Read out the following 10 questions upon entering the room – don’t wait to get their attention just begin by asking them to write the answers down as you ask the questions. Do not answer any questions and don’t repeat the questions, speak at a conversational pace and move directly from one to the other as if summarising – THEY HAVE TO LEARN TO PAY ATTENTION 100% OF THE TIME!

The modern day working environment rarely provides the opportunity for authentic communication and so it is down to you to create the right environment for the client to provide you with all of the information you require to understand their need.

1. Do they have a 5th of November in the USA?

2. Some months have 30 days, some have 31 – how many have 28?

3. You take 2 apples from 5 apples – what do you have?

4. You enter a dark house on a dark night – you have a match, an oil lamp and some kindling wood which do you light first?

5. How many of each animal did Moses take on the ark?

6. You have to start taking a bottle containing 3 pills – one pill to be taken every half an hour. How long before the bottle is empty?

7. A farmer has 15 sheep. All but 9 of them die – How many are left?

8. If you drive a bus to Watford and pick up 10 passengers, then drop off at Luton and pick up 5 more and drop off 3, you then stop at Birmingham and pick up another 8 and drop off another 3. You arrive in Edinburgh some 6 hours later – what was the bus driver’s name?

9. Go to the left luggage locker (no 252) at St Pancras Station. In the locker you will find a cash box which contains the following: 52 x £1 coins 10 x 50p coins 20 x 10p coins Please bring me 25 £1 coins, 2 x 50p pieces and all of the 10p coins. What was the number of the locker?

10. You are the leader of a search party looking for a plane, which has crashed in the wilderness. After searching the area for some time you eventually locate deep furrows made by the plane as it crash-landed. Following the furrows you see the plane with its back lying partially submerged in the middle of the river. There are no obvious signs of life. You realise that there is no way you can carry the dead back to civilisation. You must choose where to bury them. It would be easier to get them to the far bank but the ground is very rocky. To bring them to the near bank would be much more difficult because of the depth of the water and speed of the current, but once on the bank the job would be relatively easy because the ground is soft. On which side of the river would you therefore bury the survivors?

Answers

1. Yes they do have a 5th of November, but they don’t celebrate Guy Fawkes Night.

2. All of them.

3. You still have 5 apples.

4. The match.

5. 0 – Moses didn’t have an ark.

6. 1 hour – you take the first one now.

7. 9.

8. You are the driver.

9. 252

10. There is no need to bury survivors.

The purpose of the exercise is to prove that what you hear is subject to assumption, cultural bias, misdirection and a focus on the wrong things.

Have fun!