shut up and eat your french fries: asking effective questions

Shut Up and Eat Your French Fries:Asking Effective Questions

Ed Kless@edkless #FlaggCA2016

Why do kids ask so many questions and why do they stop?

@edkless #FlaggCA2016

We enter school as question marks and leave as periods.


Great products, companies, even industries, often begin with a question, yet few companies actually encourage

questioning in any substantive way. There are no departments or training programs focused on questioning;

no policies, guidelines, best practices. On the contrary, many companies — whether consciously or not — have

established cultures that tend to discourage inquiry in the form of someone’s asking, for example, “Why are we doing

this particular thing in this particular way?”

– Warren Berger, A More Beautiful Question

Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given

by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken.

Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of

answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.

-Eric Hoffer

What do questions determine?

• the quality of our experiences• how well we understand others• how we relate to the world• what is important and what is not• our course of actions and direct the actions of others


What is an effective question?

• Have valued answers

• Have a purpose

• Are effectively delivered

@edkless@edkless #FlaggCA2016

What are some examples of poor questions?

• Manipulate

• Try to gain power

• Intimidate

• Boast

• Confuse

• Contain jargon

• Make yourself look bad

• Ask "How" too early



How? vs. What matters!BECOME:

How do you do it? What refusal have I been postponing?

How long will it take? What is the commitment I am willing to make?

How much does it cost? What is the value of it to me?

How do you get those people to change? What is my contribution to the problem?

How do you measure it? What is the judgment I need to make?

How have other people done it successfully?

What do we want to create together?

@edkless

How do you set up questions?

@edkless

• Create a distinction from the past• Give permission for unpopular answers• Avoid advice and replace it with curiosity• Think about the risk order

» Possibility and dissent come earlier» Ownership, commitment, and gifts come later


What do great questions do?

• Engage people in a intimate way• Confront them with their freedom to make a choice• Invite them to create a new possibility in the future• Have an impact even if the person refuses to answer them• Express that change is difficult and unpredictable• Three qualities:

Ambiguous Personal Edgy


What are some examples of great questions?

Would it be appropriate at this time to ask you a few questions?



Effective Questioning – Getting to ValueRecognize a “measurable” word

• Revenue• Cost• Customer satisfaction• Quality• Performance• Productivity• Et al.

Ask Mahan Khalsa’s Five “Golden Questions”

• How do you measure it?• What is it now?• What do you want it to be?• What is the value of the difference?• Over time (usually one year)?

@edkless

What are some examples of great questions?

• Would it be appropriate at this time to ask you a few questions?• What is the crossroads you face at this time?• What is the story you keeping telling about the problems you face?• What is your contribution to the very thing you complain about most?• What is the value that your organization can create for your customers?• Who are your heroes and why?• What is the question that if you had the answer would make you free?


Any Questions?

© 2015, The Sage Group plc or its licensors. Sage, Sage logos, Sage product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of The Sage Group plc or its licensors. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Thank youEd Kless@edkless

shut up and eat your french fries: asking effective questions

Business