Create Your Question Palette
There are as many questions as there are colors on a color palette, but like the artist’s medium, every question shares common shades, hues, and primary color variations. By necessity every painter uses colors, but with those givens, they create a palette that serves their eye’s style and their subject’s presentation. The accomplished questioner can do the same by building a palette of queries that rest, as it were, at the ready to be used, and mixed like colors, in a given conversation. You can build your palette by composing generic questions like the examples below. Consider them the basic colors that you’ll mix and accent as you use them. Belabored metaphors aside, practice makes proficiency. Or put another way, what do you have to lose by learning to ask better questions?
- What are you excited about? Why does that excite you?
- What are you discouraged about? Why does that discourage you?
- What is your biggest challenge right now?
- What would change in your work, family, friendship, etc. if you overcame it?
- What is at the root of that challenge?
- What are you better at than you thought you were?
- What are you not as good at as you had hoped?
- Who are the most involved and helpful folks around you? What do they have in common?
- Who is around but not involved or even obstructive? What do they have in common?
- What area in your life has the most potential right now?
- What kinds of things do you just not know how to approach?
- What do you find yourself dealing with reactively most often?
- What areas of life/work do you most often get to last minute? Or simply ignore?
- What parts of your dreams are in the best shape? Which are in the worst shape?
- What commitments or opportunities might need to be cut or added?
- What is more difficult than you thought it would be?
- What does success look like in 7 years? How would you feel if that happened? Didn’t?
- What areas do you want to process first? Why?
- What is your most common emotion?
- How often do you pray with your spouse, friends, or roommate?
- Can we look at your schedule for the last month?
- Where can we get some beer? (If they have no answer you may leave.)
Thank you for trekking through this journey into asking well. Please allow me to end by asking how the Title Question for this series could be improved? I’m asking for a friend.
