Ask the wrong question and you’ll get the wrong answer – questions

Asking the right question is at the heart of effective communications and information exchange.

We hope you find this article an interesting one to study. It can be useful to notice how you may be determining responses or outcomes by the questions you ask and the way you ask them. At the same time, the terminology is not an exact science! For instance, "Are you ready?" could be a closed question, eliciting either ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or could be a rhetorical one assuming the answer ‘yes’, or meaning something is about to begin, whether you are ready or not, regardless of what you might reply!

Read these different sorts of questions and see how you would classify them – as open, closed, probing, or funnel and so on. If you get some different answers they are not necessarily wrong, but the exercise may help you to become more aware, perhaps, of how you are influencing others or they you.

A ‘What have you been doing since you were last employed?’
B ‘Now that we’ve agreed on the design, shall we discuss costs?"
C "Is everyone here happy about what we’ve agreed this morning?"
D "You’ve had a lot of bad press recently about the safety of your products. What’s your view of that?"
E What do you think of our products?
F "What do you see as your next career move?"
G "How much time do we need to reach a decision?"
H "Can we rely on you to get back to us?"
I "When shall we break for lunch?"
J ‘How secure is your financial future?’
K What is the most important factor that you look for when hiring new staff?
L What was it exactly that led to your being promoted?
M ‘How could we improve our recruitment process?’
N What could your appointment bring to our firm?
O "Why did you leave your last job?"
P "We’ve had a highly productive meeting, haven’t we?"
Q ‘Was it the quality of our goods or their cost that first drew your interest?’
R "How do you see your rôle in our company?"
S "How does your line-manager see your future?"
T ‘Whose products do you see as the greatest threat to your business?"

Some suggested answers