Written by Darren Smith 

We have all participated in a meeting with another individual or group where a lot of talking occurred and no result was generated. The intention was there and for some reason nothing came of the meeting. Have you ever wondered how this happens?

In order to explain how this happens, you have to start at the beginning, so here it goes...

Let's say the purpose of your meeting is to think of ways to improve the organization. A participant may suggest the organization needs to improve recruitment and retention. A logical response from the group would be, "Why do you say that?" Two scenarios tend to play out:

1.  The participant is put on the defensive and they stop thinking.

2. The participant responds back with an "off the shelf answer," unfortunately of no real value, like "improving recruitment and retention will increase morale."

What do you do instead?

You ask the participant questions to gain information, ideas and answers. The type of questions that help people think and in turn generate the best information, ideas and answers are strategic inquiry questions. You take words used by the participant and add "who, what, how or if" to them to form your question.

How does this work?

Meeting participant - "We need to improve our recruitment and retention."

Your strategic inquiry questions - Who needs to improve our recruitment and retention? We need to improve our recruitment and retention in what way? How do we need to improve our recruitment and retention? If we improved our recruitment and retention what would happen?

Strategic inquiry questions help you create more depth and movement in your interactions with others to generate insights you normally could step over and miss when using "why."

Do you understand why?