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

The Audience: Confrontational questioning is often directed as much at the
audience—a jury, a review board, the general public—as it is at the individual.
Use your questions to articulate and illustrate acceptable versus unacceptable
behavior. Draw the line in the sand. Even if you do not elicit much new
information, your questions can focus attention and get noticed.
The Risk: Confrontational questions can be dangerous. They don’t build
bridges, they often destroy them. Ask these questions carefully, deliberately.
Calculate and be sure you’re right. Falsely accusing someone can kill your
credibility, make you look foolish and empower your adversary. Whether a
brutal dictator or a rebellious teenager, a certain swagger flows from having
survived a challenge and defied authority.
Listen: When you ask about wrongdoing, listen for evasive or distracting
language or words that change the subject or shift blame. Listen for
uncomfortable silences that suggest someone is searching for just the right
words. If you hear that, pounce. Listen for a shred of admission, revelation, or
remorse. That’s when you lean in and ask more.
Try: Attempt some confrontational questioning. A college student stands
accused of plagiarism. She turned in a paper on dying coral reefs. She is a solid
student and has never been in trouble, but a plagiarism app revealed whole
sections of the paper lifted from Wikipedia—word for word. A committee will
hear the case. You’re the prosecuting professor. Write ten questions. Make them
short and precise, each focused on a specific element of the allegation. Do not
ask flatly if the student admits to the charge. Build the case a step at a time.

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CREATIVITY QUESTIONS
Creativity questions encourage people to think about things that go beyond the
familiar. They encourage originality and risk-taking. They ask people to consider
new ideas and imagine new scenarios. They put us in the future tense. They push
boundaries. Creativity questions ask people to imagine ambitiously and think
independently.
The Dream: What would you change? What if there were no limits? What is
your dream?
These are opening questions that grant license and unleash the imagination.
You are asking people to put convention to the side, to set their sights high and
try something new or experiment. These questions inspire people to think big,
over the horizon to imagine new approaches, new definitions. They are the
questions that frame the challenge, set the bar, and loosen the rules.
The Frame: What’s the next Big Thing? How can we eliminate poverty? What
will it take to beat cancer? What’s the unexpected twist in the story? Frame your
question to inspire and to invoke the future. Ask people to imagine a different
and better place. Make the questions inspirational, to shift our gaze from the
weeds to the sky.
Role-Playing: What if you were CEO? What would you do? What if you were
the director making the movie? What would Jeff Bezos think about this
situation? Ask your collaborators to try on another pair of shoes—the shoes of
the decision maker. Ask them to assume responsibility. Your question puts them
in another place. Now they are invested, thinking in a different context and
imagining at another level.