What if the gap between where you are and where you want to be is not a skills gap - but a confidence gap in expressing the skills you already have?
That was the question at the heart of Apprentis's first ever webinar workshop. On a live LinkedIn session that brought together forty-one professionals from thirty-six organisations across the UK, US, and Canada - Amazon, KPMG, Google, NatWest, BBC News, UBS, Unilever, and more - we ran the Asking Better Questions and Listening Deeply session with Kara Gooch, a workforce strategist, apprentice alumna, and former national apprenticeship strategy lead at Accenture, joining live from Texas.
The session was not a motivational talk. It was a structured capability intervention with a research framework around it, built on the Apprentis LEO Framework - Learn, Earn, Own - and designed to address the Own dimension that formal apprenticeship programmes consistently leave out. What follows is everything we covered, why it matters, and what the data showed happened as a result.
The 2026 Apprenticeship Communication Gap Report
The full pre-session evidence base that established why this session existed - and why it was necessary.
25 min read
The problem
Nobody teaches you what comes after the contract
Kara opened with a question that most apprentices recognise immediately: what does it feel like to strike out? Not in the baseball sense - but in the professional sense. The moment you had a question but didn't ask it. The moment you suggested an idea and it got dismissed. The moment you spent your entire social battery preparing to speak up in a meeting - and then didn't.
"Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game."
Babe Ruth, referenced by Kara Gooch to open the session
In the chat, apprentices described what striking out looks and feels like for them: a loss of respect, micromanaging, feeling like what you're contributing isn't enough. Introverts in the room described spending hours preparing their social battery for a single conversation - and walking away without using it.
Kara's reframe was precise. A loss of trust is an opportunity to seek connection. A loss of confidence is an invitation to seek inquiry. A loss of opportunity - or so you think - is actually a space in which you can seek to lead. The shift is not motivational. It is structural. Strong apprentices ask better questions. And asking better questions is a skill with a framework behind it.
Framework 1
What makes a good question: structure, effort, direction
Every good professional question, Kara explained, requires three things. Structure - the difference between an open and closed question, and knowing which one you need. Effort - not easy questions, but thoughtful ones that invite the listener into the conversation. And direction - being specific about the response you're seeking, so you don't walk away with a roundabout answer when you needed a clear one.
Open-ended questions are an invitation. They create space for the listener to share their understanding of your needs.
The difference between "what do you want me to do?" and "I noticed this project needs a developer - I have experience. What do you think?"
If you want a specific answer, your question needs to point toward it. Specific questions get results.
Three words that deepen any conversation. After someone answers, ask: "And what else?" to get the real answer.
The HMW Framework
Kara's second framework came from her time at Accenture: How Might We? Or, when applied to your own situation: How Might I? Rather than asking why something went wrong, reframe the question forward. How might I position myself differently? The shift from defensive to curious changes everything.
From the room
Three apprentices who showed up and shared their truth
The session was built around three real apprentice stories. Not case studies. Not summaries. Real people, on screen, speaking honestly about what their apprenticeship journey has actually looked like. Let them know that they are also part of the founding voices of Apprentis.
Prerna - Rebuilding after rejection
Prerna came from another country. She faced consistent rejection over a period of years. Instead of asking "why didn't you pick me?" - a question framed in defense - she built a tracker. She documented the reasons. She reframed rejection not as a verdict on her worth, but as information about what the next question needed to be.
Read Apprentice StoryRhys - Showing up as a first-gen apprentice at Amazon
Rhys was the first in his family. He described what that feels like in practice - the weight of being in rooms where nobody looks like you, nobody shares your background, and you're simultaneously trying to learn the job and figure out who you are in it. He brought that into the conversation about confidence.
Read Apprentice StoryElizabeth - Being the only one in the room
Elizabeth made the transition from apprentice to running her own network. Kara asked her what questions she asked herself to make that happen. The answers were specific - the questions of someone who had learned, through experience, how to guide themselves toward the answer they needed.
Read Apprentice StoryWatch the full session
Asking Better Questions and Listening Deeply
with Kara Gooch and Apprentis
The full recording of the live session. 41 professionals. 36 organisations. One session.
Framework 2
The INTENT Framework: stop sounding defensive
One of the most common traps in professional communication is the "why" question. Why did you change my work? Why didn't I get selected? These questions - even when entirely valid - land in the ears of the listener as defensive. They close the conversation before it begins.
Start with "I noticed"
Name it without judgment
Frame the intent
Share what you intended
Let them respond
"I noticed that during delivery, my section was omitted. I was wondering what you intended to present with that change - because I intended this."
Example from Kara Gooch illustrating the INTENT Framework
The silence at the end is not weakness. It is not submission. It positions you as intrigued, not offended - and it invites the listener to give you their real reasoning. Use asset-based question starters: What, How, Which, When, Where. Not why.
Framework 3
The 5 Rules of Active Listening
Asking a great question is only half the equation. What you do with the answer is the other half. Kara's five rules of active listening are not about seeming engaged. They are about actually extracting the value that the other person is offering you.
Let the speaker finish. Fully. The person on the other side of your question is giving you their best. Let them give it.
The silence after their answer is not awkward - it is signal. It tells the other person that you are actually processing what they said, not just waiting for your turn to speak.
"I understand that X. However, I'd like to understand from you..." Repeating back is not parroting. It demonstrates comprehension and gives the other person the chance to correct anything you've misread.
The follow-up is where the real answer lives. The first response is often what someone thinks you want to hear. The follow-up is where they tell you what they actually think.
The words are the surface. Tone is the layer underneath. What is the emotional register of what they're saying? Are they uncertain? Protective? Genuinely open? Read the room while you listen to the words.
Framework 4
How to ask better questions in meetings: focus, engage, learn
Kara structured the meeting section around three phases: before, during, and after. Most professional development advice tells you what to do in the meeting. Kara's framework tells you what to do before you walk in, and what to do after you walk out - because those are the moments that determine what you actually get from the time in between.
Go in with two things you will not leave without. Two only - enough to keep you anchored, few enough to keep you open to what you didn't expect. One could be information. One could be human. Kara's suggestion: make one of them something that will make you laugh. You will remember it.
Bridge the content of the meeting to your immediate goal. What can this information help me achieve right now? In an interview, that bridge is between your skills and what they need. Present the transfer. Use asset-based language. Not "why this?" but "when I used this skill, it led to this outcome - and I can see how that applies here."
"This meeting helped me understand X." "This interview helped me understand that I am better suited as a questioner first." Transfer is not passive. It is a habit you practise every time you leave a meeting.
In interviews
Ask the question nobody has asked before
Kara's example: noticing that the job title on a listing doesn't match the skills being asked for, and asking the interviewer directly why. It positions you as someone who read the brief more carefully than anyone else in the room. "Will it present you as a strong candidate? Come back and let me know."
Framework 5
Questions in mentorship: Q + A = C
The formula Kara used to close the session is simple and exact. Question plus Action equals Change. A question without action is philosophy - valuable in its own right, but not transformative on its own. The change only happens when you take what you heard and apply it.
"My question plus action will lead to my change. My question, minus action, is just philosophy."
Kara Gooch
In a mentoring relationship, this means guiding your mentor toward the answer you actually need - not just the answer they're comfortable giving. Kara's example: instead of "what habit should I build?", ask "what is one skill I should build now that will help me in the long run, and what are three ways you've recently used that skill?" The second question points the mentor toward specificity and lived experience. It gives you something you can actually use.
A mentor does not have to be older than you. They do not have to be in your industry, your city, or your country. They need to be someone you can learn something specific from - and someone you're willing to actually take action on what they share.
What the data showed after the session
The Framework behind the session
Learn, Earn, Own - the LEO Framework
The Asking Better Questions session was built on the Apprentis LEO Framework - a three-dimension model for what a complete apprenticeship actually looks like. Most programmes deliver Learn and Earn. The Own dimension - professional identity, career agency, and the communication capability that makes your competence visible - is what they consistently leave out.
Learn
Structured knowledge and occupational competence, delivered through your programme and assessed at end-point. The cognitive foundation of the apprenticeship.
Earn
Workplace application and wage earning, embedded in real professional relationships. The economic and relational dimension that makes an apprenticeship different from university.
Own
Career identity, professional agency, and self-directed trajectory. The dimension the earn-and-learn model does not name, does not design for, and does not measure. The dimension that determines long-term professional impact.
Session Facilitator
Kara Gooch
Workforce Strategist | Founder and CEO, Route to Rise Workforce Solutions | Texas, USA
Kara Gooch is an apprentice alumna, a former national apprenticeship strategy lead at Accenture, and a facilitator of more than 200 cross-collaboration learning sessions for Early Valuable Professionals. She was invited to speak at the International Centre for Apprenticeship Degrees convening at Oxford University, where she first connected with the Apprentis team. She joined this session live from Texas - the first time the Apprentis community has been joined by a practitioner from the United States - bringing the cross-context dimension of the Own dimension into the room in real time.
"It takes you to take action on the way you structure your questions, the effort you put into your questions, and the direction of the responses you receive. Because it is up to you to use those questions and the responses to connect, to inquire, and to lead."
Kara Gooch - closing statement
For you, right now
What You Can Do This Week
The post-session data showed us what participants intended to do immediately. Twenty-seven percent committed to using one framework from the session in a real conversation. Twenty percent committed to asking for clarification at least once, even if it felt awkward. Twenty percent committed to practising active listening and summarising back what they heard.
Those are the right three places to start. Pick one. Do it in your next significant workplace conversation. Notice what changes.
Pick one from the session - the AWE Framework, HMW, or INTENT - and deploy it in your next meeting, mentoring session, or feedback conversation. Not in theory. In the room.
Before the session, asking for clarification from managers scored zero in the "always comfortable" band. After: 40% always. The discomfort is the signal, not the stop sign.
After someone responds to your question, pause. Repeat back what you understood. Ask if you got it right. This single habit changes the quality of every professional conversation you have.
Your apprenticeship will give you Learn and Earn. Nobody is coming to give you Own. You build it through the questions you ask, the community you join, and the identity you construct deliberately.
Apprentis Care Package
The full set of frameworks, tools and reflection exercises
Contains the questioning frameworks, reflection exercises, and practical development tools in a format built for ongoing use.
Full evidence
Read the Pilot Research Report
The complete pre- and post-session findings, the LEO Framework analysis, and the evidence architecture behind the Asking Better Questions pilot. Published in public, designed to be tested and challenged. The first controlled pre/post evidence base for the Own dimension in apprenticeship development.
Read the Pilot Research ReportA final word
Iyioluwa Adesan
Founder, Apprentis
The data from this pilot showed one thing above everything else. These participants already had the capability. The session did not give them new skills from nothing. It gave them the framework to make what they already had deployable in the moments that mattered.
Qualified. Capable. And, with the right design, heard.