Ask more questions! sellers are admonished. Ask better questions! leaders and coaches are reminded. Questions seem to be a prompt in many fields, from medicine to parenting. But why?

There’s a universal assumption that questions will yield Truth, generate ‘real’ discussion topics or realizations, or gather accurate information or important details. Good questions can even inspire clarity. Right?

I’d like to offer a different point of view on what questions really are and how they function. See, I find standard questions terribly subjective, don’t enable Responders to find their real answers, and often don’t get to the Truth. But it’s possible to use questions in a way that enables Others to discover their own, often unconscious, answers.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

Let me start with Google’s definition of ‘question’: “a grouping of words posed to elicit data.” Hmmmm…. But due to the way Askers pose questions and the way they’re interpreted in the Responder’s brain, they don’t often elicit accurate data. Here’s my definition. Questions are:

• posed according to the needs, curiosity, goals, words, and intent of the Asker;
• interpreted uniquely and unconsciously, according to a Responder’s often unconscious world view;
• potentially ignore more important information outside the Asker’s purview.

Our routine processes get in the way:

1. Language: Questions are posed using words and languaging unique to the Asker. Using their own (subjective, biased) intent and goals, their own idioms and word choices, Askers assume Responders will accurately interpret them and respond along expected lines. This expectation is most easily met between folks who are familiar with each other, but less successfully with those outside the Asker’s sphere of influence. Too often Responders interpret a query quite differently than intended, offering responses far afield from the Asker’s intent.
2. Listening/brain: All incoming words enter our ears as meaningless sound vibrations that neuroscientists call “puffs of air” and eventually get translated according to our brain’s historic neural circuits that have been set during our lifetimes. (For a complete explanation, see my book WHAT?) In other words, and similar to the language problem, Responders may not accurately translate incoming questions according to the intent of the Asker. The way Responders hear and interpret a question is at the mercy of the Responder’s existing neural brain circuits.

 

Sample

3. Curiosity: Often an Asker seeks answers according to their desire for knowledge, for research, interest, or ego, to exhibit their intelligence, prove their commitment, or lead Respondsers to answers the Asker thinks they should discover. Yet given the way information is stored and retrieved in the brain, a question may capture some degree of applicable data or a whole lotta subjective, unconscious thoughts that may or may not be relevant.

As you can see, standard questions have a reasonable chance of failure.

TYPES OF QUESTIONS

Here’s my opinion on a few different forms of question:

Open question: To me, open questions are great in social discussions but less so when seeking precise data or leading Others to discover their own answers. What do you think you might do to avoid that going forward? can’t help a client find new answers. What would you like for dinner? will prompt an enormous variety of choices, some of which may be unavailable. Open questions cause brains to do a transderivational search that may unearth responses far afield from the Asker’s intent and the Asker is out of control.

Closed question: I love these. They are perfect when a specific response is needed. What time is dinner? Should we send answers now or wait until our meeting? Of course they can also be highly manipulative (Do you want me to take your order now or should I call back tomorrow?) when only limited responses are offered for potentially broad possibilities.

Leading question: Don’t you think you rely on conventional questions too much? That’s a leading question. Manipulative. Disrespectful. Hate them.

Probing question: Meant to gather data, these questions face the same problems I’ve mentioned: using the goal, intent, and words of the Asker, they will be interpreted uniquely as per the Responder’s historic stored content, and extract some fraction of the full data set possible.

Given the above, I invented a new form of question!

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS™

When I began developing my brain change models decades ago, I realized that conventional questions would most likely not get to the most appropriate circuits in someone’s brain that hold their best answers.

Knowing that our brain’s electrochemical search for answers leads to historic responses, I spent 10 years figuring out how to formulate questions to help people find where their answers reside.

One of the main problems I had to resolve was how to circumvent a brain’s automatic preferences and make it possible to obtain the broadest view of choices.

            Language to avoid bias and promote objectivity

Since the brain sends incoming questions as electrochemical signals down specific neural routes, I had to figure out a way to use language to broaden the brain’s choices and circumvent bias as much as possible – difficult as our natural listening is unwittingly biased as per existing superhighways that offer habitual responses.

Was it possible to use questions to find where value-based answers are stored (where our decisions emerge from)? To accomplish this, I tried different word combinations in different sequences until I found success with specific words in a specific order that led to the criteria where accurate answers – answered not uncovered with conventional questions – were stored.

As a result, my Facilitative Questions™ are directed not at Asker-led information gathering but at Responder-driven brain-directional discovery. Information gathering now occurs at the very end of the questioning process when the proper circuits have been engaged, leading to far more accurate answers.

            Getting into Observer

To make sure Responders can listen from an unbiased place and have a chance of hearing without misunderstanding, Facilitative Questions™ contain no convincer strategies or biases. They merely direct Responders to their own answers without anything – like historic biases, mistaken assumptions, automatic resistance – getting in the way.

To accomplish this I put specific words at the beginning that put the Responder into an Observer (meta, witness, coach) perspective that overrides the brain’s preferred route to translation and leads to a more accurate, less subjective response. Here are two examples:

• How would you know if…
• What would you need to understand differently…

Notice they immediately cause the Responder to ‘observe’ and discover answers stored outside the automatic circuitry.

            Change the goal

For situations involving decision making and data extraction, I also had to detail the wording. Here’s an example of a standard question:

        “Why do you wear your hair like that?”

This question puts the Responder directly into their automatic, historic, unconscious responses, while

“How would you know if it were time to reconsider your hairstyle?”

is a Facilitative Question™ that puts the Responder into Observer and uses specific words in a specific order to direct them to specific neural circuits where their own data and criteria are stored. My recordings provide examples of how I formulate and use them.

            Questions follow steps to change

The biggest element I had to figure out was the sequence, to help the brain’s translation process be more accurate. Here are the main categories of the 13 sequential steps to all change and decision making:

• Where are you and what’s missing? Responder begins by discovering their full set of givens, some of which are unconscious.
• How can you fix the problem yourself? Systems don’t seek change, merely to resolve a problem at the least ‘cost’ to the system. To minimize any ‘cost’ involved, it’s best to begin by trying to fix the problem with what’s familiar.
• How can you manage change without disruption and with buy-in? Until it’s known what the fallout of the ‘new’ will be, and there’s agreement, no change will occur.

In my book HOW? I’ve included an entire chapter on how to formulate Facilitative Questions™.

1. Sample

WHEN TO FACILITATE UNBIASED DISCOVERY?

Facilitative Questions™ are especially helpful in

• data gathering to discover a more expanded range of choices,
• decision making to uncover each element of consideration as matched with values and outcomes,
• habit/behavior when seeking to understand and modify the patterns and neural circuitry underlying the current behaviors,
• leadership, sales, coaching when leading others to discover routes to new choices.

I’ve trained these questions globally for sales folks learning my Buying Facilitation® model to help prospects become buyers, and for coaches and leaders to help followers discover their own best answers.

If your job is to serve, the best thing you can offer others is a commitment to help them help themselves. Facilitative Questions™ can be used in any industry, from business to healthcare, from parenting to relationships as tools to enable discovery, change, and health.

It takes a bit of practice to create these questions as they aren’t natural or curiosity based, but the coaches, sellers, doctors, and leaders I’ve taught them to use them to help Others discover their own excellence, avoid resistance, and maintain trust between the Asker and Responder. I encourage you to consider learning them. And I’m happy to discuss and share what I know. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com My hope is that you’ll begin to think about questions differently.

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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.