What do you say to people who reply you with “Don’t know”
Kenneth Kwan
Leadership Training Consultant
Have you ever gotten frustrated because the first answer to any question you ask others is, “Don’t know”.
What can you say to help others to answer your question?
How do you get others to reply you without giving you a blank look?
How do you handle such passive aggressive response?
Handling “I don’t know”
Most people will try to rephrase the same question differently.
Here’s a different approach that could work.
You can ask a presuppositional question: “Suppose if you know, what will you say?”
This catches some people by surprise. They could answer you instead of falling to their usual reply.
Presuppositional questions help a person think further on what could be done or said, instead of falling back to their usual response and not wanting to think further. Ask good questions and you will get good answers.
PS: If you are looking at how to ask better presuppositional questions in your coaching conversations, work with us at Coaching For Leaders.
