Powerful questions we can define as ones that have a significant, positive impact on the quality and direction of a person’s thinking about issues important to them.
Based on analysis of hundreds of powerful questions and observing how coaches and mentors use them, the characteristics of a powerful question include being:
Personal – it is about them, or about how they connect to an issue
Resonant – it has an emotional impact
Acute/ Incisive – it gets to the heart of the issue
Reverberating – it stimulates reflection both in the moment and for some time afterwards
Innocent – the intent of the questioner is not self-interested or derived from an agenda of their own
Explicit – clearly and explicitly expressed
These characteristics make a convenient acronym – PRAIRIE.
Developing your skills in crafting powerful questions
Some simple ways to become more adept at crafting powerful questions are:
Notice when questions you ask have strong impact. Reflect on how the question emerged for you and compare it to the criteria above.
Ask fewer questions. This allows more time to focus on the quality of the questions you do ask.
When you reflect upon a coaching or mentoring session, remind yourself of questions you asked. How could you have asked these questions in a way that made them more powerful? What alternative, powerful questions could you have asked?
Build your own list of powerful questions – your own, from other coaches/ mentors and coaching/mentoring literature, and from elsewhere.
