How to Ask the Right Questions

Listening is an action, a process of asking quesitions.

Each of the four methods of practical strategy, listening, aiming, moving, and claiming can be further broken down into an internal cycle of the same four steps. Within Listen, listening for perspective is its Listen. Listening for opportunities is the Aim, Questioning is the Move. It is an action, and we are judged by others by our actions, what we do. The way we ask questions and the questions we ask are a valuable part of the process that positions us in the minds of others.

As John Rusking said, "To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered." We often keep our questions locked up in our head. We fail to understand the value of getting those questions out of our head and communicating them with others. We avoid questions for several reasons. Often, we want to appear more knowledgeable than we really are. Even more often, we want to avoid looking stupid. We are afraid of exposing our ignorance and therefore our vulnerabilities. When we ask a question, we are taking the risk of rejection. We sometimes prefer hearing ourselves talk rather than encouraging others to talk.

We need information to make good decisions. The only ways to get strategic information, information that affects our position in the minds of others, is to ask questions. How good our choice of other actions, depends first on our ability to ask good questions. We choose our actions to get the responses that we want from them. We cannot expect people to tell us what we need to know without our first telling them what we need to know. The use of questions is also a powerful tool for predicting people's reactions. Asking questions controls people's minds, directing their attention where we desire. Questions are one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal of working with others through action and reaction. They are also the least costly.

1. Asking questions controls others, but we must not use that control oppressively.

   Questions both gather information and control the direction on an encounter. When we ask questions, people are forced to respond. Questions are a simple and powerful method to control other people's reactions to our actions. However, we must use our control over others judiciously. We must use questions to get information, not to criticize. Nothing hurts our positions in the minds of others more than questioning their decisions.

2. We must ask open-ended questions about the five elements of our position and the positions of others. 

   Our information is always incomplete. The first and most valuable role of questions is harnessing other people's minds to help us fill in the blanks. If we are thinking in terms of strategic positions, every question relates to philosophy of the mission, the nature of the ground, the changes of climate, the character of a decision maker, or the methods by which a task is accomplished. These questions can relate to our own position, but more frequently should relate to the positions of the people who affect our lives.

3. We must ask direct questions about the listen, aim, move, and claim actions we can take.

   Such questions include who we might want to listen to, what needs are going unsatisfied, what actions we should take, what claims we can make on our existing position that we have not made. Their reaction to these questions tells how they are likely to reaction to our actions. Questioning is the least costly test of an unfamiliar territory. It should proceed any actual move to a new position, testing the new ground.

4. We must ask questions to shape people's reactions.

   We cannot push people directly to do what we want. However, questions demand a response and determine what actions people must consider. After people have said they will act one way, they find it more difficult to act any other way. This is especially important in any Claim, where we want to get rewarded, but it is also important in the Aim stage, when we decide which opportunities to pursue. In either of these stages, we need some idea of how others feel about the value of a given move. While people’s reactions must always have elements of unpredictability, by asking questions to shape their responses, we can reduce that uncertainty.

5. We must make our questions as easy to answer as possible by asking questions about what interests those to whom we are talking.

   This means asking questions about the topics that interest those other people. When we ask people questions, we discover something of what they know and, more importantly, what interests them. People have many different interests, one way of categorizing them is by mission, ground, climate, character, and methods, in other words, the same dimensions that define our positions. We want to find people who interests are in each of these area. By understanding people’s interests, we make our questions easy to answer, getting information in every key area we need.