What's in a question?

As children, we have been conditioned to learn in a question and answer format, that there is a question and then there is an answer to the question. The focus, interest and attention has always been on the ‘answer’.

As I reflect, I gather that the focus was not on the question because the question was the ‘obvious’ or ‘expected’ and somewhere hovering around the tip of the iceberg. Since the question was at the tip of the iceberg, the answer also followed the same essence.

With various experiences, situations, scenarios and life stages, we learn patterns and frameworks. I believe, the answer would still remain the same if we don’t change the question to make it a right question.

What is a right question? In my view, a question is right when it elicits an answer or a response that is below the tip of the iceberg. That right question can be classified as a ‘powerful question’ – one that creates emotion, accountability, deep thinking, gives a sense of being in control and triggers creative thinking.

Powerful questions are open-ended, and asked with genuine curiosity. The person asking the question receives more than an ‘obvious answer’. The person answering the powerful question goes through a stimuli that could trigger an action. Powerful questions are hence ‘kinesthetic’ in nature because they drive deep thinking and have the ability to create an ‘aha’ moment.

I encourage you to try tweaking questions that you ask yourself or people around you by attempting to make it more powerful. I am sharing some simple examples that I put together for you, where a question has been attempted both, in it’s regular and powerful form.

Question 1?

Regular Question: How are things?

Powerful Question: What matters to you right now?

Question 2???

Regular Question: Did you do the needful?

Powerful Question: What have you tried?

Question 3???

Regular Question: Do you have the support?

Powerful Question: What support do you need, who can help?

Question 4???

Regular Question: Is there progress?

Powerful Question: What is in the way?

Encourage you to tweak the regular question to make it more powerful. Seeking feedback from the receiver is a great practice and helps understand if there was an 'aha' moment because of the question.