How to Ask the Best Probing Questions
Terry J. Fadem
Probing may be defined as aggressive follow-up questioning. However, you are not necessarily just interested in keeping a continuous line of discussion going. Probes are used to look for something other than what the discussion, the paper, or the message has provided. You probe when you encounter potential deceit, defensive behavior, half-truths, challenges, misdirected answers, dead experts, and any number of other conditions likely to occur.
I know a manager who asked questions with the answers in them, and then argued when his staff tried to tell him he was wrong. I saw him in action off and on for about two years. Not once did I ever see him probe any topic. Even if he disagreed with the information presented to him, he dismissed it as “irrelevant” or just plain wrong. Probe to avoid becoming this myopic.
By the way, his business unit failed and, unfortunately, he was actually promoted to a new position of responsibility where he could ruin another business. He didn’t disappoint.
A complex mix of objectives surrounds probes. The reason a business manager is doing a probe in the first place, rather than asking simple follow-up questions, is to move the discussion from a straightforward inquiry to an investigation.
Questions Best Suited for Probes:
Launching a General Probe
This list represents launch questions—the road into your pursuit. They are general enough in nature to fit a wide array of circumstances. Probing generally takes longer than following up. For example, when dead experts are used as resources for a business case, you not only need to find living experts, but the manager also needs to understand why the dead experts were cited in the first place.
A continuous series of follow-up questions constitutes an exercise in probing. It can be relentless. The questioning can change directions, and it can be discontinuous if the manager feels that the respondents may be disingenuous in any way.
Who else can we check with?
Do you know where to get additional information? Specifically where? And what does it say?
Why was this particular expert chosen?
Who else uses this...relies on this expert?
Why?
What do you mean by that?
Is there anything else we should be aware of?
What else? Do you have a list of concerns?
Specifically, what should we be concerned with and why?
Is there anything about this that keeps you up at night? (A question an old boss of mine habitually asked, and a good one, too. He had a number of different versions, but he used it to elicit many issues that had not been mentioned in “regular” discussions.)
How can you be certain?
What can we not rule out? Why?
The purposes of probing are varied. Probes are conducted, for example, to determine the credibility of a speaker, the importance of an issue, factual details that have been ignored, or because of a gut instinct about needing more and different kinds of information—searching for something other than what is being presented or discussed with you. Probes are suggested when the situation calls for it. Here are some of those situations when probing is advisable.
When Do You Need to Launch a Probe?
• The situation violates the laws of gravity
In one example, the growth of a business from zero dollars in revenue to $4 billion in six months “goes against gravity,” as an old colleague of mine liked to say. Common sense tells us that this type of growth is so improbable that it approaches impossibility. If this kind of growth were to occur without an acquisition, you had better get out of the way for an investigation.
Q: Why did you forecast everyone in the world buying one of these?
Q: It was quite windy that day, but how likely is it that the wind caused the coffee to spill inside the building and all over the server?
Q: Dr. Deleon, how do you know you discovered the fountain of youth formula? What evidence do you have? Who else has tested this? What were their results? What do you mean they are now too young to answer?
• Dead or unavailable experts
Dead experts are a dead giveaway that probing for better references is needed. If an expert whose knowledge is critical to whatever business case it at hand is unavailable for a period of time that exceeds your decision-making timeframe, probe for another expert.
Q: Who, other than Adam Smith, can we contact on this theory?
Q: Why is it the only expert in the world on this is in Antarctica when we need her?
Q: Yes, jail is a difficult place to hold a meeting, but another year seems a bit longer than we can afford to wait, doesn’t it?
Q: Who did you pay for this information? How much? Did you get bids from other providers? Who and how much?
• The respondent continues to ignore a follow-up question and answers a different issue
If this happens, move from follow-up to probe. There is always a reason for this strategy by respondents. Your objective when you shift to probing is to avoid being judgmental. Just because the behavior before you may indicate a problem does not necessarily mean that there is one. Maintaining objectivity until you get all the facts you need is important to the questioning process.
A direct inquiry approach is best. It avoids wasting time. A direct approach also pays off in the future. You are less likely to be faced with misdirection answers from others.
One additional point is worth noting here. You can change your style from a facilitative (kindly) management approach to a more control-oriented or prosecutorial manner (a more adversarial managerial style). The person knows exactly what it is he or she has done, and you must indicate that you want answers. Obfuscation is for politicians and diplomats, not for businesses.
Don’t take the bait by following this rabbit down the hole. Persons good at this strategy will usually issue an enticement in a misdirected answer; it’s likely to be some detail that is well known to be of critical interest to the inquisitor. I have seen managers fall prey to this and realize hours later that they didn’t get the answer to the question they had really asked.
I saw a regional sales manager practice this with his VP of sales. The manager had arrived at the home office just in time to attend a meeting where his interest was a lack of proper accounting of about “a hundred thousand dollars.”
VP sales: Could you review those numbers again for me, Al?
Regional manager: They bother you, too? You know another thing that is an even bigger concern to me is the Simpsons. They are the largest customer in the country, and we just learned yesterday that they are considering canceling our agreement. Is there any other incentive package we can offer?
How could the VP not return to his original line of questioning? Easy. The Simpson account was huge, well over 20 percent of U.S. sales. Although he might have been able to see through the ruse, he was unable to resist the possibility of the reality of a problem with this account. It could be that the VP of sales was implicitly going along with this misdirection. Asking tough questions of the people you work with every day is often difficult. This is particularly true when you have known them for many years. There is no way to know.
A routine audit of the books disclosed serious accounting irregularities in the preceding case. A change in regional management cleared up the problems and wizened the VP of sales.
The suggestion for responding to misdirection strategies is to maintain focus and keep your probes direct.
Q: Did you understand my question?
Q: Why are you answering a different question than the one I asked?
Q: What makes this information relevant to what I am asking?
Q: Can you repeat what it is I am asking?
Q: How can I be clearer about what it is I am looking for?
Q: What is it about my question that you don’t understand?
Q: Yes, that’s a concern for me, too, but how much did you say you spent?
Q: We will cover that if time permits, but let’s return to my question. What is your answer?
Q: Why are you having a problem answering the question?
• The answer is incomplete
This, too, could be an attempt at a subtle strategy for avoiding the question. I have seen this happen in meetings with CEOs, for example, when the respondent knows that the time is limited and tries to avoid completely disclosing details of an issue.
Q: Yes, I’m glad that the mess is cleaned up, but I need to know the whole story. Just how did the chipmunks get into the clean room to begin with?
Q: Your data does show that all the sinks we sell are of the best quality, but I need the whole question answered—what is the quality of all the sinks we manufacture? We scrap how many? How long do you think we can remain in business with that rate? What’s being done? What’s the plan? Who’s responsible for implementing it?
These questions reflect an actual situation. A business manager had successfully dodged his VP and the CEO on this issue for years. Literally half of their product line ended up in the scrap heap, but the margins on the finished product were so high that no one paid a great deal of attention. They sold into the luxury end of a market, and no one ever mentioned the scrap rate. This lasted until competitive pressures forced attention to the problem. The business eventually solved the problem and fixed the product line but sacrificed earnings to overcome years of inattention.
Q: I know everybody here liked the ad campaign, but I wanted to know how it tested with consumers. What are the results from market research studies? You did do market research studies with real customers, didn’t you?
By the way, a manager’s voice that goes up at the end is likely to get a more open response.
• Conflicting information, discrepancies, factual errors
A CEO whom I watched in action had a very effective method for dealing with conflicting information. He would state the discrepancy. This is an effective approach because not all discrepant information about a subject is coming from the same person. Information often arrives from a number of different sources, and it makes a better-understood query to state the conflict to the person being questioned.
Q: Joe, the message from your team yesterday was that the project would be ready on time. However, today you have just indicated that a delay is likely. Can you explain the difference?
Q: How could we go from 3 possible reasons for the problem to 11?
Q: Either the duck got into the copy machine all by itself as you suggest, or as Wilson explained, someone put it in there. Which is it?
• Red herrings
When an answer is irrelevant, it’s time to probe. Once again, avoid taking the bait by pursuing the subject, but acknowledge the lack of relevance.
Q: Yes, branches are falling from the trees due to the drought, but why have our sales been dropping like those branches?
Q: How did a herring get into the last batch of paint? It’s unimportant what color it was.
• Equivocates
Equivocating is the use of words with multiple meanings. This can allow a person to take a position on either side of an issue. Also included in this category of signals that scream “probe now” are behaviors characterized by beating around the bush, waffling, fudging, and stalling. Straight questions, once again, may provide assistance.
Q: We all know that potatoes contain healthful substances and that chicken fat does taste good. Nevertheless, can you explain how much of this healthful food aspect is lost when the potatoes are deep fried in the chicken fat?
Q: Even though the regulation is there for a good reason, and you are correct, we need to document our decision in either case, but we need a specific recommendation on whether we file a new application. What data do you have? What studies need to be done? How quickly can these be done? Who will do them? Is there a reason for your hesitancy?
• Lacking facts, or lack of evidence to support the claims made in answer to your question
Q: Where exactly will this 1,000-store mall be opening?
Q: Why was our data submission to the FDA rejected?
Q: What do we not know about this project that we should know?
• Answers that reflect wishful thinking
When the answers to your questions include a lot of “We hope so,” “We wish it would be,” and “We are encouraged by signs,” consider probing. Do this if for no other reason than to avoid the fate that Ben Franklin ascribed to those who engage in this kind of thinking when he said, “He that lives on hope, dies fasting.”
Q: Could you define what you mean by hope?
Q: What data do you have to support your wish?
Q: How much faith are you putting in “hope” and how much data is available to support that? Who supplied this data? What are their interests in this project?
• Constant use of hyperbole
Q: When you answered that we will get a billion customers overnight, exactly how many customers do you have in your forecast for the end of the year?
Q: Although we appreciate the expression that the new drug will change the way the world thinks about medicine, exactly how will this happen?
• Airtight answers
Probing is also recommended when answers to all questions are closed-ended, meaning that there are no potential problems, concerns, or issues to worry about.
Q: Is there anything about the project that keeps you up at night?
Q: What if something were to go wrong? How could we explain it?
Q: I understand that there is no scientific way possible for our fertilizer to smell, but what would have to happen for an odor to be present? How much of the state would we have to evacuate?
Q: Even though you dismiss the possibility, is there a chance that any of us could go to jail? What would have to happen? Give me a list of issues that could precipitate an investigation.
Q: How solid are your projections? Are you willing to bet your bonus?
• The “two false options” gambit
In some rare instances, particularly when a business is looking for someone to blame for a problem, a choice is set up for the manager. The manager is presented with a choice of selecting between two options, both of which are false.
In one particular case, a product complaint had come from a very influential customer, and the service representative, desiring desperately to avoid any possibility of blame, offered his manager two possible explanations for the problem.
“Either manufacturing hooked up the power cables to the phone jack or the customer plugged the unit into a DC line.” There is no way a manager should accept either of these as options without probing around the problem just a little.
Q: What other alternatives are there? And don’t tell me that there aren’t any.
Q: How many times has either of those occurred?
Q: What conditions would cause us to look at these options?
Q: Pins and bullets both have the capability of puncturing balloons, but what do you really think punctured the balloon at 25,000 feet?
• Begging the question
When the reason in support of the answer is produced within the answer itself—when a conclusion is assumed without proof—it’s time to probe a little. Once again, the best approach I have seen is to state what it is the respondent has identified as the answer, and then probe the part of the answer that is unsubstantiated.
Q: Your answer is correct; grass can and does turn brown in August in that part of the world because of drought. What evidence do you have that it was not our fertilizer that caused the problem?
Q: Baldness occurs all the time, but not all at once. What is in our product that could have possibly caused 10,000 people to go bald in 2 days?
• Gut instinct
Follow your gut. It might not lead to any particular problem or issue of concern, but it’s worth developing any line of questioning whenever a feeling of uncertainty, suspicion, or inquisitiveness comes along.
Probes are important to think about whenever you think about following up on answers you are dissatisfied with.