|
Questions, questions...
We use questions every day. Most of our daily conversation
involves either asking or answering questions. Sometimes,
though, our questioning can seem a little unempowered compared
to others who can almost instinctively "drill down"
to the information they are looking for.
Watch good interviewers on television. What makes them so
powerful? There are plenty of bad interviewers on TV too:
what makes them so bad?
Closed questions
To begin identifying the different question types, let's
look at closed questions. .
A closed question can be recognised easily because it starts
with words of phrases like:
- Do...
- Is...
- Can...
- Could
- Will...
- Would...
- Shall...
- Should...
Imagine you are talking with a colleague.
You need to ask your colleague some questions in order to
establish something. Do you think you would use a closed question
to:
Open questions
We've looked at defining "closed questions". Use
them when looking for a straight "Yes / No" answer.
But what about when we want more than "Yes" or "No"?
Open questions are designed to give information. They start
with words such as:
- How...
- Why...
- When...
- Where...
- What...
- Who...
- Which..
Try asking a question that starts with one of these words:
you can see how unlikely it is that you'll get "Yes"
or "No" in answer!
So, for information, open questions are a good place to start.
Click here for a few examples.
A question for you now: would you use open questions
is you
wanted to restrict what the other
person said
wanted to encourage the other person
to give an expansive answer?
Filtering information
O.K., we've looked at closed questions and open questions.
We know the instances when these question types would work
best. In normal conversation, though, we'll be using both
types in order to filter the universe of data into usable
information.
Here's an example: I've been asking my daughter Rhiannan
what she did at school today. There are times when Rhiannan
can be as uncommunicative as any child: this was one of them!
"What did you do in school today, Rhian?"
"Nothing much."
"I'm sure you did. Did you do any painting then?"
"Yes."
"Great, you love painting. What did you paint?"
"Lots of trees. We went
out on an expedition in the morning and we found out about
different types of tree. There are some that drop their leaves
in the Autumn and others that don't. All my trees kept their
leaves."
"That sounds like fun: where did you go on your outing?"
"Expedition,
Dad! We went to Coombe Abbey. We ate our packed lunches there
and played in the adventure playground afterwards."
The information funnel
So, we got there in the end! Starting off, though, it looked
as though I'd be lucky to get one-word answers.
When that happened, I started to adapt the way I asked Rhiannan
about her day. When an open question didn't get the result
I wanted, I started again, asking a closed question around
a "safe bet" subject: Rhiannan usually does some
painting in a school day.
Once I'd got her interest (and her attention), it became
easier to stimulate her into giving me the information I wanted.
In fact, as we carried on, she went into "information
overload" mode, telling my in intricate detail about
every conversation she'd had. I needed to bring her back to
the moment, and to do that, I used another questioning technique.
More of that later, though.
Advanced questioning techniques
Although we've covered the basic questioning skills, there
are other question types we can use. Many are adaptations
from the main open/closed question types covered above. However,
they all have value and come into their own in different circumstances.
Here's a round-up of my favourites.
Probing questions
To the "naked eye", this is another open question.
However, look a little closer and you'll realise it is different.
A probing question is an open question that uses information
already established in order that we can "drill down"
a little further.
Example:
(open question) "Where did you go on holiday last
year?"
(answer) "Spain".
(probing question) "What areas of Spain did you visit?"
Direct question
I call these TED questions. They can be open or closed, however
they all have two things in common:
-
When posing a direct question, you always use the name
of the other person
-
You pose the question as an instruction.
Think about it: you've been in situations where it seems
like you're swimming in tar to get information out of someone.
It's "one word answer country"! What you need is
something that will get the other person's attention and make
her give you the information you need. So a direct question
would start with phrases like:
Tell me, Mr Customer.......
Explain to me, Mr Customer.....
Describe to me, Mr Customer.....
You see, by using the other person's name you are in a great
position to get her immediate attention, while phrasing the
question like an instruction ("tell me" etc) you
are subconsciously giving an order.
Example
(open question) "How did you travel to Spain?"
(answer) "I flew"
(direct question) "Tell
me, Beki, do you always fly to your holiday destination?"
Hypothetical question
Right, the salesman's favourite questioning technique! So
how does it work?
It's simple. We create a scenario that we know we can deliver
on. This is great when we want to close a sale based on a
perceived objection. Here's an example of a hypothetical question
at work:
(closed quesion) "So, would you like to make savings
on your long distance telephone calls?"
(Yes, we get them in the UK as well!)
(prospect's answer) "No thanks, the company I use
is cheap enough for me"
(hypothetical question) O.K.,
Mr Prospect, if I could show you that we can cut your current
telephone bill by at least £10 a month, while you do
nothing different, you'd want that saving, wouldn't you?"
Reflective question
Another powerful variation on the open/closed question theme.
Here's a situation where reflective questions really come
into their own:
Imagine you're talking to someone: you need to find out what
car they may be interested in buying, so you've asked a few
questions about likes and dislikes. Your customer is on a
roll:
he's saying, "Air conditioning: I love it! The last
three cars I've driven had it as standard and I think the
best one of those was the Ford. Mind, even before then, I
was specifying air-con as an extra. I remember back in the
'70s I was driving one of those huge Rambler Ambassadors,
you know, the one where you could open the tailgate or rear
window seperately, and that had air-con. Couldn't afford to
have it running much, though, I'd be lucky to get 6 miles
to the gallon." etc etc etc.
Now, we don't want to cut the customer short: in fact,
we want him to feel as if we're paying attention to everything
he's saying. However, we can't stay around all day listening
to his ramblings about the Rambler! So, we use a reflective
question:
(reflective question) "Right,
so air conditioning is a must, Mr Customer, what else is on
the top of your list?"
Straight away, we should be back in control of the conversation.
Your customer knows you've been listening, feels that you're
on his side and thinks you really want to understand his needs
and wants. A result for the both of you!
The information funnel
Here's a picture of the information
funnel. (40k)
Of course, you won't always need to use all of these questioning
techniques and certainly not in the order shown. However,
the diagram does demonstrate how, by using some of these techniques,
it is possible to filter data down to the real nuggets of
information we are looking for.
When you're next in a situation where you need to get information,
or reach agreement, in an interview or controlling a line
of questioning, use some of these techniques: they will certainly
make your communications more powerful and help you to direct
the conversation to your mutual benefit.
|
