I'm the type of person who likes to be heard and share my thoughts and ideas. I'm not saying that I'm always right, but I tend to not accept words at face value. I question for the sake of questioning. I love to play devil's advocate.
I believe that by questioning I benefit in the following ways:
1. Qualifying the Speaker - By asking a few follow up questions, I can accurately assess whether they believe/understand what they are saying or simply regurgitating information from another source. I think this goes for any conversation (i.e. business, sports, politics, etc)
2. Information Gathering - Within all conversations is valuable information. It may not be relevant at the time, but I've been surprised at how many times I've recalled conversations and used information at a later time. For example...my boss used to live in a local Michigan community and would speak about the local politics. At the time I'd listen to be nice and it was important to him. Just the other day I ran into a potential client and he also was involved in politics in the same community. I was able to leverage the conversation to help build the relationship.
3. Relationship Building - People like to talk about what they know. I may have absolutely no interest in their stamp collection, but they feel important talking about an expertise they have. This goes more for first time meetings and I feel it tends to personalize the conversation.
Over the life of my blog, I'll be sharing my thoughts on many topics. I'm not claiming that I'm right on any of it. I encourage you to QUESTION my viewpoints.
