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The Art of Asking Questions

About a month ago I taught my students about how to correctly ask a question to find quality answer, however, when I prepared the materials, I found hidden gem on asking questions. Since then, the portrait of asking questions completely change on me and I try to develop my questioning skills and techniques.


I never thought that asking questions would be an art that people have to master not only to obtain the equitable answers but also to have a valued conversation, furthermore, it could develop our thinking skill and problem solving, in addition, questioning also could be eccentric tools to power innovation and critical thinking, whereas usher to exchange an idea and diminish business risk. HBR in its article revealed that the side effect of asking questions could boost our emotional intelligence which could lead us to be a good questioner.


The shifting that happens in our life from "asking more questions" to "jumping to conclusions" moment has lessened our questioning skills, moreover, the community seems like it does not value the critical questions. Curiosity and novelty could pack us in relearning the art of asking questions therefore in mastering the skill and technique, we have to behold from behavioral scientific research to scout frame questions, withal, deciding how much information we could share during conversation. For instance, Ronald D. Vale stated in his paper that questioning could assist students independent learning in school, in addition, students would like to have their own freedom to ask what they want to know and have the chance to analyze the answers the answer on their own thereafter classify it to their community.


Mastering questioning skill is related to listening skills, furthermore, before asking questions, we have to listen first in order to acquire much information that we can absorb. It is often argued that people are egocentric therefore they try to impress interlocutors without trying to listen and think to ask questions, whereas the caliber conversation is not about impress people but to listen and stay classy. Research suggests that quality conversation have to fulfill two majors objectives: information exchange and impression management, therefore asking questions could be such a beefy tools and listening could be the lovely first step in achieving the objectives.


There are few dos and don'ts in asking questions that we have to thrive, withal, in mastering this skill we have to practice steadily. HBR cleaves the questions into four types, clarifying, adjoining, funneling, and elevating, furthermore, each types have different goals. Clarifying questions assist us to have preferable understanding what has been said. Next, adjoining questions help us to explore further to the questions that are ignored. Then, funneling questions force people to dare the assumptions and to have better understanding the root cause of problems. Finally, elevating questions escalate broader issues and irradiate the bigger picture of the conversation.


In conclusion, asking specific questions need guts in order to achieve high quality of conversation and obtain class answers, moreover, the willingness to seek novel information is likely to start questions that really matter.

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