Making Good Decisions by Asking Effective Questions
By Mike Mitchell

The ability to make good, sound decisions requires you have current, accurate, and timely information. One way to gather the information you need and clarify your situation before making any decision is by asking effective questions. And not just general, poorly worded questions, but ones that are well thought out and positively worded. So, what makes a question effective?

Seven qualities of effective questions

Marshall J. Cook, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, freelance writer, and consultant, gives insight into asking good positive questions in his book, Effective Coaching. In it he identifies seven qualities of effective questions. Good questions are:

•Brief – your listener’s attention span is limited; make your question brief.

•Clear – make sure your question is simple and practical; reduce the complexity.

•Focused – quickly get to your point; target a specific aspect of your subject.

•Relevant – a meaningful question gets a proper response; don’t get sidetracked.

•Constructive – it’s productive to use positive phrases; negative is less effective.

•Neutral – avoid bias or leading wording; you want accurate information, not agreement.

•Open-ended – a good question promotes discussion; yes/no answers serve no purpose.

Seven major types of questions

It’s also important to know the appropriate type of questions to ask in a specific situation. Asking for the number of widgets produced last week is different from asking for projected revenue for the coming month. For example, the number of widgets is a definite number whereas the projected revenue may be predictable but is not definite. Following are Professor Cook’s seven major types of questions.

•Factual question - Obviously, here the request is for specific information, not an evaluation or an opinion. For instance, “Is it raining?” asks for a fact but “How’s the weather?” asks for an evaluation or opinion.

•Explanatory question - This can be a follow-up question to a previous question asking the other person to explain the given answer. “Why?” is good explanatory question.

•Justifying question - Justifying is very similar to explanatory. For example, “Why should I approve this expense?” is a request for justification. This can cause someone to become unintentionally defensive. These types of questions are more palatable with a positive tone of voice.

•Leading question - This question is intended to get a desired response. Sales people use leading questions to get agreement. Leave the leading questions to sales staff.

•Hypothetical question - This is the basic “What if?” question, quite often used in disaster planning and recovery where there are many variables in a crisis situation. Its usefulness depends on the expertise of the person to whom the question is asked. A response could range from an educated opinion to a wild guess.

•Alternative question - Two or more choices characterize this type of question. Surveys and preference questionnaires are examples of alternative questions. A good example is: “Do you want a black chair or brown chair?”

•Summary question - You can ask for a brief high level description of a situation with this question. For instance, “Can you give me general overview of the datacenter relocation project?” Depending on the subject, this could take some research and time to answer.

Whether you need to increase your knowledge, gather information, or evaluate the status of a project in order to make a critical decision, asking effective questions is essential to getting the information you need to make the right decision. Take a few minutes this week to think about a question or two you asked last week (or questions you were asked). Use the above guidelines to review your questions to see if there was a more effective way to ask them.

- Mike