Importance of Asking Right Question

“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.” — Chinese proverb

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” — Pablo Picasso

“It’s not that they can’t see the solution. They can’t see the problem.” — G.K. Chesterton

“There are no right answers to wrong questions.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

“We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.” — Bono

“Ask the right questions if you’re going to find the right answers.” — Vanessa Redgrave

“Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers.” — Robert Half

Let’s start this by asking question. What are these people trying to say?

I will try my level best to answer this question. Questions are the best way to gain deeper insights and develop more innovative solutions. So why do so few people utilize them, asks Paul Sloane?

Children learn by asking questions. Students learn by asking questions. New recruits learn by asking questions. Innovators understand client needs by asking questions. It is the simplest and most effective way of learning. People who think that they know it all no longer ask questions — why should they? Brilliant thinkers never stop asking questions because they know that this is the best way to gain deeper insights.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said, “We run this company on questions, not answers.” He knows that if you keep asking questions you can keep finding better answers.

When Greg Dyke became Director-General of the BBC in 2000 he went to every major location and assembled the staff. They came expecting a long presentation. He simply sat down with them and asked a question, “What is the one thing I should do to make things better for you?” Then he listened. He followed this with another question, “What is the one thing I should do to make things better for our viewers and listeners?” He knew that at that early stage he could learn more from his employees than they could from him. The workers at the BBC had many wonderful ideas that they were keen to share. The fact that the new boss took time to question and then listen earned him enormous respect.

Columbo solves his mysteries by asking many questions; as do all the great detectives — in real life as well as fiction. All the great inventors and scientists asked questions. Isaac Newton asked, “Why does an apple fall from a tree?” and, “Why does the moon not fall into the Earth?” Charles Darwin asked, “Why do the Galapagos islands have so many species not found elsewhere?” Albert Einstein asked, “What would the universe look like if I rode through it on a beam of light?” By asking these kinds of fundamental questions they were able to start the process that lead to their tremendous breakthroughs.

The great philosophers spend their whole lives asking deep questions about the meaning of life, morality, truth and so on. We do not have to be quite so contemplative but we should nonetheless ask the deep questions about the situations we face. It is the best way to get the information we need to make informed decisions and for sales people it is the single most important skill they need to succeed.

Why don’t we ask questions?

If it is obvious that asking questions is such a powerful way of learning why do we stop asking questions? For some people the reason is that they are lazy. They assume they know all the main things they need to know and they do not bother to ask more. They cling to their beliefs and remain certain in their assumptions — yet they often end up looking foolish.

Other people are afraid that by asking questions they will look weak, ignorant or unsure. They like to give the impression that they are decisive and in command of the relevant issues. They fear that asking questions might introduce uncertainty or show them in a poor light. In fact asking questions is a sign of strength and intelligence — not a sign of weakness or uncertainty. Great leaders constantly ask questions and are well aware that they do not have all the answers.

Intelligent questions stimulate, provoke, inform and inspire.

Finally some people are in such a hurry to get with things that they do not stop to ask questions because it might slow them down. They risk rushing headlong into the wrong actions.

With prospect, with clients, at school, at home, in business, with our friends, family, colleagues or managers we can check assumptions and gain a better appreciation of the issues by first asking questions.

“Asking good questions is productive, positive, creative, and can get us what we want”.1 Most people believe this to be true and yet people do not ask enough good questions. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that effective questioning requires it be combined with effective listening.

Effective questions help you:

· Connect with your clients in a more meaningful way

· Better and more fully understand your client’s problem

· Have clients experience you as an understanding, competent lawyer

· Work with your staff more effectively

· Help your staff take responsibility for their actions and solve problems within the workplace more easily

· Cross examine more effectively

· Take revealing depositions

· Gather better information

· Do more solution oriented problem solving

· Improve your negotiating skills

· Reduce mistakes

· Take the sting out of feedback

· Defuse volatile situations

· Get cooperation

· Plant your own ideas

· Persuade people

Effective Questions

Effective questions are questions that are powerful and thought provoking. Effective questions are open-ended and not leading questions. They are not “why” questions, but rather “what” or “how” questions. “Why” questions are good for soliciting information, but can make people defensive so be thoughtful in your use of them. When asking effective questions, it is important to wait for the answer and not provide the answer.

When working with people to solve a problem, it is not enough to tell them what the problem is. They need to find out or understand it for themselves. You help them do this by asking them thought provoking questions. Rather than make assumptions find out what the person you are talking to knows about the problem.

For example: “What do you think the problem is?”

Behind effective questioning is also the ability to listen to the answer and suspend judgment. This means being intent on understanding what the person who is talking is really saying. What is behind their words? Let go of your opinions so that they don’t block you from learning more information. Pay attention to your gut for additional information.

Why asking the right questions is so important, and how to do it

Research; study; learning; solving problems; making decisions — all these, to be done effectively and efficiently, depend on asking the right questions. Much of the time, however, people let others frame the questions, not realizing how much this shapes how they think.

This applies particularly to public debate and communication, even to something that may appear as ‘factual’ as an infographic presenting data. But the data that are presented, and the way they are presented, govern the conclusions you take away, and they depend on the question the designer thought she was supposed to answer, not on the questions you might be interested in. But so much of the time, our thoughts are shaped by the presentation, and we come away having lost sight of our questions.

In research and study, decision-making and problem-solving, the difficulty can be even more insidious, because we ourselves may think we came up with the questions. But asking the right question is crucial, and it should be no surprise that getting it right on the first attempt is not something to be assumed! Moreover, what might be the right question at the beginning of your task may not still be the right question once you’ve acquired more understanding.

In other words, framing questions is not only a first crucial step — it’s also something you need to revisit, repeatedly.

To assess the effectiveness of your questions, you need to be consciously aware of the hierarchy to which they belong. Every question is, explicitly or implicitly, part of a nested set of questions and assumptions. Your task is to make that nesting explicit knowledge.

Gita the song of god is the ultimate question answer session of all times, when man asks, and god answers. But Gita to raises a lot of question in mind. Few of them are Lord Krishna had many student through out his life span on earth like Udhav, Lord Brahma etc. then why he gave the knowledge of Gita to Arjun only? Secondly if Arjun was worthy why wait till battle of Kurushetra to give him the knowledge of Gita? The probable answer to this may be he was the person who asked the right question at right time.

We all contemplate whether we have what it takes to ask the right question at right time. Relax. Arjun also didn’t know what the right question was. In Chapter II verse six Arjun ask:

We don’t know which is meritorious for us, to fight or not to fight, nor do we know, whether we shall win or they will conquer us. The sons of Dhrtarastra, by killing whom we do not even wish to live, are arrayed against us.

He is corrected by Lord Krishna in the very same chapter verse 11:

Arjun, you grieve for those who should not be grieved at, yet speak as if a man of wisdom. The wise grieve, neither for the living, nor for the dead.

So next time when you find any curiosity killing the cat anywhere just make sure you asking the right question at right time.