5 Types of Questions to Ask at Work
Negative reactions to questions at work may lead you to not vocalize your thoughts. At the same time, finding ways to effectively phrase your questions such that you receive the answers you need is a skill that can be developed. Sharing new ideas and asking questions is tough, but explore these techniques to set yourself up for success.
Harvard Business Review shares a few of these smart question strategies:
Investigative: What’s Known? Teams can determine what they want to achieve and how they want to achieve them by successively asking why and how. This sequence of investigative questions was created by Sakichi Toyoda, father of the Japanese Industrial Revolution and founder of Toyota industries, who states “by repeating why five times, the nature of the problem as well as the solution becomes clear.” For more information visit 5 Whys Root-Cause Analysis.
Speculative: What If? These speculative questions help teams explore more creative solutions. Examples include:
What if we had to cut our budget by 30%?
What if we could redefine our target audience? How would that shift our thinking?
What if we expanded globally?
Productive: Now What? Productive questions like this help you to assess the feasibility of proposed next steps. These now what questions lead to establishing action items, metrics, milestones, and success. Examples include:
How can we get it done?
How will we measure progress?
Interpretive: So What…? These questions enable synthesizing information to push the envelope or go beneath the surface. HBR offers follow-up questions to the above questions.
Follow an investigative question with – So, what happens if this trend continues?
Follow a productive question with – So, what does that imply for scaling or sequencing?
Subjective: What’s Unsaid? These subjective questions are often unseen or ignored as “they deal with personal reservations, frustrations, tensions, and hidden agendas that can push decision-making off course.”
How can I help?
What are your concerns regarding X?
How do you think we could improve our meetings?