The Surprising Power of Questions by Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John
- Questioning is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations
- goal of conversation is for favor (liking) or information (learning) - questions help to achieve both
- Experiment pairing high question askers (high volume) and low question askers (low volume)
- low-low: report feeling like parallel play
- high-high: exchange information, but are unproductive
- high-low: can feel like an interrogation, but generally feel more productive
- Four types of questions:
- Introductory (How are you?)
- Mirror (I’m fine. How are you?)
- Full-Switch (changing the subject)
- Follow Up (indulging in topic)
- Their research showed that people are more willing to share sensitive information when asked in decreasing order of intrusiveness
- Questions asked previously can have a big impact on later question
- Norbert Schwarz, University of Southern California: study asking people about satisfaction first about life and then marriage (respondents equated both as the same)
- Tone and formality can influence response
- Casual tone or ‘escape hatch’ to change answers leads to more open responses (eg. brainstorming)
- Group dynamics also matter with openness
- Leslie study shows that respondents that were told other respondents were more forthcoming are 27% more likely to give stigmatized answers to difficult questions
- Alison study shows that people who answer favor the question asker, but third party viewers favor the answerer as they view the question asker as revealing little about themselves.
- Transparency is a vital part of forging connections
- Research by Julie Lane and Daniel Wegner, of the University of Virginia, suggests that concealing secrets during social interactions leads to the intrusive recurrence of secret thoughts
- Columbia’s Michael Slepian, Jinseok Chun, and Malia Mason shows that keeping secrets—even outside of social interactions— depletes us cognitively, interferes with our ability to concentrate and remember things, and even harms long-term health and well-being.
- Leslie conducted research with HBS collaborators Kate Barasz and Michael Norton where she discovered that most people assume that it would be less damaging to refuse to answer a question that would reveal negative information (Have you been reprimanded at work?)
- When respondents took the perspective of the recruiter they were 90% more likely to recommend the person that ‘came clean’
To does
- Are the right people in the room
- Explain the why, inside and out
- Speed runs on preparation
- Stay willing to learn