Questions are a powerful thing.
The right queries lead to diagnosing disease, solving crime, unearthing corruption, uncovering scientific knowledge and producing game-changing technology.
Effective, well-timed questions provoke thought, stimulate dialogue, uncover assumptions, invite creativity, explore possibilities, generate momentum, evoke more questions, and create hope, optimism and engagement.
Questions take us to new places.
But they also keep us from going to the wrong place along the journey.
There’s the longstanding, pre-GPS stereotype, based on so much proof, that men won’t ask for directions. They will drive miles out of the way, circle the block dozens of times, and be late for the wedding before they will pull over and admit they are lost.
Journalists simply don’t have the luxury of not appearing stupid.
I have interviewed brilliant scientists and powerful corporate leaders and fast-talking politicians. I have been lost, confused and wondering where to go next, just like that guy behind the wheel.
But unlike him, I had to ask the dumb question.
Usually, they were something like: “Um, I’m afraid you’ve lost me. Could we go back to the part about the molecular makeup of the ….”
Or: “This may be a dumb question, but why did you make that decision?”
Or: “Can you explain this to me just as you would to your elderly aunt?”
These haven’t been my proudest interview moments but these questions kept me from making big mistakes in my story or getting chewed out by an editor because I can’t explain it clearly to her or him.
I tell my journalism students that if they don’t understand something, they can’t possibly write about it with any authority or confidence. That requires the willingness to put pride behind understanding.
When we refuse to ask questions, we are trying to maintain the illusion – perhaps mostly to ourselves – that we have all the answers. Or maybe we don't fully accept that others know something, too.
We all know that person at a party or on a date who talks about themselves endlessly and never asks a question of anyone else. Ugh.
Questions open conversations. Failing to ask them makes people shut down.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons kids are so fun. It’s said that the average four-year-old asks 437 questions a day.
As we get older, we gain knowledge but ask fewer questions.
The best picture fiasco at the Oscars highlighted in front of a billion people why it’s important to ask a question, maybe even a childish one. It was clear to all watching live, that Warren Beatty knew something was wrong.
Instead of passing it off to fellow presenter Faye Dunaway and letting her just blurt out La La Land, he should have acknowledged that he was befuddled and ask for clarification. And she should have questioned why he stood there so awkwardly long without reading the name on the envelope.
Yes, it was live TV and yes, the show was already running late, but lord, a simple, “What the…?” would have avoided a horribly embarrassing moment that will live forever in Oscar history.
There’s no question about that.
–Meredith MacLeod