How to Ask Better Questions

My career began in theater.

I was an Off-Broadway director, cutting my way through the jungle of New York theater.

As a director, it was my job to coax honest and believable performances out of actors.

The relationship between a stage performer and a director is collaborative. Everyone comes into the room with different ideas about how to bring a character to life and with unique life experiences that can help inform the performance.

Directors ask their actors to be vulnerable and in return promise to create a supportive environment where mistakes are welcomed and risks are celebrated.

So when I transitioned toward making corporate videos, I took the same approach.

How could I draw the best performances out of talent who had never performed before?

Any great interview doesn’t just come down to asking the right questions.

It’s a matter of curating an environment where the interviewee feels comfortable taking off the mask of professionalism and sharing their honest humanity.

Whether I’m on-camera alongside them or an invisible guide off-screen, I reach back to my early days in theater to pull the best out of each speaker.