Are There Really No Bad Questions?

Welcome back to?Curiouser, our monthly newsletter with insights about leadership. This month's edition is about?asking better questions.

My first memorable encounter with a really bad question was about 10 years ago. I’d setup a meeting with an executive sponsor of a project I was working on to review a document.

When I walked into the meeting room, the executive was sitting at the table with her printed copy visibly red-lined with edits. Sensing she was eager to get started, the team and I took our seats and I kicked things off: “Thanks for meeting with us. It appears you’ve had a chance to review the document. Do you have thoughts you’d like to share?”

She gave a few glances around the room before responding with, “Do I have thoughts? I have lots of thoughts on a 200-page document, but it doesn’t appear you’re ready for this meeting. Let’s reschedule and meet when you’re better prepared.”

Oof.

Ending the meeting was arguably an overreaction. But my client’s assumption that we weren’t prepared to discuss a mission-critical document was fair. And it was a truly teachable moment: asking bad questions makes us look unprepared and can squander precious opportunities.

Asking Great Questions Help Everyone

Great questions, by contrast, make you look prepared and help your stakeholders feel valued. Far more importantly, great questions yield better information. And research suggests that effective questioning stimulates learning, improves team performance, mitigates risks, and even spurs innovation.

Luckily, asking great questions is a skill that can be learned. Here are three steps to get you started:

1. Clarify your objective. Knowing why you’re asking your questions—are you looking to generate ideas? surface information? identify a root cause?—will help shape your line of inquiry.
2. Plan your questions. Craft thoughtful questions in advance so you have them when you need them.
3. Channel your curiosity (and courage). Suspend your own opinions and enter the conversation with genuine curiosity. If you’re asking tough questions, bring a little courage, too.

1. Clarify Your Objective

In our Inquiring With Curious Questions module, we present participants with the following scenario:

I want to save gas on my 5-mile commute to work. My car gets 30 mpg.

We then ask them to answer this question:

Which vehicles are the best replacements for my car?

The most common answers: electric or hybrid car, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle.

Using the same scenario, we then ask a slightly different question:

What options do I have to reduce my fuel consumption?

And that question generates very different ideas: walk, jog or run, carpool, public transportation, work from home, go part-time. Heck, retire!

This simple exercise illustrates how the questions we ask frame our stakeholder’s thinking and determine the answers we get.

Before planning your questions, clarify the objective of your inquiry. Are you looking to brainstorm or explore new ideas? Are you seeking your stakeholder’s perspective? Or are you trying to surface specific information?

Great questions come from clarity of purpose, so simply knowing your objective before planning your questions will pave the way for more productive inquiry.

2. Plan Your Questions

Sometimes great questions come to mind in the moment. But the best questions are usually the result of thoughtful planning.

As you start crafting your questions, consider the characteristics of great questions:

• Are they open-ended? Questions that cannot be answered with yes, no, or one-word answers will invite your stakeholder to share more.
• Are they targeted? Although the freedom to share openly sounds appealing, most people prefer a few guardrails when answering questions. Instead of asking “What important tasks are you working on?” try “What are your 2-3 top priorities right now?”
• Are they thought-provoking? Familiar questions elicit rehearsed answers. But thought-provoking questions force your stakeholder to stop and think, often yielding more insightful responses. Try asking questions that get your stakeholder to consider their answers differently than in the past. Instead of asking “Which key messages should we focus on?” try “Which 3 key messages would our target customer pick from this list?”

3. Channel Your Curiosity (and Courage)

Be Curious

Great questions stem from genuine curiosity—the more curious you are about a topic, the more motivated you’ll be to seek information through effective questioning. By channeling your curiosity, in both the topic and your stakeholders, you’ll find it easier to suspend your own perspective and judgement and listen with greater objectivity.

Be Courageous

Asking better questions may demand a bit of courage, too.

I started that client meeting with a lame opening question because I was afraid. I was worried about coming across as too assertive by asking the questions I really wanted answered. I was concerned I’d create tension by asking provocative questions. Ironically, those more controversial topics were precisely what my client was eager to discuss.

There are plenty of hurdles on the path to asking better questions: our own egos get in the way (if we’re asking a question, then we’re admitting we don’t have the answer). Busy schedules make it hard to find the time to prepare questions in advance. Even our own organizations can be hurdles: research shows that we’re less likely to ask questions in environments that undervalue curiosity.

Yet the benefits of learning to ask better questions—for your organization, your stakeholders, and most of all, you—are well worth the investment.

Your 30-Day Challenge

Over the next 30 days, try doing one thing to start asking better questions. Here are a few ideas:

1. Get clear on your objective before your next high-stakes conversation by spending a few minutes considering what information you’re seeking from your stakeholder:

• Do you want to hear their ideas or perspectives?
• Do you need answers to specific questions?

2. Plan your questions by setting aside time to thoughtfully craft a few questions that are:

• Open-ended
• Targeted
• Thought-provoking

3. Channel your curiosity and courage by asking a challenging or provocative question.

Stay curious!

- Leadership & Co.

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