Asking the Right Questions

Here goes my sixth speech in Crystal Talk Toastmasters Club. Sixth speech is all about vocal variety.


Asking the Right Questions
Good Afternoon Friends,


Mamma… why is the Moon so small today? Where has the sun gone?
These little questions… when asked by a 3 year old can put anybody in a dilemma.
What to answer, will he understand, what I say, …..
Answers and Questions ponder our mind…
When life is easy, we tend to make an attempt in answering these questions, which is non-stop.
When we are busy with something, we give them a cold hand and say “Can you keep quiet for sometime”


Friends, there are many variety of questions.


Some questions are simple, and some are so complicated that we take time to understand it. Some questions are tricky.
When Manager asks when can you complete this assignment? We are in dilemma or a fix.


When we are in a meeting, there will be at least few people who would be audacious to ask questions; some silly and few genuine questions, and we start thinking why didn’t it occur to me.


How many times, it must have happened to us, that we don’t know what to ask? Or coming out from our PM discussion with lingering thoughts, I should have asked the question in a professional way and not become personal.. Oh Gosh… What is my manager thinking about me….


I can tell you that as interesting it sounds it is very difficult in practice, asking the right questions at the right time.


Well, it is also an art, and asking the right questions at the right time is often tough.


So, today my speech is on ‘Asking the Right Questions’. I am going to give few tips on asking the right questions this topic.


Before giving the tips, I want to retell a famous Akbar Birbal story.


One of the audacious court minister told Akbar, what makes you think Birbal is smart, even I am smart and intelligent. Akbar said; ok I shall test between the two of you, some day. One day, when they were strolling in disguise, they saw few people walking with luggage into the city. Akbar asked the court minister to check out the information with them and know the whereabouts. The minister went and came back and told that they have come to visit their relatives’ house. Now, Akbar asked Birbal to go and check out. When Birbal came back, he told, that one of the person in the family’s marriage is happening. So they have all come for it. Birbal continued and told about the whole family details. Akbar pointed to his court minister and told him, can you see, why I think Birbal is Smart.


Well, Birbal had lot of information to say. You can guess how? He was smart enough to ask the right questions to get the minute details.




So as you can see, questions have lot of power. When somebody asks some genuine questions, we have to answer them, sometimes it stimulates us to think. Yet, we have some people who tend to ask silly questions and find themselves in soup.


Now, Let me begin with few tips for today.


The first point: When asking questions, at the back of our mind, for every question, we expect some answer, that’s in our mind. So, we should program our questions in such a way that we get that answer.
For e.g.
Do you think I should eat 3 meals a day?
Do you think I could eat 3 meals a day?
Though these questions look similar, but they would elicit very different responses.


Another example, Do I look fat on this? When this question is asked, you have to be prepared for the answer that you have demanded-even it’s not the one you want to hear.


The wordings of the question are extremely important. Be careful with your words. Frame them properly.


Now, the second tip.
Before asking any questions, first you need to ask these four questions to yourself:
1) Exactly what do I want to gain with this question? i.e. Do I want help/information or want to discuss, or want to achieve an agreement or suggest an idea… etc
2) Who am I asking? Like do I know that person well/ or I do not know at all or someone in authority ..etc
3) What is the right time or occasion to ask? Timing is everything. When you bump into your manager, or meet him at a party, you should not start asking questions about work. Think, if this is the right time to ask this question.
4) What will be the impact of this question? Questions can be asked in many ways. So think and frame the question. Should I say this way? Or that way? If I phrase the question this way, what possible answers I shall get? Is there a more specific way to phrase the same question? Etc..
So, always give some thought and use these 4 steps before asking the questions.


Third & last,
Now that you know, what to ask/when to ask, let me highlight you the two different type of questions to use.
1) Closed vs open ended question: Generally most of the questions will fall into these two categories. Close ended questions get the piece of information that you want, but it precludes the conversation. On the other hand, open ended questions will sustain the conversation.
For example: Closed: Can I help you?
Open : How can I help you?
C: Didn’t you finish the assignment?
O: What problems have you finished and what is pending?


2) General vs Specific questions: If you want more specific answers you need to ask more specific questions. Sometimes, we need broad and general answers and at times we need narrow answers.
G: Do you like your work?
S: What do you like about your work?

These were the few tips that I intended to share with you.


All said, the person who asks thought provoking questions or genuine and right questions, will usually be the commander in a discussion.


So, I hope you will use these tips, be the commander in your next discussion. that you have by asking thoughtful questions.
Also, I would like to add that these are just the tip of the iceberg.
There is lot more into this topic, for you to research and master the art of questioning and be commanding.


Finally, always remember that, “All the answers we ever get are responses to questions”
There are two major ways to get information: by watching and reading and by asking questions and listening.


All said, right questions, are the gateway to better communication.


Thank You.