From Chip Heath’s Decisive
How to ask questions to get trustworthy information.
- “This practice of asking probing questions is useful when you are trying to pry information from people who have an incentive to spin you: salesmen, recruiters, employees with agendas, and so on.”
- “Asking tough, disconfirming questions like these can dramatically improve the quality of information we collect“
- “For example, Ray Rothrock, a venture capitalist with Venrock, says that one of the best diagnostic questions he’s discovered in assessing entrepreneurs is “How many secretaries has this entrepreneur had in the past few years?” If the answer is five, chances are you’ve got someone with some issues.”
- “When you are at a recruiting dinner with a couple of lawyers from the firm, don’t just ask them, “So, do you folks have any kind of life outside of work?” They will chuckle, say “sure,” and ask if you want more wine. Instead, ask them how many times last week they had dinner with their families. And then ask them what time dinner was served. And then ask them whether they worked after dinner.
Ask them what their favorite television show is or what is the last good movie they saw. If they respond, respectively, Welcome Back, Kotter and Saturday Night Fever, you will know something’s wrong.… When a lawyer tells you that he gets a lot of interesting assignments, ask for examples. You may be surprised at what passes for “interesting” at the firm.”
And when a lawyer tells you that associates are happy at the firm, ask for specifics. How many associates were hired five years ago? How many of those associates remain at the firm? Who were the last three associates to leave the firm? What are they doing now? How can you contact them?” - “The researchers wondered what it would take for the sellers to disclose the freezing problem. The buyers in the negotiation, who were cronies of the researchers, tried three different strategies. When the buyers asked about the iPod, “What can you tell me about it?,” only 8% of the sellers disclosed the problem. The question “It doesn’t have any problems, does it?” boosted the disclosure to 61%. The best question to ask, in hopes of discovering the truth, was this one: “What problems does it have?” That prompted 89% of the sellers to come clean.”
- “In some organizations, hiring managers have become smarter about reference calls. Some ask the references for additional people to contact who weren’t on the original list. Those secondary interviews will tend to yield more neutral information. Other people have reconsidered the kinds of questions they ask in reference calls. Rather than ask for an evaluation of the candidate (“Would you say Steve’s performance was closer to ‘stunning’ or ‘breathtaking’? Be honest.”), many firms now seek specific factual information.”
- “How do you know whether to ask probing questions or open-ended ones? A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, “What’s the most likely way I could fail to get the right information in this situation?” Generally, it will be obvious what the answer is: If you’re buying a used car, you’re most likely to fail by not discovering a flaw of the vehicle, or if you’re a vice president seeking feedback from factory workers, you’re most likely to fail by not uncovering what they really think. You can tailor your questions accordingly—more aggressive in the used-car negotiations and more open-ended with the factory worker.”
“Sometimes we think we’re gathering information when we’re actually fishing for support. Take the tradition of calling people’s references when you want to hire them. It’s an exercise in self-justification: We believe someone is worth hiring, and as a final “check” on ourselves, we decide to gather more information about them from past colleagues. So far, so good. Then we allow the candidate to tell us whom we should call, and we dutifully interview those people, who say glowing things about the candidate, and then, absurdly, we feel more confident in our decision to hire the person. (Imagine if we bought a time-share because the salesman had three awesome references.)”