Tactical Questioning Skills

The Socratic method works at work because it lets the other person spot problems in their own reasoning. Instead of saying "Your plan will fail," ask "What happens if assumption X turns out to be wrong?" This surfaces weaknesses without creating an adversary.

The goal is to make a colleague your partner in pressure-testing the idea, not the target of an attack. When people reach a conclusion themselves, they own it — and they rarely get defensive about a problem they uncovered on their own.