Rhonda Hinds, Registered Nurse, Community Nursing, Victoria, Australia
“Wow! From the first chapter I found myself changing my perceptions on how I currently interact with clients. This book really made me reflect on the way I converse and how I can improve my practice, through asking Better Questions – whilst making sure that I really listened to their answers.”
Ross McKenzie, Remedial Massage Therapist, Dip RM,
Member AAMT, VIC, AUS
“To better assist clients is our primary goal, this book clearly guides us through better questioning and therefore more mindful, empowering practice. Thanks for a welcome addition to our field. I recommend it to practitioners and also to their support staff, as they too will greatly benefit from the ‘jewels’ to be found within this thoughtfully written book.”
Karina Hilterman, Medical Herbalist & Wellness Educator, Founder of ‘Herb Awareness Week’, VIC, AUS & NZ
“At last a book which helps managers develop the full leadership potential of those working closely with or reporting to them. The authors lead the reader through the art of listening carefully before jumping in with the answers – a must read from cover to cover and a god send to anyone who wants to improve their coaching skills!”
Caroline Mulcahy, Former Director of Neonatal Services & Principal Nurse, Royal Women’s Hospital, AUS
“A great, easy to use book which will enable staff to ask better questions and connect with clients in a more meaningful way, strengthening their relationship. Thank you Lindsay and Heather-Jane for providing this valuable addition to our toolkit to enhance our person-centred approach with clients.”
Sushila Patel, Managing Director of Care Companions Ltd (Home Care), UK
“Simplicity underlies a good deal of creative thinking and innovation. Better Questions cuts through to the heart of a simple and effective approach to help individuals uncover their own innate wisdom. It is both powerful and empowering.”
Max Dumais, Founding CEO of the De Bono Institute, VIC, AUS
“Better quality questions are vital to success in life, in business and in how you relate to yourself, others & the world. With the right questions you can directionalise people’s head, heart and gut brains. Well done to Lindsay & Heather-Jane for bringing this great book to Health & Wellbeing Professionals. It’ll make a difference to the quality of the questions being asked by practitioners in this important area.”
Grant Soosalu, Scientist & Psychologist, Co-founder of emerging field of multiple Brain Integration Techniques (mBIT/mBraining)
“Crisp thinking and delivery of a complex issue, with a solution that can be applied to any situation great and small. Clear exposition so empowering yet in retrospect self-evident, turning an emotive topic into simple guidelines of logic where emotions can no longer interfere.”
Peter Gregory MBBS MS FRACS. Surgeon & Oncologist. Monash Medical Centre, VIC, AUS
Background: Authors’ Note
If you’re reading this book, there is a good chance that either your workplace has suggested it or provided it as a resource for you, or you are interested in your own self-development and see this as a resource to enable you to learn new skills or improve your existing skills. Alternatively, you may have attended one of our Better Health & Wellbeing Professionals Ask Better Questions workshops, in which case you will have already heard the key messages in this book, and this is now a resource to enable you to embed the learning, and be reminded of these key messages as you put them into practice.
Whatever the reason, we feel humbled to be able to share some insights and wisdom from our journey of working with some amazing caring professionals, in the hope that there will be something meaningful in the book that enables you to be even better than you are already. We know what a fantastic job people who work in the Health & Wellbeing field do, and what a significant difference they make in the lives of people that they work with. Our intention in writing this book is to honour this and share our passion for asking Better Questions in the hope that it will inspire you to want to use the skill in your professional practice, as this will enable you to make an even bigger difference in people’s lives.
By way of background, in October 2009, Lindsay followed her passion for helping people ask Better Questions, so that others could find better answers, and published her first book THE ANSWER – Improve Your Life by Asking Better Questions. In doing so she shared her wisdom of this amazing life skill with as many people as possible . . . and discussed how to spread the message with several friends.
One of these friends was Heather-Jane, who asked Lindsay to tell her about her first personal experience of asking Better Questions. Lindsay said that it came about when she took on a leadership role in the corporate world, where she felt technically incompetent but had a real interest in turning around underperforming teams. She found it challenging, as she felt unable to fulfil the role in any way other than to ask Better Questions; in doing so, she discovered that questioning more and telling less became quite magical – not only in terms of her own growth, but also in terms of the skills and confidence it facilitated within her team.
As a result of having quite literally ‘fallen in’ to a more questioning approach, Lindsay learnt that this was something that she wanted to explore further, so 11 years ago she left the corporate world to pursue her interest. Since then she’s not only become more practiced in the skill itself, but has also developed an absolute passion for training others, given that she knows how much of a profound difference it makes in the world.
After publishing the first book, Lindsay was chatting to Heather-Jane and told her that she’d received a phone call from a client who worked in health and disability services. They began discussing the patient/client-centred care approach that Heather-Jane had worked on in the UK and the US, with the ‘new’ approach to working with clients being advocated in Australia called the Active Service Model. The shared philosophy of both approaches is to partner with clients rather than to do for clients, to help support them in the achievement of identified goals, and to empower them to make choices about what they want rather than make assumptions or take over the decision-making for them. Specifically, this means supporting more vulnerable elderly clients to remain living more independently in their communities, if that is what they choose to do. As Lindsay and Heather-Jane talked about the potential use of the Better Questions approach, they became very excited about partnering together to help Health & Well-being Professionals assist clients to build capacity and become more engaged, empowered and, ultimately, fulfilled in their lives.
Lindsay developed a pilot training program, which was rolled out initially to about thirty staff, on the basis that she and Heather-Jane would review the results achieved to ascertain if the training was effective and staff felt that they now had more skills to enable them to carry out the new approach in practice. She was overwhelmed by what happened following this pilot program – not only with the success achieved by the professionals using Better Questions, but also by how quickly news of the program’s impact spread. She had to train other people to deliver the program to meet the demand, and has trained thousands of managers, nurses, community health professionals and case managers in the skill of asking Better Questions across Australia.
Lindsay and Heather-Jane have been so impressed by staff working in this sector, who have so willingly taken on board the training and, as a result, have changed their communication approach. Indeed, they’ve both been near to tears when they’ve heard updates from participants who have practiced the skill with profound results. It’s so rewarding to know that people have embraced using the Better Questions approach, which has then benefited their wonderful clients and enabled them to shine.
Lindsay and Heather-Jane continued to meet regularly to discuss progress with the program. They recognise that Clinical Practitioners are trained and, indeed, well qualified with diagnostic questioning . . . yet they remain curious that there is sometimes a ‘disconnect’