How to Ask Better and Smarter Questions
Questions are critical to helping you learn and improve yourself
One of the best ways to learn and improve yourself is by asking smart and great questions.
Professionals such as litigators, journalists, and doctors are taught how to ask questions. It’s an essential part of their training and job. Just like you can’t expect to run a full marathon without training, you can’t just all of sudden ask great questions.
“The wise [person] doesn’t give the right answers, [he/she] poses the right questions.” — Claude Levi-Strauss, a French anthropologist
The art and science of questioning is a skill that requires practice and training.
- Are you underestimating the power of asking the right questions?
- Are you asking questions to the right people?
- How well do you ask questions?
Great questions distinguish great leaders from average ones.
Questions are not just reserved for leaders. Asking questions is a skill required by people in all roles, all job functions, and all professions.
The way we ask questions. The way we structure our questions. The words we use to ask questions. The tone and body language when we ask questions.
All of these variables control the quality of information we receive in return after asking questions. The information we receive after asking questions directly impacts our relationships and experiences.
How do you ask better questions?
If you are not moving forward in your career, business, or marriage, it could be because you are not asking the right questions.
“Judge [someone] by [his/her] questions rather than by [his/her] answers.”— Voltaire, a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher
When you ask questions, you should know what you want for answers. When you are asking a question, make sure you put the question into the right context. For example, sometimes you want a person’s opinion. Sometimes you want advice. Sometimes, you just want information.
Once you know what you want, you should ask your questions in a way that gets the best possible response. Your questions should provide you with information you need and want.
10 tips for asking better and smarter questions
Asking better and smarter questions is a skill that can be learned. Here are 10 tips on how to ask better and smarter questions.
1. Don’t be afraid or overconfident
People shy away from questions for a variety of questions.
Some people are uncomfortable voicing their opinion in the form of a question. They are typically nervous by nature. They are afraid they’ll ask the wrong questions. Or if they do ask questions, they’ll receive retaliation from friends, colleagues, or superiors.
On the other end of the spectrum, some people are overconfident. They think they don’t need to ask a question because they already know the answer.
“Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.” — Ernest Gaines, American author
There’s a lot of power in asking smart questions.
2. Plan ahead
Before you have a conversation, write down your questions ahead of time.
Some of your questions could be ice-breaker questions that are surface-level questions such as “do you have a dedicated office space at home?” or “what did you eat for breakfast?” You could also write down deeper questions such as “what’s your philosophy in life?” or “do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?”
Plan ahead on how deep you want the conversation to go. If you are worried about going too deep, you change the subject during a conversation. This will take a deeper conversation into a surface-level conversation.
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” — Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the United States, inventor, scientist, printer, and politician
Your questions are powerful. It depends on how deep you want to go.
3. Determine the purpose of your conversation
Every question you ask helps you gather facts, opinions, and information. Questions provide a lot of benefits to the person who is asking the questions.
When you ask the right questions, you can control what topics or issues are being discussed during the conversation. For example, you can ask questions to learn more about the other person and that could help you prevent them to learn more about you — whether you want that or not.
Questions also change the mood of a conversation. Your questions can make a person feel angry, happy, or fearful. What mood are you trying to create with your questions?
If a conversation goes away from the central topic of discussion, you can ask questions to get back to that central topic. Questions also allow you to persuade others in disguise. People are likely to be persuaded when they don’t realize they are being persuaded. Asking certain of type questions can get the other person to think or respond in a certain way.
“Ask the right questions, and the answers will always reveal themselves.” — Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host, TV producer, actress, author, and philanthropist
What’s the purpose of your conversation? That will help you determine the best questions to ask.
4. Open up the conversation
To open up the conversation, it’s important to go beyond asking the simple “yes” or “no” questions. Ask open-ended questions to get the other people to talk so you can gather more information.
If you ask yes-or-no questions, it will be more like an interrogation than a conversation. If you are looking to find out something new, it’s important to ask open-ended questions that allow the respondent to have freedom in their responses.
“I never learn anything by talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.”— Lou Holtz, a former American football player, coach, and analyst
Open-ended questions generally focus on the what and how type questions. For example, “how does this work?” or “what are your plans for next week?” These questions get people to open up and encourage them to talk about something such as themselves.
5. Challenge your assumptions
When you join a conversation, you usually come in with some sort of assumptions. It’s important to ask yourself: “what assumptions am I making?” or “what do I believe is true or false?”
Challenge your assumptions.
“Assumptions are made and most assumptions are wrong.” — Albert Einstein, a German-born theoretical physicist
You can do this by asking non-leading questions designed to gather more information rather than confirm the information you know.
Non-leading questions
When you ask neutral questions, you don’t direct or bias the answer. Neutral questions don’t carry a hidden-agenda and allow people to think deep about the answer. For example, you can ask: “What process did you go through to determine your needs?” or “what kind of challenges are you facing?” or a simple one: “what are your thoughts?”
Leading questions
Leading questions are emotionally-charged questions and they are done to lead the witness. These questions have an agenda.
For example, a leading question: “Would you like to go to this [insert name of your favorite restaurant] for lunch?” A non-leading question: “What would you like to eat for lunch?” Leading questions are asked to generally get an answer you like or want. Non-leading questions are for open discussion.
To get more information from someone, ask questions where the wording doesn’t include judging, leading, or bias words. Challenge your assumptions.
6. Be positive as much as possible
Ask questions with words such as best or favorite because these words gets the other person in a mood to talk about themselves.
Ask questions like “what do you best about your job?” instead of “do you like your job?” Ask questions like “what was the favorite part of your day?” instead of “how was your day?”
This will help you have a positive conversation and help guide the discussion toward a conversation that is free flowing. This usually will result in a longer and more meaningful discussion.
7. Ask follow up questions
Follow-up questions don’t require as much planning as your initial questions. However, if you are not good on thinking quick on your feet, follow up questions could be more challenging.
With your follow-up questions, it’s important to focus on listening than asking. It may seem counter intuitive but it will create a natural flow. It will show the other person that you value their time and ideas.
In every conversation you have, you should always ask follow-up questions.
“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” — Tony Robbins, an American author, coach, and motivational speaker
These follow-up questions should concentrate on the why. Questions such as “why do you think that?” or “why do you want to do that?” Follow-up questions provide you with insights and perspectives so you can form your opinion and make decisions on the information you received.
8. Rank your follow-up questions
Order your follow-up questions so you begin with the bigger picture. Then, dive into the specific questions to get more details.
Seeking information versus a building relationship
If you’re only looking for information, you should start with the tougher questions. People are more likely to open up if you ask questions in decreasing order of intrusiveness. Be careful, however, that your follow-up questions are too sensitive.
“You can tell whether [someone] is clever by [their] answers. You can tell whether [someone] is wise by [their] questions.” — Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian writer
If you’re looking to build a long-term relationship with someone, you should slowly progress to more sensitive questions and do the opposite. It’s comes back to the purpose of your conversation.
Research shows if you follow this structure, your relationship will undergo a closeness induction. In other words, your relationship will become stronger with the less sensitive questions first and more sensitive questions afterward.
9. Watch your tone and body language
Body language is the unspoken element of your communication with the other person.
How we say a question is just as important as what question we say.
Our tone of voice and body language reveal our true feelings and emotions.
Our gestures. Our facial expressions. Our posture. They all matter.
“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet
We can also use our tone of voice and body language to our advantage when asking questions. They can help us appear to be more positive, engaging and approachable. Or vise versa. We can turn people off.
It’s important to be self-ware of our tone of voice and body language, especially if it is negative. Unless that’s your purpose.
10. Use the power of silence
As Barney Stinson, a fictional character portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris, says in the popular TV show, How I Met Your Mother, says:
Wait for it…
Get comfortable waiting for a response. Listening to the response and then wait more. Many times the person you are asking questions to has more information to share. He or she will tell you that information when you wait for it.
The silent period is critical.
Police and military interrogators have mastered the art of staying silent. To avoid the awkward silence, people usually feel a need to fill the holes in the conversation. They often tell you the critical information you seek when you — wait for it.
Bringing it all together
The next time you’re asking questions, challenge yourself to make them better and smarter. Practice and take training on how you ask better questions that positive, shorter, and more direct.
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” — Eugene Ionesco, a Romanian-French playwright
Questions are powerful — more than most people realize. They are a powerful tool. They help you learn and improve yourself and your relationships. Remember to challenge your assumptions going into a conversation.
A simple shift in how you ask question, what types of questions you ask, and why are you asking questions can be all the difference. It’s one of the best ways to learn and improve yourself.
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