Academic Leadership

Academic Leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks

126

7.2 Using Questioning Skills to Build Teams

(click the activity index number to take you back to the activities index)

An important aspect of the Developer role is the ability to build teams and work with

them to solve action learning problems. A useful way of clarifying meanings, building

understanding between people and gaining agreement in teams, is the use of skilled

questioning. Thus it is important to your effectiveness as an Academic Coordinator for

you to build your questioning skills and extend the range of questions available to you.

This will enable you to probe deeply into the complex problems which form the basis of

your work.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this activity is to develop your ability to use

questioning skills to build teams and manage conflict.

Question Qualities

Cook (1999) describes the qualities of good questions. They are:

• Brief – get to the point as quickly as possible, listeners’ attention spans are brief.


• Clear – avoid the use of multiple negatives and great big words that fog the simplicity
  of the message.


• Focused – don't include multiple questions in the one sentence. Target a single
  subject and a particular aspect of that subject in each question. You are most likely
  to get the answers you need as a result.


• Relevant – keep the questions relevant and on the task or issue being discussed.
  'Red herrings' confuse people and take them off the subject of inquiry.


• Constructive – make sure your questions are positive and constructive. This will
  help you to engage people and encourage dialogue.


• Neutral – try not to suggest or imply the kind of answer you want. Keep your
  questions neutral to show that you are genuine in your desire to learn about other’s
  views.
  For example, "should we improve the quality of this course information brochure by hiring
  an editor/designer? There is an implied 'yes' response in this question. Alternatively,
  "should we add another layer to the publication process of this brochure by hiring an
  editor/designer?” There is an implied 'no' response in this question. A neutral question
  would be, "what are your thoughts about hiring an editor/designer for this brochure?"


• Open ended – try not to ask questions which invite a yes/no response (see previous
  example). If you want high quality information from a question, give the person a
  neutral open ended question.
  For example, "Do you think we should hire an editor/designer for this course brochure?”
  This requires a yes or no response. Then you have to ask additional questions to find out
  why the person said yes or no. A neutral open ended question would be, "What do you
  think about hiring an editor/designer for this publication".