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While much effort is made to improve management techniques, the art of asking questions has been ignored.
between staff and manager. Both aim to contribute to the overriding good of their organization and will be equally interested to explore the views and insights of the other. The quality circle is one exemplification of this ideal. Given the crucial role of asking questions in managerial situations, indeed in human intercourse generally, it is surprising that this matter is frequently taken for granted. Although children start off by making statements, pointing at and identifying objects such as mothers and fathers, in due course they graduate to asking questions and, having discovered the question, there is no stopping them. From then on the question is taken for granted. This is not wise when it comes to the adult world, as was suggested by Payne[1].
The Art of Asking Questions
At the present stage of development of the survey method, improvements in question wording and in other phrases can contribute far more to accuracy than further improvements in sampling methods can. I don’t mean that the sampling experts should stop seeking further improvements, trying to knock a few more tenths of a percent off the statistical error. But, while they are laboring with tenths of a per cent, the rest of us are letting tens of per cents slip through our fingers.
Gerald Vinten
Management Decision, Vol. 32 No. 9, 1994, pp. 46-49 © MCB University Press Limited, 0025-1747
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did, I said I didn’t know.
There is, of course, an exact equivalence in management, with considerable effort on improving management techniques and applications while simultaneously ignoring the imprecisions and biases arising through poorly phrased questions. This article supplements texts[2] which aim to supply a number of ground rules on simplifying language and avoiding ambiguous terms.
Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi When I use a word, it means what I choose it to mean. Humpty-Dumpty
It was A.N. Whitehead who described spoken language as “merely a series of squeaks”. Squeaks and grunts, if not ambiguous in the animal kingdom, are certainly incapable of conveying a wealth of meaning. In the human kingdom we convey spoken meaning through either pure poetry or prose. Poetry can be highly elusive in meaning, a meaning which may sometimes be unclear even to the poet. So far, there is not a rich store of management poetry! It was prose which our friend Mark Twain was surprised to find he had been speaking all his life, without realizing it. Prose, as indeed poetry, may consist of either statement or question. Anyone who spoke exclusively in statement or question would be considered antisocial and boring. Statements often result from questions and vice versa. Inevitably, questions play a large part in management work, with the staff questioned providing the statements by way of answer. In the more participative styles there may be a more even balance of question and statement
The Quest for Meaning A most thorough investigation was undertaken by Belson[3]. He analysed 29 questions and their corresponding answers in great detail. These were questions typically used in social surveys and which were regarded as having passed the test of time. An example was: “When you turn on your television in the evening, do you generally go on viewing till the end of the evening or do you just watch one or two programmes?”. This short question gave rise to 59 interpretations, only 25 per cent of which were considered to be “as intended” or “permissible”. The benchmark was the original formulation of the question, its objectives and the meaning to be attached to each of its elements. The main points of difficulty or of failure on this question included: (1) “you”, taken to include others in the family; (2) “turning the set on”, interpreted as “starting to view”; (3) “go on viewing”, thought of as “leaving the set on”; (4) “till the end of the evening”, converted into “till the end of your evening” (for example, 10.30 pm);
THE ART OF ASKING QUESTIONS
(5) “one or two” programmes translated to “some selected set” of programmes; (6) some respondents failed to consider both the alternatives offered; (7) a tendency for some respondents to overlook elements of the question, usually by overlooking the part of the question in which that element or word was embedded. A question which appears at first sight straightforward thus occasioned many problems and highlighted imprecision and ambiguity in its wording. Across all 29 questions, the proportion falling within permissible limits was, on average, only 29 per cent. For eight of the test questions the percentage within permissible limits was less than 16 per cent and, for one of them, not a single respondent out of the 59 people tested came within those limits. The highest score was only 58 per cent. There were no striking differences between different members of the population interviewed. Belson[3] goes on to suggest 15 sets of hypotheses about the nature and causes of respondent misunderstanding of the questions. We will collapse these to ten, taking each in turn but substituting management questions rather than using Belson’s questions on the public’s use of, and reaction to, television.
Hypotheses H1. When staff find it difficult to answer a question, they are likely to modify it so as to be able to answer it more easily. We may ask what proportion of work time a clerk spends processing invoices. Even assuming that clerks understand the meaning of “proportion”, they are now involved in close thinking and calculation. The clerk will probably convert the question into something like: “For roughly what proportion of work time?”; or “For how long in all?”; or “At what times do you process invoices?”. H2. If a broad term or concept is used, there will be a strong tendency for staff to interpret it less broadly. A member of staff may be asked, “How is internal control maintained within your department?”. They will tend to limit interpretation to: ●
those aspects relating specifically to their own background or personal situation;
●
aspects with which they are preoccupied, want to talk about or are emotionally involved in;
●
aspects showing the individual in a good light.
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H3. Under certain circumstances a term or concept may be widened. If stock controllers are asked what measures can be taken within their own department to avoid stock-out situations, they are highly likely to want to widen the scope of the question to encompass the sales and production departments. In less complimentary terms this may amount to buck passing. Viewed more charitably, it may be seen as the systems-based approach in action. H4. Part of a question may be overlooked. This may occur: ● where an element of the question seems superfluous; ● where the member of staff starts to answer before all the question is recited; ● where a question is followed by two long alternatives and the member of staff believes they have heard enough after the first one; ● where an unusual condition or odd twist to a familiar idea is suggested in a qualifying clause; ● where part of a question is misheard. The question, “Would you please outline the quality control procedures relating to product A, during overtime working, and tell me whether and how budgetary constraints impact on the effectiveness of your work?” may well find that the qualification, “during overtime working” is missed out since the staff member does not attribute any significance to it, and the question is too overcrowded for all the points to be picked up. H5a. Members of staff may distort a question to fit their own situation, position or experience. This may overlap with H3 which involves widening rather than distortion. If an employee is asked about usual or regular procedures and there are none, the answer may come back in terms of occasional or irregular, ad hoc, informal procedures. If the employee is asked whether they have read the health and safety regulations it may be more convenient to say “Yes” – but in reference to the fire regulations which are only a part of what was asked for. H5b. An employee may distort a question because they want to create an opportunity to express an opinion, perhaps strongly held. The employee may have brought a preoccupation to the interview, or a side issue may have been triggered by the question itself. A question on a failure to reach
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production targets can readily be answered by a vague and unhelpful diatribe against higher management, ignoring the lower-level issues that were asked for. H5c. Employees may distort the question so as not to admit to anything that puts them in a bad light. In answer to, “How often do you pay supervisory visits?”, the employee may include telephone calls made to staff in order to hide the low number of face-to-face visits. H6a. The general context or setting of a term may wrongly influence the way that term is interpreted.
Payne[1] lists 1,000 frequent and familiar words. Onethird of these are multi-meaning words, having at least ten meanings, and are therefore open to misunderstanding. Examples are: after, around, as, at, behind, good, had and work. One in 12 words is considered a problem word. Included are: always, and, bad, could, daily, few, quite and you. Coming under both categories are: about, all, fair, get, go and where. If such basic words can throw up so many problems one needs to be exceedingly careful about technical and organizational terms which may take on a slightly different nuance as one moves from one professional or work group to another. H9a. A word or part of a word may not be heard properly and so lead to erroneous interpretation of the question in which it occurs.
This particularly applies to unstable words which are open to influence by context. If one announces a “management audit” the employee may take it to refer to views of managers’ performance only, or to exclude financial considerations.
It was Freud who indicated that to the mind there is not such a great difference between the positive and negative. The word “not” can go unheard. “Impartial” can be heard as “partial”. “Weekend” may be heard as “week”.
H6b. Specific words or clauses which are meant to define or qualify a wider term may lead to the misinterpretation of that wider term.
H9b. An employee may, because of missing part of a question, reconstruct the question from those parts of it which they have heard.
If you ask in the British National Health Service about resources expended on the younger physically disabled you may obtain a variety of responses. “Younger physically disabled” is used as a category for planning purposes and includes those well over normal retirement age. The term “younger” is redundant and misleading. Another respondent may attempt their own and narrower interpretation of “younger”. It is unclear what the limits are to “younger”, and whether to count those who may also be included in other patient care groups, such as mentally ill people and children.
The employee may prefer not to ask for the question to be repeated but to make the best out of what has been picked up.
H7. Employees may answer to what they regard as the “spirit” or “sense” of the question rather than to its actual words and so perhaps misinterpret the question. To the question, “how many nights a week are you normally working overtime at present?”, the employee may decide to answer in terms of more settled times rather than the present. H8. A question may be wrongly interpreted if it has in it difficult words or words which mean different things to different people. There are countless examples, from internal control and good management to performance and workload measures. Manager and managed may well be communicating behind different frames of reference.
H9c. When a question has in it a lot of information carrying words, it is especially open to misinterpretation. One concept may interfere with another. An explanatory phrase may serve to confuse the meaning the employee had already attached to the question. This may occur, for example, when a member of staff is trying to explain to a computer advisor the exact format required for a printout of budgeting information. H10. The word “you” is prone to be interpreted collectively (that is, as “you and others”) where it refers to behaviour in which the employee is involved with others. It may be unclear whether the whole company, division, department, section or team is intended, or whether the employee is simply referring to himself or herself. Even more confusing, the employee may jump around these usages when saying “we do this or that”.
Solutions One solution is suggested by referring to a series of experiments in interviewing techniques[4]. The authors reinterviewed 412 respondents to a National Health
THE ART OF ASKING QUESTIONS
survey, all of whom had been informed of the survey sponsor and the survey’s nature and purpose. Respondents showed a striking lack of knowledge of the survey, which had only been conducted the day before. Only 11 per cent could identify the sponsor and respondents were vague as to the survey’s purpose. Over half said they had no idea, and those who did manage to come up with something could only answer in general terms such as “for statistical purposes”. The study aimed to collect specific and complete reports of health and illness. Yet only half the respondents believed the interviewer wanted exact information. The others considered general ideas to be adequate. Respondents had tolerated the interviewer but with little understanding of their task. We therefore suggest the following solutions which are largely the converse of the various hypotheses. We start with the one suggested by the research we have just discussed: (1) Involve the employee in the task. Explain the background, aims and objectives. Inspire a twoway discussion to ensure that the employee is fully in the picture. Do not: (2) load the question with too many different or defining terms; (3) offer long alternative answers; (4) use words that are not the usual working tools of the employee; (5) use words that mean something different if partly misheard; (6) give employees difficult tasks to perform; (7) give employees tasks that require elephant memories; (8) offer alternatives that could both be true. Use caution: (9) employees answer what they usually do, rather than what they did do;
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(10) with qualifying clauses, especially at the end of questions; (11) employees formulate replies before the question has finished; (12) they narrow down broad concepts, especially vague ones, selectively and in a personal fashion; (13) special twists are given to a question, of which the manager is unaware; (14) context is significant in how a question is interpreted; (15) frequently used words are open to distortion.
Postscript It would be useful if there was specific research relating to questioning in the workplace. The sophistication needed to conduct it probably renders it unlikely. Research has been devoted to the cultural context in communication[5]. However, research conducted in other contexts seems to be highly relevant and the reader is invited to prove this by applying Belson’s[3] suggestions in their own work situation. Those still complacent may like to know that Payne[1] put a question through 41 versions and then did not guarantee it to be absolutely perfect. He also sets forth what he provocatively calls a concise checklist of 100 considerations. If that is as concise as one can be then we have come a long way from childhood and can measure the magnitude of the problem. References 1. Payne, S.L., The Art of Asking Questions, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1951, 1979. 2. Chambers, A.D., Selim, G.M. and Vinten, G., Internal Auditing, Pitman, London, and Commercial Clearing House, Chicago, IL, 1987. 3. Belson, W.A., The Design and Understanding of Survey Questions, Gower, Aldershot, 1981. 4. Cannell, C.F., Oksenberg, L. and Converse, J.M., Experiments in Interviewing Techniques, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1979. 5. Hofstede, G., Cultures and Organizations. Software of the Mind, McGraw-Hill, London, New York, Toronto, 1991.
Gerald Vinten is a Professor, Editor of Managerial Auditing Journal and Deputy President of the Institute of Internal Auditors, UK and Eire.
Application Questions (1) In which ways does your organization take asking questions for granted? (2) Which of Vinten’s “15 solutions” can your organization apply to avoid misunderstandings? Do any of them apply to specific circumstances?