Why questions matter.

I was once asked “Do you have a busy household?” and I thought, what a fantastic question!

It opened up a great conversation and rather than making me feel less than with the normal questions that go something like: are you married? (no) do you have children (no) I felt that the person asking was actually interested in me and not just putting me in a box. 

Have you ever been frustrated when you ask your boss or a colleague a question and they give you a pretty limited answer? 

The problem could lie with the question you are asking. 

When you ask a question like; how did the session? or what do you think of this design? you’re more than likely to get a pretty limited answer like yes, no, bad, good, it’s ok etc

The problem with these questions is that they are what we in the business would call closed, in that they only require a binary response, limit the conversation and prevent meaningful discussions. The solution is to ask better questions that encourage open-ended responses.. 

The trick to getting a better answer is in asking a better question, below you will find ten examples of better questions, note that they all open up a conversation and could be answered in multiple different ways.

👏 On a scale of 1-10 how are you feeling about this project? Followed up with, why did you choose that number? 

👏 What’s been the highlight of this session for you? 

👏 If there was something you could change about this what would it be? 

👏 What did you find the most challenging about this? 

👏 What three things will you take away from today’s lesson? 

👏 If you were the manager, what would you do in this situation? 

👏 What feedback do you have for improving this process?

👏 What are some potential solutions to this problem?

👏 How can we measure the success of this project?

👏 Can you explain the reasoning behind your approach to this problem?

If there’s one take away from this post, I want you to remember. If you ask a better question, you’ll get a better answer.  A better question is one that opens up conversation and requires the person answering to think beyond the binary of yes and no, good and bad, meh and ok. 

If the question you are about to ask can be answered with one word, think about how you can expand the question to encourage a better response.  

Let me know in the comments if you have a go to question that always gets a great answer.