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The Right Questions

What is an Effective Question (And Was That Open, Rhetorical or Both)?

An irreverent look at questions, question types and question structure (with the help of a disastrous first date)

Simon Ash
The Right Questions
7 min readJan 8, 2025

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Photo by Julia Filirovska: https://www.pexels.com/photo/misted-window-with-question-mark-4913769/

The French writer, soldier and politician Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis said:

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

And to that, I would say, “What do you think?” (open question, trying to be clever). You might ask, “Surely, he would have said it in French?” (closed and leading question), but we would then be running away with ourselves, so let’s pause and find some common ground again.

I might venture to comment that I became fascinated by questions while being trained as a bomb disposal officer and that I now use that experience both as a writer and as an executive coach. That might lead you onto a whole bunch of other questions (and derail us from our intended direction), so noting that I at least have some professional experience in the application of effective questions, you might concede to exploring questions (with me) a bit more.

We would likely agree that asking good questions is vital for critical thinking, and also a fundamental communication skill…

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The Right Questions
The Right Questions

Published in The Right Questions

Insightful and inspirational articles on self improvement, leadership and decision-making

Simon Ash
Simon Ash

Written by Simon Ash

Ever curious. Lover of adventure. Fascinated by leadership. Inspired to serve others on their journey. https://therightquestions.co

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