The Importance of Asking Good Questions
When visiting a faraway city, I wasn't sure how much time I'd need to get to my flight home the next day. I decided to use my uncertainty as an exercise in the seminar I was presenting. I handed out slips of paper and asked seminar participants to write down their opinions of how long I should allow to get to the airport by 6:30 p.m. In the spirit of ambiguity, I didn't say what time my flight was.
In addition to my flight time, there were lots of things people might have wanted to know before responding, such as whether I'd be checking luggage, whether I'd be taking a taxi to the airport or using public transportation, and whether I'd be checking in online or at the airport. But no one asked a question before writing a response.
Kids ask questions nonstop. When they become adults, they ask fewer questions, and sometimes none at all. Yet questions are the best way to gain insight, develop understanding, and solve problems. In this classroom situation, I'd deliberately omitted essential details, but everyone immediately began writing their response. Not a single question arose from this group.
Judging from their written responses, which I reviewed that evening, some students seemed sure of themselves, such as the person who responded, "You need to leave by 3:45." Overconfidence, however, is often a dangerous trait that can lead one to ignore or dismiss relevant information. Certainty that you're right is often the first step in the wrong direction.
Some students made assumptions, such as the person who described where to exit the building to get a taxi, how much time to allow to reach the airport, and even "Bring your suitcase to class tomorrow"—all based on an assumption about the flight departure time. Making too many assumptions in the context of problem-solving is always risky.
Some students seemed unwilling to raise questions in the presence of others, perhaps for fear of sounding stupid or appearing weak, naïve, or indecisive. For example, one student used the slip of paper I'd provided to ask which airline, whether I'd have baggage, how I'd be getting to the airport, and—aha—what time the flight was. Following these questions was a statement of how long before the flight I should leave for the airport, as if the answers to these questions were irrelevant.
The exercise proved to be a good springboard the next day for a discussion of the importance of asking questions, and being as thorough as possible in doing so, especially in the workplace.
Of course, because I was the one who had asked about getting to the airport on time, it would have been my responsibility to be thorough in asking if I were going to depend on the answers I got. Fortunately, as a result of the lively discussion with the students, I made it to my flight in plenty of time.
