Gathering information can be an art form.   I enjoy reading legal and detective fiction quite a bit.  In these fictional novel the focus is regularly on the questions and answers.  That is both what is asked and how it is asked.  Usually the hero of the story is a  detective or lawyer who  able to get the answers and find the truth through clever manipulation of what they ask and how they ask it.   This of course leads to a satisfying story.

Real Life

Outside the fictional realm, I find the need to phrase the questions carefully applies to many of my daily interactions both personal and in a work environment.

Sometime it seems to me people don’t like to answer questions and it’s not unknown to get unhelpful responses.  This can be because you just were not understood, or it could also be purposeful obfuscation.

Like my fictional detective hero’s I find this frustrating and when dealing with sensitive issues I find my self thinking out the plan of attack in advance, being careful to include tests within the question series that will help validate the accuracy of the responses.

Cynical Me

I would agree, without question, my personal experience over the years has led me to be cynical and I could be overreacting.  Or it could just be me – that is I don’t know how to ask questions without creating anger and thus coloring the responses.  I do tend to be a pretty direct questioner so maybe that is part of it.

I have learned in order to get high quality information it’s necessary to fully think about my objective in advance (what am I trying to find out) and then work out the best way to approach it through a series of well crafted probing questions.

Often I do not have a power base (like my fictional police detective) and so like many of the lawyers I read about I need to be clever about how I find out my answers.