Lindsay and Heather-Jane cannot promise that the approach they are sharing will be the ‘magic wand’ and that it will work in all situations. However, what they do know is that health systems worldwide are stretched to the limit, extremely burdensome on governments and often very stressful for the people who work in them. In addition, a lot of current practices create dependence, are not respectful and enable a passive approach to looking after one’s own health. The reason Lindsay and Heather-Jane prefer to use the term ‘client’ rather than ‘patient’ is that it is more empowering (just consider the concept of serving clients/customers/guests in hospitals; it’s more than semantics – linguistics can change perceptions, attitudes and, eventually, behaviours/cultures). They’ve also chosen to use the more holistic and empowering term ‘Health & Wellbeing Professionals’ rather than the traditional ‘healthcare’ term, to recognise professionals’ increasing role in health promotion/education (including many wellness practitioners and fitness professionals). They believe that with your skilled application, the philosophy and practices that they share in this book can transform systems and practices to ultimately enable a healthier society, which will be a fabulous outcome.
Thanks for choosing to read this book. Lindsay and Heather-Jane trust that by further improving your current questioning skills, you’ll be inspired to support and enable your clients by taking a more person-centred and empowered approach with them – which inevitably will lead to better outcomes for all. Through asking Better Questions there is a greater sense of truly making a difference in the world, which then supports the reasons you’re probably working in this sector in the first place! They trust that you will recognise that whilst this book is written in the context of your professional role, you’ll also realise the importance of being a Better Questioner in any aspect of life. Indeed, everyone we interact with has far more potential than they realise, and having more skill to release the full potential of others is wonderful.
Notes
I.All the books in the ‘Better Questions’ series have been written to appeal to specific sectors and markets, with the language, examples and scenarios tailored to meet the needs of, and relate to, the readers in each sector. However, it should be noted that the core messages and the Better Questions communication model are the same throughout the series.
II.As we’ve stressed above, we have used the word ‘client’ throughout the book, albeit that in some contexts the word ‘patient’ may feel more appropriate, depending upon your setting.
III.We want to be respectful and acknowledge that depending upon your background and role, there may have been an opportunity for you to be trained in questioning and listening skills already. Whilst this may lead you to think that the content of this book may have limited use, we invite you to be open minded in that we truly believe that the art and skill of being a Better questioner is a journey and not a destination. With reflection, we can continue to build on our communication skills throughout our lives.
IV.The messages in this book apply across all roles in all Health & Wellbeing Professions, including Doctors, Dentists, Nurses, Midwives, Health Visitors, Occupational Therapists, Mental Health Professionals, Social Workers, Case Managers, Psychologists, Pharmacists, Chiropractors, Osteopaths, Physiotherapists, Counsellors, Myotherapists, Nutritionists, Podiatrists, Speech Therapists, Dieticians, Nutritionists, Naturopaths, Medical Herbalists, Health Educators, Personal Trainers . . . and all the other health and wellbeing roles there are in the world – it would take too long to list them all . . .
Prologue
Once upon a time there was a humble question mark. He had sometimes been described as ‘boring’ because his role in life was to sit at the end of a sentence. Indeed, the role of the question mark was simply to make a sentence into a question. What this little question mark found sad was that in the past great scholars had recognised the amazing qualities of his ancestor question marks, and people like Socrates and Plato had hailed them as heroes. But here he is today, living his life in the 21st century, unrecognised and feeling rather miserable that so few people appreciate his potential to make a real difference.
One day, a lady came along who saw his potential, and she used his abilities for many years with her clients with life-changing results. They became friends, and she became so excited about his potential to make the world a better place that she asked his permission to write a book and a website about him.
This lady was aware that if more people knew about him, they would be able to tap into the potential of others by empowering these people to make decisions that are right for them. She also knew that they could use him to enable them to be more reflective in making better decisions about their own lives and, ultimately, the choices they were making about the way they were living.
Whilst he was still a little shy, he liked the idea of being able to share his potential with the world and, sure enough, his fame started to spread far and wide.
In this book you are going to be introduced to and be inspired by the humble question mark – he really does change lives and can make Health & Wellbeing Professionals even more effective in their many diverse roles.
Introduction
From a very young age most of us have been told what to do. During our formative years we were surrounded by people who were excellent at providing much needed advice and guidance, particularly parents and schoolteachers, and so we learnt early in life to be more natural ‘tellers’. This ‘telling’ style continued to develop as we became adults, mainly because it was ‘role-modelled’ to us in the various workplace and social settings of which we were part. By way of clarification, what we mean by the word ‘teller’ is someone who does some or all of the following: directs, advises, informs, problem-solves, suggests and educates.
As ‘telling’ was the most common way of being role--modelled to us, we became practiced at taking this on as a natural response when we were presented with a problem by others or were asked for advice. Indeed, we unconsciously related this way to people for many years and never contemplated that there could be a better way to respond. We believed that we were being helpful when we were in this ‘telling’ role.
We must stress that we are not saying that it is wrong to tell someone what to do – especially in many medical settings. We can already hear many of you justifying that ‘telling’ is a good and really helpful thing to do, and so we must take some time to clarify our intention in writing this book.
One thing we are absolutely sure of is that we would not be the people we are today if we had not had the benefit of interacting with people who typically ‘tell’. Indeed, certainly in our formative years, that was primarily the way we made sense of the world, how we worked out what was right and what was wrong, and how we became the educated and knowledgeable people we are today.
So ‘telling’ definitely has a place in the world and it is OK to continue to ‘tell’ in many areas of our lives, including our professional roles. However, what we know from experience is that most people spend too much time ‘telling’ and not enough time ‘asking’, and this is the reason we are raising your awareness in this book of ‘TELLING’ versus ‘ASKING’.
Most of us conduct our lives in a space that we might refer to as ‘unconsciously competent’. What we mean by that is that we don’t think about what we do, we just do it. The main reason we don’t think about what we do is that we are too busy, and if we did think it would take much longer to get things done. So in most instances operating in this space is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly if we are getting the