Ask better questions.
良い質問をしよう。
Self-help gurus often say, “The quality of your life is the quality of your questions.” This is true to some degree, especially for entrepreneurs and self-employed business owners.
But—asking questions about your own agenda to someone else is almost always a bad idea, unless the opponent is a consultant, accountant, lawyer, or anyone who gets paid for taking care of your own agenda. That’s simply because no one else really cares about your agenda. Everyone is busy caring about their own agenda.
If you ask questions to someone else, ask questions to set a common agenda, and talk about it. This way both sides can benefit from the question and subsequent discussion.
Better questions will give you better answers AND also give the opponent better ideas. If not, you’re asking a wrong question, no matter how it sounds great.