Chapter 7
Questioning in Professions
Questions work together as a system. As we begin to orchestrate various question types in the pursuit of understanding, we expand our capacity to think and act in smart ways. We gain in our ability to collect and fashion intelligence rooted in reality rather than presumption or wishful thinking. We are protected somewhat from bias, ideology and narrow thinking.
—Jamie McKenzie, From Now On: The Educational Technology Journal
Putting together the lessons and other fundamentals of the previous chapters, you can now see models taking shape for how to question well in different contexts. This chapter looks at the structure of questions, types of questions, follow-up questions, and the focus of discovery areas in the context of different professional situations. Much of my focus is on what not to do, because it’s the absence of questions or the mangling of questioning that undermines effectiveness in different professional environments. The areas explored are:
Education on all levels, in both academic and professional environments.
Medicine in non-emergency situations.
Medicine in urgent-care situations.
Emergency response.
Legal discovery.
Customer service and sales.
Business negotiation.
EDUCATION
Everything in the discussion of student education is applicable to professional education. The central point is that good questioning potentially helps human beings hone thought processes as well as learn practical skills and facts.
Every year, the mid-August issues of magazine supplements such as USA Weekend and Parade tackle the topic of “back to school.” They look at innovations in education—robots as teachers, mobile computing technology, and new ways to deliver library services—as well as tried-and-true approaches to improving education. The August 11, 2013, issue of Parade looked at “7 inspiring ideas to deepen learning, engage students, close achievement gaps, and better prepare our kids for a 21st-century world.”1 As explained in the article, four of the seven ideas would rely heavily on teachers with good questioning skills: emphasize learning, not testing; teach 21st-century skills; “flip” the class work (meaning have students learn more at home and use school as a venue for interactive labs and discussions); and “get creative,” which would involve more creatively challenging and problem-solving activities.
Teachers who ask good questions nurture both discovery and analysis. They encourage independent thought and creative problem-solving at the same time they teach the facts. Here is a scenario spotlighting the contrast between a teacher who is completely uninspiring and a teacher making an attempt to strengthen cognitive ability and make the material at least a little more interesting:
Teacher #1 is focused on jamming facts into her students’ heads so they can pass standardized tests and graduate. In teaching William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, she wants answers to when was it written, who is Polonius, and so on. Regarding the end of the play, she might ask:
What causes Hamlet’s death? (Spoiler alert: Poison on the tip of a sword.)
Teacher #2 wants to use questions to stir up her students’ thought process, and to ask questions of their own. Instead of asking about the cause of Hamlet’s death, she asks, Who causes Hamlet’s death?
A student used to doing the minimum to get the answers right technically, but not thoughtfully, would say, “Laertes.” A student who has been groomed to appreciate good questions would automatically think, “Ah, ha! If I say, Laertes, I’ll bet the next question is, “Who else?” That student would say, “Laertes and Claudius.”
That response logically leads to the teacher’s next question: Why did both Laertes and Claudius want Hamlet to die?
Here, a narrative response is necessary and a student able to give it indicates familiarity with the plot and the motivations of key characters. The answer could then lead to deeper questions about the people Hamlet trusted, those he mistrusted, and why.
In a presentation that Dr. Dennie Palmer Wolf gave before a group of high school and college educators gathered to discuss improvements in teaching practices she focused on “The Art of Questioning.” Wolf trained as a researcher at Harvard Project Zero, an educational research group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In her remarks, she asserted the following:
Missing from many classrooms are what might be considered true questions, either requests for new information that belongs uniquely to the person being questioned or initiations of mutual inquiry.
The very way in which teachers ask questions can undermine, rather than build, a shared spirit of investigation. First, teachers tend to monopolize the right to question—rarely do more than procedural questions come from students. Second, the question-driven exchanges that occur in classrooms almost uniformly take place between teachers and students, hardly ever shifting so that questions flow between students.…2
Whether or not there’s a direct connection to Wolf’s research and assertions, a number of educators have zeroed in on questions as a key educational tool. For example, Dr. Jamie McKenzie is a consultant on inquiry-based teaching methods and has produced a presentation freely available on the Web (www.fno.org) on “dimensions of questioning.” He sorts question functions into 10 categories to clarify how students benefit from good questioning. The categories overlap somewhat, but I still find the distinctions useful in exploring the various ways good questioning contributes to genuine learning as opposed to memorization.
His categories are:
1. Understand.
2. Figure out.
3. Decide.
4. Build or invent.
5. Persuade or convince.
6. Challenge or destroy.
8. Dismiss.
9. Wonder.
10. Predict.
To link his discussion to what I’ve presented in the preceding chapters, think of them as subcategories of “discovery.”
Understand
Questions that promote understanding go a step beyond facts; they help make the facts relevant and related. A teacher without a good questioning orientation might give a research assignment related to the coast of California by posing questions such as “How long is the coast? How many people live within 10 miles of the coast? What are the primary types of commercial activity along the coast?”
In contrast, McKenzie suggests questions similar to these as superior to develop understanding: “What are the biggest challenges or threats facing the coast? Rank the 10 biggest from highest to lowest in importance and explain why you rank them that way. What should be done about these challenges?”
Figure Out
Questioning with the aim of helping students solve a puzzle or probe a mystery means asking questions that require thinking, not simply remembering. “What U.S. Presidents were impeached?” is the type of question that allows a student to stop short of exploring the political climate during the impeachment proceedings, the nature of transgressions that can lead to impeachment, and the current relevance of impeachment. Stating that President Bill Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives and following with questions like, “Why was he acquitted by the Senate?” would start to put students down a path of investigation. They would be set up to have more curiosity about the controversies surrounding the impeachment.
Decide
This questioning sheds light on options that contribute to the choice of a particular course of action.
In leading a discussion of economic conditions, a professor might ask, “What is the current unemployment rate and how does it compare to the unemployment at this time last year?” Instead, using the answer as a starting point, the professor might pose the question, “How would you have shifted federal spending priorities to improve the numbers?”
Build or Invent
McKenzie notes, “This questioning supports construction or adaption to meet special conditions or requirements.”
A lame starting point would be the question, “What’s the current situation with greenhouse gas emissions in the United States?” A desirable alternative would be to frame a question that poses a challenge with a scenario: “Let’s say Al Gore has selected your paper as one of the best student analyses of global warming. He has asked that you do a presentation on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in your state. What are the key points in your presentation?”
Persuade or Convince
In this vein of questioning, students get some help in identifying prime arguments of a thesis. A question that doesn’t quite get the juices flowing would be, “Who are the most successful film directors of the early 21st century?” To engage students in analysis, opinion, and debate, a better series of questions would be, “What two or three film directors of the early 21st century have directed films that are likely to stand the test of time? Why them and not others?”
Challenge or destroy
The question itself directly points to a deficit in a plan or an assertion, and the point is for the student to ponder, “Why is that so?” It’s not a leading question because the point is to convey a fact that’s critical rather than lead someone to a specific conclusion.
One example that McKenzie uses is this: “Before: What were the events leading up to the beginning of World War II?”
“After: What were the chief weaknesses in the foreign policies of France, Britain, and the United States vis a vis Germany and Japan prior to World War II? How could you have improved the policies?”
Acquaint
Questions that acquaint draw a person into layers of information as opposed to a one-dimensional “who” or “what.” For example, if a teacher asked, “What catastrophic events happened in New York City on September 11, 2001?” a correct answer could be a bland and factual recounting of airplanes striking the World Trade Center towers. A question to acquaint would be, “How have the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001, in New York City changed the way governments around the world now handle airport security?”
Dismiss
McKenzie’s concept of this is probably best described in his own words: “This questioning dispatches that which is unworthy of consideration.” One example is, “What is our policy on immigration?” versus a question that provokes argument and dismissal of weak arguments such as “What aspects of our immigration policy aren’t working well?”
Wonder
This is the realm of “what if?” These questions trigger healthy speculation and the impulse to explore unusual possibilities. I saw a special recently on the Discovery Channel called “Stephen Hawking and the Theory of Everything,” and “wonder questions” had a unifying role in it. The viewer naturally would have questions take shape in her head about the connections of one discovery to another, and curiosity about whether the evidence presented really meant that time travel was possible.
Again, the difference between a question that doesn’t engender wonder and one that does is whether it asks for facts alone and repetition of what someone else has said before, or it’s an invitation to explore a topic.
Predict
Earlier, I referenced questioning aimed at helping students decide. You might think of “predict” questions that hypothesize about likely outcomes as “decide” questions that look forward. For example, I posed the question, “What is the current unemployment rate and how does it compare to the unemployment rate at this time last year?” as a flat question that doesn’t nurture the ability to decide. It doesn’t help a student predict anything, either. Instead, the professor might pose the question, “Based on current economic policies of the nation, what do you see happening with the unemployment rate next year at this time?”
The relevance of these questioning approaches to professional situations relates to everything from job interviews to executive coaching to figuring out what kind of grasp a candidate has on industry problems.
Medicine: Non-Emergency
The questioning training that physicians receive for non-emergency and urgent care situations doesn’t differ dramatically. In a non-emergency situation, however, the physician generally has the opportunity to use repeat, persistent, and other types of good questions to clarify and verify information.
David Sherer, anesthesiologist and author of Dr. David Sherer’s Hospital Survival Guide (drdavidsherer.com) learned excellent questioning techniques in medical school and uses them on a daily basis. He offers guidance to patients on how to assess the quality of their doctor’s interview. When you’re more aware of what the physician or physician’s assistant needs to know, you’re in a good position to make up for poor questioning with good answers.
With any medical condition, the symptoms are visible, invisible, or a combination of the two. Sherer starts with the invisible—a pain. Good direct questioning would proceed like this:
Where is your pain?
Where else?
Where else?
When the clinician asking you feels satisfied that you’ve identified all of the areas where you feel the pain, then it’s on to the time and intensity questions.
How long has it been there?
Did it come on suddenly or gradually?
How often do you feel it?
How would you describe the intensity?
Does the intensity differ? If so, how?
What makes it worse?
What makes it better?
Within about a minute, therefore, the clinician has used questioning to address the key analytical points of the patient’s problem. Sherer said that prior to medical school and entering a clinical environment, those questions never would have occurred to him: “You don’t become a careful questioner until you learn about what the many aspects of a simple subject are.”
Patients without medical training don’t think the way doctors do; that’s why medical professionals call most patients “poor historians.” That is, patients only know that something is wrong. They don’t tend come into the doctor’s office having thought through the various aspects of a headache or rash, for example. They don’t think about all the parts of the medical issue(s) they have unless a careful questioner brings them up.
For this reason, Sherer emphasizes the importance of persistent questions in a medical interview. Asking the same question again is intended to raise awareness in the patient that there may be more angles to the illness than she’s already described.
“Having enough time to ask these questions is critical,” Sherer says. “Without it, the whole process falls apart.”
Sherer says that clinicians will also use control questions in certain instances, particularly when they suspect that the information they’re getting isn’t reliable. For example, if the patient says yes to everything, the doctor would throw in a control question: Sleeplessness? “Yes.” Back pain? “Yes.” Extreme thirst? “Yes.” Teeth itch? “Yes.”
In his specialty, Sherer also uses non-pertinent questions regularly as a way of calming people down before surgery and distracting them from the fact that they he is about to administer anesthesia. He asks them questions like, “Where did you go to school?” or “Where do you work?” Generally, they answer the question, and he can tell by paying attention to their body language that they are less tense. He doesn’t try to hide what he’s doing, either: “Ten percent of the time, the person says to me, ‘You’re just trying to distract me, aren’t you?’ I say, ‘Yes, I am, because I’ve found that it makes people more comfortable.’ Most people don’t like being in a medical situation and would rather talk about something else.”
He also relies on repeat questions, particularly in trying to ascertain when a patient last ate or drank, which is important information related to the effects of anesthesia. They serve him well, almost on a daily basis, because many patients end up contradicting themselves about when they last ingested anything. At the beginning of an interview that might start at 10 a.m., he’ll ask, “When was the last time you had anything to eat or drink?”
“I had a sip of water at around 4 a.m.”
Toward the end of the interview, he might say, “You must be thirsty. How many hours has it been since you’ve had anything to drink?”
“About three hours.”
Regarding leading questions, Sherer emphasizes that it’s important to avoid them in a medical interview: “Objectivity is the name of the game when you’re questioning a patient. You have to step outside of your biases and get to the scientific nature of what they’re complaining about.” Pay attention to this caution because if the clinician is short on time, he might fall victim to leading questions and/or compound questions. Sizing up your situation, he might let a partial diagnosis slip out instead of an objective question: “When you get this pain, do you feel nausea or numbness?”
After the questions are answered, the clinician accesses the database in his head—and probably the computer—to make correlations. He considers, “What problem(s) goes with this description?” The first line of reasoning moves toward the most likely possibilities because “common things occur commonly.” In medical school, the imagery to drive that home comes from the question, “If you hear clopping behind you, would you think it’s a zebra or a horse?” That’s why rare problems in medical parlance are called zebras. When a patient insists that she be checked for a rare illness, clinicians will ask even more questions to ascertain why the patient is convinced of that and what specifics of the problem may have been missed in the initial interview. Again, this is a perfect opportunity for control and repeat questions to determine the consistency and reliability of the information provided by the patient.
Medicine: Urgent Care
Bob Domeier, the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Director for a hospital in the Greater Detroit Area, describes a somewhat different beginning from the typical non-urgent encounter.
We start an interaction by trying to diffuse any emotionalism that might be involved. People who have come to see us may have been waiting a while so they are angry and/or upset. We usually start by apologizing for the wait and introducing ourselves. We want to take advantage of the opportunity to make a good first impression.
We shake hands if possible, and then sit down and try to ask questions that demonstrate both concern and focus on the medical issues at hand.
Domeier has introduced an important body-language element into his questioning and into the training he gives emergency department residents. He notes that research about patient impressions and physician questioning indicates that patients perceive that physicians are spending more time with them if they begin by sitting down and asking questions, rather than standing in front of the patient.
Most of the time, we’ve already read a triage note or someone else’s initial questioning of them. We build on that with an open-ended question that we might frame to indicate that we are somewhat familiar with the person’s situation: “I understand you have chest pain. What are you feeling at the moment?” The point is to get the person to start telling his story.
After hearing enough of the story to get a better sense of what the person is experiencing, he asks questions that are tailored to his problem. The flow is similar with accidents or injuries, starting with an open-ended question that invites a story.
Questioning in this situation sometimes involves the skill of curtailing the answer. The patient might start to go down a winding path with this story and tell you about aches and pains that have nothing to do with the primary purpose of the emergency visit. After hearing part of a saga, the doctor might have to jump in and ask, “What is the main reason you are here today?” and then proceed to more specific questions related to that primary problem.
At this point, the interaction largely parallels what Sherer described in a non-emergency clinical setting. Questions like “When did it start?” and “What are you feeling now?” help the physician work through the relevant discovery areas to thoroughly evaluate the problem.
Domeier’s hospital emergency department is also equipped with a “blue phone,” which gives quick access to a translator in the event the patient and physician don’t speak the same language.
As well-trained as EMS doctors are in questioning, it won’t move them efficiently to a solution to the problem unless patients follow the path of discovery and don’t hide anything related to illegal or dangerous activities. For example, Maryann had a hard landing after a skydive and dislocated her elbow. When the emergency room doctor asked her what happened, she said, “I fell.” She quickly realized if she weren’t more forthcoming about the circumstances of the fall, that the doctor might order a lot of tests that weren’t necessary, so she came clean about the accident.
Emergency Response
Emergency responders such as 911 operators and suicide hotline volunteers need to determine in a short time, perhaps measured in seconds, the nature and gravity of the problem. After that, 911 responders need to provide a well-ordered set of instructions to someone in an emergency situation. Suicide hotline volunteers need to establish a human connection infused with empathy, compassion, and practical assistance. Good questioning is central to delivering both types of services.
In medical situations, unlike the routine circumstances that David Sherer described, there is no time to explore a person’s condition from various angles. Direct questions need to be pointed toward finding out what the symptoms are and taking quick action to end them. If someone is bleeding profusely, the 911 responder will often need to jump to instructions on how to stop the bleeding rather than worry about what caused it. (There are exceptions, of course, that have to do with the personal safety of the caller.)
Brett Patterson worked as an EMS dispatcher for 10 years in Clearwater, Florida, and now trains students in medical dispatch protocol for the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch. He has worked to establish a protocol to questioning for 911 dispatchers and calls it “structured interrogation.” As he told Lynn Neary on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation:
You can’t see the patient. And you can’t see your caller doing the things that you ask them to do...which makes the wording of a protocol or the structure of a protocol so important. And these things happen in the heat of the moment, with a lot of passion. So you can’t expect people just to remember what to do in those situations. So we create a structured interrogation that’s then followed by an assignment of a resource—what’s the right resource for that given situation—and then structured instructions for anything from CPR or choking to just monitoring the patient, which we do an awful lot of in dispatch until the resource can get there.3
Unlike most other professional situations, from routine medical examinations to customer-service calls, emergency medical response is one in which a script is generally a very valuable tool. The old-style questioning instruction we gave to interrogation students was, in fact, a form of structured interrogation. And for the same reasons that Patterson describes—high emotion, sense of urgency—an unseasoned interrogator could benefit from it if thrown into a battlefield situation. It isn’t ideal, though. The ideal scenario is always allowing your listening and analysis to shape the next question.
Listening is precisely the tool that makes a difference in many emergency-response calls. The 911 dispatcher who took the call from Amanda Berry, who had been held captive by Ariel Castro for 10 years and escaped to a neighbor’s house to make the call, seemed deaf to the information being provided. After Berry clearly identified herself as a kidnap victim and explained why she was calling from a location other than the one in question, the dispatcher moseyed down a condescending, business-as-usual path, asking nonessential questions and repeating: “Okay. The police are on the way. Talk to them when they get there.”4 That message was hollow reassurance to Berry, as she had already been told by the dispatcher, “We’re going to send them [the police] as soon as we get a car open.”
In contrast, the dispatcher who took the call from neighbor Charles Ramsey at the same time asked questions establishing the type of emergency services needed, such as whether or not the victim needed an ambulance and whether or not the alleged perpetrator of the crime was still in the house.5 These essential questions were asked in response to what the dispatcher was told; in other words, listening helped a lot.
The journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior published a series of articles in 2007 that detailed problems related to suicide hotlines. A fundamental problem centered on questioning—either not asking the right question for the situation or not asking enough questions to ascertain the gravity of the caller’s problem. The Boston Globe article entitled “Wrong Answer,” which summarized the journal’s findings, began with a shocking vignette:
The person manning the suicide hotline should have asked a follow-up question about the gun. Yes, the caller had said he was despondent, and yes, he mentioned he had considered using a gun to end his life. But that’s where that line of conversation ended—until the phone receiver exploded with the sound of a gunshot.6
The studies documented in the journal were aimed at trying to standardize to a greater extent the practices of respondents, including their questioning techniques. They reflected a shocking finding: In 723 of 1,431 calls, the volunteer at the hotline never even asked whether or not the caller was feeling suicidal.7 Since the results of those studies were published, a number of organizations have taken steps to improve the questioning practices of helpers. It is not only a matter of knowing what to ask, but also how to ask. LifeLine Network, an alliance of grassroots organizations in 16 countries, gives its volunteers best-practices advice to achieve “active engagement”—that is, “building an alliance with the caller.”8 Questions that can help achieve this include the practical (“Are you suicidal?”) and the em-pathetic (“I am here for you. How can I best support you right now?”)
You have to clear your personal biases about why someone would want to commit suicide in order to ask questions that do not imply judgment. Questions like, “Why would you do that?!” would not lessen the pressure or ease the burden of the person contemplating taking his own life. As a corollary, it’s not the time to reference religious or social taboos against suicide, or to plunge into a discourse about how illogical suicide is. You have to demonstrate that you want to know what they have to say, that they can trust you with their feelings and thoughts, and that you aren’t going anywhere as long as they need you. Your questions must reflect that you see their feelings and thoughts as having value. You aren’t there to tell them what to do, but rather to help them perceive that you have genuine interest in them, that you want to connect.
This is a time when the “what else” follow-up questions can be key. For example, “What is going on for you?” may elicit a partial answer. “What else is going on?” may be just the question that will trigger an outpouring of emotions and a more complete story. That might lead to something like, “Who hurt you like that?” and “Who else hurt you?”
Discovery questions play a vital role in keeping people on the line talking with you. Just remember that it’s the person who calls who is the one who determines when the conversation is over. (As anyone who trains people to do this will add as a caveat, if the person has already acted on the impulse to commit suicide—for example, has taken a potentially lethal dose of medicine—a 911 intervention is warranted.) As the suicidal person talks, listen for people, places, things, and events, and, if possible, take notes. This has more than the practical value of potentially informing an emergency service provider of location, for example. Having these specifics in front of you enable you to build and strengthen rapport quickly. You want to be able to reference those details so the person has proof you were listening. For example, “You mentioned a Joe Doe, who was supposed to be your friend, but he bullied you on Facebook... What else has he done to hurt you?” Or, “You mentioned that the last time you were happy was in Wilmington, Delaware. What happened in Wilmington that made you happy?” As hard as it may be jot things down in the middle of an intense conversation, having ready access to the basics in the discovery areas—names, times, places, tools, and so on—reinforce to the caller that you are listening with your ears and your heart.
With your questioning, keep in mind that this is not about you. In general, don’t minimize the person’s pain by suggesting that you’ve been there so you really understand; in other words, don’t answer your questions with your own story. Better to go in the direction of, “I don’t understand completely, but I do care completely.” Keep the questioning simple and sincere. Avoid all of the bad questions—leading, compound, vague, negative—because they will disrupt rapport rather than reinforce it.
This discussion is important to me particularly because of being a veteran of military service and knowing other veterans who took their lives as a result of suffering the trauma of war. Questioning in relation to suicide prevention is also an area of particular study and interest because of an experience I had a number of years ago with a colleague at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
Tom was failing miserably as a salesman at Forest Lawn. Unfortunately, this letdown followed his being fired from his job as a flight attendant from the airline he worked for. One day, he said to me, “I’m going to commit suicide.” He told me that the reason he wanted me to know was that he trusted me. He followed that by saying that all he wanted me to do was to let him to it. We talked for a while—I had not been formally trained in questioning techniques at this point in my career—and I listened for any clue as to what to do to help him. Finally, he said, “One of these days, you’ll get a phone call and I’ll just say, ‘Tonight’s the night.’”
When I returned home from a New Year’s Eve Party at 1 a.m., I got that call. I called his number. No answer. I called the police and gave them his address. When they arrived, they saw his door was unlocked and he had taken a great number of pills. He had put labels on his property throughout the apartment that indicated who should receive what.
Three days later, after having his stomach pumped, Tom was the happiest guy to be alive that I’d ever seen. He gave me a copy of Richard Bach’s Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. This experience and the book helped me understand myself and, later, to probe more deeply into the way that my skill and discipline in questioning might help people in Tom’s position. In short, they changed my life.
Legal Discovery
In court, attorneys manage information, leading witnesses toward or away from an objective. Unlike A Few Good Men, in which the lead defense attorney (Tom Cruise) for two Marines secures damning information from a senior military officer (Jack Nicholson) during the court martial, most attorneys collect the information they consider vital beforehand and endeavor never to ask a question in court that they do not already know the answer to.
Where do attorneys get their information? A primary source is depositions—that is, sworn statements, given orally, supposedly developed through discovery questioning. Discovery questioning should be central to depositions. They are an opportunity to enable both attorneys to quiz their opponent’s clients and witnesses, to surface facts and review the merits of a case, and to see how well a witness will hold up in front of a jury. It has proven true at times that information discovered in depositions has led to cases being settled out of court or dropped altogether.
That said, I struggled to find good guidance for attorneys on how to do discovery questioning in the context of a deposition. Instead, I found advice such as “The Top 10 Killer Deposition Questions,” which I would like to re-title, “The Top 10 Examples of How to Kill Discovery Questioning.” The attorney who wrote the piece gave me reason for optimism with his opening:
Other than hiring a private investigator to delve into the witness’s past, the deposition is the most effective tool in the lawyer’s arsenal for uncovering dirt and chipping away at credibility... yet most lawyers don’t ask all of the basic, open-ended questions that could help achieve their impeachment goals.9
It was a bait and switch. He followed this with 10 questions, only one of which was an open-ended question. The rest were yes-or-no questions, except one, which wasn’t a question at all. The list included two compound questions that could have the witness going dizzy trying to figure out whether to answer yes or no. For example, “Did you read any witness statements or depositions, listen to any recorded statements, look at any diagrams or photographs, or did somebody else read you any statements before the deposition?”
To spotlight the use of bad questions in a deposition, I’ve selected an excerpt from the deposition of Adam James in the trial of former coach Mike Leach versus Texas Tech over alleged mistreatment of James, who was playing for the Red Raiders at the time. As you read this, test yourself: What’s wrong with the questions from the attorney?
ATTORNEY: Alright. And by the shed, I don’t think we’ve actually described it. It’s actually more like a garage than a shed, isn’t it?
ADAM JAMES: If that’s your opinion.
ATTORNEY: Well, I’m asking you. Would you characterize it as a garage with a sliding door and a cement floor, or a shed?
ADAM JAMES: It had a door but not a cement floor.
ATTORNEY: Okay. What’s the floor in the room?
ADAM JAMES: Wood with rubber on top of it.
ATTORNEY: Okay. Whose—was it commonly known amongst the football team as the shed or the athletic training storage garage, as Mr. Pincock refers to it?
ADAM JAMES: Well, as players, we don’t real- ly—we don’t necessarily sit around and talk about the shed all the time.
ATTORNEY: Okay. I’m just wanting to know why you characterize it as a shed in this message to your dad?
ADAM JAMES: Well, that’s to me what it is, a shed.
ATTORNEY: Okay. And you told your dad that you were instructed to stand in the shed or else you would be kicked off the team, right?10
The attorney asked one good question and multiple leading questions. Discovery had almost nothing to do with this exchange. Questions that require the witness to describe the environment where he was confined would include “Where were you held?” and “What did it look like?”
While I would say that a line of questioning like this fails in terms of discovery, I admit that some attorneys deliberately use ill-structured, badgering questions to raise the emotion of the witness. Discovery is not the point. Their aim is to observe how the witness behaves in a stressful situation.
Customer Service and Sales
In the context of customer service and sales, asking only perfunctory questions gives consumers very little hope that a need will be met or a problem will be resolved. “How can I help you?” is a perfunctory question that should elicit an answer that helps customize the rest of the conversation.
For example, a female friend of mine wanted to buy a pickup truck. She and her husband went to multiple dealerships. At each dealership, the opening question was either, “How can I help you today?” or “What can I show you today?”
“A small pickup truck,” was her answer. In six of the seven cases, the salesman turned to her husband and asked some version of, “What kind did you have in mind?”
“We’re doing some work on our home,” she said, “so I’d like something that allows us to haul things, but also has seats behind the driver so we have a place to put our kids.”
Again, six of the seven salesmen turned to her husband and asked a question like, “What do you like to drive?” or “Will you be hauling anything really heavy?”
The banter never got much beyond this with the first six salesmen because they weren’t listening—either to the source of the responses or to what she said about her priorities. She bought the truck from the seventh salesman who heard that having a place for kids and groceries was as important as hauling drywall and lumber. He also focused squarely on her, having listened to her words, “I’d like something....”
In his book Service Failure, Jeff Toister cautions, “Employees should be focused on helping customers achieve their goals rather than following a set of rote procedures.”11 He gives Apple Stores kudos for demonstrating how to use good questioning and good listening to customize the shopping experience:
The Apple Store provides an excellent example of what can happen when employees focus intently on their customers. Unlike many other retailers where employees concentrate on pushing products, stocking shelves, or ringing up transactions, Apple Store employees are there to create a positive experience for their customers. They conduct product demonstrations, resolve technical problems, and help people get the most out of their MacBook, iPad, or other Apple product.12
Employees asking questions that reflect interest in the individual and following up with service that corresponds to the answer has enormous practical value. Apple’s 363 stores worldwide collectively generate $18 billion of revenue per year and show an impressive 26-percent profit margin. That means they are responsible for $4.4 billion of retailing operating profit a year.13 For comparison purposes, Wal-Mart earns a 3.54 percent profit margin14 and Best Buy is in negative territory.
Business Negotiation
By its nature, a negotiation involves someone who wants the upper hand, but doesn’t have it yet, and someone who has the upper hand—or at least thinks he does. If two people who hold equal positions at the table are hammering out the details of an agreement, I might say that they are engaged in compromise or trading points, but not necessarily negotiation.
When you’re negotiating, you’re trying to get someone to agree with you. Questions can often do that far better than arguments or pitches, because questions engage others in coming to conclusions on their own.
For example, my friend Max wanted to buy a laptop, but every Website he went to was charging more than he thought he should pay. He called the sales department for the company that manufactured the model he really wanted, provided specifications for the model, and asked the representative, “What kind of price can you give me?” The rep quoted him the same price that Max had found online.
Max figured that all the rep had done was to go online and plug in the specs to come up with the price. He had, in fact, simply duplicated what Max had already done. He asked, “What do you need from me to give me a better price?”
A pause followed. The rep was probably quickly calculating how much commission he would lose if he gave Max a better price.
“How much commission will you lose if you cut the price by $100?” Max asked him.
More silence.
“How much commission will you lose if I hang up the phone and buy a laptop from your competitor?”
The rep then offered to take $100 off the price of the laptop if they could put the deal through immediately.
The laptop scenario presents a streamlined version of what happens in complex negotiations. A key aim is to overcome objections. That starts by having clarity on your information requirements, as well as ascertaining the other person’s requirements and expectations. The progression of a negotiation from the point of view of the person trying to gain the upper hand could be summarized this way:
I spark your interest.
You appreciate what I have to offer.
You need what I have to offer.
I win.
We interviewed “Kim” for this book and she provided her story of negotiating a three-year contract to provide public relations services for an international trade group. Her information requirements going into the negotiation were:
Who is doing the work now (or at least some variation of the work)?
What’s the job?
When do they want to start seeing results?
Where do they want the work performed?
Why would they consider me the best person for the job?
How do they measure success?
How much is success worth to them?
Figuratively putting herself on the other side of the table, she then mapped out what their requirements probably were:
Who is the best person for the job?
How much will that person cost?
What are the main results we expect that person to accomplish?
How soon can we get results?
Kim did her homework on the company by looking at industry analyst reports, articles, and the company’s public documents. She also had a conversation with a friend’s son, who worked for the organization. He wasn’t anywhere close to the decision-maker—this was his first job out of college—but he was astute and a friendly source. Her first major discovery was that “Who is the decision maker?” had a multi-layered answer: The CEO was the decision maker, but he placed enormous trust in his executive assistant, who attended all key meetings. He also had to answer to a board of directors. The answer to “Who is doing the work now?” gave the key to what the unique challenges of the job were. At the moment, public relations activities were initiated solely by the PR contacts at the organization’s member companies, so it was a highly decentralized approach. The consultant would have to centralize PR operations. Her contact at the group made it clear they wanted to make a decision immediately, so it was safe to assume results in the near term would be expected. And most likely, there would be a great deal of travel, because the organization had a global presence.
There were also the really tough information requirements: Why Kim and not someone else? How did they measure success? What was success worth to them?
She looked at the composition of the board and realized that at least three people on it would have known her work from other arenas. That gave her an edge. She also had 20 years of experience working with businesses in the same industry.
It struck her that the “C team” had been intact for 10 years, so she figured whatever these senior executives were doing was clearly viewed as “success” by the board. Looking more closely at the organization’s culture, she saw an abundance of evidence that the staff—top to bottom—had a policy of “the customer is always right” when it came to meeting members’ needs and making them feel special. They did a lot to recognize the accomplishments of members. Kim concluded that a big measure of success, therefore, would be honoring what the members were already contributing to the PR effort. She would be effectively balancing a centralized PR function with continued support of decentralized activities.
Finally, she learned that the CEO was an accountant by training, so she knew the value would have to be measured in dollars and cents. Whereas PR consultants typically try to explain value in terms of “public perception of quality,” “increased awareness of market presence,” and so on, Kim had a feeling her performance would be judged, at least partially, on new memberships and the willingness of current members to increase fees.
With her requirements met, Kim went to the table and used her information to accomplish a major step toward overcoming objectives and moving people at the meeting toward an appreciation for her value. In the words of Greg Hartley, she was able to “trigger an epiphany.” In other words, during the meeting, Kim could hear them move toward a sense of “she’s good for us because...” when questions became predictive: “What do you see the program looking like a year from now?” They had mentally made a transition from scrutinizing her to appreciating what she had to offer. When the questions became more time-centered—“When can you have the plan done?” “How long will it take to put the program in place?”—she determined they were moving toward a sense of needing her services. She heard urgency in their voices.
Kim had walked into the meeting having given them a proposal that included a monthly retainer that was double what she thought they would agree to. They agreed to it.
In all of these professional situations, questioning is a two-way street. It is certainly important to ask good questions, but as in the negotiation scenario illustrated, it’s just as important to listen for the questions being asked. What you hear provides valuable clues about rapport, the willingness to divulge information, the reliability of the information, and what you should say next to get the task at hand done—whether it’s teaching, treating an illness, responding to an emergency, winning a contract, or closing a sale.
EXERCISE
Keep a journal for two weeks related to questions in your professional life. If you are a Monday-through-Friday worker, there’s no need to keep the journal on weekends.
Begin by making notes in three areas of your past questioning:
1. List five questions you asked that made a difference in your work life. Put a short notation as to why you feel each served you well.
2. Add five questions you wish you had never posed. Remind yourself why.
3. Add five questions you believe you should have asked differently.
How do you wish you would have stated the questions?
How would restating the question have potentially changed the answer you got?
In your journal, keep notes about how the structure, placement, frequency, and other pertinent factors related to your questions has changed.
1. Record one question each day that made a difference in terms of getting something done at work.
2. Record one question you wish you hadn’t posed. (If none, then congratulations.)
3. Record one question you think would have gotten a better answer if asked a different way. (If none, then you’re probably kidding yourself.)
How do you wish you would have stated the questions?
How would restating the question have potentially changed the answer you got?