The Art of Asking the Question

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I am an advocate of “No question is a stupid question” and this blog is in no way an effort to teach people “How to ask a question” ?

There is no perfect , right or wrong question and I do not want readers to start doubting every question that naturally occurs.
With that disclaimer out of way, let us dig into the topic of questioning with a question.

What is a question?

Question is generally an effort to gather more information. Does it mean that the person asking questions always lacks information? Not really.  It usually means, the one asking the question is actually interested in knowing more and have supporting information.

Many times the information is gathered to find shreds of evidence to validate a pre-existing thoughts, beliefs or idea. This is why it is so important to allow questions. It helps challenge those set beliefs. 

Another important aspect of questions we generally miss, that the questions are sometimes answers as well. And, it is very important to consider the questions and be attentive to the question itself instead of scrambling to answers.

There are generally three categories of questions:

Probing questions which usually sounds like “Can you tell me more?””What else”? “What if this and/or that”? 

Those are the ones where the person asking, is interested in the topic and is trying to collect more information. Although, It can send a message that the topic wasn’t clear enough the first time and can be frustrating to keep elaborating on. Knowing that the probing is potentially driven by interest can help alleviate that frustration and actually drive conversation to a clearer picture. 

Now the second category is of “Obvious questions” and for obvious reasons many of them never get asked. These questions are asked just to confirm and often in the form of “retelling” the scenario. The person usually starts with “So, let me ask…is this what you mean?”.
Although these questions may sound unnecessary, are essential to establish thought processes especially in a heterogenous and diverse group where multiple beliefs are flowing at the same time. These questions can go a long way in avoiding complexities in the future.

But here is the warning section, on third category of questioning which generally is a manipulating trick to ‘pass the buck’. Those are usually a series of questions that comes out in a barrage and the person answering is generally trapped in a manner that they are convinced not knowing what they are saying.

It is not easy to differentiate these from the other two categories, especially the probing type. These initially sound explorative, until the person answering notices that no matter how many different ways they try to understand and answer the question…the question remains, somewhat smirking.

Depending on the power and authority of the person asking, one can take either ‘rescue’ or ‘refuse’ approach. If the power is higher and there is a lot a stake, one has to come up with a way to rescue of the concept you are trying to present and hope it works. On the other hand if the power is lower, one can simply refuse to answer.

Yes, Everyone has the power to refuse.

With that said, Go on an ask away & be smarter answering those as well!