How to Know a Person — Chapter Seven: The Right Questions

1. 1. David Bradley uses index cards to help people gain distance from their problems by asking about ultimate goals, skills, and schedule.
2. 2. In job interviews, David Bradley looks for 'extreme talent' defined narrowly as a specific task the person excels at, and a 'spirit of generosity.'
3. 3. Children ask about forty thousand questions between ages two and five, but many withdraw from intimacy during adolescence due to societal messages.
4. 4. About 30 percent of people are natural question askers, while 70 percent spend conversational time presenting themselves.
5. 5. Simple questions like 'And then what happened?' can elicit profound life stories, as shown by the author's interview with 94-year-old Valentina Kosieva in Moscow.
6. 6. Condoleezza Rice valued broad, dumb questions because they helped her step back from minutiae and see the big picture.
7. 7. Perspective-taking is untrustworthy, but perspective-receiving works well; asking good questions allows others to tell you who they are.
8. 8. Closed questions like 'Were you close?' limit answers; open questions like 'Tell me about...' empower the speaker to control the conversation.
9. 9. Big questions like 'What crossroads are you at?' or 'What would you do if you weren't afraid?' can make conversations memorable and prompt self-reflection.
10. 10. People are eager to have deep conversations; experts report that almost no one responds with 'None of your damn business.'