Stop asking the question, ‘Any Questions?’

Whether it’s during face-to-face training or live virtual training, we’ve all faced the deadly silence often created by the fated question:

“Any Questions?”

This typically leads to 1 of the following happening:

• Dead silence.
• The sympathy question ie someone likes you, so they ask a question even though they know the answer, just to help you out.
• A poor-quality question ie not relevant or that has already been answered.

This week, rather than asking the question, ‘Any Questions‘ try the following when you’re at that point where you would typically ask, ‘Any Questions?’:

• Say, “In your teams, what one question do you still have about xxx?  Take 2-minutes to discuss any questions that you still have and then, if you still have a question, we can discuss this as a whole team.
• Allow 2-minutes.
• Ask each team if they still have a question.  If they do, try to answer it.  If they don’t, that simply means, for that team, they have everything they need.

What actually happens during the 2-minutes team time:

• They all engage.
• Easier questions are answered within the team.
• Non-relevant questions are dismissed.
• Only real and relevant questions make it to the full group.

If the training is live virtual training (webinar), distribute teams into breakout rooms for their discussion ie as they answer, ‘what one question do you still have about xxx’.