“Nooo..no..no..first, you answer me this!!”
If you were there Reader , you’d have laughed your guts out. During a quarterly council meeting of the society, one of the uncles — you know the type who wears a tight T-shirt, heavy metal wrist-watch and a pair of sports shoes — was repeating himself “Noo…no..no..first, you answer me this!!” x 20 times. On repeat mode. I was wondering where’s the ‘off’ button on this iPod.
But nobody could find the ‘off’ button. And he walked out of the meeting. Furious and angry.
I realized something.
Whether it is this ‘trying-to-be-a-teenager’ uncle or us, we don’t use questions as effectively as we should.
Questions as Tools
If you think about it, what are ‘questions’?
They’re not poems.
They’re not paintings.
They’re not answers.
They’re tools!
We invented questions. To solve our problems. To understand something with more depth.
It was curiosity (aka ‘questions’) that prompted the man to invent the wheel and fire.
Solving the maze
But anyways, here is something that I enjoy in meetings: observing people’s questions.
It is fun. Because different people use questions to get different things. Sometimes, to just get some air time.
In the majority of meetings, people are trying to figure out some information. For example: if it is a sales meeting or project review meeting, people are trying to figure out how good or bad the situation is. If you’re designing a survey, your team is trying to get a set of information using questions. I had also written in the past about a simple filter test to make your surveys meaningful
All this questioning is similar to solving a maze.
Imagine you’re using different types of questions to find out the right path to reach the treasure. It is trial and error.
How close you will get to the maze’s center is upto your questions.
Question types
Everyone knows that there are broadly two types of questions: open-ended and close-ended.
But in our discussion, I want to expand on the question types in more detail.
This binary ‘open-ended’ and ‘close-ended’ categorization is ‘too open-ended’ to help us.
1. Probing Questions: to get a direction
“Why have the sales increased in the last quarter?”
2. Clarifying Questions: to bring everyone on the same page
“What do you mean by [specific term or concept]?”
3. Reflective Questions: to bring out insights and understand cause-effect relationships
“Why didn’t we talk to that area manager to get help?”
4. Hypothetical Questions: to explore options and what-if scenarios
“How might the client react if we remove the copyright clause?”
5. Action-Oriented Questions: to find immediate action items
“Which schools already have internet connectivity?”
6. Systemic Questions: to understand the big picture
“What are the potential ripple effects of providing them a 10% incentive?”
7. Future-Oriented Questions: to get an idea of what will happen in the future
“What steps can we take to prevent any issues 10 years down the line?”
8. Diagnostic Questions: to check patterns, to be matched with a known pattern
“How long have they been delaying their payment?”
9. Emotional Questions: to find out underlying emotions
“Aren’t people frustrated with that voice-over artist’s voice in that ad?”
10. Collaborative Questions: to invite people to pitch in
“Who else can provide insights or perspectives on this issue?”
If you’re talking to your colleague, customer, or spouse, remember that different question types have different functions. Using the right question, in the right sequence can help you reach closer to the maze’s center.
If you find your mother crying in the kitchen, you would probably need the question types in this order: 8,8,1,1,1,9,9,9,5,5,5 😄Just joking, but you get the point.
The questioning master
I know a few living masters in my circle. But of course, you won’t be knowing them, hence a more well-known master’s example.
It is Jiddu Krishanmurti. Yes. I believe he was a true questioning master.
He could delve deeper into any problem, just by asking mostly probing and diagnostic questions. No matter how abstract the question is.
For example, watch him dig deeper in this 3:00 minute video on the question ‘Are emotions rooted in thought?’
I’m sure all of us can reach Krishanmurti’s mastery level if we were trained as rigorously as he was.
But.
But.
Until then, at least, let’s not be that uncle who can’t put his questions in order to reach the root cause.
So Reader,
Growing up, were you tagged as the curious kid with “why” in every question? OR you were just silently noticing everyone?
By the way, do you know what is Socratic Dialogue/Socratic Line of Questioning is?
Hit Reply to this email and share with me!
Reads of the week:
- On reading it in a book When Seth takes every book nerd’s side.
- The problem of standards Technology is wasted on people who lack discipline.
- Gender ideology’s twin shaky pillars I love Colin’s work. His work is science’s work.
Found this helpful? Sign-up for The Friday Newsletter by clicking this button:
