Screencap of Krishnan Guru-Murthy’s interview of Tim Minchin
The idea that asking good questions is the best way to contribute to learning and intellectual discussions is probably as old as civilization.
I’ve written about the value of questions often on this blog, notably in a post summarizing the six qualities of a good question, the six benefits of asking questions, and the six types of question that can achieve these benefits.
But recently it occurred to me that there’s a seventh quality, benefit, and type:
- Quality: It (the question) challenges conventional or unexamined thinking in an unthreatening and non-confrontational way.
- Benefit: It (potentially) changes minds, worldviews and even what people will do in the future, in profound ways we can’t possibly predict or even imagine.
- Type: Examples: Can you help me understand why…?, or What has led to you to conclude that…?, or What if we instead…?, or even Can I tell you a story that influenced my thinking on…?
It’s really important that our questions be transparent and honest. Nothing will undermine trust and friendship faster than a question that is manipulative, leading, disingenuous, rhetorical, inflammatory, or aggressive. If you’re asking a question, you’d better honestly want to hear the answer, or your question is itself dishonest.
And we are faced with such questions all the time: News headlines (and blog titles) worded as rhetorical questions, ‘outraged’ questions (“How could you/they possibly do/say/think that?”), confrontational questions (“Surely no one could still doubt that…?”), and even those reassurance-seeking endings to assertions (“yes?”, “no?”, “don’t you think?”) that dishonestly press you to agree.
We are all vulnerable to believing unexamined assumptions, especially if everyone we know holds the same beliefs. For years I held certain beliefs about life and government in China, Russia and the Middle East, about squalene and GMO and 9/11 and what actually happened in history and why so many things I thought were simple are actually complex, and about too many other subjects to mention. And in many cases, I didn’t change my mind about them because of persuasive argument or debate. The mind change came from thinking, over time, about questions I’d been asked about them, that challenged my assumptions and understanding.
Asking gentle appropriate non-manipulative questions also seems to be a particularly effective way of changing people’s thinking when that thinking is subject to unconscious biases. These can be minefields, since none of us wants to be embarrassed into admitting such biases (even to ourselves). Questions that I have been asked, or that I have asked others, have been especially effective at quietly surfacing unchallenged misogyny and hatred of groups of all kinds. My subsequent thinking certainly caused me to reexamine and change some of my thinking about various groups of people, and I’m sure I’ve likewise affected others’ thinking by asking questions that let them reflect, rather than confronting them and making them feel shame.
If you want to see the difference between skillful and incompetent asking of questions, watch interviewers and journalists tossing questions at those they’re talking to. The yellow press, including now the NYT and other corporate-captured mainstream media, and of course blogs and social media, are replete with interviewers baiting, haranguing, and spouting their own unchallenged opinions as truth, often in the form of dishonest questions that abuse their interviewees rather than enlightening the interview’s audience.
Competent interviewers don’t lob softball questions, though. They ask questions that reflect the research they’ve done into their subject (and the subjects of the interview) before the interview, and which provide perspective, context, and nuance to the interview, and may also quietly surface the unchallenged biases of the interviewee, the interviewer (not always inadvertently) and even the reading/listening audience.
I’ve included examples of both excellent and execrable interviews in past articles.
And when your question necessarily challenges the person you’re speaking with to question their beliefs, biases or assumptions, allow time and space and hold a safe space for that questioning, rather than ‘cornering’ them and putting them on the defensive. Not always easy to do.
I’m not especially good at asking questions. Like most guys, I suppose (acknowledging my bias here), I tend to be overly eager to state and justify my beliefs in conversations, and hence not allow enough space, not listen (non-judgementally), and not ask enough good questions, to make the conversation as valuable to everyone as it could be. But I’m working on it.
