Is everything fully known? So many times, we are thinking about what type of questions to ask. Asking the right questions can help us clarify our confusion and better understand our understanding. Questioning is a surprisingly powerful tool that enables us to learn and exchange information and ideas. It also fuels performance and innovation improvement. Asking questions appropriately and considering the individual’s ethnic/racial background is paramount. Different cultures have distinct viewpoints, and the tone and how the questions are asked make a difference. Therefore, researching before interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds can help to ask good questions and increase people’s cultural intelligence.

Information is like a river; in the river of ideas, relationships, and news constantly changing, people need to adapt accordingly. As stated by Peavey (1997), “Dipping into the river one day brings up different perspectives than the next day because the river has moved on with one more day of experience and thinking” (Peavey, 1997). As a result, individuals who would like to know and learn new things must ask questions to stay up to date with their knowledge.

What is Strategic Questioning? 

Strategic questioning is the answer that can make a difference because it is a powerful tool for social and personal development and change. Strategic questioning helps individuals to discover their ideas and strategies for change. It involves a particular type of questioning and listening, and this type of questioning individuals can use to help co-workers, friends, their neighbors, and people in the surrounding. Strategic questioning looks for solutions to any problem because it opens another point of view, invokes exceptional creativity, considers new information and possibilities, and forges new strategies for resolving challenges.

Questioning empowers ownership of the new information that will stay with the individual. As Peavey (1997) noted, “Learning how to ask strategic questions is a path of transforming this passive and fearful inquiry into the world into a dynamic exploration of the information around us and the solutions we need. We can “make up” answers to almost any problem” (Peavey, 1997). For example, asking a simple question like what country you are from helps generate basic ideas and information about the individual.

Good questions have a purpose, sincere intent, genuine interest in learning new things, and creating curiosity. Following are some examples of questions that can help increase cultural intelligence.

• What are your thoughts about this method?”
• “When have you…? And how did it turn out?”
• “In your culture, how do people do this?”
• “What is it like to…? (Pascual, 2022).

Creating the right mindset and being open, sincere, and genuinely interested in what the other person is saying is essential. It is important to include words such as “normally,” “typically,” and “usually” when asking about different cultures. For example, “What’s your general approach to handling conflict?” “How do you usually like to collaborate?”Moreover, listen actively. Summarize or restate what the other person said and bake some of their words into the questions. Also, embrace the silence, giving them additional personal time to think and craft their answers (Pascual, 2022). Many people are willing to share more information if you wait for them to finish talking.

References

Peavey, F. (1997). Strategic questioning. In V. Hutchinson (Eds.), An approach to creating personal and social change.

Pascual, P. (2022, August 2). Asking better questions: Cross-cultural communication. Talaera. https://blog.talaera.com/asking-better-questions