Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change

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EMPATHY QUESTIONS

Empathetic questions go for feeling. They seek deeper, more emotional answers to explore what makes people tick, think, fear, and feel. They help people reveal themselves to others—and sometimes to themselves. These questions are best accessed through “perspective-taking” when the questioner imagines the world from the other person’s point of view. Empathy contributes to more compassionate and more effective questioning and more reflective responses.

Origins: What’s going on? How are you feeling? These big, open-ended questions are ridiculously simple, but asked intentionally and accompanied by good listening, they grant running room and license. They invite people to open up and they drive a conversation that, with good follow-up questions, can become deeply revealing and rewarding.

Brick by Brick: Rather than throwing a big question at someone and expecting a big answer, which can be overwhelming, use a methodical step-by-step approach that explores detail and pattern. The questions should be pursued deliberately and with purpose to break the issue down while heading toward a destination. Ask in sequence and for increasing detail. What was your family like? Did you have dinner together? What did you talk about? What did you argue about? What made you laugh?

Appreciative Inquiry: What are the most significant things you’ve done? What’s the best part of your job? These questions frame the subject in a positive direction so that a constructive framework can be noted and built. The question “appreciates” the anticipated response, which can connect to other positive thoughts and ideas. Follow up or ask about something positive and you might take the conversation in an entirely different direction.

Empathic listening is riveted to words, tone, pacing, pauses, and expressions. But it also involves facial expressions and affect. What you hear and see helps you read the conversation and connect with your next question.

Intimate Distance: How does this make you feel? I’m not judging, I’m just listening. Be intimate enough to ask, distant enough to maintain perspective. If you are going to engage emotions, it’s often best to embrace them without getting caught up in them.

Listen: What are indicators that someone is opening up or sharing something intensely private? Listen for words that convey intense feeling or suggest stress, fear, insecurity, a hidden piece of the past or, on the positive side, deep gratitude, happiness, or tranquility. Listen for clues about the origins of these feelings. Pay special attention to whether this information is being offered willingly or hesitantly, for the first time or with trepidation and use these cues as indicators to keep going or back off. Listen especially hard for anything that might require more expertise than you bring to the conversation.

Try: Conduct and thirty-minute “interview” where the only thing you do is ask questions of the other person. Keep your questions brief and to the point—a single sentence should do it most of the time. Have a starting point—the person’s time in the military or in college or growing up in a small town. Listen and follow up with another question. Do not make comments or observations. There are two words you may not use in your questions: “I” and “me.” This discussion is exclusively focused on the other person. See if you can keep it there.