Dean Nelson Knows How To Ask Good Questions

Speaker 1: 00:00 With endless cable TV news shows, news sites, and podcasts. Not to mention traditional media. We're all quite familiar with the practice of interviewing. In fact, we all conduct interviews of a sword throughout our daily lives, even if they're not broadcast or published somewhere. Smart experienced journalists might make it look easy, but a lot of work and thought and energy and personality go into a successful interview. Joining me is Dean Nelson, who directs the journalism program and Writer's symposium by the sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. His new book is, talk to me how to ask better questions, get better answers, and interview anyone like a pro dean. Welcome. Thank you, mark. It's going to be with you. Well, you've interviewed more than a few people in your career. How has the way you conduct interviews changed over your 40 years as a journalist and journalism teacher? Speaker 2: 00:49 Yeah, I think early on when I first went into journalism, I was thinking, it's all instinct and improvisation and you just kind of wing it and, um, and those had mixed results. So I would say I, I now put a lot more thought even on a, uh, a new story I might be reporting on it. Put a lot more thought into what's going to be my first question and what do I really want out of this interview. Um, and, and then try to craft it in such a way that there are some questions that, um, elicit better answers than others. Open ended questions, for instance. I think, uh, I'm more intentional about that now. And when I do interviews with the writer's symposium, I actually look at the questions as a, a kind of trajectory. I want this to go somewhere and I want it to end somewhere. Speaker 1: 01:45 All right. And what's the, uh, the general purpose of the book? Why'd you write the book? Speaker 2: 01:49 Actually, the reason I wrote this book, this was not the book I had intended to write a book I had intended to write was a handbook for writers and things. And, uh, it was the publisher, Harper Collins, they said, but you mentioned a couple of things about the interviews that you've done. Why don't you do a buck about interviewing instead? So that got me thinking, I do know something about this. I could probably do something on that topic. But then I got to thinking actually so many different areas of life depend on the quality of the conversation you have with somebody. It could be a social worker, an HR person, a financial planner, a nurse or a doctor that I thought, you know, if we maybe if we talked more concretely about what we're after when we interact with one another, uh, we might actually improve some things. Speaker 1: 02:42 And you mentioned these other professions where asking good questions is important. Sure. Doctors, police officers give us some examples of, of how a good questions in various fields can make a difference. Speaker 2: 02:53 One of the examples I use in, uh, in this book, uh, talk to me is a social worker who said when she goes in to talk with a family where they have, uh, a newborn for instance, who is in some sort of physical distress. The first question she asks is, what were the conditions under which this baby was born? And that helps her understand. Then some of the layers that she's dealing with here with those parents. And so I think when you start thinking about the quality of your questions as applied to other professions, even the human relationships, when you ask your kid, if you're picking up your kid on the way home from school, how was school? You're going to get a one syllable answer. What'd you do today? Nothing. But if you ask that in a more open ended intentional way that's going to lead to better kinds of connection, then I think your whole experience is going to Speaker 1: 03:53 be improved. Talk a little bit about, uh, silence, especially in a hostile interview or a, uh, an interview. That's where there's a lot riding on it, a big stakes interview. Sometimes silence can be an excellent technique for an interviewer. Speaker 2: 04:06 Actually silence is part of the grammar of an interview. Um, if you and I went silent on this radio program for, for a little while, so good. Yeah, that, that doesn't work. But, um, if you're in person with somebody or even on the phone with somebody, silence is a way to, to just let the person know. I'll let you collect your thoughts, but you're not going to avoid it. I'm not letting you off the hook. And I think a lot of rookie, uh, interviewers, again, whether they're social workers or nurses or journalists will fill in the silence and uh, and kind of jump in there, uh, before they need to waiting the source out will probably lead to better responses. Speaker 1: 04:53 And the other side of this is listening to the answers. Talk a little bit about how an interviewer can do better to listen and really hear and interpret what the person is saying. Speaker 2: 05:01 Well, we've all seen interviews on television where we just, we, we hear what the, the person said in response to a question and there's no followup and uh, and we just think, no, they just left this door open for you to, to walk into and you were so fixated on asking your next question or posturing or showing how smart you are. Really active listening is a way to connect with another human being. Otherwise you're just giving statements in your questions and then they're giving statements in their answers and then you're just kind of trading statements. We're not really getting anywhere but actively listening so that you can follow up and say something like, well, how come or what do you mean? Or I don't understand. That shows that you're really trying to get past the surface. Right. Speaker 1: 05:50 Can you share an anecdote or two from interviews that really clicked and why they worked? Speaker 2: 05:55 I'll give you an example of one that I thought just superbly where the other person just hijack the interview altogether. But it was ray Bradbury and I'm thinking nobody paid to hear Dean Nelson Talk. They all paid to hear Ray Bradbury talk. So I'd throw him a question whether he answered my question or not was irrelevant. It was ray Bradbury. So off we go. Exactly. He was just spinning off like the Tasmanian Devil and it was awesome. It was absolutely awesome. So it's, uh, it's sometimes better just to z universe just to shut up and let the dad just shut up and let him go. Yeah. All right. I've been speaking to Dean Nelson, author of talk to me how to ask better questions, get better answers, and interview anyone like a pro. Thanks Dean. My pleasure. It's always fun talking to you. Mark and dean will be speaking and signing copies of his book at La Playa Books in Point Loma on April 27th at 11:00 AM as part of the third annual San Diego book crawl.