Best of IdeaCast: To Build Stronger Teams, Ask Better Questions
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Listen to new episodes of Women at Work every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Curt Nikish. Over my career as a journalist, I've experienced how questions lead to insights and stronger connections between people. Sometimes it's getting someone to say clearly what has to be said. Other times it's an avenue to emotional truth or empathy.

Thank you.

We've heard how questions can unlock value in organizations and among teams. Still, the art and science of asking questions are a neglected pursuit for a lot of people. So for this episode, we're bringing back a great conversation from 2018 with Harvard Business School professors Allison Woodbrooks and Leslie John. They wrote the HBR Magazine article, The Surprising Power of Questions, and spoke to IdeaCast host Sarah Green Carmichael about it.

I hope you enjoy it and that without question, it does you some good in 2025. So let's just start by talking about what's the benefit to asking good questions in business. Actually, a better question might be, what isn't the benefit of asking questions in business because the benefits are so abundant? Let me start simply by saying that most people do not ask enough questions and they're missing out on many, many benefits.

including that asking questions opens up the door for the exchange of information. When I ask you questions, you're going to answer most likely, and I'm going to learn what's in your mind. So that's information exchange. It's very valuable. In addition to information exchange, we know that asking questions increases interpersonal liking.

because I'm showing that I'm interested in learning what's in your mind, I seem very responsive to you and empathic and I'm taking your perspective and I care about you and that's likable. We also know that asking questions increases persuasion. Again, because I'm taking your perspective, instead of trying to sell, sell, sell, I'm learning what you need and then I can deliver that to you.

Lots of benefits. But one of the, I think, really fascinating insights of Allison's research on this topic is that people don't appreciate this. So it's not obvious to us. We don't... We really...

underestimate the value and the power of questions. Yeah, people in conversations are aware of how many questions they've asked and how many questions other people have asked, but they don't intuit the link between question asking and liking persuasion and information exchange. It's just not obvious, which is part of the reason that we probably don't ask enough questions. We don't understand the abundant benefits that await us. It does surprise me to hear you say that

people don't somehow understand the link between asking questions

and becoming more likable because that is like some of the dating advice that you always get, right? Is ask lots of questions. I did this when I had unsuccessful online dating many years ago. I would be like, I'm going to make it a point of asking lots of questions because I think, you know, that's how I'm going to get date number two. No, no dates number two. It really, I don't know what I was doing wrong. Something. I think there's like potentially an interesting irony here in that

when you really want something like or like for example a dating context if you go into a first date and you're really drawn to the person I think instinctively we kind of go into this cell mode this mode of like we need to tell them stuff about ourselves to make them like us but I

But I think that in many ways, and the research points to this, that this is kind of a flawed mental model where actually if we get them talking, they're going to like us more because of the point of Allison, one of her findings that people just don't realize that. We think we're kind of maybe too self-focused in all of this. So what are some of the questions you guys have found that are really effective? So in situations where someone may be tempted to lie to you,

If you ask a question that presupposes the thing that they don't want to tell you to be true,

That's a more effective strategy to getting them to tell you the truth than a question that does the opposite. So an example would be, imagine you're, this is really simple, imagine you're talking to a supplier and you're wondering whether the supplier is going to deliver on time. So the sensitive piece of information that the supplier may be reticent to divulge is that, no, we're not going to be on time. So you could ask them, you could say, you're going to be on time, right?

That is kind of an optimistic assumption. Or you could say, I'm guessing you might be kind of late, right? And that would be a pessimistic assumption. So it's easier for the supplier to tell the truth when you ask it in a pessimistic way because they just have to kind of confirm something. Whereas if you ask them in the optimistic way, it's harder for the supplier to admit to that thing.

So they have to contradict you. They have to be like, actually, we're going to write. The basic point is that you want to make it easy for the other party in these competitive situations. You want to make it easy for them to tell you the thing that's hard for them to tell you.

And so you can think about how you structure your questions in a way so that it helps them to disclose essentially. What about, uh, sort of differences between open-ended questions versus closed questions? Cause usually in my job, uh,

As an interviewer, I try to ask lots of open-ended questions, but are there situations where those are not as effective as a sort of tighter, closed question? Yeah. So it depends on your goals. And I think if you're interviewing somebody or you're trying to brainstorm or figure out what their interests are, asking open-ended questions, the way they answer those questions will be indicative of what's on their minds, right? You're giving them a...

long leash to decide like how am I going to answer this now if you shift to a more competitive conversation where people will be guarded about the information they have then pointed questions can be very effective at trying to suss out the truth it's it's very hard to lie explicitly to someone's face when I say okay you're selling me this used iPod has it been damaged in the past

It's so much harder to say no right to my face with a yes, no question than if I say, tell me about the history of this iPod. Then you can lie by omission quite easily. Another type of question that I want to make the case for that's so magical and powerful is the follow-up question.

So here we're talking about very specific examples and scenarios where certain types of questions will be good. Follow-up questions are almost always good. Okay? They show that you're listening to what the person has already said. You're probing for more information, which shows that you listened.

You care and you want to know more, which is like the whole embodiment of empathy and perspective taking. So you seem like a very caring person and you're smart because you're going to learn more information. It's like all of the good things wrapped up into one question asking strategy. I think we are now realizing why I did not get any second dates. I think I was not asking follow-up questions. Ah, yes. I was simply asking like random a list of questions. Okay. Okay.

So why is the follow-up question, I will try to ask a follow-up question about follow-up questions. Good job, you're doing great. Why are follow-up questions so much more powerful than other kinds of questions? So questions that are not follow-up questions, we would classify, they're either an introductory question, so like, hi, how are you? Or rhetorical questions that don't even really demand a response. But most of the time, questions that are not follow-up questions are topic-switching questions. So I might say things like, where are you from? Listen, listen, listen, listen.

Do you like the band U2? Listen, listen, listen, listen. So it feels like you're working your way down a list of topics, which is okay, but it would be much more engaging and interesting to say, where are you from? Oh, I've been to Tuscaloosa. Do you live in this neighborhood? I had a friend who was from there. Where, you know, where did you grow up? What were your parents like? What did your house look like? What do you regret about growing up there? All kinds of follow-up questions that make it really engaging.

Almost all of our effects of question asking are explained by the power of follow-up questions. It sounds like a lot of this advice is sort of context dependent. So if you have an adversarial relationship or you think that the person might lie to you, you need to take a different approach. What if you're not exactly sure where you stand with someone that maybe you work together but not always very well and you're not sure if this person is a friend or an enemy or like a frenemy?

You sound like you're talking from experience, Sarah. I think we've all had relationships, especially at work, where we're not exactly sure where we stand. No, I think we've almost constructed this false dichotomy where we presume that everyone knows you're in a cooperative conversation or a competitive one. And that each is one or the other. Right. And in fact, most conversations are mixed goals. You have a cooperative goal to have fun and enjoy your interactions with others. Usually there's some sort of

conflict goal, even among managers and their direct reports, if you have to give feedback, constructive feedback, if you have to evaluate performance, if you have to negotiate a salary. And oftentimes, you don't really know what is the mix of cooperative and competitive goals in this interaction that we're in right now. So your question is a good one. How do we navigate this? I will argue that in almost every scenario, whether it's cooperative or competitive, asking questions doesn't hurt.

It hurts a lot less than people think. So we're very reticent to ask questions because we're afraid that we're going to ask something that's rude or incompetent or inappropriate. And in our results, in our findings, we find that there are very few questions that people perceive as rude, incompetent, or inappropriate. And then especially follow-up questions. So just start somewhere, listen to their answer, and then follow up. And that will work in almost any situation.

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When is it better to ask the tough question first versus sort of warming someone up to it and then building up to the moment where you ask what you really want to ask them? Yeah, so there's one of my favorite...

pieces of research is this Arthur Aaron's work. It's a classic on how he and his co-authors brought people into the lab and they got people to ask questions to each other and they instructed the dyad. So they put participants into little groups of two. They didn't know each other before the study and they got each group of two to ask each other questions and

They started with kind of the safest questions, the less disclosive questions first, and then they gradually got into kind of deeper and deeper questions like what's your biggest regret in life and really kind of hefty stuff.

And they found that relative to control situations, that getting people to ask questions to each other and to share in this way of like increased revelation produced liking among these dyads. But then as a counterpoint,

We have some research where we ask people questions. Now, these were different types of questions. These were very direct questions. And we systematically varied the order in which we ask people a question. So some people started with kind of the easiest questions first and they got progressively harder. Other people we started with the hardest questions first and they got progressively easier. And.

And then we had another version where people were just asked in kind of a random order. And in contrast to what Aaron found, we actually found that people disclosed more when you started with the most sensitive questions.

My conclusion or one conclusion is that if you sort of warm up and start with these easy questions and then you gradually build rapport, but we found that the opposite can lead to more revelation. And so you think about, well, how do you square away these two different findings? And one way that we have been thinking about it comes down to this goal of the interaction. So if the goal is to foster a relationship and it's a very cooperative environment, then

starting with the easing your way into things, I think is conducive to accomplishing that goal. But if on the other hand, the goal is a competitive situation where the goal is information elicitation, then

then starting with the most sensitive questions can increase disclosure overall. It's, again, though, not without its risks. Like if the first question you ask is extremely sensitive, you risk really offending the person and having them walk away from you. So not without its risks. And there's a lot going on with tone too, right? Talk to us a little bit about sort of how to ask these questions, not just what you ask. Well, we've found that, especially when you're asking for a sensitive question, our...

Right.

the more worrisome it is for that person to disclose. And so what we find is that if you're a little more casual about it and nonchalant about the way you ask questions, that can make the other party more comfortable responding to your questions.

What are some of the ways in which the dynamics are different when you're in a group versus when you're just interviewing or talking to someone one-on-one? Conversational dynamics change profoundly when the group gets larger. And question-asking dynamics change in particular.

It depends on the composition of the group. Are there men, women? What are their ages? Who's the leader? What are their status relationships? There are norms around all of these things about who should be asking questions, who's expected to ask questions, and who's expected to answer them. And any time that you can break those norms, so if you're expected to answer questions, why not try asking one instead? Any time you can break those norms, I think it keeps things engaging and interesting. It also introduces...

host of problems potential problems if you think of if you think of a goal an important goal of asking and answering questions, of course information sharing and when I think of Group contexts you have new risks including the loudest voices are the ones that That are heard or the people put differently the people that are most comfortable speaking up in groups are the ones that that say things but

your comfort in speaking up in groups is unrelated to the, oftentimes I would venture to say is unrelated to

whether you have good things to say. And so you have this, if you're trying to get diverse perspectives, intelligent things said, it can be a worry in group contexts is that kind of a few dominating personalities end up doing all the talking. And they may have good things to say, but it may also be to the neglect of hearing from people who also have good and diverse additional points to contribute.

One thing we see with our students a lot, and I think this happens in a lot of work contexts as well, and Leslie and I are both young women faculty members, that certain members of the group, and this happens with women, and I think just young people broadly or maybe low status people, feel like they need to have something really great to say. Like they need to have a brilliant statement to make in order to speak up and say something in a group context.

Turns out that it's really, really useful to just be the person who asks questions that might open a new important topic area or guide the conversation in a useful way. So if you are put on the spot by someone's question, um,

What is a kind of a good way to prepare for that? Because on the one hand, we're giving advice to managers to help them ask more questions, to get more information, be more likable. That sounds great. But if managers listen to this and go back to their offices and are suddenly like asking a million questions...

What should their teams know about kind of this new communicating with them? They're going to like them better, so maybe it doesn't matter. I think about this a lot. In any situation, there are questions that you hope no one asks you because you know it will make you feel better.

really nervous and really uncomfortable on the spot. Many of those questions can be anticipated. Almost always they can be anticipated. You just have to ask yourself, like, what are the things someone could ask me that will keep me up at night that will make me feel awful?

And write them down, right? So if you have an important presentation, an important meeting, and there are questions that you're afraid someone will ask, don't run away from that. Confront it. Write them down. Write down pithy, succinct responses to them. Practice saying the answers out loud or practice your dodges out loud. For any question that you could possibly get, there is a way to answer it.

And there's a way to dodge it. So just not being surprised and caught off guard is a huge help in those moments. I totally agree. Preparation is so important. And also the act of preparation, the self-reflection, I think you can learn a lot about yourself and about the situation just by doing that preparation.

My, for what it's worth, my favorite go-to of when I gasp, haven't prepared or don't know what I'm going to say and I'm asked a question, I don't know what to say. My favorite line of defense is deflection by question asking. Yeah.

Why do you ask? Or what do you think? Yeah. What do you think? Or in class, does everybody think this? You know, there's the deflection by question, I think, is whenever and it also whenever I'm in a bind in that in that, you know, I being asked a question that I don't know how to answer, it's.

It's a good kind of back pocket go to strategy. Yeah, I will say two more strategies, quick strategies. One is if you can practice your humor skills, jokes are a really, really easy way to dodge things because people are so distracted laughing that they forget what question was asked and that you didn't answer it.

And the second thing is use sparingly. It's OK to be honest that you don't know an answer. And I think a lot of professors actually forget this and managers as well. It's OK to reveal that you're not superhuman and have all the answers in the world. So use sparingly. It can actually be very humbling.

humble, a great humility strategy to say like, wow, that's a great question. I actually hadn't thought of that before. Let me go back to my team. Let me go back to my office and reflect about it. And I'll get back to you later today. One thing not to do is kind of explicitly opt out of answering. So a survey that would be, you know, checking the I choose not to answer box, but in a conversation, if someone asks you a pointed question, you don't answer it is saying, oh,

I don't want to answer that or in some way conspicuously not answering the question. So we found that that strategy is actually worse than saying something really unflattering about yourself. So it's actually better if you're faced with a question where if you answer it truthfully, it might reveal some unglamorous fact about yourself or

we find that if you just come clean and answer it, you'll come off better. People will like you more. They'll think you're more trustworthy relative to if you completely opt out of answer, if you conspicuously abstain from answering. So if you're in a job interview and someone's like, well, I see you left your last job after only working there a month. What's going on? I don't want to talk about it. Right. That's like a big waving red flag. So just come up with something to say in that moment is what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, is there anything that we really should have covered that we haven't covered? That's a great question. That's a particularly good question. A very open-ended one. Yes. I think one thing that's been under the surface of this whole conversation is the importance of listening. Listening enables you, being a good listener enables you to both ask questions effectively and answer questions effectively effectively.

And one of the ways I was thinking of that playing out is when you asked, what happens if you ask a question that you don't want to know the answer to or that you don't care to know the answer to? A risk of that is you're going to shut yourself off and maybe not listen. And then if you don't listen, you're not opening yourself up to learning more and in turn asking better questions and answering questions more effectively.

Those were Harvard Business School professors Allison Wood Brooks and Leslie John speaking with former IdeaCast host Sarah Green Carmichael in episode 631. Just one of the over 1,000 episodes with timeless advice to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career. Find those and more at hbr.org slash podcasts or search HBR on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Thanks to our team, senior producers Mary Du and Anne Sani, associate producer Hannah Bates, audio product manager Ian Fox, and senior production specialist Rob Eckhart. Thank you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. I'm Curt Nickish.