Here’s how to get answers:1. Build up gently to high-pressure questons. No one likes having an important queston sprung upon them. Show some empathy for
their positon. For example, let’s say that you want to ask your manager some questons about your chances of receiving a raise next year.
Rather than charging in and asking immediately whether you think your salary will receive a boost, ask them whether it’s a good tme to
talk about your positon at the company and prospects for the future.
2. Decide whether an open or closed queston is beter. We’re ofen told that asking open questons – those beginning with “Why” and
“How” – is a beter approach than asking closed questons that can be answered with a “Yes” or “No.” It’s true that the former will yield
more in-depth responses, but this isn’t always a good thing. For instance, if you are talking to someone who is renowned for rambling on
without getng to the point, it might be best to use a closed queston instead.
3. Use a four-part structure when helping someone deal with a problem. Questons don’t just help you obtain informaton. They are
also a good way of helping someone through a crisis. Empathy and sympathy will only take you so far. Asking the right questons will help
someone come up with a plan of acton that gets to the root of the problem. Executve coach Irene Leonard recommends taking a four-step
approach:
A. Ask someone questons that will help them hone in on their issue. “What seems to be the issue here?” is a good startng point.
B. Obtain further informaton. Once you have established the underlying cause of their distress, you can then use prompts to get the
full story, if necessary. Questons like “Can you tell me more about that?” and “What else can you tell me?” are useful in this context.
C. Ask them questons that establish their ideal outcome. Specifcally, encourage them to tell you what a successful resoluton would
look like. Ask them what they want to happen, what their priorites are, and their preferred way of solving the problem. For instance, do
they want to fgure things out alone, with a friend, or with the assistance of a third party?
D. Ask them questons that help them pin down their next steps. For instance, you could ask them whether they have any frm ideas
with regards to how they plan to proceed and how they will know when they have met their objectves.
4. Don’t lead people to a partcular answer. If you want to know what someone really thinks of an idea, you need to ask your queston
in a neutral way. In other words, you need to avoid asking leading questons. Think about how you phrase them.
Here are three examples of terrible questons that encourage an individual to give a partcular kind of answer:
“Does everyone agree that we should streamline the department?”
“Don’t you think that we should spend Thanksgiving at Peter’s house this year?”
“Shouldn’t we put this into acton as soon as possible?”