example, you might ask: “Tell me about a time in the

past when you found yourself in the middle of a conflict about

something very important to you. How did you react to that

conflict, how did you go about resolving it and how did you
work through that conflict?” When you ask questions formed

like that, you force people to stop for a moment and really

think about the specific conflict they were in, how they

reacted, what steps they took and how they eventually

resolved it. That’s when you’re really going to find out what
they are going to do when a similar challenge arises with you

or in your company/department/relationship/etc. That is going

to be a great new skill to accompany you throughout your life.

For example, if your date would tell you that she had a conflict

in a previous marriage, found out that her husband was

gambling and that the first thing she did was apply for a
divorce without even listening to what he had to say, you

would know that this person has a short fuse and is not really

into long-term problem-solving. If she finds out something she

doesn’t like, she will probably dump you in a second. With an

answer like, “Well, I went online, found a good family

psychotherapist and we went to our first meeting the very next
day,” you would know she’s proactive and into conflict-

solving. You can use this in all varieties of different

professional and personal situations. So don’t ask, “What