Episode 1 - How to ask better questions, with Megan DePutter

Have you ever wondered how you can communicate your ideas more effectively?

How you can change minds, and have a positive impact on the culture in which you live or work?

How you can speak your mind while preserving relationships and professional integrity?

The answer to these challenges may lie here: Learn to ask better questions

In this interview, Megan DePutter — an expert in leadership coaching and training — explores the value of challenging our own assumptions, asking better questions, and speaking our mind (without being overbearing or aggressive.)

Throughout this conversation Megan shares useful prompts, questions, and scripts you can apply to your own conversations. Along the way, she opens up about her own struggles with assertiveness and reveals some key mistakes that helped her grow.

We cover:

• How to avoid making costly or damaging assumptions (even when you’re pretty sure you’re right.)
• The #1 thing you should do before creating a course or other communications project.
• One simple question to make your communications resonate much more with your audience.
• Handy, “hip pocket” questions you can use to get a more accurate understanding of any situation.
• Why assertiveness is not the same thing as aggression, and how to be respectful and professional while still speaking your mind.
• How to handle the fear of making a mistake or saying the wrong thing.

Megan DePutter is an Organizational Development Consultant with over 20 years of experience in health care and non-profit organizations including HIV/AIDS. Her work involves solutions-focused coaching and training to help support the retention and effectiveness of leaders; she helps people get to dialogue when the stakes are high.

Throughout her career Megan has actively worked to dismantle stigma, champion harm-reduction, and change damaging cultural narratives around HIV – while also discovering the power of assertiveness and crucial conversations.

Megan is also my twin sister and it was a pleasure getting to know her better in this interview. I learned a lot and I think you will too. Enjoy!