91. The Three Questioning Sins

Three of the most common sins when asking questions are:

The Lead embeds the solution or answer in the question. For example, “Have you thought about putting together a meeting of all the concerned parties?” That’s not a question, that’s telling someone what to do with a question mark at the end.

The Load is when you load up a bunch of extraneous or superfluous infor­mation in the question: “I heard you say that people aren’t engaged in the project, and you are concerned with the team’s workload. Why don’t you put together a meeting to get everyone’s thoughts?” That example has both a lead and a load.

The Assumption or Judgment is when we add our assumptions into the ques­tion: “I know the team is just shirking their responsibilities, so how do you want to tell them to fix it?”

All of these sins limit others’ thinking and erode the credibility of the person asking the questions.

How can I stop leading, loading, or judging when asking questions?