Ask More Effective Questions

Contributed by: Curtis Newbold, PhD

Difficulty level: Easy

The way we ask questions can make all the difference in the types of answers we get in return. Consider a subtle difference between these two questions:

• “Does it matter how I ask questions?”

• “Why does it matter how I ask questions?”

The first question is closed and restrictive. If you ask a question like that, it sort of encourages the respondent to provide a relatively simple and limited answer: “Yes.” 

A less than helpful answer, for sure. 

The second question, on the other hand, encourages a much more thoughtful response that would probably come back like this: 

Asking good questions will increase your understanding since they encourage a dynamic exchange of ideas and they promote truthful, focused answers. When you know how to ask good questions, you become a more effective interviewer, a more dynamic colleague, and a more empathetic partner in a relationship. Asking poor questions, on the other hand, can lead to humdrum responses, lack of needed insight, skewed or misleading answers, or even damaged trust. 

You can quickly see that a better question provided a better path to getting a more insightful answer. 

That’s the magic of asking good questions: they set you up for getting the kinds of answers you actually need and want—for personal or professional reasons. Good journalists, for example, know to not ask leading questions, which can introduce a hidden bias into the responses ...