HR Practice For Payroll Practitioners

HR Practice for Payroll Practitioners

Discovery Questioning

Asking helpful questions is one of the core skills of an effective coach. Discovery questioning will:

• Encourage the person being interviewed to think for themselves • Gain information and clear up fuzzy thinking • Focus the discussion and let the person know you are listening to them • Help the person being interviewed solve their own problems

Discovery questions are:

Open

• • •

Closed

Probed for specifics

Open Questions

Open questions cannot be answered by a simple “Yes” or “No”. Questions that can be answered with yes or no are called closed questions. These can be useful when you want specific information or are looking for agreement or denial.

Open questions begin with words like:

Who… ? What… ? Tell me about… ? Explain …?

How …? Why…? Where…? When…?

Open questions are effective because they:

• Get information without creating defensiveness • Allow the person being interviewed to explore • Encourage reflection • Help you avoid jumping to conclusions

© New Zealand Payroll Practitioners Association, Sep 2024, Ver 12

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