I’m a big believer in the value of Precision Questioning. It’s the practice through which individuals use highly structured question & answer techniques to solve complex problems and ultimately, make difficult decisions. As a Manager, I use precision questions and answers to quickly get to the heart of an issue or maintain my focus, when dealing with reports, peers or managers.
One key challenge with Precision Questioning (PQ), is that one may come off as being abrupt or too direct – the first few times a manager used this technique on me – I was pretty flustered. I thought I’d done something wrong because the questions just kept coming and I would often get cut off before I had a chance to formulate a good response. I learned later, that he was using PQ – and probably expected me to provide very precise responses to his questions. When “drilling” into a particular issue, with others, it’s important for PQ practitioners to avoid the use of personalization (blame or shame). Precision questioning holds to the ideal of meeting one’s own needs for information while also respecting the intellectual integrity of the conversation-partner. Most people struggle with this issue – we don’t fully understand how to soften the impact of our precise questioning, without losing focus.
Here’s a sample scenario that I picked up from a PQ training resource
Suppose you are meeting with a customer or business partner to understand their requirements for a solution to a complex problem we are trying to solve for them. As Precision Questioners, going into the situation you know two things: once you understand the big picture, most of your questions will need to be precise, and you will often need to ask follow-ups. If you don’t yet have a well established working relationship with the other party, it’s important develop a rapport and start building new layers of trust. So here’s the issue: how can we be as precise as our work requires and, at the same time, do our best to preserve rapport. This matters for two reasons. Over and over, our effectiveness in team meetings depends on our ability to be socially astute and, at exactly the same time, intellectually precise. This combination of abilities is also crucial to our success as managers.
Try using short preambles
When we are on social terrain that isn’t stable, preambles can help clear a pathway for our questions.
“Sorry to interrupt. I didn’t phrase that very well. Let me ask the question differently.”
“That’s interesting. I’d like to understand your last point better. Are you saying…?”
“Thank you, that’s helpful. It brings up another question. Do you have…?”
Keep it brief. A long preamble can make a question harder to understand, not easier. When communicating face-to-face, this relationship-building might be nothing more than a nod of the head, brief eye contact, or a simple “OK.”
Understand the hidden dangers of extreme conciseness
As Precision Questioners many of us prefer to word our questions as concisely as possible, like this: “How did you structure your sample?” rather than this: “What steps did you take to make sure that, in such a diverse domain, your sample was truly representative of the group as a whole?” It’s the same question either way. Even so, many of us assume that the fewer the words, the greater the clarity. Maybe; maybe not.
What we need to understand is that, in many situations – particularly when we are communicating across cultures or talking into a speakerphone – a question that is worded concisely can be extremely difficult for an audience to hear and to interpret correctly. The conciseness catches them by surprise. Above all we need to understand that when a question is super-concise, on the receiving end it will often feel like a poke in the ribs. All that verbiage in “what steps did you take to make sure that…” sometimes serves a real purpose. Like a preamble, it softens the question without erasing the precision.
Slow down
When an audience isn’t on our wave length, the worst thing we can do is to think and speak like a machine gun. It’s not a justification to say “well, it’s my natural communication style.” What about their “natural style” as listeners? The faster we ask, the more impatient we sound, and the more angry. This starts a downward spiral of mutual misinterpretation, which ends up creating relationship issues that might be more challenging than the work itself.
Sacrifice precision? Only as a last resort
Let’s go back to that meeting with a customer where our priority is clarifying requirements. Given the complexity of the situation, it’s possible that, at some point in the discussion, we might decide it’s better to keep our questions open-ended and drop any expectations we might have had for Precision Answering. Perhaps that’s the best we can do. But how do we know? How do we know we aren’t just following the path of least resistance? How do we know we aren’t missing an opportunity to take the work – and the relationship – to a higher level?
Here’s the test. After the meeting is over, we ask ourselves: Was I actively trying to improve the discussion? What specifically did I try? What will I do differently the next time? When is the next time? Reflective questions like these help us deepen our social as well as our intellectual abilities.
Continuous Learning & Re-learning
I decided to write this post because I hosted a very important meeting yesterday, and frankly I know I could have done a better job of communicating with my audience. I didn’t respond to some questions very clearly, primarily because I didn’t take the time to understand what was being asked. I re-learned the importance of slowing down, maintaining composure and using precision questions to provide insightful, precise Reponses.
Enjoy the weekend,
Servant Leader
