The question as a listening tool

Maybe you never thought of asking questions as a listening skill. After all, when you are questioning, you are speaking. That's true, but you are speaking with a view to eliciting information, so it is part of the listening process.

There are two kinds of question, each with its specific purpose:

Closed questions: those that can be answered with a single word or phrase. e.g. "Will you be at the meeting?" Answer: yes or no. Or "How many people will be at the meeting?" Answer: six. Use closed questions to get confirmation of facts.

Open questions: those that need more than a single word or phrase as an answer. e.g. "What are your thoughts on this?" or "How could we introduce this new method in our department?" or "Why should we be concerned about this development?" Use open questions when you want to broaden the discussion and encourage people to say more on a subject.

When someone makes a statment like, "We need better communication around here," ask some pointed questions before reacting. You might, for example, ask, "What specifically do you mean by that?" or even "What would you suggest?" This automatically separates the whiners from those raising serious issues.