5 types of questions to ask
 
Investigative: What’s Known? When facing a problem or opportunity, the best decision-makers start by clarifying their purpose, asking themselves what they want to achieve and what they need to learn to do so.
 
Speculative: What If? These questions help you consider the situation at hand more broadly, reframing the problem and exploring outside-the-box solutions.
 
Productive: Now What? Assessing the availability of talent, capabilities, time, and other resources ultimately helps you determine a course of action. 
 
Interpretive: So, What? This natural follow-up can push you to continually redefine the core issue—to go beneath the surface and draw out the implications of an observation or idea.
 
Subjective: What’s Unsaid? This final question deals with the personal reservations, frustrations, tensions, and hidden agendas that can push decision-making off course.

This tip is adapted from “The Art of Asking Smarter Questions,” by Arnaud Chevallier et al.

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