The Right Question!
August 31, 2017 2024-08-01 4:36The Right Question!
The Right Question!
Jaya Bhateja The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer- Thomas J Watson
What is a Right Question?
The right questions have the ability to make people pause and have a reaction of “hmm I never thought like that !”.
Why ask questions?
Questions as a tool are part of each and every conversation, relationship and transaction! Mastering the art of asking effective and powerful questions can help create help solve several problems and save money and resources. Questions are also a source of creating harmony in any relationship. At the same time it helps to gain more clarity, confidence and presence helpful to create more influence.Consistently generating and practicing to ask right questions take some effort and understanding.
Albert Einstein invites us to continue questioning. Why? This query provokes a variety of impassioned responses:
Questions are a prerequisite to learning.
Questions are a window into creativity and insight.
Questions motivate fresh thinking.
Questions challenge outdated assumptions.
Questions lead us to the future.
“The important thing is to never stop questioning.” A. Einstein
Tools to Create Powerful Questions
The Art and Architecture of crafting Powerful Questions Eric E. Vogt provides a powerful and simple framework.
As per Eric’s finding, A powerful question…
- Stimulates reflective thinking.
- Challenges assumptions.
- Is thought-provoking.
- Generates energy and a vector to explore.
- Channels inquiry, promises insight.
- Is broad and enduring.
- Touches a deeper meaning.
- Evokes more questions.
While there has been several studies on questions, a clear conclusion has been that “Open-ended” questions generate more dialogue and conversation than “Close-ended” questions. Along with this Eric’s finding tells us that the one dimension of power clearly must have to do with the linguistic architecture alone.
Attend to Potential Vs Interference
As per Tim Gallwey in his book Inner Game
Performance can be understood as the outcome of an activity, Potential is its best capacity and Interference are the things that comes in the way while someone trying to be at their best capacity.
As a general tendency, humans tend to focus on removing the interference however as per Tim Gallwey, performance accelerates when someone shifts all the attention from Interferences to Potential, which mean disempowering the interference by giving more power to Potential.
Let’s understand this through these examples:
a.Reason for low performance: I was scared
Interference question: Why were you scared? Or What were you scared of?
Potential question: What would you do if you weren’t scared?
b. Reason for low performance: I am confused
Interference question: What are you confused about? Or What do you want to do?
Potential question: What clarity do you want?
c.Reason for low performance: I can’t do this
Interference question: Why can’t you do this?
Potential question: How can you make it work?
Before you ask, always assess whether your question focuses on Potential or Interference?
Another way to assess the quality of your questions is to see where is your language focusing? The iceberg model categories the levels in which a conversation can be viewed.
The two question test would help you decide the focus of your question:
• What are you questioning? (Focus and Intent)
Are you questioning the person, issue, expectations or emotions, past
• How are you questioning? (Construct and Tone)
Are you challenging, encouraging or blaming etc.
Questions as a tool can simplify lot of situations, relationships and thought processes to create better results. Practicing to ask right questions can help you save time, energy and talent. So, whenever you are asking questions, assess what are your questions doing to others.
Are they producing answers or are they producing explanations?
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