The Art of Asking Better Questions
Open ended conversations lead to undiscovered insights, which is where breakthrough ideas come from.
Yes or no questions lead to dead-end discussions. As a human searching for solutions, whether you’re a marketer, strategist, arts administrator, educator, etc. your job is to solve problems. When it comes to diagnosing those problems, you have to ask the right questions.
Photo by Simon Secci
so, what does that actually look like? Well, in my personal life i have tried to stop asking people “how are you?” and “how was your weekend?”. those questions are boring as hell and often people don’t really care about the answer when they do ask them. so i challenge us all, go deeper, be more specific. there are small tweaks that might open up a world of possibilities and extend your verbal exchange into a territory that you least expected.
strategic questions to consider:
what is happening in the culture that applies to this ____ (program, campaign, class)
how are people being impacted by these happenings?
what are our competitors doing about this happening? what are peer organizations planning?
what’s our company or organization’s role in this happening or problem? what do we have to offer?
who are the key stakeholders that we should consider?
how do we individually and collectively define success?
what obstacles are we not considering?
Nsey Benajah
open-ended questions to check on in your people :
how is your heart?
what are you grateful for?
how is your breathing?
how can i support you?
how’s your spirit?