Asking Good Questions

 As a consultant engineer, I’ve found that an important skill to learn is asking good questions. If you want to understand your client’s real needs, you have to ask the right questions, and listen carefully to their responses, otherwise you can misunderstand what’s going on.  I’ve heard it said that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. In the context of learning from a teacher, that may be true, but more broadly in life, I think you have to be asking good questions, asking the right questions, in order to have the right focus and to be able to dig deeper in your understanding. So maybe there are stupid questions, or at least useless, or unhelpful questions.

Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash

So, what are some features of a good question? (That’s a good question!). Let me offer up the following suggestions:

1. A good question seeks to understand.

I think this is the basic starting point for any good question. Why are you asking the question? If it’s not to understand what the other person knows or thinks, then it’s probably missing the point. We should always seek to understand and using good questions is a good way to do that.

2. A good question goes deeper.

Beyond just getting a factual answer, a good question doesn’t just scratch the surface, but actually digs deeper. Hand in hand with increasing your basic understanding, a good question can start to help you see the motivation, the feelings, and the heart behind the answer.

3. A good question is unbiased and does not prejudge.

Finally, a good question is offered in a way that allows the answerer to give an honest answer. If the question is loaded, or hiding some secret intent to catch out the person answering, just to make your point, then I wouldn’t call that a good question. It might be clever, but it’s not good. A good question doesn’t presuppose what the answerer is going to say. We can guess how they might answer, but we need to have a mind open to what they actually say. And then, if the answer needs further clarification, we go back to number 1, which is to again, seek to understand with a follow up question.  Simply, “why do you think that or say that?” is a great follow up.  Then just listen without criticism, and you’ll start to understand what the other person thinks.

So there are my 3 tips, or features of some good questions. Am I missing something?

Next blog I’m going to try asking some “good questions” and let’s see what you think.