Using questions in knowledge work

KM professionals and facilitators need to understand and appreciate the role and power of questions in knowledge work. Further, we need to be able to apply questions in order to create and discover knowledge. There are some compelling reasons for this including:

• Questions are strong attractors in the chaos of ideas, they gather, focus, attract and energize the conversation.

• Only? questions have the power to beak our current midsets, they set in motion the deep relection needed to alter our beliefs.
• It is the place and the space 'between not knowing and our desire to know' where we are most attentive, self-aware and alive. Questions hold the key to this special area.
• Compelling and quality questions drive knowledge creation and expansion in a fundamental way. Knowledge emerges around good questions.
• Questions energize and glue our conversation, draw people into the circle to participate and gather diverse opinions.
• Questions keep the conversation moving forward, awaken dormant discourse and may be used to guide the subject back on course.

(from Verna Allee)

Questions of clarification

After some material exists in a conversation or dialogue, a questioner may seek to understand the others "frame of reference." Further (according to Hayakawa), the questioner "seeks to avoid. All implications of skepticism or challenge or hostility." The questioner often restates in his or her words what they think they heard and ask the original speaker to confirm that account. There are other more specific question of clarification that may lead from an agreement that the two now have a shared frame of reference.

Purpose questions

Why do we do this? Why did you say that? The motivation or cause is sought.

Prompting questions

"Prompt the interviewee and keep the conversation on track with such questions as, `What do you do first?' `Then what?' and so on, until you come to, "What do you do last?'

Attitude questions

How do you feel about what happened? What way do you see the world? Does that look good to you? What are your preferences in this matter?

Commitment questions

Who's with me on this? Can I count on you? The questions of accountability and responsibility are here. Will you be accountable? Will you share responsibility?

Affirming questions

Was that as good for you as it was for me? Wasn't that fun? Isn't this very good?

Questions of uniqueness or Example questions

Can you give me an illustration of that? Some more concrete way of describing it? Instances, cases, and models are sought here. Hayakawa cites Irving Lee for this category in which you might find questions such as, "Exactly what kind of synthetic plastic did you use in making that product?" Hayakawa says that such questions "are designed to prevent the functional deafness which we induce in ourselves by reacting to speakers and speeches in terms of the generalizations that we apply to them." They ask for the "particular characteristics"

Disagreeing Questions or Questions of Protest

The listener or reader sees the situation another way and asks a question to discern whether the other is aware of another viewpoint. They are often phrased with a negative, "Are there not other ways of looking at this problem?" "Have you dismissed the framework suggested by the previous speaker?" the person seeks clarification but also wishes to announce at the least their disagreement and in some cases the gist of their p.o.v.

Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions are meant not to be answered, but to provoke thought. They are as the Latin author Quintillian categorized them:

• interrogatio - the question which requires no answer because it expresses a truth which cannot be denied

• rogatio - the question to which we immediately supply our own answer
• quaestitio - "a string of questions uttered in rapid succession for emotional emphasis"
• percontatio - "an enquiry addressed to another in a tone of amazement in which it is hard for the other person to figure out how to reply"

Hypothetical

"The use of `would' in a question makes it hypothetical, a possibility for the audience to consider. Here are some examples of hypothetical questions: "What would you do if we had an earthquake right now?" and "How would you handle it if you discovered one of your employees abusing drugs?" Such questions lead the trainer into explaining how the forthcoming training session will provide answers."

Polling

"Polling questions often begin, `How many of you...?' Some examples: `How many of you give good instructions?' and `How many of you have performed CPR?' "

Review questions

These are questions that challenge others to tell what their intake was after some session, class, conversation, or instruction. For example, what do you/we now mean by a CoP?

Summarizing questions

Is there anything that we didn't get to? What did you like best? What is your opinion of this subject now?

Questions, the route to inquiry?

Think of some sets of questions that explore: 1) What you would like to know? 2) Something you would like to say? 3) Can you be of assistance? 4) Going on a journey of discovery? 5) Imagine the possibilities?