The Truth About The Importance Of Questioning Skills & Active Listening

Asking questions and listening to the answers - sounds pretty simple, right?  Not necessarily. If you’re a parent, you’ll no doubt have traversed the stage where your little cherub would incessantly ask “why” - without always fully taking in the answers.

As adults, we often do pretty much the same thing - sometimes with consequences beyond just driving a parent round the bend - or to drink…



In both our professional and personal lives, learning to ask the right questions and to apply proper focus on listening can have a number of pretty cool benefits, including:

• Reduced conflict
• Increased transparency
• Clearer and more dynamic decision-making
• Increased knowledge and understanding

All of this comes together to form, among other things, some great leadership skills and, in this article, we’re uncovering the truth about the importance of questioning skills and active listening.

The Two Stages

Good personal relationships are all about good communication.  No exceptions!  And it’s not enough just to talk at someone: you must do things properly.

There are two elements to this, and that’s what this article is about:

1. Ask questions, so you control the agenda and get the information you need
2. Listen to people, and to do it actively

Starter For Ten - What Are Questioning Skills?

First off, let’s not confuse this with interrogation skills - we’ll leave those to our esteemed security services. Questioning skills are all about the questions that we ask - and the way that we ask them - in order to gain knowledge, effectively manage a dispute or get to the bottom of a sticky problem. So here, we’ll dive into the art of questioning including what to do - and what not to do.

Open and closed questions: Figuring out the funnel

Whether you’re working in customer support or sales, the most effective way of getting the answers you need is to use the funnel method.



This allows you to drill down to the heart of the matter - and it works something like this:

• Go wide - Your questioning begins at the wide bit of your funnel and this is all about opening the dialogue. At this stage, questions should be open and cover a wide and general angle - for example; a police officer might ask, “What happened here today?” This gets the questioned person talking and furnishes you with a general idea of their thoughts.
• Dig a little deeper - By asking the person to expand on what they’ve told you, you’re still allowing them to express their thoughts freely and will therefore glean more insight from them.
• Tighten up - Once you’ve got the gist of the person’s story or problem, it’s time to get more specific with more probing questions such as “Roughly how old was the perpetrator?” or “Can you tell me the exact problem with the product?” During this stage, you’re looking for clarification (and possibly plot holes if the person is telling porkies).
• The pointy bit - When you get to the sharp end of your funnel, you’re asking super-specific (or closed) questions such as “So, you turned the phone on and it started flashing and beeping and then died?” This lets you confirm what’s been said as well as given the other person the chance to correct or clarify.

By using this method, you’re much more likely to obtain reliable and useful information rather than asking for all of the details all at once.

Are You Listening?

As important as quizzing is, it’s of little use if you don’t know how to listen. Sure, your ears may be working just fine but hearing is not the same as listening - and here’s why. It’s commonly understood that there are five levels of listening which are:

1. Distracted - you don’t actually hear them (you’re not interested!)
2. Disengaged - you don’t retain what they have said (not much better…)
3. Passive - you’ll remember what they’ve said but you don’t engage much (maybe a bit better)
4. Reflective - you offer the idea back to them, maybe mirror their expressions (getting there…)
5. Active – you use eye contact, encourage and clarify (this is where you need to be!)

Being Active

It’s time to focus on Active Listening. which pretty much does what it says on the tin - here, you’re not just hearing but are giving the speaker your full attention and are actually interested in what they have to say. We show this through our body language and by asking questions to clarify that we are fully understanding the message.

OK, so we’re now making Pam from Purchasing feel heard and valued - so far, so good but we need to take this a step further. We need to show empathy, too.  In other words, we don’t just hear and understand the words being said but also the motivation and emotion behind them. This requires us to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes - i.e. figuring out why Pam from Purchasing was so upset that she threw a stapler at Bob. This – and only this – will get to the heart of an issue and make other people feel valued and heard.

Playing It By Ear

It may sound like stating the bleedin’ obvious but questioning and listening are two sides of the same coin and, together, form deeper understanding.  They also allow for better problem solving and build trust among colleagues and employees.

Today, life is busier than ever before and when you’ve got a ten page report to get through, the boiler’s on the blink again and the kids have got colds, it’s sometimes tempting to skim what’s being said to you. Well, we get this but, this is actually a false economy. If we don’t take the time to  ask the right questions – and listen properly to the answers! – we’ll often then have to revisit the issue or subject.  So actually we’ll be doing the job twice.  And need to navigate the consequences in the form of misunderstandings and wrong turnings.



By learning to balance questioning and listening, we’re effectively packing in information in the most efficient way possible while ensuring that others don’t feel dismissed or ignored. So, how do you learn this? Great question. You can start right now by taking on board the points made in this article and becoming more mindful during your day to day interactions.

And don’t forget, if you really want to sharpen up your communication skills, we provide a great (and affordable) online course in questioning skills and active listening that gives you a chance to dig deeper with videos, exercises and workbook content.