Introduction: How to Formulate and Ask Intelligent Questions

Ask Powerful Questions: Create Conversations That Matter

The appropriateness and relevance of the answers you receive depend on the questions that you ask. A question is the vehicle to find out the answer to something – it is a way for you to further your knowledge and gain factual information. American novelist, Thomas Berger once said, “The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.” Learn how to Formulate and ask intelligent questions.

Who Will Benefit from This Post

• Podcasters
• Video interviewers
• Student radio show hosts
• Information interviewers
• Bloggers

UPDATE: First published in December 2012

Have you read?

How to Interview: What I Learned after 20 Years of Interviewing People

How to Formulate Intelligent Questions

As an expert interviewer with over 20 years of experience formulating and asking questions, one of the things I have learned along the way is that how you formulate the question is very much dependent on why you are asking the question in the first place.

People like multiple choice questions because they’re simple, the work has been done for them, so they only have to choose an answer without very much thought, but stay away from them – they are for exams and surveys. Multiple choice questions seldom further your knowledge.

The 5 Ws and one H (Who, What, Where, When, Why and How) is an effective journalism, research and information gathering tool. To formulate intelligent questions, start them with any of the 5 Ws and one H, Who, What, Where and When. They allow you to gather information that you need.

Questions beginning with Why and How allow you to get more thoughtful responses and are also more analytical in nature. These types of questions prevent you from getting yes-no responses or any other one word answers because they are open-ended questions.

Think about the information that you require, then formulate your questions using Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.

How to Ask Intelligent Questions

Once you have formulated your intelligent questions, to ask them, use the following as a guide:

• Be direct.
• Listen more, talk less and be comfortable with silence.
• Ask follow-up questions.
• Ask for clarification.
• Do not be afraid to ask what others deem as ‘dumb’ questions.

Examples of Formulating and Asking Questions

I have been getting consistent writing assignments from Mandate magazine, a United Church of Canada (UCC) publication. I will be using two assignments from the organization as examples and another one.

A few months, I was asked to interview a high-ranking church official, then to write a 600-word article for Mandate magazine. I was asked to watch a YouTube video, read his biographical statement and an article from another UCC publication. I was not given any further guidance and I had autonomy about what to do.

As someone with over 20 years of interviewing experience, I asked myself what was not covered in other interviews. The interviewee is well known in the UCC. I’m a member of Trinity St. Paul’s United Church, so I wanted the final story to be engaging and I wanted to make the Church Moderator sound human. With those end goals in mind, I thought about the kinds of questions to ask that would give me the kind of information I would need to work with.

Three of the questions I asked, “What makes you tick?”; “What is something that most people don’t know about you?”; and “What are three books that influenced you?” In case you are wondering, I did ask some questions relevant to his role. The kind of information I got was so rich, filled with many quotable nuggets. Since the final product was an article, with the kind of information that I had, I spent a lot of time thinking about where to enter the story about the Moderator. I loved the way the project turned out and so did my client. I handed in the assignment 18 days early.

As a member of the target audience I mentioned above, crafting and asking the right questions are critical to your success. You may not be thinking about this, but down the road, you may decide to use information from the interviews to publish something. If you have done a good job getting good information, you will have enough content to work with.

Another project that I am working on is to write two book study guides for Mandate magazine. Part of the guide is to include good discussion questions for book clubs to use. As mentioned, I haven’t completed the assignment yet, but since I had never done anything like this before, I practiced with other books that I read. This time, the question I asked myself was what would book club members be interested in discussing, and was the information important? With that goal in mind, when I was reading, I was looking out for the types of passages that met the goal. This example is very different from the previous one.

The final example that I would like to share is a common type of project that I work on in my consulting practice. Clients often hire me to interview their clients then craft the responses to the questions into success stories. A specific example is that a women’s organization was looking for a unique way to celebrate its 15th anniversary. They decided to interview some of their members with the goal of showing their funders that the programs and services they deliver are in demand and have impact. The final product would be an anniversary booklet that was also a keepsake.

Once again, I had to formulate questions that would give me the kind of information that I needed to meet the client’s goals. Two critical questions I asked the members of the organization that I interviewed, were about the programs they participated in and the impact it had on their careers. This was necessary to build a business case to present to funders. The anniversary booklet was a success and I was contracted again to do something similar for their 20th anniversary.

These three examples of formulating questions are very different. Although you may never have to work on similar assignments, if you notice the common thread is always thinking about what information you need in the end, and what questions can get you that information.

Final Thoughts on How to Formulate and Ask Intelligent Questions

In another post, we will look at how to conduct an interview, and will further delve into how to ask questions. A book that comes highly recommended is Ask: The counterintuitive online formula to discover exactly what your customers want to buy…create a mass of raving fans…and take any business to the next level by Ryan Levesque.

Have you read?

How to Interview – What I Learned after 20 Years of Interviewing

Action Steps to Take

1. Use the tips when conducting your next interview.
2. Share this article on your favorite social media platform.
3. If you think I can help you on any related projects, please do not hesitate to contact me.

This article contains Amazon affiliate links, which means if you click on a link and buy any of the books or other products from Amazon, the company will pay me a small commission.

AskA More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough IdeasAsk Powerful Questions: Create Conversations That Matter

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