Practicing Interpersonal Communication
Asking Questions more "Open-endedly" and more Creatively
Part 1: Asking questions more "open-endedly." (Summary repeated from Introduction)
In order to coordinate our life and work with the lives and work of other people, we all need to know more of what other people are feeling and thinking, wanting and planning. But our usual "yes/no" questions actually tend to shut people up rather than opening them up. You can encourage your conversation partners to share more of their thoughts and feelings by asking "open-ended" rather than "yes/no" questions.20 Open-ended questions allow for a wide range of responses. For example, asking "How did you like that food/movie/speech/doctor, etc.?" will evoke a more detailed response than "Did you like it?" (which could be answered with a simple "yes" or "no").
Consider the difference between two versions of the same question, as each might occur in a conversation between two people in a close relationship:
"Well, honey, do you want to go ahead and rent that apartment we saw yesterday?"
AND...
"Well, honey, how do you feel about us renting that apartment we saw yesterday?"
The first version suggests a "yes" or "no" answer, favors "yes" and does not invite much discussion. A person hearing such a question may feel pressured to reach a decision, and may not make the best decision.
Both versions imply a suggestion to rent the apartment, but the second question is much more inviting of a wide range of responses. Even if our goal is to persuade, we can't do a good job of that unless we address our listener's concerns, and we won't understand those concerns unless we ask questions that invite discussion.
When your are under time pressure, it is tempting to push people to make "yes-no" decisions. But pressing forward without addressing people's concerns has played a key role in many on-the-job accidents and catastrophes (such as the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion).
On the next page you will find some examples of open-ended questions that could be helpful in:
- solving problems in a way that meets more of everyone's needs,
- getting to know and understand the people around you better, and
- simply creating richer and more satisfying conversations.
EXAMPLES OF OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS:
"How comfortable are you with Plan B?"
"How could I modify this proposal to meet more of your requirements?"
"What kind of information do you need in order to go forward?"
"How did you like that movie?"
"What do you think about ... moving the office to Boston?" (rather than "Is it OK with you if we... ?")
"How are you feeling about all of this?"
"How ready are you to ...?" (rather than "Are you ready to ...?")
Part 2: Asking questions more creatively. (Summary repeated from Introduction)
What sort of questions are truly worth asking? When we ask questions we are using a powerful language tool to focus conversational attention and guide our interaction with others. But many of the questions we have learned to ask are totally fruitless and self-defeating (such as, parents to pregnant teen, "Why???!!! Why have you done this to us???!!!"). In general it will be more fruitful to ask "how" questions about the future rather than "why" questions about the past, but there are many more creative possibilities as well. Of the billions of questions we might ask, not all are equally fruitful or illuminating; not all are equally helpful in solving problems together. In this section we will explore asking powerfully creative questions (with the help of researchers in many fields).
Please note: Some of the questions discussed below, if asked without any preparation, may be experienced by others as demanding or as invading one's privacy. Start by asking these questions of yourself first. And before asking them of others, practice the "introductions to a conversation" described in the Challenge Two chapter.
Question-asking in everyday life
As we wrestle with each new challenge in life, we ask ourselves and others a continuous stream of questions. Question-asking is one of the main ways that we try to get a grip on whatever is going on, but we are usually not very conscious of the quality of questions we ask.
"Why are you always such a jerk?"
or...
"How could we work together to solve this problem?"
As noted above, not all questions are of equal value. Many are a waste of effort but a few can be amazingly helpful. Learning to ask conscious, fruitful questions of others, of oneself, and about one's situation or task at hand, is an important part of the training of many professionals: psychotherapists, engineers, architects, mathematicians, doctors and others. All of these groups ask deeply penetrating questions. They do so in order to apply a body of knowledge to solve problems in a way that respects the unique elements of each new situation, person, piece of land, broken leg, canyon to be bridged, and so on. (A structured kind of self-questioning is also part of the communal life of the Quakers, as I have observed in attending various Quaker meetings, and part of Jesuit religious practice, as a Jesuit friend shared with me.)
"How could I have been so stupid?"
or...
"What could I learn from this experience?"
A tool for everyone
Asking conscious, creative and exploratory questions is not just for professionals; it is for all of us. We are each engaged in the process of trying to build a better life, a better family, a better workplace, a better world, just as if we were trying to build the world's tallest building. We can apply in our own lives some of the styles of creative questioning that engineers use to build better bridges, psychotherapists use to help their clients and negotiators use to reach agreements.
How am I going to nail that slob?
or...
What would be best for me in this situation?
The many examples of exploratory questions given by Donald Schön in The Reflective Practitioner24 suggest that we use questions to make a kind of ‘space' in our minds for things we do not know yet (in the sense of understand), or have not decided yet, or have not invented yet, or have not discovered yet. "Hmmm," an architect might think, "how could we arrange this building so that it follows the contour of the land?"
The answer will involve a complex mix of discovering, inventing, understanding, and deciding, all pulled together partly by the creative power of the question. This thinking process is easier to imagine when we use visual examples, such as designing a house to blend into a hillside (but not cause a landslide!). But these same elements are present in all our cooperative problem-solving activities. Asking questions can allow us to start thinking about the unknown, because questions focus our attention, and provide a theme for continued exploration. Questions are like the mountain climber's hook-on-the-end-of-arope: we throw the hook into the unknown, and we pull ourselves into the future. But we need to learn how and where to throw, so that we pull ourselves into a better future.
How can I do this without anybody finding out?
or...
If I do what I am thinking about doing, what kind of person will that help to make me?
As far as I know, there is no straightforward set of rules about how to ask questions that are more helpful or more tuned to the needs of a particular situation, but there are many wonderful examples, from which we can draw inspiration and intuitive insight. The exercise that follows will give you a chance to try out some of the best questions ever asked.
Questions of power
In many situations you may not have the emotional, social or political power to ask creative questions. Political power often works to narrow the range of permissible questions and narrow the range of who is allowed to ask them. For example, it is difficult to get US decision-makers to consider the question "Now that the Cold War is over, why is the United States spending more money than ever on nuclear weapons?" Totalitarian governments, modern advertising agencies and abusive families all want us to obey in unthinking silence rather than to question and explore possibilities. Learning to ask creative questions, in a compassionate and conciliatory way, can be a large step forward in reclaiming your lost power as a person, a family member, a citizen and a problem-solver.