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OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS

2.  Open-Ended Questions. The second Reflective Listening skill is a little more complicated than Prompting, and it focuses more precisely on missing information that the listener wants to get. It's called Open-Ended Questioning.

The difference between Open-Ended and Close-Ended questions can be stated very simply: the Open-Ended Question cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, and the Close-Ended Question can. For anyone who is interested in eliciting as much information as possible from a speaker, it's obvious which kind of question is going to be more effective: the Open-Ended Question, like the Prompt, encourages the speaker to keep talking, and thus reinforces and Involves him. The Close-Ended Question is designed to elicit only a specific piece of information - which may or may not be the information that you need.

Sometimes it doesn't even elicit that, because it's phrased in a purely rhetorical manner. The rhetorical question - where you don't really want a response - is the worst type of Close-Ended Question, and it's one that demotivating managers use all the time. You know the kind of person I mean. The division sales manager who storms into a meeting of branch managers and announces, "We're going to hit quota this month or all you guys will be getting your resumes retyped. Any questions?"  Rhetoric. Intimidation. And no Involvement.

I used to have constant run-ins with an NFL coach who used this Close-Ended tactic before games. "I want you guys to enjoy yourselves out there," he'd say. "But I don't want any mistakes. If you drop that damn ball one time, and if you don't beat these turkeys' asses, I'm going to sack every last one of you. Do you understand that?" Sure, we understood it. And we understood, too, that he wasn't interested in hearing a response. That's no way to get the best from your people.

Open-Ended Questions never start in this limiting and intimidating way, but with those words that newspaper people appropriately call "openers": who, what, when, where, why, and how. "What are your questions about the new quota we're setting up here?" "When do you think we should put this new DP program on line?" Close-Ended Questions imply that you'd better not have any question. Open-Ended Questions imply that you do have questions and concerns, that they are worth talking about, and that the questioner is sincerely interested in finding out more about your confusion. Because the grammar of the question does not allow a monosyllabic answer, you allow the Person to expand on his or her opinions, to express difficulties and confusions, to provide information rather than a grunted yes or no.

A couple of examples, the first from a factory floor situation.  Say you're confronted by a "slow" worker who just doesn't seem to understand what he needs to be doing to make a new machine operate properly. To get that person's Behavior to change, you could ask either a Closed or an Open-Ended question. Here are the possible choices:

A.  Do you understand what this machine does?
B.   What's your understanding of this machine?

Notice that the A (Closed) version, aside from inviting even a totally ignorant machine operator to say "Sure," also unnecessarily challenges the listener to "prove" his expertise by giving himself an A+ rating on a device he may, or may not, understand. The B (Open) version allows for more hesitancy and humility: it allows the operator who is not absolutely certain of the workings of the machine to admit it, and ask for an explanation.

One caveat, though. Obviously, you could, if you were a particularly vindictive plant manager, make the B version sound pretty nasty, and you could also, if you were particularly attentive to people's reactions, make the A version sound like a real plea for information. To go back to the point I made in the section about nonverbal cues: The appropriate use of Reflective Listening requires an attention not only to grammar, but to nuance and "body grammar" as well.

A second example, from a situation that might confront you as the manager of a computerized marketing department.  You've just signed a trial contract with a software supplier that includes a given amount of on-site training for your people each month. You're excited about the system, but your assistant marketing manager seems hesitant. You might ask her:

A.  Don't you think this software training is exactly what we've
needed?
B.  What do your people think about the new software training?

In this example, the A (Closed) version of the question not only demands a one-word response, it even specifies what that response should be. This is an example of what is often called a "leading question" or a "pre-emptive query," because it preempts the listener's own response by subtly, but very strongly, indicating the "right" answer. This kind of question is the most extreme example of the limited Close-Ended question. It gets very close to being a mere rhetorical question, where the questioner really doesn't want an answer at all, but only silent approbation for his own already-formed opinions. In terms of conversational effectiveness, it has the same negative effect as politically barbed "inquiries" that assume the listener is in accord with the questioner: "You just can't trust the Russians, can you?" or "Don't you hate the new budget?"

By contrast, version B (Open) of this question allows a variety of responses. It's a realistic probe for information rather than a request for rubber-stamping. The political equivalents might include "How do you feel about the new Russian presence in
Angola?" or "What's your opinion of the president's budget cuts?"

Some people, of course, are resistant to providing information, even about their own deep concerns, and I don't deny that there are communicational risks involved in working with Open-Ended Questions. The most obvious, and most prevalent, of these risks is that the person you're asking for "clarification" will say - -or indicate to you without actually saying it - that what you're asking is simply none of your business. That can close you off from him, and make it extremely difficult for you to turn him on to whatever needs to get done.

When you run into this kind of problem - and you will - you might want to resort to a pair of Open-Ended Questions that we have often found to be useful in drawing out the more closed individuals. If Jim is reluctant to tell you "how he feels" about a given issue, we suggest asking him one positive, and one negative question.

The positive question: What do you like about this?
The negative question: What are your concerns about this?

These questions, of course, will not guarantee that Jim will suddenly be transformed into a garrulous, enthusiastic fellow ready to talk with you for days. But they do tend to focus the need here for more feedback and more Involvement. Usually this will turn Jim around. If it doesn't, I suggest backing off and trying another Reflective Listening technique to get him Involved. Let's face it. There are people who see direct, personal questions of any kind as a threat, and there is no point in antagonizing those people just because the Open-Ended Question in general is an effective listening technique.

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