The Questioner's Cheat Sheet

A quick reference guide to powerful questions for any situation.

The Coaching Habit

Michael Bungay Stanier - For Empowerment & Development

▶

What's on your mind?
And what else?
What's the real challenge here for you?
What do you want?
How can I help?
If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
What was most useful for you?

Beautiful Questions

Warren Berger - For Innovation & Creation

▶

Why? (Challenge the Status Quo)

Why are we doing it this way?
What is the problem we are really trying to solve?

What If? (Imagine New Possibilities)

What if we removed our biggest constraint?
What if we combined X with Y?

How? (Make It Real)

How can we test this idea on a small scale?
What's the first step?

QuestionThinking

Marilee Adams - For Mindset Management

▶

Learner Questions (Growth)

What happened?
What can I learn from this?
What's possible?

Judger Questions (Stagnation)

Whose fault is it?
Why am I such a failure?
What's wrong with them?

Switching Questions (From Judger to Learner)

Is this what I want to be feeling/doing?
How else can I think about this?

Critical Inquiry

Browne & Keeley - For Evaluation & Deconstruction

▶

What are the issue and the conclusion?
What are the reasons?
What words or phrases are ambiguous?
What are the value and descriptive assumptions?
Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
How good is the evidence?
Are there rival causes?
Are the statistics deceptive?
What significant information is omitted?
What reasonable conclusions are possible?

High-Stakes Tactical Questions

For Negotiation, Idea Validation & Problem-Solving

▶

Negotiation (Chris Voss)

How am I supposed to do that?

Idea Validation (Rob Fitzpatrick)

Can you talk me through the last time that happened?

Creative Problem-Solving (Michael Michalko)

What benefits will you gain by solving the problem?