Types of Questions
Open and Closed Questions
All questions are either open questions or closed questions. Closed questions by definition have yes or no answers. Closed questions usually start with words like: ‘was’, ‘do’, ‘have’ and ‘can’, whereas open questions usually start with ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘which, ‘who’ ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’. Open questions cannot usually be answered by single word answers and therefore help coaches to open up coaching conversations.
Examples of Closed Questions:
- Was the strategy you adopted effective?
- Do your two sales representatives perform well?
- Have you any ideas about how to increase sales?
- Can you tell me the underlying reason for your company’s sales problem?
Examples of Open Questions:
- When did you notice the decline in sales?
- Where do you believe the problem lies with the level of sales being generated?
- Which strategies have proven to be particularly effective in the past?
- Who are your key customers?
- What are the key factors impacting on sales levels right now?
- Why do you think the two sales representatives are not performing effectively?
Although open questions generally result in fuller answers than closed questions, a poorly phrased open question can still result in a single word answer, for example:
“Which of the two sales representatives in your company is the best?”
The answer will be a single response. A better question might be “What are the qualities of the best sales representative in your company?”
Questions staring with ‘why’ need to be used carefully and sparsely as ‘why’ can be particularly challenging, for example:
“Why have you not taken action to address the poor sales performance?”
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