Five Secrets of Effective Communication-Part 3: Inquiry

I’m continuing a series of blog posts about the Five Secrets of Effective Communication. Please see my previous posts for an explanation of what the Five Secrets are. I will continue now with the third secret, Inquiry.

Inquiry involves asking gentle probing questions to invite the other person to open up and tell you more about their feelings. This can be very difficult to do, especially when the other person is mad at you! Yet, inquiry is a powerful and important method for turning a conflict into an opportunity for getting closer to another person. We are saying to someone we love, “I care about you so much that I want to know more about your feelings—even the negative feelings you have about me. I’m willing to listen and hear more about what it’s been like for you to have me do the things you don’t like.” There is something very loving and respectful about this!

In previous posts about the Five Secrets, I used the example of a patient who has said to me “Sometimes it seems like you don’t like me very much.” Before effective communication training, I probably would have started out by saying “I’m sorry!” This, however would probably be a big mistake. Certainly, apologizing can be very important, but there is a reason apologizing is not one of the Five Secrets. This is because apologizing is a conversation ender. When someone tells me they are unhappy with me and I say “I’m sorry,” I’m kind of saying “I’m uncomfortable! I just want to apologize and stop talking about this.” A much more effective form of communicating would be to use Inquiry. Let’s go back to my example of the therapy patient who is unhappy with me. Instead of apologizing, I could say “I think your thoughts about this are really important and I want to know more. Please tell me what it’s been like to have me do such a terrible job of listening to you.”

Inquiry is an important key to taking a moment of conflict and transforming it into an opportunity for greater intimacy. It works so well because it is the opposite of problem-solving. As Dr. Burns writes in his book Feeling Good Together, “The urge to solve problems is the cause of most relationship problems. The refusal to solve problems is usually the solution.” With my therapy patient example, if I jumped to solving the problem of giving my patient the impression that I don’t like them very much, I will probably just make things worse. To build a closer relationship with this patient, I can use the Five Secrets of Effective Communication. So far, I have written about three of the five secrets: 1) The Disarming Technique, 2) Thought and Feeling Empathy, and 3) Inquiry. Here is how I could respond to my unhappy patient using these three of the Five Secrets:

Patient: Sometimes, it seems like you don’t like me very much.

Therapist: Oh, wow. You just said that sometimes it seems like I don’t like you very much (Thought Empathy). I imagine you’re probably feeling pretty upset with me right now (Feeling Empathy). I think I have done a really bad job of listening to you, understanding you and giving you the empathy and support you need from your therapist. I agree that I have behaved as if I don’t like you very much (Disarming Technique). You may be feeling pretty unhappy, irritated or hurt (Feeling Empathy). Am I getting any of this right? Please tell me more about what this has been like for you. (Inquiry)”

Hopefully, you can see that by using these three of the Five Secrets, I’ve responded in a more effective way than how I typically would have responded before effective communication training. Here is an example of an ineffective response:

Patient: Sometimes, it seems like you don’t like me very much.

Therapist: Oh, that’s not true— I do like you! I’m sorry I made you think I don’t. What can I do better to help you see that I like you very much?

In this version, I’m focusing too much on solving the problem and I definitely don’t want to hear more about how I’ve hurt this person.

In my next post, I will introduce the fourth secret— “I Feel” Statements.

Are you interested in learning more about how you could use the Five Secrets of Effective Communication to build closer, more satisfying personal relationships? You can schedule a free consultation with me to learn more about the relationship counseling I do by clicking here.