I glommed onto the obvious yesterday. If you want better answers, ask better questions.

It seems the quality of the question has a bearing on the quality of the answer. If you ask a superficial question, there’s a good chance you’ll get a shallow answer. The converse is accurate as well: If you ask a deeper question, you’ll receive a deeper response.

The burden of quality is on the questioner. That’s because the answer will rarely go deeper than the question.

“Hinters” ask lousy questions. If you want to witness people who rarely get what they want, hang around with people who hint a lot.

Hinting is a poor, and often cowardly, practice.

The junior high dance is the best example of not getting what you want because you don’t ask. If you hint, you get to watch the person you want to dance with waltz across the floor with someone who asked.

The salesman who asks, eats; and the better their questions, the more money they make.

One of the things I learned from Jerry Stocking is: You can ask anything of anyone, if you’re not invested in what their answer has to be.

Once you get over the fear of asking, then it’s time to work on the quality of your questions.

A quality question doesn’t have a hint of hedging in it. Ask for what you want. Yes, there is a sense of timing involved. For example, if you decide you’ve met the person of your dreams after the first date, you don’t ask their mother when you first meet her if you can call her “Mom.”

A quality question is not a BS question. That means don’t ask a question you already know the answer to (unless you’re a trial attorney). That will only deliver something you already know and does nothing in getting you better answers. Even kids can sense when there is a BS question.

A quality question is most often one that’s not rehearsed. That means that once you get out of your head and into the communication process with another, you ask questions from a deeper place. The back and forth becomes an intimate, fluid dance rather than a stilted, step-by-step toe stomper, and trusted answers are the result.

A quality question is a specific request for action or information.

This is by no means an all inclusive list; there are many more ways of asking better questions. This is more of a reminder to ask and ask often, and to become more aware of your asking style.

I wonder how soon you’ll ask for better answers.

All the best,

John

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