Do you follow the same anti-patterns when you ask questions?
Questions can help people think more clearly and find different perspectives. I teach how to ask such questions. We discuss distinctions and study principles. But even after that, people continue to do things that reduce the impact of their questions.
It happens because we only partially aware of how we communicate. We intend to communicate in a certain way, but many unconscious habits prevent us from doing that.
There are several common reasons people develop such behaviors:
- They think they are helping other people that way.
- They are uncomfortable with silence. So once the other person goes silent, they try to fill that void by saying something.
- It's the remnant of the habit of asking closed questions. So they ask the open question first and then they feel an urge to ask a closed one.
Two of these habits are very common. The good news is that if you make an effort, you will eliminate or significantly reduce their effect.
The first bad habit is stacking questions. People tend to ask two and more questions. It is the most natural way of asking questions for many of us. Here are a few examples of such questioning:
- What makes you feel impatient when you listen to other people? Why is that? What's causing this emotion?
- What are the strengths of people you are working with? Do you know something about that?
- How do you prepare? Could you please share some details on how you prepare?
Looking at these examples in writing, it’s obvious that wordiness like this is redundant. On the other side, on the surface it may seem to not be important. But it's important to be concise. Why is that?
If we want the other person to have a breakthrough or aha-moment, we need to help her deploy all her cognitive capacities. We need to help her concentrate. By asking several questions at once, however, we make the person squander the mental resources by keeping in mind everything that we say and then picking the part they need to answer.
Attention span is limited so be very careful not to overload it. Ask one question at a time.
The second bad habit is starting to answer the question. We either put words into other person’s mouth or we suggest optional answers. It may look like this:
- When did it happen the first time? Was it a long time ago or within the last month?
- If you let others finish their stories, how would it change the impact of the conversations you have? Would you be perceived as someone less active?
This habit is bad for a few reasons:
- You anchor the other person's response. When anchoring bias comes into play, what she thinks is skewed by our suggestions. And that's the opposite of what we want to achieve. What we want is to allow people to generate their own ideas.
- You take away the opportunity for the person to think for herself. One of the main objectives of asking questions is to allow people to think deeper. Don’t interfere with the her own thinking by regurgitating possible answers.
Depending on the underlying cause of these habits, you may use different approaches to break them. Yet most approaches will include observing and becoming more aware of the tendencies that we have. So the next time you are going to ask questions, observe whether you have any of these habits. And think about ways you can make your questions clear and concise.