How to ask questions Tip 14 - Don’t ask questions that aren’t questions

How to ask questions, tip number 14: Don't ask questions that aren't questions. Sometimes, when people ask us things, what they're really doing is making a suggestion, or asking a rhetorical question to which they don't need an answer. Sometimes, they might be accusing us of something. An example of that is, why did you choose the method that caused this project to fail? That's not really a question about why did you choose the method, it's just an opportunity to blame you for causing the project to fail. So when you're asking questions, really make sure that you're asking a question and not trying to do something else. If you ask a question that isn't really a question, what you're doing is possibly making somebody else feel bad. You're damaging your reputation because it's not a sensible question. What you're doing is using a question to further your motives in some other way, to make someone else feel bad, to make an accusation, to show that you already know an answer. And none of those things are really good for us professionally. in our relationships with the people that we work with. So how can you make sure the question you're asking is a real question? Well, first of all, understand what it is that you're trying to achieve. If you're looking for an answer, then you're going to, you know, you're asking a question at that point. So why did you choose that method? That's a question to which you want to know an answer. Why did you choose a method that caused the project to fail? That's an accusation that looks like a question. You don't need to include the second part of that if what you really need is to understand why they chose the method. If you already know the answer to the question, 9 times out of 10, don't ask it because it's taking up time. And if you already know the answer, what's the point of asking it in the first place? So those are some things that you can do to make sure that you are asking questions that are real questions and that you are not just hiding your true purpose and wrapping it up with a question mark at the end. So if you want to ask good questions, make sure that your questions really are questions.