I saw an email this week from Steve, a friend who has just moved to live in an idyllic cottage with an open fire overlooking a mountain in Wales - "and it's all your fault !!!!" said the email. 

So I sat at my pc and I said to myself "What response do you want when you communicate with somebody else?"

I had simply asked Steve "where do you  want to be in five years time?"

He replied "I had never really thought about it until you asked me to imagine myself in that place, imagine the sounds the smell etc."  so I got the response that I wanted as Steve described his dream home to me and now he's living there

So I decided that I will pick three opportunities where you can use this pattern and start to ask well-targetted questions.   First sit in a room with a potential client, and start to ask them "What will your sales team be like when they are performing at their best?" and secondly sit down to coach a colleague ask "How do you want to be six months from now?" and in relating closely to a partner ask "Where do you want to go for Christmas?". 

I realised that it makes such a huge difference when I have an idea in advance of what response I want, so that I know what I'm looking and listening out for. Seems too obvious doesn't it. Yet knowing what response you want and what response the person that you are communicating with wants is key to negotiating a win-win outcome. The starting point that I have found useful is to ask yourself the question "what response do I want?"  Make a movie in your mind of what this will look like, sound like and feel like and compare this with the response you are getting and keep in mind the question "what can I do next?". This will lead you in a direction of becoming more flexible in your communicating as you realise that you are getting the response that you want more of the time